a must-read author

A children’s book writer and artist, Chris Judge, lives down the street from my parents. Last year, or the year before, he gave them two of his (quite charming) books for Young Indiana, who is very fond of them. (My parents gave them fudge. When Dad arrived at their house with it, Herself answered the door and said, “Oh! Thank you! We were just discussing what to have for dinner.” :)) I saw on Friday that Chris’s new book, THE SNOW BEAST, had just come out, and I told Indy…

Continue Reading

work that isn’t writing

I cannot believe it’s the end of August. This summer has been a loss to a much greater degree than expected, and I’m just sort of…I’m getting my feet back under me, at this point. And I *am* getting my feet back under me: I’ve actually accomplished a great deal of detail work over the past week, all of which was very necessary and is something of a weight off my shoulders. Today is the first day of school: which means I have about 8 weeks of 15-20 hours of…

Continue Reading

a comedy of errors

To top it all off, Young Indiana has come down with the chicken pox. @.@ I had been certain he’d been immunized against it, but the HSE website says they don’t habitually use the chicken pox vaccine in Ireland. Ted was getting him ready for a shower this morning and said, “Caaaatie? Indy has spots…” And yes. Yes he did. Ten or fifteen of them. Many just looked like bug bites or something, perhaps, but there was one in particular that looked very chicken poxy. We asked if he was…

Continue Reading

Five years old. :)

And very excited about it too. Very clear on YESTERDAY he was not yet five, even if we had a birthday party yesterday. (“My birthday celebrated!”) Definitely not five last week when I, being old, started saying he was five. “NOT YET. NOT FOR TWO WEEKS.” (We’re still a little unclear on time. :)) But today, oh my. Today the first words out of his mouth were, “NOW I’m five years old!” And indeed he is. :)

Young Indiana’s Song of Sorrow

A certain young man does not wish to go to sleep. He is serenading me from his bedroom. His song goes like this (and this is verbatim, I’m typing as he sings): We’re a mom and son Moooom and son and we have to stick together or we’ll (mumble) and that would be unnecessary and i’d be sad forever and you’d be sad too! because i’d be sad until the end! of! this! day!” Please listen to me or it will be the end of the world and we won’t…

Continue Reading