Mommy Mondays: The New Normal

I am a creature of habit. I like routines and schedules. I love lists and plans. I can roll with the punches pretty well when things go awry, but the idea of things going awry stresses me out. John likes to call me a catastrophizer. I believe I inherited this from my mother. Thanks, Mom.

After Baby Will was born, my routine was obviously thrown out the window along with the notion of sleep. Newborns don't have schedules, unfortunately, and when you add a move into the mix? Forget about it. But now that he's 8 weeks old, I figured it was time to get some kind of order into my life. John returned to Russia a little over a week ago, and while I may be ready to kill myself every evening around, say, 7:00 pm, I find it slightly easier to stay organized since I have one less person to take into account. One of my main goals was to start working out again. I even purchased a crappy but functional treadmill from Craigslist before John left.

And then life happened. On the day John was leaving I got my second nasty cold since Will was born (my immune system sucks these days). I also got mastitis. If you've had it before, you know how awful it is. The best way to treat it is to stay in bed and nurse frequently. This doesn't work so well when you have to drive your husband to the airport an hour away, you've got an appointment to buy a stroller off of someone, and you have no one to take care of your four-year-old. Enter antibiotics. I'm sure my immune system will be even more pathetic now.

So today I finally got on the treadmill. And you know what I discovered? I'm completely, woefully out of shape. Granted, I haven't worked out in nearly a year, but my days of running twenty miles a week seem far out of reach. After Jack was born I signed up for a marathon. I knew that was unrealistic this time, so I signed up for a fun ten-miler instead. But with just over three months to train for it and no help with the two kids, I'm actually a little worried. I keep waiting for things to return to normal - my writing, my blogging, my exercising, my sleep, my poor stretched-out abdominals - and I'm realizing that "normal" no longer exists. My life will never be what it was before, at least not until the kids are in school full time. And by then I'm afraid it will be far too late for my abs.

This week I've decided to come up with a new definition of normal. My plans and goals have to shift with my priorities. No more working out six days a week. I'll take three. No more blogging four days a week. I'll settle for once. I knew I wouldn't have time to write after the baby was born, but I think it's reasonable to send out a few queries every week for the book I finished right before he was born. I'll take short cuts wherever I can get them (I'm buying a dust pan specifically for the clean up of Legos, for example). And I'll try to remind myself every day that the only person who cares if I wear makeup or make my bed...is me.

Mommy Mondays: Treading Water

I can't believe it's been two weeks since I blogged last. I wouldn't say time is going quickly these days, but it's like it keeps slipping past me, rolling along while I barely manage to stay afloat.

I know this is what early motherhood is like. The days are filled with nursing the baby, making sub-par meals for Jack, running load after load of laundry, trying to keep the house from turning into a complete dump, and heading out for the occasional errand. The nights are even worse. I feel like I've just fallen asleep when it's time to get up and feed Will again. I know that I'll look back on this period and it will feel like a blip on my life's radar, but right now it's just plain hard.

Part of it is knowing that John is leaving for Russia on Friday, and I'm trying to get as many random things done as possible before then, because I know I'll have even less time once he's gone. And part of it is that I have no time for the things that help keep me sane, like writing and working out. Waiting four years in between kids didn't help - I'd gotten so used to having my freedom again. Being tied to the baby by breastfeeding is challenging for me. Sometimes I just want to go out without having to worry if the timing is going to work or if the baby is freaking out while I'm away. Most of the time I want that, if I'm being honest.

But even though I'm impatient for the future in many ways, for the days when I can go to the gym or out for dinner with friends and know that everyone back home is just fine without me, I also have this sense that I need to slow down, to worry less about getting it all done and just focus on the baby, who has already grown and changed so much. So that's my goal for the next seven weeks, while John is away: to stop fighting so much against the current and just go with the flow, if only for a little while.

Otherwise I'm afraid I'll look back on this time and wonder where it all went.

Life With Two: The First Month

I apologize for being so absent from the blogging world lately! Honestly, this past month has been a whirl-wind. New baby? Surprisingly not that difficult. Moving with said new baby? Really freaking hard. Of course, we haven't made life easy on ourselves. We had my parents visiting the week after Will was born, we moved the week after that, and we went out of town the two weekends after that. Yeesh. Fortunately, Will had his one-month check-up today and he appears to be doing very well. My sanity, however, is subject to debate.

The new house. I love it!

So, how is life with two, you may be wondering? It's going okay. Jack is a trooper and Will is a very easy baby. John went back to work for the Marines yesterday so I'm officially on my own this week, and aside from a bad cold and smashing the car into a telephone pole yesterday, I'm doing fab. I even managed to a) shower, do my hair, and put on makeup b) feed and clothe both children c) arrive on time to Will's appointment with both kids in tow. Yesterday I tackled Target with both kids. Honestly, if you're thinking of having two kids, I highly recommend the four-year spread. Jack is so independent at this age and Will is a piece of cake (aside from only sleeping for 3 hours at a time at night - I forgot what sleep deprivation feels like).

The biggest hurdle ahead is John going back to Russia in a few weeks. I know I can manage on my own with two, but I am anticipating some long evenings and boring weekends. What I really need to do is find a babysitter! If anyone in Old Town has a recommendation, please pass the info along!

I have a feeling this is what a lot of our naps are going to look like in the future.

Right now my writing focus is on an upcoming interview for a blog. It's been a long time coming and I'm really excited about it. Once that happens I'll be querying my most recent novel and hopefully working on a collaboration project with my critique partner. I have a ten-miler scheduled in early October (a humble fitness goal but a goal nevertheless) and I'm really hoping to get into Spanish training this fall. For now, I mainly want to get through the summer without killing my children or myself. Oh, and sending out birth announcements before this kid goes to college seems like a worthy goal too. Just don't hold your breath.

Home Is Wherever I'm With You

Last week the lovely folks over at dogvacay.com asked me to write a post about what I consider my "home away from home." For some people I guess this is pretty easy: a cafe you like to write in, a family vacation home, a favorite corner of the local library. But if you're someone who moves frequently, like I am, it's hard to find a special place where you really feel at home. (Although I will say there is one place I can go to wherever I am that provides a certain comfort and familiarity: Starbucks. I know, shameful. But you can't beat it for consistency the world over! A chai latte is the same in London, Barcelona, Geneva, Istanbul, and Moscow. Alas, there is no Starbucks in Yekaterinburg.)

The truth is, there is no one place I consider home anymore. Foreign Service housing (in my limited experience with it) is fairly impersonal - in Yekaterinburg we all had the same furniture, so I could go to another diplomat's house and sit on the exact same yellow-orange nubbly sofa that waited back in my living room (which is a lot worse than seeing the same IKEA bookshelf in your friend's apartment, I assure you). And for the past six months, I've been a traveling nomad, a squatter in my parents' house, and, most recently, holed up in corporate housing.

But despite all that, I don't feel homeless in the slightest. I think it's a wonderful thing to be able to make yourself at home anywhere. And for me, as long as the people I love are nearby, I'm home. Even during the looooong Russian winter, when "home" (aka America) seemed a million miles away and I was sure I'd never see the sun again, I wasn't really homesick. Compared to deployment, when our house felt empty and cold without John there to warm it with his presence, Russia was a cake-walk. One I don't care to repeat, mind you, but still.

So there you have it. My family and friends are my home away from home. Which is a lot better than Starbucks, don't you think?

That. Right there. My home.

The Writer's Voice Entry

Here's my entry for The Writer's Voice!

Title: Needle's Eye
Genre: YA urban fantasy
Word Count: 69,000

Query:

17-year-old Akira Tanaka isn’t your typical Russian girl. Sure, she does ballet, but only to hone her Japanese sword-fighting skills, and she wouldn’t be caught dead in stilettos or a mini-skirt. Between her Russian grandparents and Japanese-American father, Akira has been raised on a combination of cultures that leaves her feeling out of place even in her hometown of St. Petersburg. With her sights set on an upcoming kenjutsu tournament and university in Japan, Akira is blindsided by the mysterious Dmitri, who not only wants to be a part of her future, but knows entirely too much about her past.

Meanwhile, a series of violent murders has left several major Russian cities on edge, and there are strange links to a story Akira’s grandfather told her when she was still a child: the story of Koschei the Deathless. Up until now, she never believed her grandfather’s ridiculous claim that Koschei had spared his life in exchange for Akira’s soul, any more than she believes in the big bad wolf. But the strange, insect-like sound her grandfather once described is eerily similar to the one Akira hears every time another victim is killed. And the more time she spends with Dmitri, the more she starts to wonder if there isn’t something evil lurking behind his ice blue eyes.

As the murderer closes in on the people surrounding Akira, she finds herself on the verge of losing everything—and everyone—she’s ever cared about. Now it’s up to Akira to stop the killer, but this time it will take more than a deal with the devil to save the people she loves.

NEEDLE’S EYE, a multicultural YA urban fantasy, is complete at 69,000 words and will appeal to fans of Christina Farley’s Gilded. I have written and edited professionally for multiple publications including Leatherneck Magazine, the Costco Connection, and the Veteran’s Administration blog. For the past year and a half, I have lived and worked in Yekaterinburg, Russia, where my husband is serving as a diplomat. I hold a Master’s degree from the University of London and blog about my experiences abroad at mosteligiblefamily.blogspot.com.

First 250: 

When I was very small, my grandfather told me stories of Koschei the Deathless.

He was trying to frighten me. They were the kinds of tales villagers told children to keep them from wandering alone into the woods, the Russian equivalent of Little Red Riding Hood.  But just as there was nothing scary about a wolf wearing a bonnet and bifocals, there was nothing remotely frightening about my grandfather, so I paid little attention to his stories.

“Solavushka,” he began (he had called me “little nightingale” since I was an infant, when I kept everyone up all night with my “singing”), “the thing you must know about Koschei the Deathless is that he will not appear as a wicked old man with a long white beard, the way the storybooks say. He will not take you to his castle to make you his wife.”

I nodded as I examined my grandfather’s long, wiry eyebrow hairs, wondering why my grandmother didn’t trim them.

“Akira, are you listening?”

“Yes, Dedushka. I will make sure to stay away from Koschei.”

“You are not listening, child,” my grandfather grumbled, standing abruptly so I tumbled onto the floor. “How many times do I have to tell you?” He shook his head as he stormed off into the kitchen for some of my grandmother’s walnut oreshki. 

“I met him when I was a young man,” he told me once, not long before he died. “He had taken the form of a small girl, just a year or two younger than you are now.” 

Life as a House

Yesterday, my darling little boy looked innocently into my eyes and called me a walking house.

To his credit, he did say "walking." Waddling, shuffling, or, let's be honest, stationary would have been more apropos. At just one day shy of my due date, I definitely feel as big as a house. Jack pushed on my non-existent belly button (the "door bell") and called loudly to the baby, "Hello! Is anybody in there? It's time to come out now!" He then pretended to open the window (aka my mouth) to see if he could spot the squatter in apartment 1A. Unfortunately, the tenant shows no signs of vacating the premises.

It's time to go, kid. For seriously.

I've always been kind of annoyed by women who complain about still being pregnant before their actual due date. I mean, 40 weeks is just an average. It's not like we need to start downing castor oil at 37 weeks. But I'm starting to understand where they're coming from. Jack showed up exactly one week early, which was perfect because John was finishing up finals for grad school and if he'd debuted any earlier, things could have gotten a bit tricky. Not to mention he was due on Christmas day, so a slightly early arrival was preferable.

This baby, on the other hand, seems perfectly content to stay in his current residence permanently. I know all women feel this way when they're at the end of their pregnancy, and I won't actually be pregnant forever (and once this kid does show up, I'll probably wish he was back in there, where at least I didn't have to hear him cry or change his diaper a zillion times a day). A word to the wise, however: don't Google "longest pregnancy ever." 375 days, my friends. Information that does not make a full-term pregnant lady feel any better about her situation.

Jack asked me yesterday if the baby is watching TV in there. I assured him that wasn't the case, but now I can't help imagining this baby as a lazy lump enjoying a Game of Thrones marathon while he waits for his next meal to be delivered on a tray. So kid, this is your official eviction notice. Grammy is here to look after your big brother, Daddy is finished with work, and Mommy has hosted you for long enough. There's a whole big world out here, and we can't wait to meet you!

Like A Virgin "Getting to Know You" Blog Hop

As part of the Like a Virgin Writing Contest I'm entered in, I'm participating in the Getting to Know You blog hop. Here are the questions, and my (hopefully not too boring) answers.

1. How do you remember your first kiss?
Let's ignore the fact that my first actual kiss didn't happen until college and focus on a much more charming story. Technically, my first kiss was in fourth grade, when I had my brother lead my crush (a freckle-faced, red-headed boy named Tim) under the mistletoe with his eyes closed. Tim pretended to be horrified, but he was my boyfriend for the next two years, so I must have done something right. Also, I think I deserve some kind of award for having the longest elementary school relationship ever.

2. What was your first favorite love song?
I can't really think of the answer to this one, although I was definitely partial to "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid. 

3. What's the first thing you do when you begin writing for the day?
Aside from having something to drink on hand (generally water - exciting, I know), I don't have a real writing ritual. I like to re-read what I wrote the previous day and go from there.

4. Who's the first writer who truly inspired you to become a writer?
There are many writers who have inspired me over the years, but the real credit belongs to my best friend from childhood, Erin. She wrote a book when we were in sixth grade, and she read constantly. Now Erin is an agented writer and one of the smartest and most well-read people I know. If she hadn’t been my best friend growing up, I’m not sure books and writing would have become such a big part of my life.

5. Did the final revision of your first book have the same first chapter it started with?
Revision of my first book? Ha! I didn't even know what revision was back then. But the final revision of my first REAL book does have the original first chapter.

6. For your first book, which came first: major characters, plot or setting?
Plot is almost always first for me, followed closely by characters and setting. They all kind of go hand in hand, don't they?

7. What's the first word you want to roll off the tip of someone's tongue when they think of your writing?

I don’t care if a reader thinks I’m the funniest, or the smartest, or the best, as long as they get sucked into my stories enough to want to keep reading! That’s certainly what I look for in a book – one that grabs my attention and refuses to let me put it down.

I'm having trouble getting the linky list to show up here (which I'm sure is entirely my fault) but here's the link:
http://www.linkytools.com/wordpress_list.aspx?id=229928&type=basic

4. 

Mommy Mondays: No Filter

I've been considering writing this post for a while, but after the hell of potty training, I'm slightly less likely to share every embarrassing parenting moment on this blog.

But only slightly, so here goes.

Recently, Jack has been asking questions. The tough ones. It probably started right around his fourth birthday and it doesn't look like it's going to end any time soon. In fact, one of the more difficult topics came up today, at Target. Here's how the convo went:

Jack: "Where are Great Grandma and Great Grandpa?" (side note: This is not the first time he has asked me this since my grandparents died last year. It's just the first time that my evasion technique failed miserably.)

Me: "Uh, they're gone, sweetie."
Jack: "Where did they go."
Me: "Far, far away?"
Jack: "So we need to get on an airplane and go see them?"
Me: "Weeeeell... We'll talk about this in the car."
Jack: "I don't want to talk about it in the car."
Me (glancing sheepishly at the woman ahead of us in line): "They died, sweetie."
Jack: "Why?"
Me: "They were just really old."
Jack: "I'm dead. I'm really old. My legs don't work. Can I have my new toothbrush now?"

If I was a religious person and believed in heaven, I guess this whole topic would be much easier to deal with. I suppose I could tell him about heaven anyway (after all, I know for a fact Santa isn't real and I happily go along with that), but to me this seems like a much weightier thing to lie about. Jack knows what "dead" means to some extent (thanks to all the dead flies in my parents house in Montana), but I haven't had to explain the finality of death yet, or why things die. I'm dreading that conversation. Maybe it's time to buy a gold fish...

Then there are the other awkward topics that come up fairly regularly (and generally at the least opportune moments). I made the mistake of telling Jack that the baby is growing in my womb and for weeks afterward it seemed like it was all he could talk about. Every time he spoke to a woman he felt compelled to tell them about my womb and ask about theirs. That was special. I have been avoiding the topic of breastfeeding like the coward I am because I'm afraid he'll start asking women inappropriate questions about their boobs. I know it's coming, so I may as well put it off for as long as possible, right?

There are also questions about what fat means, or ugly, or (worst of all) why it's rude to talk about people's skin color in front of them. It was super fun when he asked me why our concierge was brown a few weeks ago, in front of the concierge. I know this is typical of a kid his age, especially one who has spent the last year and a half in two of the least racially diverse places on earth, but that doesn't make it any less awkward.

For now I'll probably continue to avoid difficult topics when I can and try to confront them honestly when I can't. So what if my kid thinks his baby brother is going to pop out of my belly button or that he crawled up into my womb? It's bad enough that total strangers have to be made aware of my uterus. I'd like to keep other parts of my anatomy out of it, thank you very much.

For the most part, I love that my kid has no verbal filter. Every question stems from a genuine desire to understand and learn about the world around him. And I'll be honest, it makes for some pretty hilarious conversations. I'd just prefer they take place in the privacy of my own home, not the stall of a public restroom.

What about you? How do you handle uncomfortable questions from your preschooler?

Things I Love Thursdays: Minted

Okay, so I'm probably the last person on earth to know about Minted, but can I just say: adorable! So many cute prints for kids, and really great prices even with a frame! I love that so many of them are customizable too. I've got my eye on several, but I've decided I need to wait until I actually have a house before I acquire anything else. There are too many I love to share them all, but here are some of my favorites.

These are the girly colors, but dammit, I'm sick of posting boy stuff!

The obligatory fox. They have a lot of good fox ones!

I love the retro vibe of this one, and that you can choose your initial.

Perfect for the baby's room, and I like that it's not TOO babyish.

I LURVE the tree ring idea. I'm going to try to do this as embroidery though.

They also do signs. Since I'm considering an outdoor/camping theme for Jack, I may have to get this.

I'm also pretty obsessed with their birth announcements. They have some of the best designs I've seen, and the prices are reasonable.

Have any of you purchased from Mint before? Any thoughts? I see myself wasting a lot of time on this site...

Writing Wednesdays: The End of an Era

I am sad to say a truly wonderful era is coming to an end, and I'm not ready. Yesterday, Laini Taylor's third book in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy came out. I'm sure Dreams of Gods and Monsters will be just as phenomenal as the first two, and that's why I haven't bought it yet. I don't want this series to end. They are my favorite books of the last few years and I highly recommend them to anyone who loves YA, urban fantasy, and damn good writing.

Congratulations to Laini for finishing such an epic trilogy! I can't wait to read it. Or maybe I can, just a little longer...