Archive for the ‘parenthood’ Category
March 8, 2010 | parenthood
I caught the Fecklet dancing around the house singing “WE BUY ANY CAR, DOT COM!”
Sigh.
I’m running my book giveaway till Friday, so you’ve got plenty of time…
March 4, 2010 | about me, parenthood
My apologies to those of you who may visit this blog looking for thought-provoking posts about writing, the universe and cemeteries.
Because this morning I am going to write about shoes.
My Facebook friends may know that I faced a shopping dilemma this week: I needed a dress to wear to the fabulous glitzy Romantic Novelists’ Association’s 50th Anniversary Awards Lunch. I’m not up for an award this year, but several of my friends are (hooray!) and it’s a great occasion and opportunity to meet with fellow writers and many publishing professionals. So, y’know, it deserves a new frock.
I bought myself a scrummy little black dress, quite little and plain with just a tiny bit of lovely embroidery and beading, and so I needed some shoes. And hence the dilemma. There were these gorgeous purple ones which had flowers all over them and also a big ribbon bow at the back, and were comfortable, but slightly too low in the heel and also fairly expensive. Then there were these gorgeous grass-green ones which were high-heeled Mary Janes and cost half as much as the purple ones, but weren’t as comfortable or quite as OTT.
I posted this dilemma on my Facebook page and it is a testament to the excellentness of my friends that many of them actually commented, from the UK, the US and Canada, giving me their advice on which pair to buy. (Consensus was that I should buy both, but the bank account won’t bear up under that strain I’m afraid.) Two guys commented too, something along the lines of their heads exploding and sympathising with my husband, but I forgive them. Men just don’t understand the importance of these things.
Well I debated and debated and it really did distract me quite a bit from my writing yesterday (oh I am so sad) and I did make it a dinner table discussion between me, the Rock God and the Fecklet (I am trying to educate them both to care about shoes despite the Y chromosomes). Fecklet said “The green!” and then five minutes later, mid-bite of noodles, he said “The purple!” I tried to convince the Rock God that this was yet another vote to buy both pairs but he wasn’t having it.
In the end, I decided that the green ones would look better with my dress and also if I bought them for half the money, I would have more to spend on a handbag!
Me? Shallow? Surely not.
Anyway I’m sure you are now positively frothing at the mouth to see these shoes, which were in fact quite a spectacular bargain, and are a teensy bit tight but I am going to stuff them with socks etc to stretch them out. Here they are:
And of course, the Fecklet had to try them on. I think they go rather smashingly with his Lightning McQueen pyjamas:
Now, what does this have to do with Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, which is published TODAY!? I’ll be posting later today and revealing all!
Stay tuned, dear readers, to learn all about the tantalising connection, and also have a chance to win a signed copy!
November 26, 2009 | parenthood
Last night, Fecklet and I had our Thanksgiving dinner (lots of stuffing, a bit of chicken—I am a stuffing addict and I’m hoping to bring him up the same). And I talked with him about being thankful, and after I’d given him some examples, I asked him what he was thankful for.
Here is his list:
Mummy
Peas
Daddy
Toys
Grandma and Grandpa
His lemur from Monkey World.
November 19, 2009 | The Bad Twin, about me, parenthood
It has all gone too far. But I couldn’t help it. Too many forces were working together to push me to this. And now…it’s too late.
I love Top Gear.
In my defence, let me plead two extenuating circumstances. One: my heroine in The Bad Twin is a stunt woman. She specialises in flying, martial arts and especially, stunt driving. She loves fast cars. So of course for the book, I had to research cars. She crashes a Ferrari Enzo in chapter one—one of 400 only ever made. A Porsche 911 Turbo and a BMW L740 are also important to the plot. The hero drives a Aston Martin Vanquish in British racing green. And the climactic scene happens in…well, in something very like this.
Concurrently, my son is also completely obsessed by cars. His favourite film is Cars. He wants to be Lightning McQueen. He pretends to drive when he’s in his pushchair and he holds imaginary toy car races all over my house.
So as, you know, a sort of bonding thing, we started watching Top Gear together.
It was the beginning of a slippery slope. The Fecklet is now convinced that The Stig is his friend. We have conversations about who’s faster, Lightning McQueen or The Stig. Fecklet yells “Top Gear!” the minute he hears that Allman Brothers song. We choose our favourite cars in every episode and talk about them.
And now, the worst has happened. Last night I dreamed I was having sex with Jeremy Clarkson.
I fear it is too late for me.
(Actually I’d much rather have sex with James May. How about you? Which Top Gear presenter would you do in your dreams? And no…you can’t say The Stig. It only counts if you can see his face. Besides, everyone wants The Stig.)
From left: Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson, James May
EDIT: I bought a copy of Heat magazine at the station on my way to the RNA Winter Party and they had their “Weird Crushes of 2009″ poll results. Jeremy Clarkson was at number 9, James May at 6, Richard Hammond at 4, and The Stig at 3. See….I’m not weird.
November 6, 2009 | parenthood
Last night, Fecklet (nearly 3 now, how did that happen?) is walking around upstairs, with his arms full of seven or eight stuffed animals. He brings them into the bathroom, where I’m running his bath, and sets them up carefully on the floor.
Me: “Hey, you’ve got all those guys with you. What are they up to?”
Fecklet: “Those guys are up to no good!”
October 25, 2009 | parenthood
“Do you want a happy pumpkin or a scary pumpkin?” I ask the Fecklet.
“SCARY pumpkin! I want a scary one!”
I draw two faces: one with demon eyes and fangs, and one with happy eyes and a big smiling mouth. “Which one—scary or happy? The happy one, right?”
“SCARY pumpkin Mummy!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! Yes, a scary one! Like a dinosaur! Grrrr!”
We cut open the pumpkin and pull out the guts (”It’s all slimy, Mummy!” cries Fecklet with great joy), and I cut out demon eyes and fangs. I show Fecklet.
His eyes grow huge. “I don’t like it, Mummy! I don’t like the scary pumpkin!”
So I cut the fangs off. And try to make the demon eyes more jolly.
Now everyone is happy, including (sort of) the pumpkin.
October 11, 2009 | about me, parenthood
Standing by a lake under an orange-leaved tree watching your son run joyously through a mud puddle, splattering himself with muck up to the waist, over and over and over again, while everyone who walks past smiles.
September 20, 2009 | about me, parenthood
Yes, I’ve been away for a while. Blame RSI.
I went to a physiotherapist on Thursday, hoping he could recommend some exercises or treatment that would help my aching and twitching hands, caused by spending hours on a computer. What he said to me was quite simple. It went like this:
“If I came to you with a headache, you could give me aspirin or a massage or whatever and it might feel better for a little while. But if I then told you that my headache was because I spent half an hour each day banging my head against a brick wall, you’d say that the answer to my problem was pretty obvious, wouldn’t you?”
And so it is. And I’m not stupid. So the work of this past week has been to invest in some equipment that will make my working environment less harmful—an ergonomic keyboard and mouse, for example. Would you believe that for nine years, I’ve been working on my dining room table sitting on a chair that doesn’t really support my back? So I’ve got a new chair and I’m having a real desk delivered soon—my first real desk ever. (Maybe that makes me a real writer now?)
But along with equipment, I’ve got to make some changes to my computer habits. Working smart will mean using the limited time I’ve got at the computer writing, instead of surfing the net and chatting online. I’m afraid this blog is going to be updated less often than I’d like, and I’ll be able to visit other blogs less frequently, too.
Anyway. I’ll be here when I can, and certainly when I need to for my sanity. But maybe with a few less words.
I’m off to Oxfordshire tomorrow, to teach a 3-day residential course on writing women’s commercial fiction for Cornerstones, and after that, I may be able to get back to my book after an enforced hand-related absence. I hope so, as it’s been driving me mad to be away from it.
We started potty training the Fecklet yesterday and I’m promptly leaving, so my poor husband has to take charge of the whole thing. Wish him luck. Wish me luck.
Wish our carpets luck.
See you soon.
June 28, 2009 | parenthood
As I’m getting him his yogurt for dessert, Fecklet tells me, “I put a pea in my nose.” And promptly starts sticking his finger up there to get it out.
I grab a torch and look. Yup, a pea. (If it makes me seem a better parent, allow me to mention that it’s a fresh pea, not frozen, shelled by myself and Fecklet earlier.) “Get it out, Mummy,” he says.
Tweezers are not a good idea so I try to get him to blow. He can’t, or not hard enough. I make him sniff pepper so he’ll sneeze. No luck. Finally, with visions of 5 hours in A&E in my future, I get my toddler first aid book out and it advises getting them to blow something like a feather of your hand so they’ll blow hard. I don’t have a feather, but I have little bits of paper and I show him how to do it. He thinks it’s funny, blows, blows again, and the pea is out.
In the aftermath, I have called or emailed lots of people about this. They all think it is funny. I will probably think so too, in about 15 years.
Fecklet didn’t seem bothered at all. Then he decided he was a mouse and said nothing but squeaks for about half an hour.
Life is weird.
Anyway, I’ll be on BBC Radio Scotland today at about 11.20 am talking about holiday romances.
June 16, 2009 | about me, parenthood
Fecklet really has quite a mild case, thank goodness. He’s been quite cuddly and wanting attention, a little itchy and easily frustrated, but he’s not miserable. He’s eating well and sleeping well and enjoying baking soda baths. We’ve been reading books, listening to Winnie the Pooh, and watching Animal Planet. Yesterday he ran around the garden for a bit.
So he’s pretty well, considering. I, on the other hand, am going totally bonkers. I’ve had to cancel his sessions with his child minder and at nursery, so I haven’t had any good blocks of writing time. My story is going round and round in my head and the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced it sucks. After having written 12,500 words the previous week, I’ve written about 1200 in the past six days.
Rock God Husband is on tour, so I haven’t had more than a few fleeting moments of adult company since Saturday. We haven’t gone to the supermarket, so have been eating through our supplies, and have run out of wine. (Yikes!) I have left the house twice in three days—once to get milk, and yesterday to go to the post office. Both times, perforce, I’ve had Fecklet with me. I could have tied him to the sofa I suppose, but I didn’t think that was appropriate. I’m funny that way.
I made the mistake of mentioning to the man in the post office that Fecklet had the chicken pox. (It’s not readily apparent; all his poxes are on his torso.) He gave me a dirty look and said, “You shouldn’t have him out of the house! That is catching!”
Thank you, Post Office Man. I already feel like I’m on the verge of slaughtering an entire village with a chain saw because of isolation (NO BEER AND NO TV MAKE HOMER GO CRAZY—in this case, it’s NO WINE AND NO WRITING MAKE JULIE GO CRAZY). And now you’re making me feel guilty, too?
Thank God I didn’t buy wine while I was out. Can you imagine the guilt if I’d been caught hauling my child out of his sick bed, spreading germs willy-nilly, in order to buy booze?
Anyway. I ordered groceries online and they’ve just been delivered. (Wine! Cheese! Fresh fruit and vegetables to ward off scurvy! Did I mention wine?) And some friends whose children have already been pox’d are coming over to visit in the next few days. And hopefully the pox will be scabbed over by the end of the week.
On a much more cheerful note, Nina Harrington has put up some photos of my signing on her blog.
April 3, 2009 | parenthood
Listening to internet radio this morning. Paul McCartney and Wings came on singing “Listen To What the Man Says.”
As this question has often plagued me, I turned to my very young son the Fecklet, who was busy posting his shoes down the back of his pushchair, and asked him, “Who IS the MAN, anyway?”
Without pausing his shoe posting, he replied, “Elvis.”
March 23, 2009 | crows, parenthood, reading
Well, we’re on the fourth day of Fecklet not being well. He’s got some sort of tummy bug, and though he’s over the fever now and he’s having some cheerful moments, his appetite isn’t good and he’ll suddenly turn from cheerful to crying and needing cuddles. I’ve definitely noticed a pattern, in that he feels much better after eating something and then has a dip, so I’m trying to make him eat little and often.
Anyway, this morning we baked a cake to prolong a cheerful moment. He loves dumping ingredients in a bowl and mixing. We made an eggless cocoa cake, and then after we’d licked the bowl we decided the pan was too big for the cake so we made half an invented recipe of eggless orange cake and marbled it through. The batter tasted wonderful and it smelled great in the oven. The finished cake is pretty lopsided (I think the orange batter rose more as the OJ reacted with the baking soda) but I’ll slap some frosting on it and it will do wonders to cheer us up this afternoon, I’m sure.
And I also just had a brainstorm and remembered the carrier bag full of plastic dinosaurs I bought from the charity shop and was saving for a rainy day. Fecklet is now obsessed with dinosaurs, and I do believe that even though it’s sunny outside, this might be a metaphorical rainy day.
All of this means I’ve had very little time to write, though I did finish a chapter last night and now have to find out what happens next. I’ve just read Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon and am now reading The Beach House by Jane Green (I obviously had a subconscious thing about Janes when I visited the library) and the thing that gets me is how effortless their stories feel when you’re reading them. Like the Janes never had to rack their brains to find out what’s going to happen next in their books in between changing really disgusting nappies, doing endless laundry and calming down a red-faced two-year-old. Obviously for the Janes, the stories flow beautifully from their fingers, with nary a crow or a moment of grossness to deter them, and immediately become best-sellers.
Or maybe, just maybe, they have to scrape it and work it and shoo away crows as much as I do, and it just comes out seeming effortless because it’s taken so much effort. (And possibly cake and dinosaurs too.)
