Friday Five: A New Hope

1. Without at first realizing that today is the 30th anniversary of the release of The Empire Strikes Back, I'd planned to blog today a little about the original three Star Wars flicks, which I've just watched in rapid succession thanks to my recent birthday gift. That was a long sentence.

Empire, as we all know, is the best of the three. Jedi is the worst. A New Hope, as we now know the original Star Wars movie, doesn't get a lot of credit either way. Sure, it gets quoted plenty ("But I was going to Tashi Station to pick up some power converters waaah," for example), but its strengths as a film and tale are not so often discussed. I'm here to tell you, it's really good. It's a freakin' awesome fantasy YA, is what it is. Imagine, if you will, a novel version of A New Hope. We'd have third-person POV, natch, with alternating close third for Luke and Leia's convergent arcs. Both characters do quite a lot of "meeting the world," in my mind the foremost quality in good YA. And, if not for -- let's face it -- Mr. Hamill's catastrophic acting and whining, both characters would be insanely sympathetic to adolescent or arrested-adolescent viewers. LIKE ME.

As for Jedi, it's as bad as you remember, or possibly worse. I found it was worse. I found the Ewoks more annoying than I thought they were. I was happy when one died. Also, Luke is STILL freakin' whining. Han, once a scruffy-looking dangerous man, is endlessly slapsticking around with his goofball sidekick Chewie. Poor Chewie. I ask you, would Chewbacca of A New Hope fall for the old meat-on-a-branch trick? No freakin' way.

But I've said too much.

2. It's also the 30th anniversary of Pac Man, in case you haven't noticed.

3. What else? BEA is what else. For me and the good people at Carolrhoda Lab (and the rest of Lerner), it starts on Monday night with the big to-do. I'm not remotely nervous!

4. Did I mention finals are in? Lookit.


5. And finally, as if I wasn't already a nervous wreck, today Sam, Beth, and I visited a pre-school. In the fall, my tiny baby boy will very likely join a two-year-old, two-day-per-week pre-school. I can hardly stand to think of it. Luckily I have the whole summer to get used to the idea.

Sick son

Sam has had a wicked cough for ages now. It feels like it's been a month.

So far it's meant two trips to the children's ER in St. Paul, one for croup, one for high fever and rapid breathing.

We're confident it's nothing serious. But when this kid takes a deep breath and goes off on a real fit, his eyes wide open, gradually filling with fear and tears, then reddening at the edges until he seems about to burst, and finally gagging on the urge to cough so he nearly vomits, or does vomit . . . it sure seems serious.

Everything I read online--worst thing to do with a medical question, as everyone knows--suggests that a toddler's cough often lasts this long, or longer. It still sucks.

Big, cold week

It's super cold out again. We had a mini-March of sort for the last seven days or so, but as of yesterday, and certainly as of today if my cold toes are to be trusted, January is back, 110%. Let's all put our heads down against the wind and get through it.

That is, as soon as I get back from New York. I'll grant you, New York isn't much of a respite from winter blues, but it's a little one, if your winter blues are Minnesotan -- especially if while in New York you get to go to the SCBWI Annual Conference! Which of course I do. I'm extra excited (and nervous) this year because I get to meet my inimitable agent, ENIV, and hopefully a handful of Tenners, of which I've met exactly none, at least in person. Online we are not counting for these purposes. Or porpoises. I have a cold and feel very foggy in the head, but I'm sure I mean "purposes" or "porpoises."

I like dolphins.

Yesterday morning, I finally decided to send a finished draft of YA MS the Third to ENIV. I know it's not perfect, so yesterday's decision was about letting it not be perfect, after lying awake night and night and anguishing over every paragraph and plot decision for the past several months. I think it's good. I think it still could use some work, but let's remember that agents and editors (if this book ends up seeing any) are very helpful people when it comes to creating a book. Now, I will look forward to hearing from ENIV and his thoughts on what I've written.

Is it okay to say I know a lot of it is really good?

Now, back to life. Everyone here is sick with a cold; Sam probably picked it up at the Rosedale Mall play area late last week, and has been good enough to share it with myself and my wife since then, by all manner of coughing and sneezing on our faces.

Resolutions, but not the kind you expect

You'll notice I haven't posted any resolutions this January. I suppose I could--like finishing both my YA WIPs; like cutting my cholesterol and getting back on my bike this spring--but I don't feel like it. So let's just say it's those three things and move on.

Here's a rare Sam update: We got him this little blue chair, still a little big for his modest frame. Still, he uses it well. He pushes it all over the house, then uses it to climb up to places he ought not, like toy chest tops and kitchen counters and dining room tables. So that's fun.

Beth has taken to bakin'. There is fresh bread all the time. It's fantastic.

Today was red-carpet day in children's books, as most of you probably know, and I have a lot of reading to do, for sure. You may recall a mention of one winner here at the Exile some time ago. I loved it then and am happy with the choice, for sure.

But awards day is something else to me too. It's a day I get particularly fired up to do the hard work it takes to write a really good book. Last year, I had just submitted a complete MS to the AE for the first time, and was taking a little break before shooting off to SCBWI in NYC. This year, I haven't submitted anything to anyone in far too long, and I have a week and a half and a couple of write days and nights before SCBWI in NYC. So I plan to take advantage of the ALA-inspired fire in my gut. With that in mind, I'm making not New Year's resolutions, as I mentioned above, but instead, ALA Awards Resolutions:

1. YA MS the Third: this thing has been sitting about twenty feet from the goal line for months, no exaggeration. Plenty of excuses, but no exaggeration. There are a few scenes I know I need to write, but that will also mean lots of revisions to existent scenes that I love and don't want to revisit. That idiocy ends now. The work will get done on Wednesday and Saturday.

2. YA MS the Second: this needs a synopsis. This time last year, I thought I was about to finish it. I had written about 40k in about a month, and was loving every minute of it. Then plot holes and wrong turns reared their ugly heads (as did another book by a brilliant writer also about a girl and her werewolf man), so I put it on the back burner and have only tweaked it slightly over the last year. That idiocy ends now. I will synopsize this beast by the middle of February.

And that's it. Beyond February 15 (happy seventh birthday, Harry!), I'm not making any promises. Sure, there's that middle grade series that I want to rewrite YA, and there's the story of a couple of background characters in |-1| I want to revisit, but I'll probably make a nice set of post-BEA resolutions.

Oh, and I promise to blog more. Natch.

One post, two Sams

We're skipping ECFE this morning, I'm sorry to report. Sam's fighting a cold that has his nose running like a faucet, so rather than spread the cold to twenty other toddlers, we thought it best to stay home. I'll do some laundry. We'll have a blast.

Anyway, drop over to the Stone Arch Books blog today. They've posted a guest post I did about my favorite character from the Field Trip Mysteries. (Between you and me, she was also named for after my son.)

One year!

Sam's going to bed now. His first birthday was pretty fun: Beth took the day off from work, so we got to spend it as a family. And it started off with a bang: Sam's third tooth broke through overnight. That's a relief. The first celebration was pancakes from scratch for breakfast, which came out better than I thought they would. I mean, I made them, so I figured it would be a mess and we'd end up going out for breakfast. But everyone enjoyed them. After Sam's morning nap, we were off to the Children's Museum for big fun, and then lunch at Tanpopo, which of course was more for Beth than for Sam, but it turned out he enjoyed udon quite a lot. For dinner, we had one of my specialties, known around here as Kafka. It's actually kofta kebab, off the kebab, and spiced with a little Moroccan flare. We have it with tzatziki, a tomato and cucumber salad, and this time with a homemade flatbread Beth just learned to make that was amazing. For the full experience, we then get arrested for a crime we may or may not have committed and end up lost in a maze of bureaucracy.

Anyway, in the morning, we'll start year number two. If it's half as good (for all of us) as Sam's first year, we'll be the happiest family around*.

Beth posted the birth story over at her blog; she set it to auto-post right at 1:43 this morning, Sam's official time of birth. You might not enjoy reading it quite as much as I did, but I think it'll make you smile. It has a very happy ending.

*Yes, in this photo Sam is wearing the hat they put on his head in the hospital when he was born. We posed him in it on his six-month birthday, too. Shut up.

Look at him now!

One year ago today, Beth went into labor.

Sam's first birthday isn't officially until tomorrow, but to me it starts right now. I still have, somewhere in my little notebook that was supposed to be for writing down story ideas or plot notes, several pages of timed contractions from that day.

In other news, you have right around 24 hours left to enter the big Eric Stevens/Jake Maddox giveaway. Even if these aren't your type of books, they make a great package to donate to a local library. I know a lot of the libraries in our area are in need of all the help they can get; yours probably are too! So enter! Click here! Do it today!

We have a title!

The big news today is the title of YA Novel the First is official:

The Absolute Value of -1

It may be written as |-1| to save time. So from now on, the tag for anything related to YA MS the First aka YA Novel the First aka The Absolute Value of -1 will be |-1|. Does anyone blog read using the tags? I mean, I know I do, but does anyone else?

Related: I just signed three copies of my contract for that novel and sent them off to my smartly dressed agent back in New York City.

Not related: You can still enter for a complete set of Field Trip Mysteries, the first season. And by that I mean, please enter! I want more entries.

Note to self: Buy for Sam a toy with buttons similar to those of the light switch in the dining room. If you do not, he will throw tantrums until you hold him in front of that light switch and let him push it over and over, possibly for hours at a time.

Allow me to ramble and whine about T-shirts, please

I have several favorite T-shirts. Shall I name them? I shall:

Helmet (Meantime-era logo)
01000100 01000001 01000100
Space Invaders
Strong Bad I
Strong Bad II
Four Gregs
SAB
Rockford Spelling Bowl

That's all of them, in no particular order. But here's the thing: Helmet, due to intense wear, and Strong Bad I, due to my having worn it while painting Sam's bedroom, are no longer public appropriate. Clearly, I need to replace those shirts. But meanwhile, I haven't had the extreme pleasure of wearing my Helmet T-shirt in months.

I know!

I wear T-shirts all day, every day (writer lifestyle FTW!), barring some kind of fancy-shmancy social engagement, like a wedding, for which I obviously need to wear a shirt with a collar so the tie won't look silly. But meanwhile, I live in constant fear that my favorite shirts -- the ones still presentable -- will soon become worn and unwearable!

The solution is clearly to right now buy an extra of each of my favorite shirts. Does this sound like a good idea?

But more relevant: why am I wasting blog space and your time with this issue? Who knows.

Today, beginning at noonish, I will enjoy a surprise WYAOD. An hour or so of it will be for SAB work. But after that, I intend to attack YA MS the Third with a vengeance. Much revising needs to be done, and I'm the man for the job.

Ooh! And some friends have lent to Sam a cool little car thingy that lets him practice walking! Enjoy this video.

Going back east, sans laptop

I am saddened, for two reasons:

1. I lost a follower on this blog! I'm back down to 30. Sadness. I think I get a few followers here who aren't terribly interested in anything I have to say but are merely hoping I'll follow them back. I get a tremendous number of such followers on Twitter, too. Oh well. Good riddance, I suppose.

2. My laptop--aka, the most important inanimate object in my life--is in dire need of repair. The display simply doesn't work, 9 out of 10 times I try to start it up. And that 10th time, it usually goes black after a few minutes. The thing is still on warranty, so I'll have to ship it out to Dell and wait for it to return to me.

I am cheered, as well, though. For beginning Tuesday of next week, my family will spend a week in New York! This is great for all the usual reasons (i.e., food), but also because we will finally meet Sam's cousin Jaden, born to my brother and his wife in California way back in December!

With any luck at all, my laptop will be back in my possession shortly after we return home in early July. Then I can get cracking on YA MS the Third, which I am re-excited about after a long discussion with my agent yesterday. Oh, and YA Novel the First? I have to write the two tiniest little passages you ever heard of, which I'll probably do this weekend on Beth's laptop (using it right now!), and then I do believe the editing portion of our show will be over. Woo! Then it's final title, cover ideas . . . I can't stand it.

Oh, and speaking of early July, here is a public service announcement: Please, if you live near a family with a dog, don't shoot off firecrackers or fireworks. Thank you. Oh, also if you have fingers.

01000100 01000001 01000100

I'm unbelievably tired.

This was, hands down, my best Father's Day ever. It was of course my first, too, but still.

The gifts! My new favorite shirt, narrowly nudging my previous favorite out of first place, is this here:

To find out what it says, go here and use the translator.

Beth gave me that shirt yesterday, on behalf of Sammy, who of course saved up his allowance to buy it for me. Harry didn't get me anything but a crappy card, if you're wondering.

This morning, Beth gave me her present, which is one of the coolest presents ever. It's a calendar of the next 12 months, and once a month, Beth has declared an WYAOD. To go along with these WYAODs, she has given gift cards to my favorite "satellite offices," totaling more than enough money with which to buy coffees and cakes and bagels and such to have a very successful 12 WYAODs. I'm very excited about this. My two WIPs, and maybe even that peskey MG I haven't touched in ages, will get very whipped into shape, no doubt about it.

Following a short bike ride for breakfast on my own, we three headed to the Children's Museum in downtown Saint Paul. It was all of our first time going, and we all loved it. Awesomely, it was "Free Day," which we didn't even know when we headed down there and were thrilled to hear it. Sam got to enjoy the Habitot room, specifically for kids 6 to 48 months old. (Sam's 10 months, by the way.) It was one of the few times so far in his life he's had the opportunity to play with other babies his age, so that was a pleasure to watch.

Lunch at Midtown Global Market, ice cream at Izzy's, a nice long family walk . . . All in all, a great Father's Day, a holiday that's actually been pretty crappy for me for the last nine years. So it was a nice, very welcome, change.

Oh, there was that pesky Chapter-a-Day Challenge that a few Tenners, including myself, were doing this weekend. I didn't win. I failed in epic proportions. Other than revisions, it was a work-free weekend. Also a nice and welcome change, I suppose.

In which yet another writer makes me want to quit

Apologies. I finished Liar like three days ago and never came back to tell you how much I freaking loved it right to death. Amazing! I was maybe ten or fifteen pages into part two when I was overcome with an urge to never do anything for the rest of my life but read this book.

So yeah. Loved it. Read it like your life depends on it*. (When I rave about a book, I freakin' rave about a book.)

My one problem is the cover, because the model used looks exactly nothing like the protagonist Micah, who is partially of African American descent and has very close-cut, kinky hair. Not remotely the person on the cover. Still, it's just a cover, and if it puts the book in more people's hands, I'm okay with it.

Anyway, not much other news. Dragged Sam to the Como Zoo and he still couldn't care less. The fact is, he'd rather admire Harry up close than an orangutan from fifty feet away. He did giggle at a bison, though I missed the joke there.

Got my first notes from Aforementioned Editor, too, by the way. On Friday, in fact. I've gone through them. I have a little work to do. I don't think anything too, too terribly difficult came up, so hopefully we're close to sending this bad boy out for (dun dun DUN) blurbs! I have a wish list. I'm not telling it to you.

*Important note: Liar will not be on sale until the very end of September of this year. My apologies, but your life will have to wait.

Perfect Thursday

Another week has simply flown by, hasn't it?

It really did go by quickly, and frankly at the moment I can't remember most of it. I'm fairly sure I haven't done my 5000 words for the week, per Purple Clover's challenge, but I am going to take write night tonight, so hopefully I can come close.

How much flashback is too much flashback? I find flashbacks to be an excellent device for maintaining suspense, especially in dramatic and realistic fiction. It worked well for the likes of Jellicoe Road, and Sweethearts, and my own YA Novel the First and YA MS the Second. My current WIP, though, might be taking it too far, with a full three separate eras that need concentration: the first summer, the second summer, and the present day (literally, just the one day). I'm having trouble making this work. My goal yesterday, during an unexpected and most excellent half WYAOD, or WHYAOD, I managed to outline every crucial event in chronological order. Now I simply need to weave the times together into a fabric that will maintain suspense without jarring or confusing the reader. It will be a job of work, a lot of me sitting in coffeeshops, staring into space, and going, "Hmm."

Rather against my typical coy attitude with regard to my WIPs, I sent a few pages -- maybe 20% of what I've gotten down -- off to my agent for his opinions. I look forward to hearing back, but it will undoubtedly be a long weekend while I wait.

Oh, and after a great afternoon of cycling and writing yesterday (including lunch at Hiawatha Pizza--that dude better stay in business!), I met up with Beth and Sam at Punch for more pizza. I believe, by the way, that cycling, writing, Beth, Sam, and pizza are the sum total of the interests listed on my Facebook page. I'm not sure pizza is there, but it certainly ought to be. Which makes yesterday the perfect day!

In other news this week, I joined a new crit group, strictly online, with a group of four other gentlemen (a term I'm using very loosely). I have a feeling we are the only crit group of all guys working on literature for young people in the world. We'd have to be, according to the statistical odds.

Stand, fall, sleep, write, go broke

My goodness, I've gone clear from Monday to Friday without updating. For shame! In truth, I've been a busy guy this week. For starters, as I think I mentioned, Sam is standing with the help of anything he can find. That means he is also falling. That means I spend most of my time following him around the house, wondering what he will use to pull himself up. Some options include the couch, a toy drum, the step stool in the kitchen, an empty coffee can, the laundry basket, and my lap*.



Also, since Eric Stevens was so late with his last job, I had to make up for his lazy ass by getting my latest job in early, specifically today. I've also sent in one spec sample for some new work-for-hire stuff (I'll have to let Eric Stevens and Deirdre Black fight it out to see who gets that job--if the samples are enjoyed, that is), and been working a bit on YA MS the Second.

NEWSFLASH! Just this morning, a new addition to my repertoire of silly nicknames: YA MS the Third! It came to me in the last couple of days, and, as I lay awake in bed this morning from 2 to 3:30, I wrote the first page or so in my head. Upon crawling out of bed at a little before 6 (thank you, Misters Sam and Goddamn Cardinal in the Lilac Bush Outside Our Bedroom Window), I typed it out, mostly as I had planned, I think, and it came to three pages. Clearly not an auspicious, mindblowing start to a new project. But it does feel right, and frankly brilliant, so although it can't get my attention right away, keep your eyes peeled for more on YA MS the Third.

And finally, the engine light. $2100 later, the light is now off. I made the guy behind the counter promise to give Sam a job when he turns sixteen so he can pay for his own college tuition. Zing!

*The video title was not my idea, but Beth's, so don't think I'm judging my wife because Sam fell. Babies fall; Sam is a baby. Ergo, not the worst mother by any measure.

Id est

I didn't realize it had been five days since the last post.

As I think I mentioned, Saturday (i.e., two days ago) was WYAODII for me, and it happily coincided with a Tenners weekend event, known through the Twitterverse as #ChapterChallenge. All in all, though I didn't follow the oh-so-strict guidelines as establish by Trish Doller and Josh Berk (i.e., write one chapter per day, Friday to Monday), I did manage to write on Friday, Saturday, and a little bit today over 5000 words, in a total of four chapters and change, most of which, even in the cold light of the morning, seem pretty good. This is for YA MS the Second, naturally, which you will recall enjoyed a Eureka! moment over lunch with Beth last weekend.

The rest of the weekend was spent grilling with friends, of course, and going on many, many walks, including two good ones today alone. I even got out on the bike for a short while today with no place special to go.

In other news, holy crap Sam is pulling himself into a standing position. I'm glad I got a lot of writing done this weekend, because it may have been my last chance for a long while.

BEA is this week. I remain jealous of those attending.

The "check engine" light came on in my car this weekend, too, and, having exhausted my own know-how in car maintenance (i.e., I checked the oil level; it was A-OK), I'm going to have to bring the ol' Camry in to Midas this week. Hopefully, the student art show is still showing at Harmar Mall!

Down with the sickness? No. Not down at all.

I've got a wicked cold. It seems a bit better today than yesterday.

Sam's got a wicked cold. It seems about ten times worse today than yesterday.

Sam had a load of trouble sleeping through the night. Babies shouldn't take Nyquil, you see. For that reason, I had slight trouble sleeping through the night, but the Nyquil I was allowed to take helped. Beth, on the other hand, was up for too long, too many times, soothing a sick baby. And also soothing Sam. Ha! Kidding. But in truth, my extra-loud-because-of-my-stuffed-nose-and-Nyquil snoring definitely didn't make Beth's night any easier.

Here's the point: I can't get a thing done. Well, I did get a load of laundry done, but I do laundry in my sleep nowadays. I mean writing. I'm not getting any writing done. I have YA MS the Second to work on, plus the next FTM, which is due Friday. I've got a write-night scheduled for tonight, so hopefully I will (A) actually use it, and (B) get something done.

My first class of the summer semester is Thursday, which is also ps my birthday.

You know, if this weren't Tuesday morning, I'd totally head to Azeroth right now. For real.

Day in photos

Today was a rough day down at S&S Children's, my former home away from home. I miss those guys, and my heart goes out to all of them. Those of you who know me know that I don't drop platitudes like that without meaning them.

So, in the hopes of dropping a little happiness, I'll post a few nice photos from our day--the last day with Mom in town.

We went to the zoo at Como Park this morning. Though many of the animals are still being kept inside most of the time, it was a good time. That "walking carpet" is a sloth. Didn't move at all. And this orangutan (I think?) got a kick out of walking back and forth in front of the glass, saying hello to all the students from a high school field trip. And Sam got his first-ever ride on a carousel. I do believe he had fun. Though from the pics, maybe not as much fun as his mom and grandma did!

Later, Beth's folks were over for that early Mom's Day celebration. After the guests had left, and we'd cleaned up the dinner debris (big shout-out to my mom for doing dishes duty her whole visit--holla!), Beth spotted a rare double rainbow. It was a sight to see.

So that's our day in photos. Mom is New York-bound tomorrow afternoon.

"And who should I make it out to?"

(Or is that "Out to whom should I make it?"?)

I'm going to try to write an entry, even though Sam is not currently napping. He seems pretty focused on the rug in the hallway.

Big day! I had my first-ever book signing! It was at the International Reading Association north convention in Minneapolis, at booth 1526, to be specific. I must have signed about forty or fifty books. Maybe? I'm not sure; should have kept track. It was pretty thrilling, though. Now, I'm no fool. I know full well that most if not all of the people I signed for today were responding to the big "FREE" on my placard. Still, it was really flattering. Most visitors (librarians and teachers, most of them) were genuinely glad to meet me and have me sign their free book. One teacher said her ELL students had read Mummy at Midnight already, and had liked it a lot. AND one librarian said her boys love the Jake Maddox books. Eric Stevens will be so proud when I tell him. By the way, of the two available books, I Dare You! was the more popular choice by far. We ran out of stock. I think people are looking for "boy" books, and the male narrator and spooky cover fit the bill.

In other news, Beth's mother-in-law is still town, living in the attic. She and Sam get along like a house afire. Tonight, she will babysit so Beth and I can go out for supper. We're thinking Tanpopo. And tomorrow afternoon, in celebration of Mother's Day a little early, we're having Beth's family (or some of it) over for a cookout! Turkey burgers! Turgers! And one veggie burger.

The Truth about Naps

My apologies for another string of silent days here at the Exile. Here's what's new:

I read Sara Zarr's latest, Sweethearts, and while it didn't have quite the same effect on me that Story of a Girl did, it was of course great. She humbles me at every turn of the page; I maintain the slightest hope that she will stoop to blurbing YA Novel the First.

Authors Now!, class of 2010, has graciously accepted my membership. Not sure when my profile will be added to the site, but I'll check occasionally and keep y'all posted. (Not that anything terribly thrilling will be on my profile.) So far, both debut-author-promo groups I've joined have been hella understanding about my previous pubbed work, and therefore nice and loose with their definition of "debut."

I went and joined a crit group via MeetUp.com! It's a weekly group, which is so much more frequent than most I've heard about. Also, it's not strictly children's, which is fine with me. The folks I've met so far haven't been the slightest bit dismissive of YA as a veritable genre of literature, and in fact enjoyed the first chapter of YA MS the Second quite a lot. In many ways, I think YA is as suited with a group of writers of adult lit as it is with a group of writers of children's, especially picture book or chapter book writers, or more so.

Anyway, last night was my first meeting with the group. Only five of us discussed long-form stuff, which was nice, since everyone who submitted material got a good amount of crit in the two hours we spent around the table. At one point, the group leader suggested I go last, because that way I'd be "dessert." I assumed that was a bad thing, like, they were going to eat my piece last, like a drooling cave monster might save the tastiest adventurer to really savor the kill. Of course, you realize I had that wrong, because you, unlike me, are not a crazy person. In fact, "dessert" simply meant "treat," because everyone really liked the chapter I supplied. (I confessed to them that while, yes, I'm confident with my characterization, it's my plot arcs that typically need help. They should stay tuned for the trainwreck that is the continuing YA MS the Second.)

I feel like I probably digressed.

In other news, Sam has one tooth, now visible, as reported by Beth a few days ago. This means his eight-month-long freedom from brushing his teeth before bed has ended. Each night, for the rest of his life, he will have to brush before bed. For now, Beth will do it for him most nights, naturally, but there's no turning back now.

I guess he needs a second tooth before he can floss. So that's something.

Today we're cleaning the house to prepare for the arrival of Beth's mother-in-law, which is a roundabout way of saying "my mom." She arrives Friday afternoon. And you know what that means: live-in babysitter!

Naps seem much longer when you're not taking one.

(That's a lot of text. I better find some images to put in here so your eyes aren't bleeding before you reach the end.)

Free Tree

Today is Earth Day. To celebrate, if I go to the grocery store, I will bring my own bags. As usual. And if I finish a gallon of milk today, I'll recycle the empty bottle. As usual. Oh, and also in two days at McDonaldses in Minnesota, they'll give you a free tree for Arbor Day. I swear. It was in the Strib.

Sam won't take his nap and he's making me mental.

I finally finished this paper for class. One of two papers due. The other is not done, and yet is due tonight. I'm thinking I'll skip class. Truth is, I could use a write-night, as it's been ages since I got any writing done, besides an SAB job or two. (And speaking of, I'm still on the two-per-month schedule for them, which means if I don't get some YA MS the Second work done in the next few days, I'll have missed my window.)

And that's not to mention that this weekend will be almost exclusively dedicated to cleaning up this pig sty we call home. My mom, you see, is coming to visit on May the first. And the place has to be presentable. Even the guest room--which is also my office that I never use--is in complete disarray, mainly thanks to my intricate filing system known as "fling papers around the room while looking for old pay stubs."

Oh! One more exciting thing: I registered for one summer course. It's called Adolescent Literatures, and actually goes toward my teaching license! I hope it will be as fun and awesome as it sounds.

Ah, and one more thing. I've been brainstorming for a way to promote my fellow Tenners here at the Exile, so over the coming weeks, keep your eyes peeled for the occasional special Tenner of the Week thing, or something similar.