Sandra Tayler

The kids did all their work. Every last scavenger list item was checked off. It took until 2 pm, but it was all done and the house has been salvaged from the mess. For their reward the kids unanimously chose going to Discovery Park. This is a park in Pleasant Grove that has really cool play structures, but we don’t go there often because the drive is about 15 minutes. Originally I said we could only have the park as a reward if the work was all done by 1 pm. They dawdled. 1 pm arrived and some of the work was still undone. I stated that the park was no longer an option. Kiki threw a fit. This was the absolute end of her life. She was never going to get to Discovery Park because obviously the whole universe hates her and would conspire to make sure she never had any fun. Ever.

The tantrum did not impress me. What changed my mind was the cheerful announcement at 1:10 from Link that he was all done could we go to the park now? Gleek and Patches joined forces with him. They all gave me bright eyed, anticipatory stares. I did a quick mental calculation and realized that if we left for the park at 2 pm, the kids could play for two hours and we could still be back in time for me to get to my 4:30 event. I informed them of this. Then I informed Kiki. The three younger kids descended upon Kiki’s full laundry basket and began a laundry folding assembly line. That basket of laundry had been the sticking point. Kiki had done lots of reading trying to pretend that the laundry would fold itself. This time she didn’t learn about the consequences of dawdling. Instead she got to learn how much her brothers and sister love her and how willing they are to help her if she would just stop locking them out.

The trip to the park was a good one. All the kids had fun. I’m calling the Scavenger Hunt a success. I don’t know how successful it will be in future weeks though. This week it was new and exciting, if I do it too often it will become routine. Hopefully we’ll keep the house in better shape this coming week and extreme measures won’t be necessary next Saturday.

Problem: The house is a wreck and the mess is driving me crazy

Problem: I cannot clean it up by myself while allowing kids to play because they out number me and can make messes faster than I can clean.

Problem: They made most of the mess, why should I be the maid?

Solution: Make the kids do the cleaning

Problem: Making kids do work is unpleasant. They complain, whine, and fail to work while I run around trying to make them work. I get increasingly frustrated and angry because I feel like I’m doing all the work anyway only with additional stress of feeling like they should be working.

Problem: I’m still fighting a sinus infection and thus I’m extra tired and cranky to begin with

Problem: Howard is not at home to back me up with his ultra voice

Problem: The kids don’t want to work, they don’t see any reward in it at all.

Solution: I created a scavenger hunt list for each of the kids. On it were the chores that they were expected to complete. The lists are scaled to the ages of the kids. Patches has the shortest list, Kiki has the longest. When all four lists are completed we will do something as a family for a reward. The kids get to vote on the reward. The person who finishes their work first gets the tiebreaker vote should there be a conflict over what the reward should be. I get veto power over the reward.

In theory this provides motivation for them to actually work. I don’t mind helping with chores. I hate having to get mean in order to motivate them to get their work done. We’ll see how it goes.

At bedtime Kiki asked “why is today such a celebration day?” She had good reasons for the question. On the way home from school we stopped by the store. All of the kids had allowance money, so they all got to buy something to bring home. Half of what Kiki brought home was treats to share. Patches also selected treats over a toy. Once at home all four of the kids curled up in front of a movie and shared the bounty. They were all happy together for hours without interruption. What a rare and beautiful thing that was.

It was greatly assisted by the fact that the doorbell completely failed to ring. Usually the afternoons are punctuated by the sound of the doorbell as neighborhood kids run in and out of the house. The number of children in my home will fluctuate between 0 and 11 on a few moments notice. Since afternoon is my low ebb of energy I sometimes have a hard time keeping up with it all. Today it was just my kids and they were all being nice to each other. This was heavenly since I’m fighting a sinus infection that is leaving me exhausted and unmotivated. The lack of motivation caused me to short circuit the bedtime battle by announcing that Gleek and Patches could have a sleep over on Gleek’s bed. The two of them curled up together as happy as a pair of puppies. Then they actually went to sleep. In fairness I told Kiki and Link that they could do the same thing, hence Kiki’s announcement.

Some family bonding has to be carefully planned and managed by me. Then there are days like today which are filled with serendipitous bonding. Of such wonderful weaves are families made. I wish I could always weave us together so strongly with so little work.

Today I walked into the school office to drop off some paperwork and I was instantly recognized by the principal as Gleek’s mother. He then noted which box the paperwork was going into and further identified me as Link’s mother. One month ago he had no clue who I was, now he has me securely linked to both of my kids who attend his school. I have mixed feelings about this. I am very grateful for the caring administrators at my kids’ school. They take time to know the kids by name and to help the ones who are struggling. I am a little embarrassed that my kids have done things which required focused administrator’s attention. I am glad that my kids feel like the adults at the school are friendly. I am relieved that the conversation could consist of statements about how much better Gleek is doing now.

We are now 4 weeks into the school year. I’m starting to feel in control of the schedule. It is a hectic schedule, but I’m not being completely swamped by it anymore. This is good because time is marching headlong toward the release of the next Schlock book and my preparations should be proceeding apace. Unfortunately they aren’t yet. I meant to have a store ready for beta testing by the end of this week. Now I’ll be lucky if I can make that happen by the middle of next week. I’m not sure why my personal schedule spiraled out of control just as the kids seem to be settling in. Perhaps one is a reaction to the other. During the first few weeks of school I had to give the kids 100% to make things work at all.

Now I just want to curl up with a movie or a book and pretend that my house is in order. It isn’t though. And every time I look around I see maintenance tasks which need done, but which I’d rather not do. Things like dishes and vacuuming. In fact my house has reached the state where I think longingly of scooping all the detritus into a box and throwing it away. This would create massive mutiny and rebellion in the children, but it would make the house cleaner.

I think the reason the house has gotten so bad is because neither I nor the kids have had mental room to make sure that chores actually got done. We’ve all been too busy adapting to school. Hopefully I can leverage this weekend and put chores back on the daily schedule of events. I just get so tired of making kids do things they don’t want to do.

Two years ago today: Kiki was 9, Link was 7, Gleek was 3, Patches was 1, we had just sunk money into having a bathroom finished, we had enough money in savings to pay three months of bills, cartooning had netted $-600 for the year, and Howard cleaned out his Novell office never to return. What an insane week that was. Most of the stress can’t be found in my LJ entries of the time. We couldn’t say things in public until after they were announced at Novell and afterward there didn’t seem to be much point. I did write one entry. That entry completely fails to capture how incredibly sure I was that quitting was the right choice. I was sure right up until two years ago today when Howard came home with the contents of his office. Then I was terrified. I remember lying on the couch thinking about the kids and the house and all of the bills to be paid. The weight of those responsibilities was almost a physical sensation.

For the next year we never had enough money in hand to cover more than three months of bills. Sometimes we knew where the next chunk of money would come from, sometimes we didn’t. Any time I stopped to rationally look at our financial situation I was paralyzed by the fear that we would lose our dream, that Howard would have to go get a day job to make ends meet. So we couldn’t stop. We had to just keep walking and trusting that the path would appear before our feet. At the end of that year, one year ago today, I wrote another entry. That entry is more reflective of my actual mind state at the time it was written. So we continued walking and hoping that somehow we’d find a way to make cartooning work without charity or windfalls.

The release of Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management changed everything. We were at the very end of our money. If the book didn’t sell well enough, Howard would have to get a day job which might have heralded the end of cartooning. The book did sell well. For the first time in over a year we could see how hard work would bring in enough money. Since the launch of the book we can see the pathway ahead, not just for a few months, but for several years. Life will undoubtedly throw a few curves in the road, but we no longer take slow and fearful steps. Now we can run. Today I pause in my headlong jog toward the future, to muse on what an amazing journey we took step by careful step.

My two years ago self would have loved a peek into the future to see now. She would have been comforted to know that it would all work out. But then she already believed that it would, most of the time. But if two years ago I had seen the future, I would not have learned the same lessons. I would not have grown in the same ways. And possibly we would not have ended up in the same place. I am very glad for the past two years. I would not change them, even though they were very hard at the time.

I’ve been doing lots of research into running an online store because we want a better ordering solution than a pile of paypal buttons. Happily I’ve found lots of possibilities and I’m currently testing them to see which fits us best. Also very happy was discovering that one of my teenage friends has her own online store. It’s called Just Another Sunset and it is full of fairy/fantasy things that I wish I could buy for Kiki and Gleek because they would love them. Maybe for Christmas after we’ve managed the launch of Schlock book II. In the meantime all of you can go take a look and see the pretty things.

A friend from Michigan stopped over for a couple of nights during his vacation journey. Like most journeys his has an ultimate goal, but for him half the goal is to have a really good journey. I wish he could have stayed longer. It was a joy to have him in the house. He is a fascinating person full of stories to tell and thoughts to share. His approach to life is very different from mine and the parallax view is fascinating and useful. I believe he is also the most charismatic person I have ever met. Something about him just draws people in. It is not at all surprising that he runs a thriving sword school and has created an amazing camaraderie among the students.

At one point we spent some time discussing archetypes as applied to real people. He considers himself a Paladin. A Paladin is similar to a Warrior, but is driven by ideals where a Warrior is driven by the thrill of battle. It was fascinating to listen to him talking about his sword class students in these terms. He made the fascinating observation that many rebellious/punk teens are actually Paladins who see where things are wrong but lack a pathway to make things right and so have to settle for declaring themselves apart from the system any way that they can.

I am neither a Paladin nor a Warrior, I am a Guardian. I do not seek to do battle or to right wrongs, I seek to protect the home front. I’ve been aware of this role as a Guardian for about a month now, but I have wondered about the value of Guardianship as compared to the roles of Warrior or Paladin. I mumbled something to that effect out loud and was pinned by this friend’s stare. He has a very intense stare. He then informed me exactly how important it is for Warriors and Paladins to have Guardians so that they have a safe place into which they can retreat. It was nice to have my role so strongly affirmed by a person I respect. Later we decided that Howard is an Artisan with a little bit of City Watch thrown in. (Edit: After reading this post, Howard suggested Bard as a better primary category for himself. I believe he’s right.)

In a different segment of conversation, we were playing Comparative Childhoods. It was a sharp contrast. He grew up in a New York City project. I grew up in suburban California. He always knew he had to fight his own battles. I was always protected. Until I spoke with him, I did not really understand what “New York City Project” meant. What a social disaster those are for trying to raise children. Unfortunately I do not see a readily available alternate for the people who live there. Sadly for some people getting to live in a rent controlled project is a godsend. At one point in the conversation I mentioned that I have always been kept physically safe either by the intervention of people who care, or more often by my own intuition telling me to avoid a situation or person. A look of relief crossed his face. He said that often with his female sword students he gets into a conversation like the one we were having and the woman then spills a tale of victimization. This causes his inner Paladin to want to go and kill the perpetrator. He was really glad that I just don’t have any such tale to tell. Afterward I was thinking about that, and realized it makes sense that he has had that particular conversation so many times. Most of the women who come to sword classes are seeking empowerment. It should not be surprising that many of them are seeking empowerment because at some point in their lives they were made to feel utterly powerless. I’m afraid my friend is doomed to have more of those conversations, because these women can not truly feel powerful until they have faced their victimization and exorcised it.

I keep calling this man my friend. He was Howard’s friend first. Howard does a really good job picking friends and they usually become my friends as well. At least they do if I get the chance to meet them. But these days Howard flies off to conventions and meets fascinating people that I’m unlikely to ever meet. Then last year I attended Penguicon and I got to meet this particular friend. It was fun, but conventions are busy places and there wasn’t much space to sit around and talk. Having him here at the house was worlds different, he is now my friend too. That is good. I would love to be able to take our whole family and road trip to visit him and his family in Michigan. I’ve no idea when that is even feasible, but I hold it as a dream trip now.

I got just over 5 hours of sleep last night. (It was my own fault for staying up too late.)

I spent all of this morning buried in testing a storefront/shopping cart combo that we are considering implementing for Schlock Mercenary. The moments not spent staring at my computer were spent taking clean pants to one school child, delivering a forgotten watch to a different school child, and explaining to a third why it is not acceptable to sneak away from the teacher and attempt to walk home. I also made phone calls to a doctor and a dentist for appointments.

Around 2 pm I crashed into a nap. It was not a restful nap. It was much too full of half-dreams about all of the above. As I was returning to the land of the wakeful, my brain supplied images of me trying to figure out how to enter my children as store products by somehow shoving them into the software via the monitor. There was also a sale on crooked teeth involved somewhere.

I either need more sleep, or less concerns crashing in my brain.