What to Do, What to Do

Can you write? Can you edit? Can you multitask? Do you have samples?

Ah, so goes the foray into the job market.

About 10 years ago, a had more samples than you could shake a stick at. Style guides, user manuals, help files, ads. You name it, I had it.

Then my daughter arrived. And boxes of samples were cleared out for rocking horses, and stuffed animals, and GIANT stuffed animals. "I'll never need them again. Or they'll be too outdated by the time I DO need them." I thought. Today, I'm not so sure.

Faced with the prospect of some free time (unless I decide to take up dusting, which I've assured my husband is highly unlikely, despite our family's dust allergies), I've been searching the Web for some freelance writing and editing work. Surely there is something out there for me.

And there is. Loads and loads of wonderful jobs. With just one catch: please include samples.

Does my daughter's memory book count? The eulogy for my father? The ramblings from Belgium?

Perhaps, if I'm witty enough, my blog can count toward my samples. But do I dare revisit those Belgian entries, made during the middle of the night in my English-speaking loneliness? Do I correct the typos, fix my subject-verb agreement?

Or do I start anew?

Yes, anew is good. A clean slate from which I launch my new endeavor. It's a little sad, really. Knowing I have extra free time means that my kids are growing up ... needing me a little less. But having the chance to grow myself -- returning to something I love -- will help me be a better mom and a better person.

And samples don't get any better than that.

What Comes Before Tweens?

Moments of lightness have been few and far between lately, but we've been grateful for every one. It has obviously been a long time since I blogged, but I've had a few requests to begin again. I doubt the future posts will be as exciting as the overseas ones, but I will do my best to entertain.

Over the Thanksgiving holidays, Amelia, age 7, was distraught to be leaving both her best friend and her new puppy. It's hard to say which goodbye was more dramatic -- and traumatic. As soon as we arrived at the airport, Amelia was begging me to hand over my iPhone so she could e-mail Tori. I'm having a hard time accepting the words "text" and "iPhone" and "e-mail" come out of my children's mouths, but I handed the phone over, and Amelia composed her note, sending it to Tori's father's account (thankfully, none of these pre-tweens have established their own e-mail accounts ... yet). Amelia spent the rest of the holiday vacation (seven days, for those interested) refreshing my e-mail, usually hourly, with huge sighs and sulking when she found no return message.

This went on all day, every day. Did I mention vacation was seven days long?

I tried to assure Amelia that this was not a personal affront. They were in Disney, I told her, and they were probably far too busy meeting princesses to send e-mails.

The sighs grew louder, the silence from Tori too much to bear. Coupled with crying herself to sleep each night over Lucky's perceived abuse (or, sometimes, abduction) at the kennel proved too much to bear. She needed an outlet. And it came in the form of a letter.

It was written with all the seriousness a 7-year-old can muster, with the linguistic stylings of iCarly or Victorious thrown in for good measure. I couldn't help but laugh at some parts, be taken aback at others. But I loved how well she expressed herself. Luckily, she forgot about the letter, and I spirited it away. It will find a happy home in the files of other old letters from 7-year-olds, such as my letter to my second-grade teacher saying that I couldn't participate in gym because I had laryngitis (a fantastic word for me to try to spell at that age). I'm sure it will give you all a giggle, as it did us, and bring some light to a dreary day.

 

Happy Halloween!

The rain came in fits and spurts, so we were able to get most of our trick-or-treating in.

 

Amelia decided not to carry a Toto, for fear that it would detract from her ability to carry large amounts of candy. I tried to explain that she could get even more if she carried a picnic basket, but she wasn't buying it.

 

We started off with a pizza party with some of our neighborhood playgroup friends, then covered the neighborhood, or tried to. At one house, when they answered the door, Jack yelled, "SpongeBob Here!" He was not shy at all about going to the door by himself.

 

Both kids had buckets filled to the brim with candy, and even poor Jack declared that he had enough and was ready to go home. We spent some time with some new friends (who just moved from St. Louis) and overall had a really great time.

 

 

Reading to a Dog

I'm not sure if this was to benefit the kids or the dogs, but our local library had an event on Saturday where you could read to a trained therapy dog. Amelia just couldn't believe that you really got to read to a dog, so I signed her up for a slot. Of course, she went straight the the little fluffy dog with bows. I'm not sure who was a more rapt listener -- Jack or the dog. In any event, the reading was a success.



One of the funniest parts is Amelia showing the pictures to the dog.

First Day of First Grade

Amelia was up bright and early -- and dressed -- this morning. I'm not sure how early she got up, but she said she was waiting and waiting for her sun to turn on. (She has a nightlight that turns to a sun at 7 am, indicating that they can get up. They know, but don't always follow, that they shouldn't get out of bed until their sun comes on.)

It was the first day of new rules -- no TV or Nintendo DS until everyone was ready for the day. Maybe it was the excitement, but there were no complaints -- or even requests for Spongebob! Somehow, it was a REALLY productive morning.

It was raining, which meant we had to drive to the bus stop (I was hoping to sneak in some bonus exercise). Amelia's jitters from the previous night seemed to melt away, for which I was very grateful.






She got on the bus without even looking back. I think she was *really* excited for that bus ride. I was terribly choked up (even though she's been going to school for several years, this just seemed *different*).

Jack and I didn't even follow her to school, but we did slightly tail the bus on the way to the grocery store (as long as we were driving, might as well make an errand out of it). Jack pushed a kid-sized cart and filled it with all our groceries. He even picked a pretty bunch of flowers for me because "he loves me so much."

All he ever wants to do is go fishing, and today was no exception. We went out in the backyard and gathered worms and slugs and actually went down to the pond. TJ still can't believe I did this. But I actually cut worms (shrieking, of course) and put them on hooks (yelling "ewwww," of course) and then yelling when we actually caught fish and i had to shake them off the hooks. It was actually kinda fun, but I was relieved when we ran out of live bait and could use the fake stuff.

Jack and I are also making bread, he has vacuumed and cleaned my windows, and now we're making the traditional "First Day of School Chocolate Chip Cookies" for Amelia's return.

I'm hoping she had a great first day -- I'll post an update later!

Happy Birthday, Jack

We celebrated Jack's 4th birthday with a pirate cruise in Annapolis. I highly recommend it for any young pirates out there (http://www.chesapeakepirates.com/). Since it was his birthday, he got to be "Captain Jack" and was even able to steer the boat for a bit. We had done the same cruise earlier in the summer and Jack had been begging to do it again. He was much more into it this time, participating more in the activities and not being dependent on Amelia. Amelia, on the other hand, seemed to be a little lost without Jack by her side and didn't really participate much.

Jack's actual birthday was celebrated at Jerry and Pete's -- Jack and Pop share the same birthday, so it was a doubly special time. Jerry got a SpongeBob pinata for the kids to enjoy -- luckily, you didn't need to beat it with a stick -- you just had to pull strings to open the trap door (which, strangely, was SpongeBob's bottom -- which made the candy a little less appetizing to me).



Jack also picked, at my urging, a very cool animatronic dino cake. It was the hit of the party, for sure.



Amelia has a very loose tooth and is excited about the prospect of losing it, as long as no blood is involved. I made the mistake once of telling her it was bleeding a little (to say that it was getting looser) and she went nuts. Not a good move on my part. I suspect it will take a few more weeks to fall out. I'm in no rush -- it's just another sign of her growing up, and she has a teeny-tiny mouth that I don't think is ready for grown-up teeth.

Amelia starts school in just over a week; Jack, the week after. Both are a mixture of excited and scared. Me, too!

Jack has a new passion -- fishing. We've gone through 3 rods so far (one broke, one got dropped in the lake) and a bunch of fake bait. He got lots of tackle and gear for his birthday, and every night, he asks TJ if they can go fishing (there is a small pond in our neighborhood where fish are plentiful and easy to catch). I made the mistake of going the other night and caught a turtle. TJ was not happy with me.

It also looks like Jack will have surgery soon to release his tongue-tie. Luckily, it's an outpatient surgery -- a far cry from when I had it done in the hospital with a several-day stay. I'm not fond of him having to go under to have the procedure done, but I'm also hoping it will help his speech.

Have a great weekend, all!

Clearly, blogging has taken a backseat to a million boxes (soon to be 2 million, once they deliver our long-term storage items on Friday), but I'm going to try to continue to post some things for our out-of-town family and our friends in Belgium...

Both the kids have LOVED doing swimming this summer and can't believe they get to do it outside ... every day! Brussels just wasn't conducive to such endeavors. Amelia was on the Junior Seahawk Swim Team (for those kids over 4 who still aren't very proficient swimmers) and Jack has been taking lessons. As you can see from the video, we're making great progress!

Amelia has started a fairytale ballet camp this week, and while it's only a 5-day camp, she's really enjoying it and is looking forward to more ballet this fall. (While a friend and I are going to try our hand at tap dancing -- if for no other reason than pure entertainment.)

We obviously haven't done any traveling this summer, except for when we were nomads, waiting to get back to our house. I'm pleased to say that the transition has been very smooth and it feels nice to be back in our house and neighborhood.

Amelia is getting ready for first grade, and Jack is excited for preschool. He misses his friend Magnus terribly, and Amelia misses all her school friends, too.

We do miss Belgium, but we missed our lives here, too. I admit that Costco and all the restaurants and grocery stores aren't doing my waistline any favors, even though I'm trying to walk a lot. But since we have no local commerce that is within biking distance, I'm now just trying to get out in the mornings.

We will post more soon, including pictures of the house. But for now, here are a few summer pictures to enjoy!



Fishing on the Chesapeake Bay with his Spiderman fishing rod. He actually caught fish, too.


Getting ready for swim lessons.


We just learned this "swimming" yesterday.



This was Amelia's first race. They had a Lollipop race for all the juniors, and the object was just to get across the pool in any way possible. Although Amelia was dead last, everyone was cheering loudly for her, and I think she really enjoyed it! She was also very proud to get her first engraved trophy for her participation this year.