A milestone kind of day

Today started off like any other day. A nice Sunday morning where the kids wake up before dawn demanding sustenance. But as the day winds down and I sit musing between football breaks in my annual ad-geek spectacle more commonly known as the Super Bowl, I realize that today was a milestone day with my girls, especially for my two-year-old.

Poor Morgan has always lived in her big sister's shadow. Not because we treat her any differently, but because her quiet thoughtfulness seems to pale in comparison to that of her older sister's flamboyance. Sofia has never surprised us with her wit or her accomplishments. She's always been such a smart girl and from early-on, it was clear that her baby sister would echo her brilliance. Morgan's is more of a slow burn wit. She is very perceptive and calls things like she sees them. She really listens to what people say, especially her big sister.

Today Morgan went all day at home without her beloved paci; a pretty major accomplishment for her. The pacifier has been a presence with both of our girls. Never a big deal to us, we have chosen the route of gently encouraging them to choose their own way. We encourage Morgan to give up the paci for the day, but we don't fight her about it or pressure her. Today, I hid her paci - right around the time of her mid-morning sleepies and told her she could have it back at nap time. Then she went all day without it and when I gave it back to her when she asked for it tonight, the look of glee on her face said it all...old habits die hard. Indeed.

The girls played together all day pretty much without incident. Well, a little crayon on the wall, but overall no injuries. They also played in Morgan's room all day, which they loved because of the two bright windows that flood the room with sunlight and a fresh perspective. Plus, it's about a third the size of Sofia's room, so it takes me less time to clean it after they destroy it! Tonight Sofia even cleaned it up - all by herself! Another milestone!

This evening as I read the girls their bedtime stories we came across a book about Valentine's Day. As I read the story of a little girl who makes valentines for all her family, we came across a part about the girl making a card for her baby brother and taping it in his crib. Tonight as I put Morgan to bed in her crib, I sat her down inside and as I was fumbling with her cd player she says (paci in mouth), "This is a baby bed." Sensing opportunity, I replied, "Well, yes it is a baby bed." Then I asked her tentatively, "Do you want to sleep in your big girl bed?" And she's all, "Yes!" and bouncy about it! So I moved all her buddies across the room to her new bed and pulled down the never-used covers, I snuggled her up, kissed her goodnight, and I'll be damned if she's not sleeping in there right now!

Heck, Now I'm wondering if I should put her potty seat in her room too and maybe I'll save some money on diapers, but I suppose it's best not to press my luck!

Being two is really hard. You're just now learning what your emotions and impulses mean and how to vocalize them. You have to get rid of pacifiers, learn to get dressed and eat with a fork and use the toilet and brush your teeth. So many of life's little things we do every single day we learn when we're two. She will always be my baby despite her "I'm not a baby, I'm a big girl" protests. I am not planning on any more infants in my near future, so to watch this one grow up is a little tough for me, but exciting too! I guess it never gets easier to watch your kids grow up. An inevitable reality, but a harsh one nonetheless.

The moral of the story is, tomorrow, my girls get cupcakes for being so special and such big girls! And maybe there will be one in there for me too. ;o)

To Vampire or not to Vampire...Forget the subject! It's all about the writing man!

I started writing this blog as a response to my friend Kaye Dacus' Friday blog post. Kaye is a professional writer of Christian Historical and Modern Romance novels and a dear, dear friend of mine. You can view Kaye's blog here.

Harris' first Sookie novel, "Dead Until Dark" was written three years before Meyer's "Twilight" and the similarities are staggering, which as an avid reader and writer, I find disturbing but not surprising. Happens all the time, right? Now I will readily admit that most vampire novels are steeped in the same folklore, much like how most chick-lit novels house a heroine who is a writer or magazine editor or something of that sort...it gets old. All these vampire writers do is rip each other off, but what makes them different from any other genre?

Meyer successfully wrote one of the most real and romantic lead male characters in the history of fiction. Now many may want to debate this and might want to say Edward does not compare with Darcy or Heathcliff or Rochester, but I believe you would be hard pressed to go against the throngs of women world-wide who are admittedly in love with this fictional character. Isn't the goal of the writer to create relatable characters? On the flip side, however, Meyer's Bella is one of the most pathetic heroines ever written. I have always taken issue with Meyer for creating an 17-year-old female character who would be willing to literally throw her life away for a guy...or even worse, in order to fulfill her carnal desires with said guy. Maybe it's the feminist in me, but if Meyer's goal was to promote abstinence until marraige, she completely missed the mark. Sure millions of impressionable girls! Go ahead and get married at 19 & have a baby immediately! That would be a GREAT idea!

Charlaine Harris' novels are smart, funny, intensely romantic, sexy, frightening at times and she has an incredible grasp for how to write a southern Louisiana spitfire with a knack for getting into trouble. Her mysteries are always a surprise and are quite clever. She incorporates vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, faeries, demons and more...all who walk among us. They are worth a read and even nine books in, I am hooked and have successfully hooked many of my friends.

Harris writes male characters with ease and captures longing and pride like some of the best romance writers I have ever read. She's also a hero in the fanboy world, which speaks volumes - she has a male audience! Of course, you can attribute that to True Blood as well, which graphically, is a spectacular representation of the characters and their Bon Temps, LA home. Of course, Hollywood loves to change things and True Blood is no exception.

Now Meyer wrapped her Twilight Saga in four novels. Then when the first film was in production she decided to go back and rewrite Twilight from Edward's perspective (Twilight was written from Bella's perspective) in a novel entitled "Midnight Sun." She wrote the first 11 chapters and gave three copies of the first draft away. One to her sister, one to Robert Pattinson (actor) and the final to an unnamed source. Someone leaked the novel on the Internet. Meyer proceeded to throw a childlike fit on her fans and chastize them for even reading it on the Internet when it leaked. As punishment to her fans, Meyer decided not to finish the novel. She said she was so disgusted that someone had done this to her that she just couldn't write it anymore. She then released it herself on her website for the period of about a week so that her fans could read it legitimately. I personally was not one who read this draft. Mainly because I was so disgusted at Meyer's treatment of her fan base that "she is dead to me" now. This woman made a mint from her fans and then she abandoned them. Nothing but a tease, kind of like some of her teenaged characters.

This poses a question: As a writer, at what point do you feel you have a responsibility to your fan base? You have written a series. People love it. Your fans now have a vested interest. You start out writing for yourself. At what point do you write for them? Meyer "sold out" to her fans, which, let's face it, is the ultimate goal, right? But then she abandoned them. What if J.K. Rowling would have done the same thing? I think that if you choose to write a novel or a series of novels and you choose to do it in the public eye, then you owe it to your fans to follow through with promises you make to them. We have all heard of reclusive writers who put out incredible works of fiction and then never utter a word in the public about them. They just want you to read it. If you like it, great, if you don't they don't really care. Or, perhaps public scrutiny is what they fear.

To write anything is an intensely personal thing. To share your deepest imagination with the world is an incredibly courageous thing. Whether you are writing about historical romance figures or vampires, if you reach an audience, rather than your books collecting dust or ending up in the $1 bargain bin, then I think you've won!

It's easy to criticize what you have not read. I challenge you to read it and then decide.

Cheers!

2001 - More than a Memory

I visited Manhattan for the first time in 2000. I was with a group of collegues on a training mission to Parsippany, NJ (woo hoo!) and we took the train into the city for three whole hours. We went to the top of the Empire State Building and then to Battery Park at night (stupid) hoping in vain for a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. Later we took an $80 cab back to NJ and eventually made our way home to Colorado without a second thought.

In June of 2001, I began my real love affair with the great city of Manhattan. As many tourists do, I hopped on the cheesy red double-decker bus and set out across the city in the blazing summer heat with my husband and our friends, the brothers Tieman.

There was a mirrored walkway that linked the towers. A popular photo opp for tourists, from the top deck of the bus, you could ride under the tunnel, look up and take your photo with the reflection of the towers looming overhead. Yeah, we were those dorks.






I lived in Denver, Colorado back then. Nature's playground. Until I moved to Denver, Atlanta was the largest city I had ever visited, so one might imagine how amazed I was to suddenly find myself in serious daily gridlock, with access to all the arts, entertainment, and scenery I could handle. Still, when the chance came for me to join my husband on the tail end of a business trip to the Big Apple, I jumped.

We stayed at the Belvedere right between the Restaurant and Theatre Districts in midtown Manhattan. We ate a rediculous amount of food, walked about a million miles and saw "Kiss Me Kate," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and "Rent" on Broadway. Back then shows on the Great White Way were actually affordable and I found the people of Manhattan to be very friendly and accommodating. I felt safe.

My next visit to NYC came a year later in late June of 2002. Ground Zero was still a gated-off gaping hole in the ground and the City held a stillness that certainly wasn't there the year before. To call it melancholy is a complete understatement. The energy was gone. The bustle was still there, but it just wasn't the same. Tourists posed for photos with men and women in service uniforms and openly hugged them or shook their hands and thanked them for their service or expressed condolences for the unspeakable tragedy and loss which befell their home and undoubtedly their coworkers and loved-ones.

We happened to be there during the Gay Pride parade that year. The gay and lesbian service men and women all marched together in the parade to waves of cheers and tears. A surreal moment to witness, for sure.

I can't begin to imagine what it was like to experience such a tragedy as a New Yorker. As an American, each morning of September 11 each year I will, like so many others, stop to reflect on where I was, what I was doing. I didn't have children then. We hadn't been in our first house for too long at that point and I was rushing out the door to get to work when I flipped on the television and watched in confusion as smoke poured from the building. Not long after my 45 minute commute to work ended, the first tower had fallen. It was like watching something out of Hollywood. Terrified and grief-stricken, watching New Yorkers flee for their lives and gasp for air. And it was real. There were real people in there.

A sad day of reflection, for sure as I sit at my desk, thinking about what happened on this day eight years ago. I have visited Manhattan frequently since that time - now less as a tourist and more as a fan of the city so many of my friends now call home. I am glad that my first NYC experience was before the fall, but I am sad that so many lives will never be the same in the aftermath. Today when I see images of the twin towers in old movies set in New York there is always a tightening of my hearstrings. Maybe this is how the generation before us feels about the day John F. Kennedy was shot or the way the younger generation will feel about the day Michael Jackson died.

Maybe there is hope for the future.

1984

Between the years of 1983 and 1984 I was 9 and in the 4th grade. Those years were an amazing time for entertainment. The weekly top-40 radio show was full of music that is now referred to as "classic rock" or "pop." Madonna's "Like a Virgin" was climbing the charts...my friend Kelly and I dressed up like Madonna for Halloween that year; lots of lace, black and neon...can't believe our parents went for that. It was the year Cyndi Lauper wow'd us with her She's So Unusual album - girls STILL just wanna have fun, time after time, it seems. Duran Duran had "Hungry Like a Wolf" and Prince's 1999 album was all over the place. Movies at the time included now classic titles such as The Big Chill, Risky Business, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, A Christmas Story, National Lampoons Vacation, Flashdance and Footloose, two of my personal favorites at the time. And of course, there was the enigma known as Thriller.

I remember being totally freaked out the first time I saw Thriller on Friday Night Videos. My parents would let me stay up late to watch the likes of Madonna gyrating in a wedding gown, Cyndi and that weird wrestler dude with the cheek piercing, The Romantics' "Talking in Your Sleep" video and the final video of the night was ALWAYS, ALWAYS MJ's Thriller. Thriller transformed a music video into a short film. It was amazing and set the stage for so many artists who have come since that time. I still can't get the sound of Vincent Price's eeeevvvvil laugh out of my head.

Now I first knew of Michael Jackson from my parents' vinyl of Off the Wall, one of my favorite albums even still today. This is where he gave us "Rock with You" and "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough," which I shamelessly admit has been my ringtone for the last year. Michael's collaboration with Quincy Jones led him straight into Thriller, with that crazy fold-out album cover with his gnarly sticking-out wrist bones, Thriller was among the albums that defined my generation.

I distintly remember my classmate, Danny Baseheart in his red & black MJ Thriller jacket (he was the only person I knew whose parents actually bought him one and we were all totally jealous), I can still see him in my mind...doing the moonwalk at recess with his highwater school uniform pants, white socks and broken-in loafers, MJ jacket and Kevin Bacon Footloose hairdo. (I bet a lot of my friends from childhood who read this can remember the exact same moment).

Michael Jackson was golden. He won everything, he danced like a fool, he could sing the ABC's and it would sound good (wait a minute...he DID!), and he was a member of one of the weirdest, most jacked-up Hollywood families in history. But he was arguably the Elvis of my generation. I bet they blacked the lights in Tokyo last night.

I won't even touch the last decade of poor MJ's life. Suffice it to say, that man has been through enough to drive anyone nuts and/or give anyone a heart attack. Today the reports have speculated that his cardiac arrest (not the same thing as a heart attack, I have learned - thank you Sanjay Gupta) might have been caused by a toxic combination of prescription drugs, a la Anna Nicole Smith. Either way, it is a tragic loss for music lovers everywhere. But MJ's music will live on and on, much like the memory of Weird Al Yanchovic's rendition of "Fat," a rediculous parody of MJ's "Bad," which in all reality was a parody in and of itself.

RIP MJ. Thanks for the music and the memories man.

I Rate Jon & Kate

Back a couple of months ago, bored and with nothing else to do...ok, too lazy to do anything else, I caught an episode of Jon & Kate +8 on Lifetime or whatever channel it's on. I had never seen it before and evidently I was catching episodes that were old, as the babies were around two-years-old at the time. I was completely enthralled with their family dynamic and intrigued at how they were able to pull off raising eight kids. I have two kids of my own and want to go rock in a corner sometimes, so I can't even imagine what eight would be like.

Right around the time I saw my first episode was when the press came out about the possibility that Jon, husband and father of 8 children had been unfaithful to his wife. Of course, a new season of the show immediately followed all of this press. Jon feels trapped, Kate says he resents her success with her childrens' books hitting shelves and book tours taking her away from her family, etc.

Now I am a working Mom. I work mostly because I have to and partially because I want to. I have a great job and work with great people and I suffer every single day with "Mommy's Guilt" that I wear like an unseen scarlet letter, a badge so many women (and Daddy's too) wear to work as a regulation component of their Mommy uniforms. Being a Mother is a wonderful, but often thankless job, but for the vast majority of Moms out there, it is a job that we chose for ourselves. The Gosselins chose to have eight kids...now it seems they are falling apart before our eyes.

I remember thinking about Kate, as I watched her visit the grocery store with 6 kids and then return home to prepare lunch for them. She always makes it a point to resentfully add in her little couch confessional that she is doing things "by herself" "with no help," like she deserves a medal or something. I recall a couple of episodes where she makes an effort to take her twins special places for their birthday and to single them out...an effort I make every day...how to make my 4-year-old feel special and understand that I have more than enough room in my heart for both she and her sister. Then I think about those 8 kids.

I have no doubt that they are loved and cared for by many more people than just their parents. There have to be all kinds of caregivers going on there. How else would Jon and Kate have so much time to sit and report in on their daily activities (bedtime hours not withstanding). As I watched the most recent season premiere I felt so sad for those little kids. Here it was their 5th birthday party and Kate was whining about paparazzi following them everywhere. You would think that the moment guys with cameras started following them around as parents they would say, "You know what, this is clearly NOT what is best for our kids," and call it a show. But no, they forged ahead, displaying materialism at its finest, or lowest possible point, depending on how you look at it.

I had decided this show was not for me when I determined that it was beneath my threshold to watch a marraige fall apart before my very eyes. That is not my business and the prospect of any marraige ending is devistating to all involved. Yet my DVR continued recording episode after episode, automatically changing the channel over when the show began each week. I walked through the living room a couple of weeks ago to see Kate at a spa, then Kate eating cake at Charm City Cakes (Home of Food TV's "Ace of Cakes") and asking herself (and ultimately answering) random questions. "Is this cake the best ever? Yes." "Do I want to ask myself lots of questions? Absolutely." Then last week I happen through the living room to see Jon getting a new custom motorcycle and Kate gets a Vespa that she donates somewhere....aw, how nice. Um, where are the kids again???

It has been speculated (and blogged about by Gosselin family members) that Jon and Kate have made a list of material things they want and gave them to the network and these things have become the topics of their shows. Jon wants hairplugs, Kate wants to have her teeth whitened. Now Jon gets a motorcycle and whines about how he had 8 kids at age 27 and Kate berates Jon repeatedly for not remembering to put her purse in the car. Now, the network is capitalizing on their marital problems by "this week, a very special announcement" kinds of messages. How about Jon and Kate go to marraige counseling or even Kate takes the kids to the dentist or to their first day of kindergarten - both would be way more appropriate not to mention more entertaining. Heck, even the episode about the kids' birthday party shows dad showing up in his expensive sportscar (the same one he showed off to the 23-year-old schoolteacher he allegedly screwed around with) and then hanging back alone like he could care less.

So now they are getting divorced, and yet they plan to go on with the show. http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/23/jon.and.kate.divorce/index.html
I read last night that Jon is considering moving to Manhattan and moving into Trump Tower. Really? Your show made you wealthy enough to start over on THAT level? You prick. This guy should be ashamed of himself.

As a Mom myself, I know that you have to be a tyrant sometimes to run your household. It makes you the bad guy sometimes, but that's what you have to do in order to make decisions that are best for your kids. I won't begrudge Kate that fact at all. I can't imagine how hard it must be, but they have money and people to help them when so many of us don't. I will say that she treats Jon like dirt, but never (in the episodes I've seen) has he stood up for himself. He's just left looking like a fool on national television, and she looks like a total bitch, so I suppose they're even.

Reality TV is really sick stuff. But more than anything, it has to say something about the character of parents who would display their own vanity at the expense of their own family each week. These are selfish people motivated by money and not by what is best for their kids. Pretty sad stuff.

Busting out some poetry

I have tons of old lyrics and poetry that I hosted on my MySpace blog once upon a time. I was going through some and found one from November 2006 that made me laugh at the memory that inspired it. Thought I'd share it with the lot of ya.

November 4, 2006 - Saturday

Ode to the Mommy Predator


Minding my own business

Playing with my kid

Too cold to play outside today

so I thought we'd take it in

Lots of rugrats running 'round

Of all shapes and colors

My oh my I really hope they don't run my baby over

His child was lying on the slide

pushing other kids aside

While he sat there with his wife

Oblivious to the childrens' cries

I didn't think it was my place to ask his kid to share

Took a child getting hurt to get dad over there

"Now son, you need to share," he said

Shooting me a sympathetic glance

"Why not go play over there," he said

"Give the other kids a chance."

I noticed the big production of telling Mom goodbye

Immediately followed by Dad's stares the moment I caught his eye

Playing peek-a-boo and taking pictures with my phone

I got a sinking feeling that we were not alone

"I bring him here every weekend," he said

I replied "We've been here once or twice."

"Well, that is the weekends I have him," he said

Searching my left hand with his eyes

While his desperate attempt at a pick-up line was pitiful at best

I felt sorry for his kid, as his Mommy had just left

With all the talk of pedophiles, molestors and kidnappers

I never considered I'd be the one fending off attackers

As I suited up my little girl and headed for the door

I wondered why no one warns against the Mommy Predator

The evolution of real time friendships

I learned today that a former work associate is pregnant. VERY Pregnant. With a boy, no less. The other day I learned that one of my dearest friends had become engaged while on vacation with her boyfriend. I also learned that one of my other close friends was about to move to Japan with her family. Weddings, engagements, babies, job losses, deaths, you name it. Where have I learned about all of these things? Well on FACEBOOK, of course!

I had a conversation with my husband several months ago during which I marveled about reconnecting on said uberpopular social networking site with some old college friends: "How on earth did we keep up with each other before Facebook?" Intended as a rhetorical question, he responded with a pretty sadly simple-but-true answer:

"We didn't."

I was never much for phone conversations personally. A lucky few, including a couple of close friends, my sister and mother would get a weekly or semi-monthly phone call from me to check in and see what's happening. Since having kids, my phone conversations are pretty well limited to my commute to and from work every day and pretty much never on the weekends. My friends and I have to schedule phone conversations, most of which never happen because life takes the place of this archaec form of personal communication.

I've since replaced the personal contact of lunches and phone calls with quick Facebook transmittals. I might not have time for a full-out phone conversation, by I can squeeze in a quick email, photo comment or status update every day. So can everyone else it seems.

I know now that my friends in Seattle just went to Mexico (jealous). I know when my friends have happy hours and don't invite me (you guys suck). I know that my friend in TX just went to a Mother-Son Dance with her super-cute kid. I was able to check in with my cousin on the status of my aunt's recent heart attack and view pictures of the bridal shower I couldn't attend last weekend (sorry Steph). I even know what my co-workers are doing via tweet posts. Heck, I even get PAID to maintain social networking profiles and other e-com sites for my alma mater, Western Kentucky University.

I seem to be better friends with people online than I was ever able to be in person, so have all my friendships evolved from real friendships into real-TIME friendships? Yes, it certainly seems so.

As much as I crave the one-on-one connection that my friends and family members give me during our all too infrequent get togethers, I am grateful that social networking has enabled me to at least know they're ok on a day-to-day basis. Photos of new babies, new hair-dos, new husbands. Status reports of what you ate for breakfast and how bad your head aches today (hey, I'm guilty of that one). Would we tell each other (and 200 others) all this stuff if we were face-to-face? Maybe in some cases. Still we love it and it is a vouyeristic pastime for many.

Keep those posts coming folks. I want to know that you're a fan of bacon! I want to know that your top five albums include Olivia Newton John's Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (oh wait, that's me.). I needed to know that Belle is your Disney character. If I didn't know all this stuff, I'd just miss you, so keep it coming.

Loves,

CBelle