Baby/toddler moments du jour

Scene: Basi home. Alex comes up the stairs, burdened down by a drum (IOW, a Tinker Toy cannister.) He looks straight at me and says, "Mommy, are you gone?"

I look up from the computer. Eye contact. "No, honey, I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere tonight."

"Okay, I just wanted to make sure you weren't gone."

HAHAHA!

Scene: Morning, about 8:15 a.m. We are looking at the wedding album. "Who is that?"

"That's great-grandma Papadopoli," I say.

"Great-grandma Papawy Dapawy?"

Julianna is very giggly today. Have I ever mentioned that I am completely, hopelessly, helplessly addicted to her laugh? Especially since she guards her giggles. Alex has always been a laughy-taffy kid. Giggles at the drop of a... well, a pin head, much less a hat. So today, she giggles because I look funny when I'm feeding her. She giggles when I laugh. She giggles when I tickle or chew (and she is very chewy). She is reaching out and grabbing life by the bongos/Mardi Gras beads/ drums/scrap paper/brother. (She's very into noses at the moment.)

And she's stubborn as anything. She'll stand (knees locked), but she WILL NOT go on all fours. Steadfastly refuses.

Ah well, just a little slice of Basi life. I was reading over an NFP recertification course when Alex came to ask me if I was gone, and I had to stop and share.

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.