Don Music

There’s a clip on an old Sesame Street video that we’ve been watching with Alex. In it, Don Music is sitting at the piano, trying to write “Mary had a little lamb.”

“Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to…to…to…”

With a deafening cluster chord, Don Music flings his head down on the keyboard and wails, “Oh, I’ll NEVER get it!”

Every time he sees this, Christian roars with laughter. Then he turns to me and says, “Look! It’s Kate!”

Fine. I have a melodramatic side. So sue me.

I got my second short story rejection in two weeks yesterday. And although I’m considerably more mature about it than Don Music, I am fighting the same voice of gloom and doom. It’s ridiculous, but it’s true. The process of breaking into the fiction market seems so overwhelming. Even more so because “The Beggar’s Queen” was so easy a process. I spend hours doing market research, but what I end up doing is ruling out every single magazine, because none of them have already published a story about a farm wife who chases a rooster in the middle of the night. And of course, if they had published it, it would still be pointless to send it, because why would they want two?

In a day or two I’ll set aside my self-loathing and I’ll send it out again.

Unless I decide to do a major rewrite, of course.

Composing the seasons/publicity

It's an oddity of writing that in the gray, purple heart of Lent I am hard at work on Christmas pieces.

During Advent I got the idea to write a collection of Christmas carol arrangements. However, being overburdened with time (HA!), I managed to complete exactly one, and that one not until after we had taken down the Christmas tree--mind you, we leave our tree up all the way through Epiphany.

Now I'm setting a goal of writing one every other month for a year. That way I'll have my collection ready by next Christmas. Ready to play, anyway.

Incidentally, we now have copies in hand of "Times and Seasons" for flute/piano (GIA)and "Go In Peace" for assembly use (WLP). I have to admit, when I saw my name on the covers of those two publications, it actually took my breath away for a moment--cliche as that sounds. It was akin to holding your baby for the first time. You know a lot about the baby before it gets here--but there's nothing quite like that first sight, that first touch.

Christian is a superb publicist. He has gotten me in the newspaper. Technically, that will be next weekend, but we've done the interview already.

I'm doing a lot more publicity for my music than I did for "The Beggar's Queen." I'm in my element here--I sound intelligent when I talk about music. And I know a whole lot more people, so I've been able to send emails around the country. Whether that makes a difference in sales remains to be seen.

Spring?

It is the 23rd of February and I don't think it's gotten above freezing for over a week. The "normal" high for this time of the year is about 45 degrees in mid-Missouri. I'm getting seriously stir-crazy. Especially since I've been confined to home with two very small children for most of the last 3 days because of ice, sleet, and oh, a dusting of snow, not enough to go sledding.

And yet yesterday when I went to get the mail, I heard spring birds. Lots of them. I stopped in the driveway and listened for a few seconds as my whole body seemed to take a breath and relax.

Any day now, God. Any day.

And as long as I'm posting...

I have been entirely too gloom and doom lately about my daughter's development or lack thereof.

Julianna is doing great. Over the weekend she learned to play peekaboo and scoot herself backward on the Pergo, and last night at dinner she nonchalantly popped a piece of chicken into her mouth while we weren't paying attention. Stinker, she knows exactly what to do, she just doesn't want to do it yet!

Yes, dear heart, you are a stinker. But I love you madly anyway.

P.S. In "Dear Annie" two nights ago, Christian found a letter from somebody who was uncomfortable around a customer with a "mental disability." "Annie" told them that his touchy-feely flirting was part of his "illness." Christian just about went through the roof. I told him it wasn't worth writing to them about, anyway. But now I'm wondering.

For liberals and conservatives, in an election year

This is a really thoughtful column on the strengths and weaknesses of liberalism and conservatism--particularly within the Catholic Church, but I think that the lessons apply much more broadly. It is long, but if you can take the time I think you'll find it worthwhile.

I'd post the entire text, but I'm not sure that's legal, so I shall err on the side of caution and simply give you the web page, which I think you'll have to cut and paste, unfortunately:

http://uscatholic.claretians.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12107&news_iv_ctrl=0&abbr=usc_

Of Julianna, and planning for the third

Lately we've been discussing how long to wait before we try to conceive again. I'm 33--no great age, but my mother had her last at 33, so it's on my mind. Because I'll be having a C-section, Julianna has to be able to walk before the next baby comes. At 6 months, when she was sitting up, we were sure that she was going to be close to walking by a year.

And of course, she's not even crawling. In fact, she's not even transitioning into and out of sitting. (Actually, she started this weekend. She had a good developmental weekend.)

So now I wonder if our plans for a baby a year or so from now are too optimistic. And in my fears, I also realize that I'm harboring deep fear, insecurity and guilt. I am the primary "therapist" in the family, and I feel like I don't do enough work with her. So I think it's my fault that she's not developing more quickly.

This entry is not coming together well, so I think I'll err on the short side. A wonderful man at church this morning told me that God would provide. And he can say that, because he has a child with DS who is 1 year and 2 weeks older than her younger sister.

Easy to view from the outside--now that both of his kids are grown.

Harder to imagine trying to live through.

Cute almost-three-year-old moments of the week

--"Mommy, did God gave you an Alex to chew on?"
(These kids do pick up on the littlest things we ever say! ;) )

--"Our Fadder, who art in Heaven, hawowed our, be, howowed be our name. Mommy, why do we say daily bread?"
(Because that's how we ask God for all the things we need. Like our food...)
"Like 'teak and peas and peaches and ah-keem and aca-oni keez?"
(Yes, like those. And a place to sleep, and clothes to wear, and...)
"And someone to wuv us!"
(I love being this kid's mommy. Sniff sniff.)

Small triumphs

This morning, Julianna grabbed a cloth napkin from the table beside her and proceeded to play peekaboo for 15 minutes.

A small triumph, to be sure, but a triumph nonetheless!

Trees and Trash

I just joined the Arbor Day Foundation.

Did you know you can get 10 trees for a max of $15? OK, so they're twigs. So what? Join them already! www.arborday.org Then you get other trees (not twigs) for next to nothing compared to going to the store--any store. I'm going to buy nine trees for less than the cost of two at Lowe's.

Did you know that the aspen tree actually grows in central Missouri? (According to Arbor Day, anyway.) I'm so pumped. It'll be like a little bit of Colorado in my back yard. Assuming I can keep them alive, of course. :)

I'm very excited about planting trees.

And this weekend Christian and I went down to the creek--which is nothing more glorious than a stormwater drain--and cleaned up trash behind our property. It was awful how much there was, really. Most of it washed downstream from the streets, but even so. And the other day, I was sitting in line at the traffic light when I actually *saw* someone open their door and drop a styrofoam cup on the ground.

Who are you people? And how can you go through your life without ever once thinking, "Duh, maybe this is not a good idea!"??????

Didn't your parents teach you better than that?

Alex and Mommy Basi

Alex and Mommy during flute (or voice) lessons!

Nuff said.

Pink Cake

My mother-in-law and I spent last evening decorating a "1-2-3-4" cake filled with chocolate and cream cheese and frosted with pink cream cheese frosting.

Today is the big day. Feb. 2. Groundhog day, or, for the Catholic nerds among us, The Feast of the Presentation. Julianna's first birthday.

She celebrated her birthday by waking at midnight (I kid you not) and whining. Since we got to bed at 11:30, I was not happy about it. Fortunately, by the time I used the bathroom and got ready to go over, she'd whined herself back to sleep. But she woke up again at 3:30, which is both worse and better than the time she's been waking up to nurse lately (4:30)--worse b/c I had only been asleep for 2 hours; better b/c it was early enough that I could still go back to sleep, which is not the case at 4:30.

We nursed, and I went back to bed. And a while later I heard Alex whining, and thank God, then I heard Christian already over there dealing with him. I was exhausted--since I've been getting up at 4:30 every morning for a week--so I just let him deal with it.

And now, at 7:30, Julianna is sitting on my lap, little cranky birthday girl with a cold.

And Tom over at narrowridge.blogspot.com wrote about his 5 month-old son's likes and dislikes. So I shall do the same.

(There's a whole community of people talking about Down syndrome over there, BTW. Very interesting. You should check it out.)

OK. Miss Julianna Margaret Basi LIKES...

Chewing on her toes
Blowing rasberries


Miss Julianna ADORES...

* Her Mardi gras beads
* Her big brother Alex
* Mommy and Daddy--especially Daddy! (You should see her go crazy when he walks in)
* Baths (though that was long in coming--I used to have to get in and bathe with her so she didn't freak out)
* Pears, peaches, and bananas
* Lasagna--which she goes berzerk about, and won't stop shrieking till I give her another bite
* Oh, and don't forget ICE CREAM!!!!

Miss Julianna HATES...

* being cold
* being put to bed
* oh yes, sleeping during the day. She hates that.
* having her face cleaned and her gooky eye wiped
* babysitters

At the moment she's griping b/c she's lying on the floor bored, and wants Mommy to feed her her birthday breakfast. In the last two weeks we've seen marked differences in her development. She's started reaching for things--taking initiative in interfacing with her world. She wants to touch faces, grab noses, lunge and grab toys. Things I had come to believe were going to have to be taught and just barely grasped before we went on to the next developmental task, which would also have to be taught, and which she would barely grasp. Yet here they are, and again, I just have to learn to be patient.

There have been times in the last year when I have been overwhelmed by all that is to come. And not that long ago I was quite sad, deep in the midst of grieving. No doubt I'll be there again, and sooner than I would like to think about. But for now, I'm just an ordinary mom who's in a bad mood b/c I haven't had a full night's sleep in over a week.

To those just starting the DS journey, or those struggling with frustration, fear or a sense of being overwhelmed...hang in there. It'll come.