In my day-to-day life, I’m surrounded by an amazing abundance of good people — people I’ve chosen and people who’ve chosen me. 
Honorary aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers.
Honorary children I get to mother with my own.

I am lucky to have this family, because I live a long, long way from the family I was born to.
Most of them live half way across the country and some live half way across the world.

This summer I am with lots of that distant family, the family I grew up with.
We’ve come together to do the things our moms & dads and grandmothers & grandfathers did when they were our age. 
We’ve come together to teach our kiddos to swim and eat sweet corn and talk.
We’ve come together to see stars and hear crickets.
We’ve come together to choose each other.

I am lucky to have this family. 
Miles don’t seem to matter as much you’d think they would, so long as we can come together every now and again.

It helps to have a rambly old wooden cottage with a long sleeping porch and a deep lake.
It helps to have favorite foods and funny sayings and old family card games.
It helps to have a little vacation time and some frequent flier miles.

That’s what’s summer’s for, if you ask me.

But come September?
Blogs and books.
Puttin’  the time/space continuum to shame.

I’ve missed ya’ll, and I just spent the last hour or so catching up on blog reading.
Another fine, fine way to come together… 

I am lucky.

Hello, Friends.

I wasn’t exactly planning to take a blog vacation.

It just sorta happened.

I’ve been on the road.

My wireless went out.

And when I got it up and running I needed to devote my computer time to communicating with my students.

And when I wasn’t doing that I wanted to swim.
And water ski.
And play with my kids.
And play with my husband.
And play with my sister.
And play with my cousins.
And go to the farmer’s market.
And fish.
And sail.
And kayak.
And read.
And even, occasionally, nap.

Blogging went by the by.

But it seems I worried a few folk since I didn’t announce my departure.

So today I’m checking in to say that I’m alive and well and tucked into a rambley old cottage on a tree-ringed lake in Wisconsin. The hummingbirds empty the feeder every other day, the sky is blue and there are no motor boats allowed on Sundays. 

Really, you don’t need to worry about me…

Today we went to the water park because dang nabbit, we’d had it.

With city inspections and work emails and tweaked backs and packing for vacation and Morning Edition and the whole lot of it.

Chuck it, we said.

And the next thing you know we’re wearing wrist bands and deciding which water slides are the scariest and how quickly can we get there.

Actually, at first, it appeared we were going to be a little risk averse. 

We won’t do the very, very craziest rides, okay, Mama? said Tall One.

And I’d like a life jacket, said Small One.

Say wha?!?!

This is the child who has no pain threshold, no sense of mortality and a keen eye for the extreme. 
A life jacket???

But okay.

So we started tenderly. On a lazy-river-kind-of-thing that was, well, boring.

So which water slides are the scariest? And how quickly can we get there?

That’s how we spent the rest of the day. 

And when we stopped for lunch (which was at 3 o’clock because we could not bring ourselves to stop until we were faint of heart and spirit) we pulled out a map, circled all the things we’d already done and plotted out what we’d hit before nightfall. 

On the way home we talked about our favorites and “it turns out,” said Small, ” that the ones that make you kind of nervous are the best.”

And that’s the thing about life and waterslides, isn’t it?

I mean, parenthood, for one. 

Or writing.

Or showing somebody your writing.

Might as well go headfirst down a speed chute.

Whoopin’ and hollerin’ the whole way….

Hello, Houston.
We have a kitchen.

And when I say a kitchen, I mean:

Indoors.

Running Water.

Refrigeration.

Gas burners worthy of a rocket launch.

And… it’s cute, to boot.

Personally, when it comes to creative endeavours I prefer the 2 dimensional kind — words on paper, that sorta thing. But it does feel good to know that we’ve pumped a little new life into an old bungalow and we’re still upright, speaking to one another and — ta da — eating home cooked meals again! Wahooo!!!!!

We are just home from the 
Best.
Fireworks.
Ever.

I kid you not.

We were out in our canoe on Ladybird Lake. 

I had to ride like Cleopatra in the middle of the boat due to my tweaky back.

Hubby and girls paddled and we found ourselves amidst the most spectacular floatilla of canoes, kayaks, inflatable rafts and other seaworthy craft.

Everyone, it seemed, had a glow bracelet or two, a cooler of watermelon and a zest for all things pyrotechnic.

The symphony played. 
The cannons blasted. 
The wind blew. 

It was chilly. 
In Texas. 
In July.

And then, just as the show began (so close we could smell the sulfur), a train moved over the water behind us.
And stopped.
To watch. 

They just shut that baby down and we all sat under the spell of sparks and swishes and booms.

The grand finale went on forever.

And as we turned our boat to paddle home, the engineer blew a long, happy whistle.

Good night….

Goodnight
By Carl Sandburg

Many ways to say good night.

(Read the rest here…)

I never really knew what people meant when they said, “I threw out my back.”

Now I do.

I was moving a small bench and something went zoing and now I can’t put my own shoes on.

Yesterday we were supposed to go to a waterpark with another family for some serious fun.
I hate rollercoasters, but I loooove waterslides.
So I gimped into the car, determined to carry on.

Even though I winced when I shut the door.
Even though one of our friends’ daughters had possible pinkeye.
Even though all signs pointed toward postponement.

Fortunately for those of us with rocks in our head, determined to ignore signs, a huge thunderclap sounded as we exited for the park and a deluge began. It was not to be…

We went back to our friends’ house and I was tucked into the guest room where I fell sound asleep while the kids wrote an original musical about a gypsy and a wily fox.

The waterpark can wait.
It’s me that’s a little impatient…

Marla Frazee (sometimes referred to — in moments of euphoric elation — as my own personal illustrator, not to mention a kindred spirit in the hair department) is interviewed today on Jama Rattigan’s Alphabet Soup.

She shares some terrific art, and lots of great photos, and even gives a nod to our upcoming collaboration.

Run — don’t walk — to check it out….

As a writer and a mama, one of the things I do to stay sane is lower my expectations, writing-wise, during summer vacation. 
And when I say lower, think basement. 
Like, um, a coupla grocery lists, a few emails with my editor and lots of trips to the library.

Because honestly, I’m already teaching a class that requires a whole lot of critiquing, and the girls are only out of school for a couple of months, and there are popsicles to be eaten. The last thing I need is a constantly-running brain hum:

You are not worth your weight in pencil lead… everyone else in the known universe has written reams this week, except you… time is running out — all books need to be finished in the next 24 hours… your brain will be mush by September… you’d better review some basic vocabulary words… you’d better review the alphabet.

Nope.
Not gonna go there.
Instead, I just aim low and enjoy any surprises that come my way.

Last summer it was my trip to L.A. for the SCBWI conference that shot my expectations out of the water.
And then a fevered, late-summer writing binge that resulted in my next picture book.

Now, already, I’ve crushed this season’s delusions of nothingness.

Here’s how:

I spent most of the past 72 hours with a most extrordinary group of children’s writers.

Months ago, nearly 30 of us exchanged manuscripts and started reading.
Friday morning, we gathered at the gracious home of Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith & we barely budged for 3 days.

(Well, okay. Unless you count the grand party thrown at the fabulous, view-happy home of workshoppee Helen Hemphill on Saturday night. We did not suffer…)

Each and every piece was critiqued with meticulous attention, ideas and admiration (and I’m telling you guys, these are some fine, fine budding books.)

Everyone was so interested and interesting, generous, thoughtful, careful, honest.
And everyone was funny, to boot.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only writer who was a little weepy when things broke up on Sunday and we returned to our real lives. I mean, of course. Right?  

But here’s the beautiful part.

This is my real life. 
This is my real community. 
These are real people who are real good with real words and generous hearts and I’ve got them in my real life. 

Which is why, instead of coming crashing back down today amidst errands and chores, I’m still floatin’.

(Thanks, Greg, Cyn, Donna, Carmen, Tim, Julie, Helen and all the rest of you amazing voices for a heckuva weekend…)

Today our drama was a sick raccoon, right around the corner from our house.

My elder daughter spotted it on our way out this morning — first excitedly (because other than evidence of emptied cat bowls, we hardly ever actually see them) and then, as we realized it was lurching and what raccoon in its right mind would be out in the heat of a Texas summer, the excitement tempered and she grew quiet and sad.

My younger daughter began to cry. 
She said she was scared although we later determined that she was scared for the raccoon, not of it.

There was much scurrying on our part, to call the wildlife rescue folk and to check in with the neighborhood listserve which has been busy with news of distemper in the coon population.

And sure enough, it was distemper this time around, too. 
By this afternoon he had died — rather quietly and with decidely less chaos than he might’ve met in a net and cage and bumpy truck.
So that’s good.

But still.

When you live in the middle of a city you want the wild things to be seen and to survive.

Raccoon
By Anne Sexton

(Read the rest here…)

Every single generation of kids needs to learn — somehow, someway — about sex.

A million mamas — mine and now me — have jumped into the blushy, tittery muck to do the teaching.

A million dads have, too.

A whole heap of questions get asked — and answered.

A whole heap don’t.

Lots of kids think it’s gross.

Lots don’t.

Some kids already knew it all.

Some didn’t.

(Some wish they still didn’t.)

A whole heap of mamas feel prepared for all this.

A whole heap don’t.

But a whole heap of mamas feel better getting the goods out there on the table, for everyone to know and understand.

A whole heap of kids feel better, too…

It’s So Amazing…

isn’t it???