Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Biting Baby
I know I'm having a bit of a posting binge, but I've got one more thing: do any of your mothers out there have some wisdom about teaching a baby not to bite? My little one seems to find biting to be quite a delightful activity. He'll bite anything: a hand, a leg, a neck, you name it. At first I tried yelping, then I tried giving a little spank, then I tried looking at him sternly and saying, "No." He found all of these responses amusing and thought that we were playing a little game. So then I tried setting him down of the floor away from me, but he didn't seem to notice that it was a punishment. These days I mostly just detach him as quickly as possible and tell him in a very calm voice, "Don't bite. It's not nice." But the biting persists. Any ideas?
NoNoWriMo, Day 6
I must confess that I gave up on my novel after only two days.
Before you all heave a great sigh of disgust, however, let me say that, while I'm not working on a novel, I am writing 5 double-spaced pages every day. I decided to make the switch because I was absolutely dreading my nightly sessions with the computer, dragging through painful hours of horrible writing in order to complete my nightly goal. Now I look forward to writing time, sit down, blithely type for an hour, and feel much better about the quality of materials produced. A lot of it is just random and gibberish, practice in expressing ideas and describing sensations, emotions, conversations, places, but I've also nearly carved out a short short story from the mess. So I'm producing more, moving toward my goal of become a bona fide writer, and feeling happy while doing it. I think it's a win-win.
Here is a sample of the more freestyle writing that I've been participating in as of late:
Words are the things that are supposed to come out of my fingers when I sit for thirty minutes every day with my eyes closed and write. Today I am thinking about motherhood, and how good it feels, after a long day of cleaning dishes and cuddling with a golden gleam of eyelashed light and doing such ordinary things like browning beef and singing silly songs and going for a walk down the road a little ways and back. I rock my boy at night and think the most cliché things: how glad I am to be a mom, because it is the job that entails doing everything: I am director of creativity, of human resources, of housekeeping, of meal planning and preparation. I am the interior decorator and the laundress and the cook (oh dear, I just remembered the laundry that needs to be done) and I am a lover of a little soul and the giver of baths and the organizer of time and the creator of fun things and the scrubber of toilets and the sweeper of floors and I am a little piece of God in all of her divinest and most beautiful majesty that climbs and climbs and climbs and climbs and takes the old man with the smelly sweatpants and the long gray beard in hand and holds him and rocks him and tells him that it will be okay, it will be okay, it will be okay. I never knew how painful an infant’s cry could be the the human soul, how it would tear into the flesh like a knife that punctures the tender tissues of a lung and takes away your air, the air that you breathed once just for yourself and maybe a little for your parents and your siblings and your sweetheart and your friends but now that you breathe mostly for this little creature that is a part of you and yet so separate, so distinct, so magnificently and radiantly and exquisitely distinct.
Before you all heave a great sigh of disgust, however, let me say that, while I'm not working on a novel, I am writing 5 double-spaced pages every day. I decided to make the switch because I was absolutely dreading my nightly sessions with the computer, dragging through painful hours of horrible writing in order to complete my nightly goal. Now I look forward to writing time, sit down, blithely type for an hour, and feel much better about the quality of materials produced. A lot of it is just random and gibberish, practice in expressing ideas and describing sensations, emotions, conversations, places, but I've also nearly carved out a short short story from the mess. So I'm producing more, moving toward my goal of become a bona fide writer, and feeling happy while doing it. I think it's a win-win.
Here is a sample of the more freestyle writing that I've been participating in as of late:
Words are the things that are supposed to come out of my fingers when I sit for thirty minutes every day with my eyes closed and write. Today I am thinking about motherhood, and how good it feels, after a long day of cleaning dishes and cuddling with a golden gleam of eyelashed light and doing such ordinary things like browning beef and singing silly songs and going for a walk down the road a little ways and back. I rock my boy at night and think the most cliché things: how glad I am to be a mom, because it is the job that entails doing everything: I am director of creativity, of human resources, of housekeeping, of meal planning and preparation. I am the interior decorator and the laundress and the cook (oh dear, I just remembered the laundry that needs to be done) and I am a lover of a little soul and the giver of baths and the organizer of time and the creator of fun things and the scrubber of toilets and the sweeper of floors and I am a little piece of God in all of her divinest and most beautiful majesty that climbs and climbs and climbs and climbs and takes the old man with the smelly sweatpants and the long gray beard in hand and holds him and rocks him and tells him that it will be okay, it will be okay, it will be okay. I never knew how painful an infant’s cry could be the the human soul, how it would tear into the flesh like a knife that punctures the tender tissues of a lung and takes away your air, the air that you breathed once just for yourself and maybe a little for your parents and your siblings and your sweetheart and your friends but now that you breathe mostly for this little creature that is a part of you and yet so separate, so distinct, so magnificently and radiantly and exquisitely distinct.
Sick Baby
Soren has been sick since Saturday. He's had a high temperature (when we took him to the doctor yesterday it was 103.6) and has been generally lethargic and sad. The PA who looked at him couldn't find anything obviously wrong (no ear infection, no throat issues, no stomach problems, no respiratory illness), so he advised us to keep Soren doped up on Tylenol and wait a few more days. The PA also asked us lots of questions about where he might have picked up an infection, and I couldn't think of anything at the time, though as an afterthought it occurred to me that he did come with me to the hospital when I took my uncle there to visit a friend. I wonder if he picked up something nasty there. Should I call the doctor's office and tell them that I remembered we'd been to the hospital recently? If he's not better by Wednesday, they'll do some blood work on him.Soren's illness really responds to Tylenol: his fever drops and he has energy to play, but I wonder if I'm doing him more harm than good by making him feel better than he really is. Maybe if I let him feel crappy he'd get more rest and let his body heal. The above picture was taken when he hadn't had any fever reducers for about eight hours. It breaks my heart to see him looking so tired and hopeless. He's usually such a little sparkle.
Another Visit From the Betrothed
Aubrey's mommy and daddy needed to do some work in the Idaho Falls temple the last Saturday, and we were lucky enough to be able to host them at our house overnight. Soren gave Aubrey a tour of the house. Here he's trying to impress her with his mad piano playing skillz.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Uncle Sue is always sucking me into these dumb quizzes.
What Car Would You Be? | |
 | You would be a Toyota Prius. You live life with practicality and innovation. You may not be the flashiest kid in town, but your quirkiness and smarts get you noticed. |
| Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com | |
Thursday, November 01, 2007
NaNoWriMo, Day 1
The beginning of a race. The gun is fired and suddenly your legs and arms weigh a hundred pounds a piece. Your lung capacity has been cut in half. You don't want to run a race anymore. You start wondering why you signed up for such a silly thing anyway. You had expected to sprint for the first portion of the race, but right now it's all you can do to keep up with the scragglers at the back of the pack.
In two hours I have written five anguishing and mediocre pages, the bare minimum for me to keep up with a pace that will help me reach my goal of a 150 pages by the end of the month. I'm experiencing huge quantities of self-doubt. I want to quit already. What was I thinking? I don't really want to be a writer. I can't do it. I can't. It's too hard. I think I'll pick a new dream.
In two hours I have written five anguishing and mediocre pages, the bare minimum for me to keep up with a pace that will help me reach my goal of a 150 pages by the end of the month. I'm experiencing huge quantities of self-doubt. I want to quit already. What was I thinking? I don't really want to be a writer. I can't do it. I can't. It's too hard. I think I'll pick a new dream.
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