I think I can...I think I can...I think I can...

We're in the home stretch now, folks. There are only 3 days left of this gong show and then I will be a novelist! Will I do it? It sure looks that way. I haven't hit 50k yet, but I just cracked 46k and I'm feeling better than I have since the Week 1 adrenaline rush wore off. My story is starting to tell itself now, after days of what seemed like pulling teeth for each paragraph. If it wasn't for the obligatory childcare inherent in parenthood I would be long past the finish line, but as it is I'm almost there, my daughter is still alive and well and I'm happy with that. Stay tuned for the big finish on Tuesday at midnight. My jubilation will likely be audible from wherever you are, or maybe that will be the collective jubilation of the thousands of writers everywhere as we realize that a good night's sleep can be ours once more!

To GrammaPapa's house we go!

Yesterday the girl and I said to heck with this nonsense - let's go to GrammaPapa's house! It was a last minute decision, fueled by leftover guilt from not visiting for First Thanksgiving and the fact that J was going to be either at the hospital, sleeping or on a plane flying across the country for the next five days. Well, that, and the fact that the mere mention of a visit to GrammaPapa's house sent E into a fit of excitement that simply would not be quelled. The added benefit of a subway ride, a train ride and a ride in her brand new car seat made it something akin to the best day ever for E, and the most exhausting day ever for her mom.

The subway ride went smoothly, once J had run back to the house to retrieve the missing suitcase. He saw us on our way and went home to sleep as our 12-hour journey began. The subsequent train ride was also a success, except for the half-hour post-nap crankfest. And the car ride was surprisingly enjoyable, given the fact that it was the last leg of a long journey and someone in the car had a poop blowout that necessitated a full wardrobe change. Fortunately, the blowout came mere minutes before a stop at Cracker Barrel, so the absorbency of the new car seat was not tested to its limits.

When we finally rolled in to Kingston right around bedtime, E's second wind kicked in and she ran around the apartment like a wind-up toy let loose on a freshly waxed floor. She was smiling, she was laughing, she was showing GrammaPapa all of her tricks, and I thought she would never go to bed. But eventually we convinced her to show GrammaPapa how she can take a bath and how cute she looks in her jammies, and by the time we got through story time and on to song time the gig was up. She had nothing left and was out in record time.

I hummed and hawed over the decision to go or not to go. Extra work? Yes. Possibly disastrous results traveling alone with toddler? Yes. Worth the effort to see my daughter with GrammaPapa, smothering them with running hugs and kisses and hearing her tell me to go back to New York City because she's staying at GrammaPapa's house? Yes.

Ball Fan

E loves to sing songs, and one of her current faves is the "Take Me Out" song (Take Me Out to the Ball Game). She sings it all the time, or demands that mama sing it to her. And she loves the big finish, when mama sings "At the old ball..." and she yells "GAME!!!"

To accompany her music preferences, she has also taken up a new sport. E loves baseball, mostly because her neighbour/boyfriend Joe is always out playing baseball with his dad. But she has a rather unorthodox swing, as you will see...

P.S. Happy Second Thanksgiving everyone!

Please prepare for take-off. Or just take off already.

My husband has five interviews in the next ten days. Are they nice and close to home, say in Queens or Jersey?

Nooooooooo.

Tennessee, New York, Texas, Utah, Mississippi. In that order. None in Oklahoma though, so E is not interested. Man, I wish we had been more diligent about collecting air miles in the past.

When he leaves for Tennessee on Sunday morning, he'll be coming off of his 8th 12-hour overnight shift in a row. I don't envy that guy. But then again, being me right now is no picnic either. I'm just sayin', I don't dig the single mom gig. There's not much relief these days for either of us. At least the girl and the dog seem to be bearing up okay.

Why aren't I sleeping, you ask? Because some idiot decided to pick November for National Novel Writing Month instead of oh, say, any other month of the year.

37,364 words and counting.

Toddler brains are weird.

Today E and I were at the park, playing on the jungle gym with a big wheel that we pretend is a ship. I asked her where she wanted to go, and gave her some options off of the top of my head: Tahiti, Fiji, Oklahoma...

"Mama! Oklahoma! Go Oklahoma!"

Thinking that she thought it sounded like "home", I said "Do you want to go home now?"

"No, Mama! Go Oklahoma! Go Oklahoma NOW PLEASE!!!"

Hmm. Sooo...disappoint the kid or lie to her? Lie it is.

"Okay babe. Now I'm not sure where Oklahoma is, so we'll have to walk around a bit and look for it."

I had to go to the grocery store anyway, and we had about five blocks for me to figure out what to do about our Oklahoma-lemma. She walked better than she ever has before, hardly getting distracted at all from her "Where Oklahoma go, mama?" mantra. Finally, when we were a block away and I was considering the implications of telling her that a) we lost Oklahoma or b) Oklahoma is where we buy our produce, she stopped dead in front of the children's shoe store.

"Mama! Oklahoma in there!" Sweet. In we went. We strolled around and she picked up the odd shoe, snuggled the toy Pooh bear that is there to distract fidgety toddlers, and when I asked "Did you have fun in Oklahoma? Are you ready to say goodbye?", she waved at the store and said "Bye Oklahoma! See you next time!" and followed me out the door.

The whole thing was right out of the twilight zone. But it made an impression on her. When I was getting her pj's on tonight I asked her what her favourite part of the day was...you guessed it:

"OKLAHOMA!!!"

Potty Mouth

Today E was sitting in her high chair, eating lunch, when I thought I heard some air escaping from her seat. I was prepared to ignore it, but she looked at me with her eyes wide and innocent and declared "Dada farted!" Well, dada was asleep in the bedroom, and as skilled as he is at letting the air out, even he can't throw them. I couldn't believe it. First she frames Ralph for barking, and now this?

I looked at her with suspicion and asked "Are you sure that was dada?" And do you know what she said, the little stinker? She looked at me with a smile and replied "Blame it on dada!"

Smart cookie, that one.

Speaking of all things cute and potty-related, we tried to get E to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for Grandma and Papa earlier this evening, but she clammed up on us. We should have stuck her on the can - she does some of her best work there...

I should be sleeping...

...because I know that E will wake me up at some point and J is working overnight and won't be able to take over when I reach my boiling point...

...but we had the most awesome day today and I just have to share.

J's aunt called us this morning to see if we would be interested in going to the New York Aquarium with her and her two boys, whom my girl loves beyond comprehension. She loves them so much that she has morphed them in her mind into one amazing entity: WillieJohn. Sometimes she can tell them apart, sometimes she can't. But it doesn't matter because she only ever sees them together and she loves the pants off of them.

After watching the kids oooh and aaah over fish of all shapes and sizes for an hour or two, we raced over to the cinema just in time for a 4-D showing of a 15 minute short of The Polar Express with Tom Hanks. E has never seen a movie. And this was 4-D. I didn't even know what that meant. She was MESMERIZED from the moment she donned the glasses. And by the way, multi-D glasses have made great strides since the cardboard red/blue lens days. These were proper shades. Geeky shades, mind you, but I almost needed to steal a pair. Oh, relax, I returned them. E's too. She sat on my lap transfixed, so much so that J and I repeatedly checked that her eyes were open. She loved it. We went twice. The 4th D, in case you're as out of touch as I was, involves being sprayed lightly with mist and having air blown on your neck and bubbles fall from the ceiling. It's pretty freakin' cool. It reminded me of the Indiana Jones show at Universal Studios circa 20 years ago...ouch. I think that is still my favourite ride ever. Anyway, as first movie experiences go, this one was pretty sweet. And a great kick-off to the Christmas extravaganza blowout we intend to expose E to this year, now that she's old enough to appreciate it. This evening while walking Ralph she asked "Where's Hallowe'en decorations?" My response was "Oh, just wait, love. Just you wait." I can't wait for Christmas.

But I've slid off-track. After the Aquarium we took a stroll on the boardwalk, being in Coney Island, and spent a few minutes on the beach at the insistence of the under-7 crowd, building sandcastles and trying to avoid the broken glass. Once we convinced Willie to put his shoes back on we went in search of food and landed in Brooklyn's Chinatown, where we had an outstanding meal of dim sum at Pacificana.

By the time we got home we were giddy and exhausted. J napped for about 45 minutes before heading out for his overnight shift, and E and I did a little playing and reading before she dropped off to sleep right on time. And in the midst of all this fun, I wrote just over 3000 words today.

Quite a nice little Saturday indeed.

Daddy's Girl

E went through a long, painfully long phase of being a Mommy's girl. While part of me loved it, it got a bit tough at times when she only wanted me for everything. And I felt pretty bad for J, who kept trying, through the screams and the tears and the tantrums. He had to fight for his hugs and his kisses, and often just go without them. He wasn't allowed to read stories, he wasn't allowed to give baths or feed her dinner. He tried giving her space, he tried bribes, he tried pretending to be mama, but in the end it was just a waiting game. He has a thicker skin than I do, I'll say that for him.

Now, finally, the tide is turning. Dada gets to read stories at bedtime. Dada gets to have her all to himself while Mama cooks dinner with not a single complaint. She has games that she plays with Dada that she won't play with Mama. When we read books about mamas and babies, she changes the mamas to dadas. When she plays with her stethoscope or her pens she says "Like Dada!" When she gets dressed in the morning she runs out to "Show Dada!" And if he wants a hug or a kiss, he never has to ask twice. She even has a special hug for Dada called the "squeeze hug". They go on dates. They do "running high fives", and I'm sure as she gets older there will be more things that they share, just the two of them. This is what J has been waiting for after all those months of playing second fiddle or, more accurately, no fiddle at all.

Oh, and he lets her play with computer way more than mom does. That helps.

Back on top

Just a quick one to announce with pride that I'm back in black, baby. For the first time in a week or so I am ahead of schedule. By, get this - 41 whole words. Whew. What a relief. I'm going to bed now.

Hahaha. It's like J and I, only his response to "What did you do all day?" is "Uh, I saved a couple of lives." And he's a bit more supportive. So really it's not at all like us. But funny nonetheless.

Almost halfway at the halfway mark

I tried, I really did. And I came close. But in the end the lack of sleep and the fear of yet another 3am wake up call from she-who-will-not-sleep-alone sent me to bed before I had reached my goal.

I didn't make it to 25,000 words by midnight, which would put me smack dab in the middle of my novel, smack dab in the middle of the month. But I did make it to 24,262, which means a couple of things to me. It means that I did some serious catching up in the last few days, after being more than 3,000 words behind at one point. It also means that I'm actually doing this thing. This is the longest body of work that I have ever written, by about 20 pages or so. I tend to write shorter things, and have often wondered if I'm more of a short story writer. So this is exciting territory for me. I'm still not anywhere close to novel length, but, at 50 pages, I think I've surpassed the short story mark, and now it just remains to be seen whether I've got enough in me to sustain the story for another 50 pages, and then another 50...until we have a nice big fat book on our hands. I've come to realize that 50,000 words is only going to be about a hundred pages, which doesn't sound like much of a read. So while I will hit 50K in 30 days, I may just have to continue on from there to produce something that I can be satisfied with. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. It has certainly been a challenge thus far, and the next fifteen days won't be easy. Carving out time to write amidst an already hectic life, a computer-hoarding husband who forces me to write on paper and transcribe during quick breaks while he takes a shower or walks the dog, a daughter whose naps are getting shorter and shorter and who thinks that cuddling with mom in the middle of the night is the greatest thing ever, is tricky to say the least. Trying to master "creativity on demand" in order to maximize my productivity in the little chunks of time I have is perhaps not the best way to produce a literary work of art, but it gets words on the page and besides, I have always enjoyed the editing process. And boy will there be an editing process when all of this is through. I can't even remember how this thing started, and I don't have the time to go back and check.

No, it's not going to be a masterpiece, at least not before some major re-working, but I can't wait to see what it does turn out to be, and I can't wait to print out all 100+ pages and feel the weight of them in my hands.