Worst Baby Book Ever

I miss posting on this blog. I really would like to share more with all my loyal readers. (Hi, Readers! Sorry about the lack of content! I hope you still like me!!!!1exclam!!1) But I have been uninspired lately. I'm super busy at work, it's been very wintry outside, the chores never end, and... I don't really have any good reasons. (Unless you count how Andrew began P90X a few weeks ago and has been using my computer to view his workout nearly every evening, making blogging much more difficult.) And I know I'm doing that thing I used to do in college, where I just sort of shut down when the list of things to do (or in this case, write about) got so long and overwhelming that it seemed impossible to catch up on. So I put it off until the last minute. In college, the last minute was the due date or final. In blogging, I don't have that safety net. I can ignore this thing eternally.

But I don't want to do that. I want this blog to serve as Milo's baby book and my back-up memory. I want it to be my phone calls with long-distance family and friends, and my hi-how-are-you notes to the people I care about. So I promise to keep trying, keep writing, and keep sharing photos of my adorable baby. Because I know that's all you're here for, anyway.

Tonight I give you a few short updates/random thoughts.

• I've been in a decorating mood lately. I'm working on our office, the master bedroom, the dining room, and the future playroom (but only sort of half-assed on the playroom). The office is looking fantastic, and I have so many ideas for our bedroom I'm bursting.
• I have successfully given away a bunch of weights using the website ReUseItKC.com (or something; it was a yahoo group) and I would like to get rid of more stuff. Which reminds me: Jeff, if you would still like that rustic-looking wooden thing with the mirror and the coat hooks, it's all yours. You can pick it up whenever you like. Thanks.
• Milo shakes his head "no" ALL THE TIME. I am not convinced he fully understands what "no" means, but he does use the head shake to turn down food, refuse a nose-wipe, request a different game, and indicate that he is done with dinner.
• I would like a bed from Ikea. The Edland four-poster bed. If anyone would like to get one for me and bring it to me, I would like that very much.
• I stripped our cloth diapers today with a little Dawn dish soap, some nearly boiling water, and a whole bunch of rinses. Cross your fingers that they quit leaking. And to all the ladies at daycare, please quit using Desitin with our cloth diapers!
• The voice-recognition product I spent months working on a year and a half ago has made it to Hallmark stores, and it's selling really well. I'm quite proud of it, actually, so please go check out the new Interactive Storybook & Story Buddy from Hallmark. Cooper the Bear and Watson the Raccoon are both available, and they're both really fun and cute.
• Milo's first birthday is just around the corner, and I am going with a robot theme. I wanted to make a robot cake, but since I'm no pastry chef, I thought it best to practice. Well. This weekend I attempted my first cake, and, well, Robot Cake = FAIL. I am now considering a hopefully much simpler Rice Krispie treat robot. That doesn't sound too hard, does it? Of course, I didn't think the cake would be that hard, either...
• We ordered two convertible car seats this weekend. Milo is just way too big to keep carrying around in that infant seat. Technically, he can go in it until he's 30 pounds, but a) he's heavy enough in that seat at 20 pounds, and b) he's very close to maxing out the height. So time for a new seat. The seat that sounded great online is not available in any local stores, so I ordered it sight unseen. Hope we like it.
• My weight loss is not going well, as of late. I keep eating like crap, and the scale is reflecting it. It sucks and makes me mad at myself.
• I have a confession to make: We pay people to clean our house. There, I said it. I've been feeling inadequate because I hardly ever clean anything, and lazy because I don't want to spend my short amount of free time cleaning, and awful because good moms probably vacuum occasionally or something. I didn't want to admit that we can't even keep our own house clean so I have hardly told anyone that we got a housecleaning service. But the silence ends now. And for the record, I totally recommend paying someone to clean your home. It's much nicer than cleaning it yourself.
• My husband has spectacular legs. When he does his P90X ab workout, his shorts slide up when he does reverse crunches and such, and let me tell you, those are some nice legs he's showing off.

Come on, guys. Is putting a napkin on my head really necessary?

Okay, I admit it, that was kind of fun. Again?

A few words on writing

I never thought of myself as a writer. An editor, sure, but never a writer. And yet here I am. I suppose I always had writer tendencies. As a child, I always chose the young writers’ competition over the science fair. I even wrote little stories about sea otters or orphans or whatever subject I happened to have recently read about. In junior high I wrote in a journal. But if you asked me what I would become, I never would have said a writer.

And yet a writer is what I am. True, my employer claims that I am an editor. But editing is not what brings the glory. “I edited 850 books this year,” I say. “Oh, that’s interesting,” people say as their eyes glaze over and their minds drift away to thoughts of defrosting chicken or of last night’s game. But when I say “I wrote four books this year,” it’s an entirely different story. “Oh, really?” they say as they sit up a little straighter. “That’s so cool! What kind of books?”

I don’t know why this matters. I think it’s cooler to write books than to edit them, too. Maybe it’s just that I love editing and the fact that I’ve found someone who will pay me to do what I love seems worthy of some recognition, whereas writing is something that just fell into my lap.

However, there is a certain something about being a writer that evokes a very visceral image. I can’t help but picture myself as l’auteur—a hybrid of New York sophistication and 1920s old worldliness—at a cocktail party celebrating the launch of my book tour, perched on the edge of a leather club chair with chardonnay in one hand, crudité in the other, gaily recounting stories of toiling over my first manuscript, stories of sitting quietly for hours watching the mist rise over my own Walden Pond just waiting for inspiration to strike or of losing myself at my Smith Corona, whom I’ve nicknamed “Old Faithful”—and of course I say “whom” and not “which” because she is no less a part of my family than my own mother, and also I’m a writer and I want everyone to know I understand the difference between who and whom—and as I type I am certain that I am writing The Great American Novel and that fame and fortune will soon be mine…

My own stories are not of typewriters and nature. They are of cubicles and a nameless iMac. And I am not writing The Great American Novel or any novel at all; I am writing children’s books and gift books. But I wouldn’t change a thing. And I can’t wait for the day when the first book I wrote hits the shelves (coming soon to a Hallmark Gold Crown store near you).