Uncategorized

When I am faced with a challenge, I follow the same steps:
1. Decide what to do using a combination of logic and intuition/inspiration
2. Fret, doubt my choices, and envision all possible ways my choice could go wrong.
3. When the time comes to act, take a deep breath and do what I decided in step one.

If step 1 and step 3 are right next to each other, I can sometimes skip step 2. Sometimes step one and step two are all mixed up together. If step 3 is delayed from step 1, then I will spend a significant portion of the intervening time on step 2. The intensity of step 2 is directly proportional to the size of the challenge.

Today I finally tipped over into step 3 for our Worldcon trip. This is a big relief after spending nearly two weeks trying to not be in step 2 and failing. But I won’t be all the way into step 3 until Howard and I arrive in Denver.

Gleek and Patch are in my brother’s car on their way to my parent’s house. Tomorrow morning I’ll put Kiki and Link (and three cousins) on an airplane to be greeted at the other end by my parents. I feel like I’ve put my heart into a box and handed it over to someone else for safe keeping. I’m trying to keep busy so that I don’t notice the absences. Being away from the kids is easier if I’m also away from home.

The pace of departures has slowed a little. I have one more night with all my kids at home. Tomorrow morning at 0’dark-thirty I pack Gleek and Patch into the car to hand off to my brother. The extra time is greatly appreciated even though it was caused by extra-hecticness for my brother. In part I’m grateful for the time because I’m beginning to come down with the cold that Howard brought home from Comic Con. I’m treating it with vitamin C, lots of water, and stopping to rest a lot. Hopefully that will be sufficient. I need to be on top of my game at Worldcon. Of course, this means I’m not on my game right now when I’m supposed to be managing the last minute packing. Hopefully I won’t forget anything.

If you feel so inclined would you please wander over to Amazon.com and leave a review for Hold on to Your Horses? My poor book is lonely over there with no reviews.

Please only leave a review if you have read the book. If you haven’t read the book yet, trot over to holdontoyourhorses.com and download a free electronic copy. Then you can leave a review.

Thanks!

This came in awhile ago, but I’ve been so crazy/busy that I never had time to mention it.

I got an email from a happy recipient of the Hold on to Your Horses book. I was pointed to her blog entry which tells in detail about how on little girl reacted to and internalized the core message of the book.

Posted by Elizabeth of Not in Kansas Anymore on July 15, 2008:
Background: Dorothy just got a new book, Hold Onto Your Horses, which was written by Sandra Tayler, the wife of a friend of Tom’s. It tells the story of a little girl whose ideas always run away with her, until her mother teaches her that ideas are like horses, that you need to guide into the right path to keep them safe, and then they can run with you.

Tonight, we were having conflicts at bedtime, with her insisting on choices that I wasn’t offering. First I had given her the option of a long bath or a quick shower, and she chose the quick shower so she could keep playing longer. Then when it was time to get ready for bed, she wanted the long bath. After she’d had her showdown and her shower, she remembered that she hadn’t had dessert. I told her that since there wasn’t a lot of time, she couldn’t have the bowl of ice cream she wanted, but she could have a little piece of chocolate. She insisted that she was going to have the ice cream, and I insisted that she was not.

Then, while I was brushing her hair before dessert, she asked me, “Mommy, how do you steer a horse?” I told her that you pull on the reins in the direction you want to go. She said, “No, I mean how do you steer a horse like one that wants to cut up your hair ribbons?” (This is one of the wild ideas that the little girl gets in her book.) I told her that you have to show the horse the better idea, and distract it from the one it wants to do that’s not really a good idea. She was quiet for the rest of hair brushing. When we were done, she said, “Mommy, I want a little piece of chocolate.”

So, thank you, Sandra. At least one little girl gets what you were trying to say.

This is not the only such tale of success. Readers of this blog have also sent me emails or comments about their experiences with the book. I’m so happy that the story is working!

My late night night post about fear helped me realize that much of my fear about the kids was based in the fact that for 10 days I will not be there for them. I’ve selected some responsible adults to stand in my place, but it is not the same. This morning I took a quiet moment and spoke with Gleek. The timing was opportune. She had things she had been worrying about that she hadn’t been saying. She was worrying about death and the relatives that she will never get to meet. She cried over Howard’s parents and my grandfather. I held her close and told her what stories I could about these people. I also shared with her my beliefs about death and how life goes on afterward. This is a familiar conversation to me. There seems to be some brain development around the age seven and a half which opens up worlds of new comprehension. Kiki and Link both sat in my lap at similar ages and cried over similar things. Like Link, Gleek expressed a wish that she could stay a kid forever. She wants to always climb trees and grown ups don’t do that. She is beginning to comprehend that to be grown up is to change and the person she is now will be gone. I grieve with her. I like the person she is now. However I also understand that we can not be frozen in time. We are not like Peter Pan. The very fact that Gleek fears growing up, shows that she has already begun. I rejoice in her new understanding even while sympathizing with her fears.

The conversation moved onward to the fact that she is going to be away from me. We talked about exactly how this will happen, the stages of her trip. I talked about the fun she is going to have. Then I expressed concern that I would not be there for her when she was feeling sad. She curled up small in my lap. “I want you to be there mommy.” She paused a moment, then added. “But I can go to Grandma.” It was important for us to confront the problem and for Gleek to have a plan. Then she and I decided that it would help if I put together some packages of fun things that she could open when she feels sad. Gleek liked this idea and was ready for me to pack them up right now. Instead I fed her breakfast. Then when she skipped off to play with a friend, I went shopping at the dollar store.

For young children the dollar store is a glorious feast of shiny things that they can afford to buy. I filled my basket with little things. Most of them are either little games or activities that can be shared, or art supplies. I made sure to get some things for my niece as well, since she will be traveling with Gleek and Patch. I don’t want her to feel left out. I also hit Barnes & Noble and got each of them a new book. I brought the things home and began to wrap them. Things that are wrapped are much more exciting than things which are not. I used brown packing paper for the wrapping because I have an abundance of it. Whenever I see a brown paper package I think of the song “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music. It was apropos to this situation because the song is all about feeling better when you’re scared or sad. Since we’d watched the movie recently, I know the kids will remember the song. I grabbed string and tied up all the packages. Now when the kids feel sad, they can get out one of the brown paper packages tied up with strings. They can know that mom sent it just for them. Many of these packages may come home still wrapped. That’s okay too, because it means that the kids did not need them. The point is the package was there if they did need it.

It may be silly, but I already feel better.

There is simultaneously too much and not enough time between now and Worldcon; too much time to fret, not enough time to pack/prepare. I feel like I’m running on suppressed fear. This means it is time for me to kick those fears out into the open and take a good look at them. The monster in the shadows is terrifying, but under good light you can see that it is just a man in a rubber suit.

I am afraid that Gleek and Patch will not do well away from me. They should be fine at first. Everything will be new and exciting. But then there will come a cranky day, the kind of day when they depend on me to help them keep and even keel. I will not be there. For 10 days I will not be there. This will be a serious disruption to their worldviews. It will be the longest that they have ever been separate from me. I trust my mom and my sister-in-law to take good care of them. I do not trust the kids to be well behaved for 10 whole days. There will be Incidents that I will not be around to manage. In the end everyone will survive. Lessons will be learned. Everyone will grow. But there will be repercussions. The kids will be unsettled for weeks afterward and instead of giving them several weeks of stability, I have to throw them right into a new school year the very next week. I’m worried that won’t go well either. In short, I’m fretting over many possibilities and probabilities over which I have no control. My decision to attend Worldcon will have consequences, I just don’t know what they all are yet. And that scares me. Hopefully I’ll get the happy consequences of more confident children and a good time had by all.

Kiki and Link will be fine being away from me for 10 days. They will probably assist in caring for the younger two while they’re at my mom’s house. But they have to travel by plane, sans adults. I know I’ll walk them right to the plane, they’ll have a non-stop flight, then be met at the other end by my mom. BUT what if Link is anxious about air travel? What if the kids get rowdy on the plane and no one is there to quiet them down? And of course there is the paranoid voice that whispers of crashes both plane and car.

I am afraid of all those big names at Worldcon. I am afraid that someone will cut me down to size, make sure that I know I’m a little fish. I would love to meet some of these authors, Lois Bujold, particularly, but I will be just a face in the crowd. I need to keep that in mind now. I do not go to Worldcon for validation. I go to Worldcon to help run the table and to make contacts with folk in the dealer’s room. I go to Worldcon to help promote Schlock Mercenary and Hold Horses. I will be fine once I get there, but there will be an emotional aftermath, just as there was with Ad Astra. There is also a price to pay before hand. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sent kids out of my office in the last week. “Mommy’s busy.” “Let me think!” Having me attend conventions is expensive in home stability. It would be less expensive if this were not right after Comic Con, right on top of girls camp, just post domain name renewal, just post the magnet shipping, and right before school. Too many things. I can’t process them all.

But the fear is mixed with hope and anticipation. I’m going to have fun. The kids are going to have fun. There is the possibility for this to be a joyous time. That possibility is all the greater because I’ve kicked the fears out where I can see them.

I just scanned through the Worldcon panel listing and schedule. I am a very small fishy indeed in that pond. Not pond, ocean. Hiding under the table is starting to sound like it might be a good idea after all.

I’ve been having a hard time falling asleep lately. My brain does not stop just because I’ve declared bedtime. So I lay awake while thoughts sort and plan and fret. Eventually I do drift off. But then I wake up multiple times per night and feel great relief. I am relieved that I know exactly where all my children are, that I am an not late for anything, that I’m not expected to attend all the classes with all of my children simultaneously, that I haven’t packed all the wrong things, that I haven’t embarrassed myself publicly at Worldcon by hiding under the tables, that I haven’t forgotten to take the kids for their first day of school, that the roads between my house and Denver are not Suessian in design, that no one has a teacher who believes in humiliation as discipline, that all my clothes haven’t crawled out of my suitcases and hidden from me, that I still have time to get things done. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Two more weeks and then maybe I can rest peacefully again.

That whole post about potential problems with the schlock site is now moot. We made sure that Mr. Murphy and his rules couldn’t take the Schlock comic out of commission, so he instead opted for making me look like Chicken Little. The domain registration renewal went through mere hours after I ran around making posts anywhere and everywhere I could think that fans might go looking for information. Now I get to run around and spam every place again to say “Never mind.”

Can I tell you how happy I am to be Chicken Little? It is so much better than having site downtime.

Cheep! Cheep!