Back Seat Singers

One of the things that makes me not mind all of the errands, school drop offs and pick ups, and endless travels here and there, is singing in the car with my girls. It makes our trips more pleasant for all, seriously cuts down on the backseat fights between String Bean and Peanut, and reminds me of my own childhood. During road trips with my sister and mother, we would rock out in our ’71 Volvo wagon (yellow, with fake-wood interior and black vinyl seats), and whichever kid got to ride shotgun would hold a boom box on her lap, because the am-only radio wasn’t too reliable. We were singing Abba, the Grease soundtrack, The Bee Gees, John Denver. My girls are more partial to P!nk, Fergie, The Fray, with a little bluegrass thrown in to make their daddy and grandpa proud—primarily Crooked Still (I think their version of “Shady Grove” gets more backseat requests than any other song I’ve ever had in the car).

The girls are unaware, as they break songs down and try singing different parts, that they are learning about melody and harmony, or that they are carrying their mom down the happiest of memory lanes, or that they are building for themselves the exact same memory that I cherish. There’s a nice feeling of having come full circle, as I ferry them from place to place, with their sweet little voices singing song after song on the CD I’ve burned just for them. And it makes it just a little easier to get reluctant kids into those car seats to remind them whose turn it is to request a song. They’re always game for some back seat singing.

House Hunter

String Bean was introduced to those house-hunting shows on TV by my in-laws, who watched House Hunters on HGTV during their last visit. At first her reaction was worry that we’d move someday, like her friend across the street did. After reassuring her that we were not looking for a new house, I finally got to the bottom of her concerns: that she’d lose her princess decals that cover her walls if we moved. When I explained that we have more, because I didn’t use them all, she made me dig the unused strips of removable stickers out of the closet and show them to her. Once that concern was addressed, she flipped her stance completely, and now desperately wants to buy a new house and move.

I’m not sure what she thinks a new house would offer that our current one doesn’t, but she’s a natural shopper and collector of things, so I’m not surprised that she’s fantasizing about open homes the way other kids day dream about a new toy. She’s had me record a few episodes of House Hunters, and she likes to comment on the homes being shown: that she likes the kitchen in this one, the bathroom in that one, the deck and view from the other one. I’ve told her that when homes around us are for sale, they have open houses, and you can walk through and see if you like the place. So now she now wants to go to an open house or twenty. In her never-ending consideration of careers (this week we’ve had doctor, writer, nurse, and fashion designer), her fascination with “pretty things” and house-shopping shows led me to suggest interior decorating. So today, that’s the career of choice. I’d let her start with our house, but that just means we’d have princess decals on every wall. After all, we do have that whole unused strip of them just calling to her from her closet now.

Dentist

Peanut’s easy at the dentist. She switches into her rare no-talking mode, but is a very good listener, super cooperative, totally unemotional about the whole thing. She lies down with her mouth wide open and keeps it that way, never flinching or fussing until the lady with the mask says she’s done, and then she’s off and running, for the sticker roll, the toy box of reward treasures, the balloon pick-up station. She keeps her eyes on the prize the entire time, suddenly finding her voice as the dentist tells her what a good girl she was, requesting a blue balloon for herself, a pink one for her sister, and glittery bracelets, if they have any, from the toy box.

For String Bean, it’s entirely a different story. She’s nervous in the car ride over, complains of a stomach ache as we wait for her name to be called. By the time the hygienist parks her in the reclining chair she’s near tears and terrified of everything: the spinning tooth polisher, the water-sprayer, the suction thing. She cooperates, holding her mouth open and all, but her hands are clenched in fists and her little jaw trembles the whole time, and she flinches every time there’s a noise or someone makes a sudden movement. And it’s not that she’s had a bad experience at the dentist before. She’s never had a cavity and only had X-Rays once. When it’s all over, she’s perfectly happy to collect her stickers, her toy, her balloon, and asks again and again if it’s really, really over and we get to go home now. On the ride home she’s a different kid, relieved of anxiety, chipper and chatty and full of tough talk about how well she did and how it wasn’t scary at all. Which each time makes me think that next time she won’t be so scared. So far, no luck on that one, but maybe one of these days.

Sleep

When String Bean was three months old, I took her into work to show her around. I’d decided to make my maternity leave permanent and needed to sign some paperwork, and everyone had been asking when they’d get to see her. She was a fussy baby in general, a mama’s girl who wanted nothing to do with strangers, but on that visit she was surprisingly calm, sleeping through most of it as one coworker after another came by to coo at her. One woman, Mary, one of the funny ones I was sure to miss after quitting, asked how she was sleeping at night. A miraculous thing happened at three months old. String Bean discovered her thumb. Sure, now that her bite is getting messed up from thumb-sucking, it isn’t so cute, not to mention the germs I imagine on her thumb every time I watch her slide it into her mouth. But at three months old, thumb-sucking meant self-soothing, and she suddenly started sleeping in a solid block of five or six hours, what we considered to be “through the night” in our sleep-deprived states.

“Wow, that’s great!” Mary said, “Sleeping through the night already. I don’t think my kids slept through the night consistently until they were eight years old.”

Her comment struck me as funny, an obvious joke. Of course kids sleep through the night before they are eight years old. Don’t they? Well, I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old and I’d say it’s a 50/50 chance each night whether I get a full night’s sleep or have to get up with one of them in the night. Last night I was up with Peanut three times due to nightmares and her generally not feeling well. That’s like having a newborn again. If Mary was right, does that mean I only have three more years of interrupted sleep before I’m only getting up semi-regularly with one child? I certainly hope so. Because I miss it. Sleep.

Sneaky Kids

A little while back String Bean discovered our chocolate stash, and began sneaking downstairs first thing in the morning to eat candy, then hiding the wrappers in her toy box. Not the best hiding place, and I appreciate that, because that’s how I figured out who was responsible for our disappearing candy stash, and why String Bean had gone temporarily insane. Hubby and I suspected something was up, because she was a bit crazier than usual, hyper and argumentative and weepy all at once. Our kids aren’t used to having much sugar, so a little goes a long way with them.

After that I moved the candy, which was for napping/potty using rewards, to a high shelf in the cupboard in the kitchen. A few days later I came home and found chocolate on Peanut’s shirt, and because three-year-olds aren’t very well versed in the art of lying, when I asked where it came from, she told me that she and her sister were sneaking candy while I was out and Grandma and Grandpa were busy downstairs.

I made a great show of packing up all of the candy in the house, leftover holiday candy and Peanut’s M&M reward supply and tossing it all. Well, I didn’t really toss it, I just put it inside a plastic grocery bag and told her I was taking it out to the trash, then hid it in the car until nap time, when I could find a better hiding place. Yes, I have my own sneaky streak. I figure she must’ve believed me, because the tightly latched canister it now lives in, on a high shelf behind the wine opener, hasn’t been disturbed. And the formerly hyper-insane sugar-high kids have returned to their normal state of semi-sanity. But I know String Bean still has her sneaky streak. I’m curious what she’ll be getting into next, and hoping Peanut hasn’t learned how to cover for her yet.

Caring About Everything

The other day, String Bean and Peanut were dividing up a pile of princess toys, which can be a tricky business in our house. We have about a dozen princess dolls of various sizes and styles, so you’d think it’d be easy to divvy them up, but somehow fights still break out over who gets the Belle with the removable shoes versus the Belle with painted-on shoes, and who gets the lone Ariel doll. String Bean was making the tough decisions, carefully doling out dolls, when she took a look at her progress and saw something amiss.

“Can I take this one back?” she asked, and because she asked, rather than just taking the doll, Peanut agreed. Peanut is easy like that. She’ll fight if you snatch anything from her, resorting to biting if necessary to gain the advantage, but if you ask, she almost always gives in.

“Yeah, because you don’t really care, right?” String Bean said to her, “and I care about everything.”

I had to stop making their lunch to laugh at that one. And to make a note to write about it later. Truer words were never spoken. I don’t know what it is about how String Bean’s hard-wired that makes every little thing a monumental big deal, or what it is about Peanut that enables her to let most things go without any hard feelings, but it’s very clearly how they came into the world and not anything I’ve been able to influence one way or another. I remember when my mother would suggest that I be a little more outgoing like my sister, and even though I adored my sister, I hated being compared to her, so I’m careful not to evoke the sister measuring stick aloud between my two girls. But, secretly, I hope that someday Peanut’s laissez-faire attitude rubs off on String Bean, just a little.

A Writer's Life

Just over four months ago I started my second novel, while my first one is still making rounds among agents, waiting for someone to feel enough of a connection to it to ask to see more than the synopsis or first 50 pages. So far no nibbles on that one, but that hasn’t slowed me down any in writing. Now that I have a good writing schedule set up, I’ve been doing a pretty good job of staying on-task. Which means only the blog has been suffering. Sorry about that.

Anyway, last weekend I finished my second novel, which I probably don’t have to say is a huge, exciting, terrifying thing. And now I get to repeat the process again. I’m doing a full revision right now, smoothing out some bumps in the time-frame of the story and looking for overly conventional word choices to change. Next I’ll use one of my beloved writing nights, when hubby keeps the girls and I duck off to a local hotel for the night, to read the entire thing out loud. It’s my favorite editing tactic, the only way I know to “hear” those old familiar words with fresh ears. Then, I’ll send it to friends I can trust to find my typos, continuity problems, underdeveloped characters, weak points in plot development, and who will hopefully tell me if the ending is a sufficient payoff for the setup (to quote a grad school writing prof of mine). Then comes the synopsis, the query letter, and a list of agents to target with my hopes and dreams for this little work of mine.

But first, I’m going to spend a few more days just looking at the finished product, the collection of files on my computer that make up this little book of mine, and marveling that I’ve managed to write two novels now. The third one is already taking shape in my mind, a little seed that’s just starting to sprout. I don’t know if this new career venture is going to work out for me or not, but I have to say I genuinely love the process, and so I’ll keep it going, until I simply can’t anymore. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll get one (or more) of these novels published.