I didn't mean for the blog to lie fallow for a long time but long form writing just became something I had to hunt down time for, like so many cavemen stalking a woolly mammoth, and twitter gave suitable vent to most of that need to communicate. And so here we are.
One of the things that blogs do so much better than twitter is to capture the context of a moment and accumulate a bunch of detail that won't squeeze into a 140 character window. I had a lot of that with Owen when he was little and I don't like that I've been missing it with Victoria. As such, this is equal parts catch-up and an optimistic statement about maybe not going away again.
The Kids
Victoria was born with coal black hair (oh so much of it) and eyes as blue as the cloudless summer sky. Her hair has gradually lightened toward my own sort of middling brown and her eyes have lightened as she's gotten older. She has her mom's nose and her mom's smile and very long toes whose provenance remains a mystery.
She's the polar opposite of her brother. Where he has been cautious, she is reckless; where he waited until he had the full mastery of a skill, she begins trying as soon as she can and takes her failures in stride. He eats everything you put in front of him. She turns up her nose at all kinds of things, for all kinds of reasons, and is very demonstrative ("ugh!") when she is unhappy with a situation.
I always know what's going on in Owen's head. V is a black box.
They do have a few things in common. Both of them are affectionate little kids, and both of them are precociously intelligent, in their own different ways.
Fortunately for us, they get along well. Owen loves his little sister and only occasionally makes forays into the realm of jealous behaviour toward her. Today he took the opportunity to finish feeding her the last of her lunch, which was quite a feat. I found no small amusement in the fact that Owen opens his mouth when trying to get V to take a spoonful of food, just as I do, and my father before me.
Owen Goes to School
Owen starts school on Friday and he is so ready. He just turned 4 (celebrating his birthday at Day Out with Thomas in Pennsylvania, birthday party to follow) but he's good to go. His school is a hair under one kilometer away so he can take the bus but the ride is only 4 minutes each way. I suspect this will be a bigger disappointment initially than it will prove to be over time.
While in Pennsylvania, Owen got Wiggles Jr as a birthday present. Wiggles Jr is a small scale version of Wiggles. The pig probably had a different name at first, but it didn't survive contact with Owen. He wouldn't stop talking about how much fun he'd have showing Wiggles Jr his room and house and toys once we got back.
Victoria, the First Nine Months
The agreement was that it would be 'Tori' and never 'Vicky', but Tori hasn't really caught on as of yet. So far it's Victoria, or V, or one of her nicknames (sweet pea, B (?), cricket, sweetie, bright eyes).
At the end of nine months she has 8 teeth and no words, although she has few difficulties getting across her intentions regardless. She went from rolling to crawling to standing with the aid of something to hold onto in less than a two week span, and is currently working as hard as she can on getting her balance. She's pretty close, some days.
She's a cuddler, especially when she first wakes up. She doesn't have a favourite animal yet (like Cow or Wiggles for Owen), and I haven't noticed a particular inclination toward any particular fetish object, like Owen's school buses, but she hasn't started talking yet, so maybe it'll come with time.
Writing Stuff
Novel #2 is ready for querying, which was delayed by vacation time and the aforementioned start of school. In the interim, I'm having fun writing short stories. It's not something I laboured with much ambition over the years but now that I'm writing them I find the challenge to be very engaging and very different than the other types of writing I've done.
Incidentally, if you think regular publishing is slow, write some stories and send them out. Holy smokes.
11 Years, No Fatalities
Today I told Victoria that she missed the first decade of her mom and me, but she would be around for the really good stuff, because it does just keep on getting better.
Still not sure why my lovely wife married me but I'm glad she did.
One of the things that blogs do so much better than twitter is to capture the context of a moment and accumulate a bunch of detail that won't squeeze into a 140 character window. I had a lot of that with Owen when he was little and I don't like that I've been missing it with Victoria. As such, this is equal parts catch-up and an optimistic statement about maybe not going away again.
The Kids
Victoria was born with coal black hair (oh so much of it) and eyes as blue as the cloudless summer sky. Her hair has gradually lightened toward my own sort of middling brown and her eyes have lightened as she's gotten older. She has her mom's nose and her mom's smile and very long toes whose provenance remains a mystery.
She's the polar opposite of her brother. Where he has been cautious, she is reckless; where he waited until he had the full mastery of a skill, she begins trying as soon as she can and takes her failures in stride. He eats everything you put in front of him. She turns up her nose at all kinds of things, for all kinds of reasons, and is very demonstrative ("ugh!") when she is unhappy with a situation.
I always know what's going on in Owen's head. V is a black box.
They do have a few things in common. Both of them are affectionate little kids, and both of them are precociously intelligent, in their own different ways.
Fortunately for us, they get along well. Owen loves his little sister and only occasionally makes forays into the realm of jealous behaviour toward her. Today he took the opportunity to finish feeding her the last of her lunch, which was quite a feat. I found no small amusement in the fact that Owen opens his mouth when trying to get V to take a spoonful of food, just as I do, and my father before me.
Owen Goes to School
Owen starts school on Friday and he is so ready. He just turned 4 (celebrating his birthday at Day Out with Thomas in Pennsylvania, birthday party to follow) but he's good to go. His school is a hair under one kilometer away so he can take the bus but the ride is only 4 minutes each way. I suspect this will be a bigger disappointment initially than it will prove to be over time.
While in Pennsylvania, Owen got Wiggles Jr as a birthday present. Wiggles Jr is a small scale version of Wiggles. The pig probably had a different name at first, but it didn't survive contact with Owen. He wouldn't stop talking about how much fun he'd have showing Wiggles Jr his room and house and toys once we got back.
Victoria, the First Nine Months
The agreement was that it would be 'Tori' and never 'Vicky', but Tori hasn't really caught on as of yet. So far it's Victoria, or V, or one of her nicknames (sweet pea, B (?), cricket, sweetie, bright eyes).
At the end of nine months she has 8 teeth and no words, although she has few difficulties getting across her intentions regardless. She went from rolling to crawling to standing with the aid of something to hold onto in less than a two week span, and is currently working as hard as she can on getting her balance. She's pretty close, some days.
She's a cuddler, especially when she first wakes up. She doesn't have a favourite animal yet (like Cow or Wiggles for Owen), and I haven't noticed a particular inclination toward any particular fetish object, like Owen's school buses, but she hasn't started talking yet, so maybe it'll come with time.
Writing Stuff
Novel #2 is ready for querying, which was delayed by vacation time and the aforementioned start of school. In the interim, I'm having fun writing short stories. It's not something I laboured with much ambition over the years but now that I'm writing them I find the challenge to be very engaging and very different than the other types of writing I've done.
Incidentally, if you think regular publishing is slow, write some stories and send them out. Holy smokes.
11 Years, No Fatalities
Today I told Victoria that she missed the first decade of her mom and me, but she would be around for the really good stuff, because it does just keep on getting better.
Still not sure why my lovely wife married me but I'm glad she did.
1 comment:
I don't know why she did, either -- but I am so glad she did.
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