Monday Listicles: The boat that has sailed

Last week I so enjoyed making my list of why I don’t do list posts, that I decided this week it would be a hoot to participate in Stasha’s Monday Listicles thingie. But if I was looking for a lighthearted post?  Um, wow, did I pick the wrong week to start.

Because for me? This week's list is SO not light and fun, but rather fraught with sadness and regrets and tension and worry about all that is not quite right with my family.

The list: 10 reasons why you do or do not want more children!

I struggle often with the feeling that I really should have had more kids. But that boat has sailed.

So I am splitting this list. Some reasons I wish we could have had more kids and some reasons we are definitively not having them. (And yeah I can never do things the simple way, have to put my own twist on them. My contrarian nature rearing its head again.)

First, the reasons we are not having more kids:

1. We are too old. Specifically ME. (Biology’s a bitch and really not fair - guys can still have kids at 70. Not that they SHOULD, but they CAN.) I am 51. Deep in peri-menopause. My period visits occasionally, but mostly just to wave goodbye and thumb its nose at me.  

2. We are too old. It’s not just the biology. We are even too old to adopt. Chasing after a toddler right now? Would probably do me in. And my husband is yet 7 years older than I. Too, too old.

3. Autism. Once you have one the chances of having another increase greatly. Also with parental age. And while having had another typical child would have likely been a boon to the family, another autistic one might well have torn us apart. (Note to my friends with more than one autistic kid: I know you have wonderful families and love all your kids immeasurably. I also know it's tough. I'm just talking about my hopes/fears here.)

4. Money, money, money. We live in a small apartment, barely enough room for the four of us, absolutely not enough room to add another in. About the time I was getting ready to go back to work, we realized Jake was on a different path, and I abandoned my career to become a full time Autism Mom. Money? Is really tight around here.

5. Not just money, but also temperament. While I really would have had 1 or 2 more kids if I could have, my husband, while he loves our sons to pieces? Is just not a kid person. Have a couple of extra kids over on a play-date and his left eye starts twitching. In hell? His job would be kindergarten teacher.

6. We are too old. (Just in case you thought I might be wavering on that one.)

And now, from the department of sad regrets department, why I wish I could have had more kids:

7. I love kids, love being a mom. When the boys were little and they were climbing all over me on the floor I would be laughing away, and my husband would joke that I really had to loosen up and learn to enjoy motherhood more.

8. Amortizing my expertise. I had no idea what I was doing when I had kids & had to figure it all out under the pressure of twins. Just as I would become really good at whatever stage in their development the boys were at, they would move on to the next. If I'd had more kids I could have had some of that "more relaxed because it's old hat the 2nd (3rd, 4th) time around" parenting all my friends with lots of kids talk about.

9. Our family dynamic, with the autism thing? Could really use more kids. Jake really needs a younger sibling to love him unconditionally, look up to him. His dear friends are all 3 and 4 year-olds right now. He loves babies. It would have been great if he'd had one of his own.

10. Ethan could really use a typical brother or sister. Another sibling who is NOT his autistic twin. Someone to play with. And someone to share the burden of caring for his brother when my husband and I are gone, if Jake should still need that.

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So, in an ideal world I would have started younger and had more than 2. Then again, in that world I would also be about 40 pounds lighter, have listened to my mother & become a doctor, and bought Apple stock when it was $5 a share.

But we don’t live in that world, we live in this one, and this is the family I have. And I do so love my boys and our family, just as it is.

So no, we’re not having more kids.

Unless we literally win the lottery, and then with $32 million or so in our pockets?  I’d think about adopting a baby girl or two. (Don't worry honey, highly unlikely. HIGHLY unlikely.)



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SOC Sunday: Rebooting my Mom-self

How is it humanly possible for Sunday to roll around again so soon? Who is speeding up time and can we please get them to take their foot off the gas pedal? I mean, really, this is getting quite ridiculous. It's like I'm going to blink and it's going to be something CRAZY, like nearly Thanksgiving.

What's that you say? It IS nearly Thanksgiving? No. Shut up. It just turned November. No? Damn.

OK, whatever. It IS Sunday still, right? It hasn't become Monday while I was busy scratching my ankle or anything, right? Good. So here's what's on my mind, straight from my brain to yours with very little filter in between...

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Ethan is pretty unhappy with our plans for today: we're driving out to Queens to attend the 1st birthday party for the baby girl of friends of my husband's and mine. In other words, not about Ethan.

He complained he wouldn't know anyone there but his family. And I decided to not coddle this shit anymore. I told him "you know when I was a kid my parents took me all kinds of places with them, not just kid places - where they went, I went too, I told him, it's family plans and sometimes you just have to suck it up and go along with the program, sometimes it's about you and sometimes its NOT about you and families do things together.

I was goinig to launch into all the cool things we go off to do that are for HIM but realized, I was having a hard time coming up with anything recent. Realized I have been in retreat for some time now.

We Used to do things all the time. go out to museums and parks and other neighborhoods, other boros. I was the "fun mom" always game for adventure. fun fun fun.

When did that drop? When did weekends become always one day inside, each kid attached to their own screens? I know I've been overwhelmed for a while. That the situation between the boys been so not fun for such a long time now - over a year, maybe two (one of benefits of blogging is can go back over time and read old posts see what was going on in my life at various times).

I have written time and again how hard it is to go and do anything with the two kids as they get along so poorly right now, as autism intrudes into our family space so deeply right now.

But I hadn't realized how much I have retreated from trying. And that sucks.

So I want to re-boot the whole enterprise. OK, our old sort-of-easy-to-hang-out family is gone. Done. And now I need to move on, figure out how to create new kinds of fun, make it work for us some how, get out and do.

Because I'm the fun Mom damn it!

OK, now to drag Ethan off to a one year old's birthday party. Sucking it up starts now. (For me, because he's going to be beast, but we're going anyway.)

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New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

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SNSS: They are Both “Special”

Today's guest, Shelley Kramm, is a mover and shaker of the Special Needs Advocate variety. As the Playground Fairy she has been at the forefront of the movement to get inclusive playgrounds built in our communities.

Shelley blogs at I'm Still Standing where she is a font of information, as she writes about wellness and special needs families in general, as well as her own very special family in particular.

And, while Shelley is the mother of older children, she still recalls her daughters' beginnings like it was yesterday.  

Come read her reflections of her girls' rocky beginnings and their supportive special relationship today, here:

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They are Both “Special” -  by Shelley Kramm

I have 2 daughters one who I would say is “special” and the other with “special needs” and depending on the day over the past 19 years I would say they have each switched those words several times…

Pregnancy and I do not agree; why I am not sure, my mother gave birth to 6 children over the course of 8 years. For me, not so much…

My OB-GYN actually called me “the girl with the little black rain cloud” throughout my first pregnancy. I spent the first trimester throwing up so much I lost 15 pounds.

I found out I was RH negative (the only thing in common with my mother) developed pancreatitis and major gallbladder issues, my amniotic fluid level seemed to drop to all time lows, and then my blood pressure started to rise and protein began to appear in my urine and I developed full blown Preeclampsia/Toxemia and was admitted to the hospital 3 and a half months before my baby was due.

So not like my mother!

To make a long story short, it was a traumatic birth, 36 and a half hours after my water broke with Pitocin I had a c-section and my first daughter was born at 32 weeks weighing 4lbs 6ozs with NO cry! NO sound… Nothing…. She was blue… resuscitated… ventilated… must have been due to the magnesium sulfate that was controlling my blood pressure and her “life.”

We named her “Sarah” meaning “Princess”… Little did I know how that special Princess would turn into a Queen. The doctors told us she would be “deaf, blind, retarded (I hate that word) and never live on her own.” However, 24 hours later she was pulled off of these things in the NICU and two and a half weeks later we both went home to begin childhood.

Three and a half years later, I found myself again in the same predicament of a not so great pregnancy with Preeclampsia/Toxemia and again at around 28 weeks was at my OB-GYN with Sarah when my doctor shook his head and informed me that I wasn’t going anywhere… It was time to check myself into the hospital as the Preeclampsia/Toxemia was getting out of control and I had to be monitored.

There I was with my little child laying in my hospital bed wondering about my next. The birth, after a prior failed induction, we knew would be a c-section. So we prepared as the operating room prepared. And on February 6th six weeks before her due date Hadley entered the world with a cry that I will never forget.

She cried!! I can remember that cry as if it were yesterday as I was so thrilled to hear it thinking “thank god” maybe we would be spared the drama of the last birth and first few hours... However, a preemie and a tiny little baby weighing 3lbs 16ozs; she was the size of a football.

Sarah was waiting to see the outcome patiently; did she have a little brother or sister? And as she was whisked away past Sarah to the NICU I think she wondered… “Uh oh, what does this mean?” Sarah had several friends by now who had new brothers and sisters, but none of them couldn’t “see” their little siblings after they were born…

On Hadley’s 6th day of life she suffered a bilateral brain hemorrhage which changed her life and all of ours in one moment’s time. From that point on Hadley’s life became about medications, and doctors, and monitors, which Sarah didn’t understand. What 3 year old could understand this?

When Hadley finally came home from the hospital, a month later, she had monitors attached to her and a nurse who helped with the therapy and medications. Sarah would walk in and out of Hadley’s room to see her, and every time she walked out she would “smell her hands.”

I’m not sure what that was about and as Sarah grew older I asked her about it, and she, as a lot of children do, just didn’t answer. But I feel that perhaps she thought that there was a “smell” that might rub off on her and therefore she could “catch” what Hadley “had.”

I tried to keep our family life as “normal” as possible, and as our children grew I took them to the local park to play. Not such a great idea, and one day I got pissed off and came home and told my husband this had to change, my children could not play together. My special little daughter Sarah wanted to push her sister around and “play” with her, and this was impossible with woodchips and her stroller/wheelchair.

Hadley’s life was complicated enough with daily visits from physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, cognitive therapists, doctors, and a daily regime of medications which tasted oh so yucky.

Sarah would always defend her little sister’s disability to people who stared at her, children as well as adults. I became the brownie leader for Sarah’s troop and made teaching children about special needs a big part of our weekly lessons as Sarah thought it would help other children learn about special needs children and how they are not so different from themselves. Sarah was always willing to spread the word on how we are all ABLE.

When Sarah was 14 she came to Kenny and me and asked if she could be in a pageant. We had not ever experienced anything like this and wondered where this was coming from, but as we thought about it we realized that Sarah’s whole life she has been either Shelley’s daughter, Kenny’s daughter or Hadley’s sister and she wanted her “thing;” she wanted to show the world she was “special.”

For the remainder of her teen years Sarah competed for numerous titles and was very successful as she showed the world that beauty comes from within and shared her platform of “we are all ABLE.” In 2005 after winning Miss Maryland Teen America she received the title of Miss Continental Teen America and spent the year raising awareness for the disabled.

I thank god everyday for my two daughters and the lessons that they have both taught me on the word “special.”

 Shelley's lovely family

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Shelley, I find it so inspiring that your older daughter is such a leader in fostering understanding of people with special needs. Wow, you must be so proud.

And now that you have read Shelley here you're going to want to follow her home to her blog, I'm Still Standing and read her there. 

Try starting with this post about How she went from designer to special needs advocate. Or this moving one about what it was like when her daughter got her first wheelchair.

Also read about her work as a Playground Fairy, how she got one of the first inclusive playgrounds in the country designed and built in Maryland.

And, since Shelley has already gone where many of us are about to tread (with great trepidation), you might want to check out her views on raising teens today.

Also? Follow her on Twitter where she tweets as @shelleyellen and go to her Facebook Fan Page for daily inspiration on your life with challenges, and let her know you like her, you really like her.

Shelley, thank you again for sharing your beautiful girls with us here today.


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A Member of the (not so) Secret Grammar Police

You may or may not know this about me: like a lot of other dorky writers, I'm a bit of a language and grammar nut. I know in this blog I don't always use 100% proper grammar 100% of the time. But I can assure you that 99.9% of the time, if I don't? It's on purpose, for reasons of literary integrity, cadence, emphasis, etc.

A blog is not a formal paper, after all. Sometimes I want it to sound like we're having an intimate conversation, like I'm sitting beside you, whispering my thoughts, inches from your ear. And friends? I don't always speak in complete sentences, with proper grammar, it's true.

But some stuff? The really egregious stuff? Drives me completely batty. Like using the wrong "there, their or they're." Really, people, didn't you learn that in second grade?

See? I instantly become a member of the secret grammar police, schoolmarmish, clucking my tongue and rolling my eyes and generally taking everything you say 50% less seriously if you use certain words wrong. I'm sorry. I know it's elitist. But I can't help myself.

But also, like (I think) all grammarians, I have my favorite, pet non-grammatical phrases. I know they're dead wrong but love them anyway. Like this one: "needs done."

And? "Y''all." Because there is NO plural for you in "proper" English. And it needs one, doesn't it? "Y'all" will suffice. 

And then there's punctuation. My blog voice is halfway between literary & conversational, making it sometimes hard to find just the right balance between "proper" and functional.

So often I literally hear the words in my head as I write, and then am scrambling to find a way to make the punctuation work just right so that you will hear them EXACTLY the way that I heard them, too - or as close as you can since you will likely be hearing your own voice reading my words to you.

Unless you are my friend in real life, then you might hear my actual voice talking to you. Or not.

Maybe you hear Katharine Hepburn or Carol Kane or your Aunt Matilda (or Tweetie Bird for that matter) reading my words in your head. I have no control over that. We never really know what is going on inside other people's heads anyway, do we? (OK, digression over, back on topic now...)

But, even though I have no REAL control, I do what I can to clone my voice into your brain. Trying to parse things like: What sort of pause is a dash verses a comma, a comma verses a semi-colon? What level of emphasis is ALL CAPS verses bold verses being set off with *apostrophes*? How much of a shout is *ALL THREE AT ONCE*? (And is that ever justified?)

Also? Correct pronunciation counts. Sorry but it does.

I was raised by New Yorkers who had no New York accents, who were literate and believed that sounding intelligent was a good thing. (Did this get me shunned on the playground from time to time, left as the cheese who stands alone in the games of Farmer in the Dell? Probably, but it was worth it.)

If you said "axe" instead of "ask" around my mother? She would literally turn green, ask who you were planning to chop up. And our next door neighbor kids, who I played with every summer? Their Mom was from South Carolina. Axe, axe, axe away how they pronounced THAT one.

I've learned in the wisdom of my old age to keep my damn mouth shut, to not actually roll my eyes, to keep my polite on; because I really don't need to get into silly altercations about such trivial things after all, do I?

But in my mind? The schoolmarm is quite alive.

Take "nuke-u-lar."  Pronounce nuclear that way, and I immediately shave approximately 30 IQ points right off you. Which is why if I ever hear any of this come out of Ethan's mouth? (And I do.)  I get on his case like a tiger.  He pushes back: "It's not fair, Mom, Jake says stuff wrong all the time." And that's true.

But Jacob has an excuse. He has autism, and furthermore, his particular flavor of autism is heavy on the language processing deficit stuff. Ethan knows this, knows if he goes on I will ask him the up-shutting question: "Do you really want to trade places with your brother? Because you know, life has actually been very not fair to him. But if you'd really prefer to be the twin with autism..."

And yes, I know this seems like nitpicking. But remember, in the animal kingdom actual nitpicking is an act of friendship and camaraderie. An important part of the social contract among our primate ancestors: you pick my bugs off and and I'll pick yours.

Speaking of which, since no one is proofreading my stuff but me, and sometimes I'll miss things that are obviously a mistake - like dropped apostrophes on "it's" and missing prepositions - if you DO catch something in my blog that needs fixing and isn't a clear style choice? Would you let me know?

I know it's not in the official spirit of blogging - write it and move on - but I *WILL* go back in and correct things in my posts. Sometimes multiple times (but not on Stream of Consciousness Sundays which are supposed to have all mistakes left intact, YIKES).

Because those occasional stray commas? Make me twitch if I find them in my blog. Oh, yeah, it's, fun, being, me. (Twitch.)

Note: This post is one from the Zombie Files. Since yesterday I said that they were "coming soon," I figured I had better make good on that promise, and sooner rather than later.


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Coming Soon: Posts from the Zombie Files

Tonight when I sat down, way late, to post - short people finally asleep, me awake, house as picked-up-after as it's probably ever going to be tonight (read: not very; but the small-toy-booby-traps have been stowed away, so you probably won't trip over stray crap and kill yourself, either) - I realized, once again... I got nothing.

It had been a busy day: rushing to Jake's school way downtown for our Parent/Teacher conference immediately after dropping Ethan off at his, a half-day for Jacob, Hebrew School after school for Ethan; the kind that leaves me hollowed out by the end.

So I figured it was time to do what I had previously said I would do when this situation arose this month (in which I am foolishly committed to posting every day whether inspiration has visited or not): mine my not-quite-dead draft post archives for gems.

So I opened up my Blog's command center and found this:

That's right, for approximately every three posts I've published there is one unpublished post: poor orphaned child, sitting unfinished, forlorn and abandoned in my queue.

Now some of these are mere wisps of things, half thoughts, hastily jotted down, ideas for posts that I planned to write at some nebulous time in my future. Others are half done things: neither beast nor fowl, full of egregious typos and devoid of form, starting to go somewhere and then stopping, all out of steam.

And then there are the jewels I'm looking for: nearly done posts, just in need of a little polish before they are ready to be sent out into the world. Well, maybe a bit of rewriting and a new ending, but still, close enough to done that its worth the effort to march them to completion.

So, from these 113 draft posts languishing in their not-quite-dead-not-quite-live state, I thought I was going to simply pluck one out to share today. I thought I would just click and find a perfect small near Insta-Post. Just add a little extra verbiage and it's ready to go! Voila!

But then I found that even the "nearly done?" Still take a ridiculous lot of work to bring into a place where I'm willing to let them out of their hidey hole. There's a reason I didn't get these particular bunch finished. They were not easy to wrestle into shape. Damn.

And the ones that were the closest to ready? Were the best of the bunch, those I want to spend the most careful time with, make sure I am bringing them to the height of their potential shiny brilliance (to drag the "polishing up gems" metaphor possibly beyond where it should reasonably go). ADD and perfectionism, it's a heady mix in my brain, I tell you.

So tonight folks, I leave you with this: a post telling you about more posts soon to come. So all those papers I wrote in college about deconstructionism and the such were not in vain, they were preparing me to talk about talking about talking about things. Which just goes to prove that I can prattle on about anything. Yay, me!

And tomorrow? REAL CONTENT, I promise.

(Hey, I'm getting really good at using a lot of words to circle round and round a topic but never really saying anything of consequence - maybe I should go into politics?)


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Listen To Your Mother!

No, I'm not telling you to do that. (I figure by now you know whether or not your mother is someone it makes sense to listen to.) And I'm not telling your kids (if you ARE a mother) to listen to you - they should be already doing that, like mine always listen to ME. (Yeah, right, and do you want to buy a bridge?)

What I am doing is ANNOUNCING something really IMPORTANT (which is why I am SHOUTING here in ALL CAPS):

The cities and production teams for the ten 2012 Listen To Your Mother shows have just been announced. And... And... YES! I am the producer of the New York City show!

I've been wanting to tell you forever, but couldn't spill the beans, nearly lost my mind waiting for the official announcement.  What a RELIEF!

Click above to see the national announcement on the LTYM official site

I'll be working with a wonderful team: besides me as Producer there's the lovely and amazingly talented Amy Wilson who will be the Director, with Holly Fink and Julie Nemitz joining us as Associate Producers.

Also? The folks taking this on in the other nine sites across the country read like a who's who of fabulous blogger/writers. It's truly going to be an amazing series of events. Go to the LTYM announcement post to see who all is on board.

If you don't know what all this is about? Here it is (liberally stolen cribbed from the LTYM site in the words of Ann Imig who started this whole thing):

LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER (LTYM) is a national series of live readings by local writers in celebration of Mother's Day. Born of the creative work of mothers who publish online, each production is directed, produced, and performed by local communities, for local communities.

LTYM began with one show of local writers reading in Madison Wisconsin on Mother’s Day 2010.  The video of the show was posted online in its entirety, and so LTYM reached a global audience and garnered a huge response.

Bloggers across the country began asking to host LTYM in their home towns, and so in 2011 Ann took the project national with shows in 5 cities across the country.

The mission of each LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER production is to take the audience on a well-crafted journey that celebrates and validates mothering through giving voice to motherhood–in all of its complexity, diversity, and humor.

LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER aims to support motherhood creatively through artistic expression, and also financially – through contributions to non-profit organizations supporting families in need.

So there you have it! A lot of my bloggy friends participated in this year's show (including the incomparable Alexandra of Good Day Regular People) and got me excited about the idea of bringing it to New York City next spring.

This summer at the BlogHer11 conference in San Diego, there was a LTYM open mike event on Friday evening, and, fortunately, my name was drawn out of the hat to read.

I read a sweet, sad post about time spent with my elderly mother (H is for Holding Hands) and the experience was wonderful. The room was packed; overflowing even with women sprawled on the floor as well as the furniture. And I made some of them cry. And then the next reader made them laugh.

(And then Deb Rox of Deb on the Rocks read a piece that was so funny, she made us all laugh so hard there was a mad rush for the bathroom afterward because some of us *might* have peed our pants a little - definite specific hazard in a room full of women who have had our pelvic girdle kicked from the inside one too many times.)

That's what's so wonderful about this show, it's the whole panoply of the mothering experience, both being and having a mother.

And, oh, did I mention yet that BlogHer is actually a national sponsor of this whole shindig again this year (it just keeps getting better and better) so THANK YOU, BlogHer, you wonderful women you!

So stay tuned for upcoming posts in the future about both the audition process (if you want to be in the show) and the ticket sales (if you want to come see the show). Also? I realized I have told very few tales of my history in the theater (bet you didn't even know I HAD one, right?) so this should cue a bunch of those to be forthcoming soon, too.

Just think: New York City in the late 80's and early 90's, Lower East Side, Off-Off Broadway, performance artists, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival... Hmmmm, some tales to tell, indeed...



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Top Ten Reasons Why I Don't Make Top Ten Lists

Well, it's now exactly halfway through November, NaBloPoMo month, and so far I am still blogging every day. (Yay, me!) Fellow blogging friends have reminded me that two of the "easy" ways to get a post written when I'm in a hurry and have to toss one out are photo posts (Check! I do those on Wednesdays) and list posts. Hmmmm.

The "List Post" is supposed to be a handy tool in the Bloggers arsenal. (I know I've mixed my metaphors there - so what? It's *my* blog, I can do what I want.)

But you know what? I don't like them, hardly ever do them.

In general, they don't work for me.

Why? (you may ask)

Well, why don't I just make a list for you of my reasons? (Grammar police? Back off - I constructed the sentence that way for a reason. The reason? it pleases me.)

There are a myriad. That's a big number. But we don't have all day, so maybe I'll cut it down to size. Bite size, perhaps - how about 10, a nice even number (and the basis of our numeric system, to boot).

1. Have I mentioned I have ADD? We don't do lists. They're just so... orderly. And my brain is anything but. I'm allergic to lists. How do I get everything done in my life without them, you ask? Good question! (Hint: I don't.)

2. There is a very specific form and structure to "Top 10" list posts and for some reason (*cough* immaturity *cough*) highly structured brings up an oppositional, "you can't tell me what to do" voice in my head and I go into resistance mode. (Hey, I didn't promise these were 10 rational reasons now, did I?)

3.  There is no number three. Move on. (Told you these make me oppositional.)

4. I am not a short-form, bullet points kind of gal. I write long, am long-form, not direct and to the point (although the wonderful Elissa did once call me "pithy" and I so teased her about that), I am Queen of the Run-on-Sentence (with parenthetical clauses) after all. And those? Don't make for nice short punchy "top ten" items, you know what I mean?

5. OverdoneOverdoneOverdone. And can I add: overdone? I don't do overdone.

6. That the list post is supposed to be an "easy out"? Feels like cheating, like a short cut. And, unfortunately, I don't do those. I try, but they end up being long-way-rounds, not short cuts, every freaking time.  Take guest posts. These are supposed to be easy - hey, someone else is writing them!  But then I write these long essay-like intros and linky wraps that involve research and take hours. Also? I promise these are not the first 10 things that popped into my head as I sat down to write this here list. I went back and looked them all over thought "Are they good enough?" And changed them made them better. Because I just can't take the easy way out without somehow making it the hard way. (Fun being me - no?)

7. Tangents. I'm all about the tangents, and lists don't make space for them, you need to proceed right to the next item. Stay on topic. No time for delicious tangents, like the time I...

8. By this point? It feels like homework. I hate homework. I am already doing 4th grade homework every night with Ethan and the same damn 1st grade homework for the third year running with Jacob. Did I mention I hate homework?

9. I never put things in the right order, always think of the really important one after I'm all done.

10. I know I had more reasons. I just can't think of them right now. But I have to come up with one more, make it to 10 item for this damn "Top 10" list because only having 9 is just awkward and feels incomplete. So I'm just going to have to pull something out of my ass, to make up some stupid thing to add in to fill this space up and make it come out to ten. Oh, yeah, that's another reason - I hate "space filler" items. Passionately.

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TEN! Yeah, I did it! OK, maybe this wasn't so bad after all. Maybe it's kind of fun. Maybe I should start doing Stasha's Monday Listicles linky. Maybe I should start doing ALL of the other list sort of memes on the interwebs.

Maybe that's ALL I'm going to do from now on! No need to try to create that magic "flow" or worry about that other writerly stuff, I'll now just list things in the random order they pop out of my brain in, and move on... Whoo hoo! I've been liberated from this "crafting" thing! I'm free! I'm free! I've been set free!

(The authorities have now been called to peel Varda off the ceiling. Don't worry, they will slap her around until she calms down, and her blog and writing will return to it's normal state by tomorrow.)

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