Benjamin had his one year checkup today. Unfortunately, we couldn't see his regular doctor and so we saw Dr. Idiot instead. First, this poor man gave off the most unmanly vibe I think I've ever gotten. He just seemed squishy...from his handshake, to his voice...his entire demeanor.

He did interact with and talk to directly to Ben, which is a big plus, but even while he was doing that he was so tentative about everything that I felt like I needed to whip out my "mom skills" to encourage him. It would have gone something like this. I see that he wants to listen to Ben's heart, but seems unsure about it. "Oh, you want to listen to his heart? You can do it. Just try. See, you're doing it. Yay! You're very brave. What a good doctor you are..." Ugh. GROW SOME BALLS, MAN!

So, I'm making it through the appointment, trying to get it over with as fast as possible and make things easy for him. He asked if I had any questions and I did h ...

Benjamin started walking yesterday. In the morning he'd only walk if he was holding at least one of your hands, but by bedtime he was moving under his own power. He doesn't so much bend his knees while he walks as he more just lists from side to side stumbling his way forward. He hasn't quite mastered steering yet, as he'll be looking longingly in one direction, but walking away not able to make the turn. By this morning he had added the ability to walk holding blankie, which is important.

We did catch the spectacle on video tape, which we were very happy about. It's a poorly taped event and Andrew likened it to the footage someone takes of a Sasquatch. The problem was that he wanted to walk to an actual person so whoever had the video camera was trying to catch Ben and film so his head just gets progressively bigger and off center. Then the focus disappears completely for a minute as we try to readjust to send him the other way, his wobbling takes him on and off camera and the so ...

My Benjamin Mark Hatter is officially a year old. Actually, to be absolutely official he's one year old and one day to this very exact minute. Wow. It has been a year that is almost beyond words for me. To think that last year at this time I hadn't even brought my son home from the hospital. He was just this little tiny blob swaddled up in the arms of two very exhausted parents who had no idea what was in store for them...

Last year when I went into the hospital I had spent the previous days planning our traditional Thanksgiving party that we host with friends. I really thought that within 24 hours of coming home from the hospital that I'd be up to hosting a Thanksgiving dinner. Seriously, I thought that! Just FYI, that didn't happen. We did walk over to the party with tiny Ben and stayed for oh, twenty minutes.

When I think back about what I was experiencing last year at this time and in the next few days it makes me want to weep with gratitude that I'm past t ...

Okay, so my novel died. It was struggling weakly along and I would have carried it through to the end despite our rough beginning, but my emergency surgery and then recovery period delivered the killing blows and I decided there was just no way that I was going to be able to pull this off this month. It was a sad decision. I mourned (parts) of my novel. I grieved for another November passing without my completing a novel. I've also decided that I'm going to give myself a "re-do" month once I'm fully recovered and back up and around. So, this thread might be revived later on, but I just wanted to let anyone who was wondering (aka no one) what had happened to my poor book.

I am suffering. My story is suffering. We do not go well together. Nothing is going well. (Note to the concerned: there's not actually anything wrong with me besides the story.)  I have 6,319 words. Today I should be breaking 10k. I have a very definite feeling that I will not be making that goal. The prospects of me finishing this story are getting slimmer and slimmer (quite unlike my stomach and thighs) because I'll be spending a week in Kentucky this month as well and that will not increase my word count in any meaningful way. Failure is looming over me...and my screaming son looming under me...

Yesterday did not go well. I realized all over again how stupid my plot/lack of plot was and how I didn't really like anything about my story and I didn't know where to go with it and I was seriously considering burning down the girl's house and having her reincarnated into another life and plot somewhere else. However, with the wisdom only a long-time mother possess, mom came up with an equally interesting and less violent proposition. A time travel machine. I was immediately intrigued and have decided to time-travel my female character back in time and pop her into a wagon-train/pioneer drama. This hasn't really given me a plot, but it's a change of direction at least and so I'm just going to go with it for now. Saturday's funk has left me with only 3,705 words where I should have 6,668 leaving me 2,963 words behind. I wasted most of Benjamin's first nap today watching tv and so now I'm definitely feeling the time crunch.

I'm ending Day 2 with 3,416, which puts me just slightly ahead of where I ought to be. The good news is that I'm not behind yet, the bad news is that tomorrow I have to write basically all my words. The badder news is that my story is not good. It's really not. Somehow before all my beginnings have turned out pretty well and that at least gets me a rather inspired start. This year that is not the case. I have no description. My dialogue is trite. My plot is sparse at best and is taking me places that I don't know about which means my choices are to either make something up (hard to keep up over 50,000 words) or do research (slows the whole process down). I'm not really sure what I'm going to do about it. But for me to be stumped on page seven does not bode well. Week One is supposed to be this flurry of inspiration and Week Two is supposed to be the bog so I'm just not sure how this is going to work. I'm giving serious thought to starting Day 3 with the sentence "And then she woke up from a ...

This is my first entry in my NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Blog because today is November 1st, hence the first day I'm allowed to write on my surely disastrous novel. I SHOULD be writing right now and so while the writing has yet to begin the procrastination is in full swing.

I've been thinking about what I'm going to write on and off since the beginning of October when I realized that this day was fast approaching. This is what I came up with: _________________________ Nothing. Now, it's possible to sit down on day one and start without a clue as to what's going to happen. I've done that before and the results are about what you think, some good, some bad, and a lot ugly. However, since last year I've added the complication of having a son which severely limits my writing time, plus having Andrew taking college classes online also limits my access to the computer.

I started my noveling notebook by titling a page National Novel Writing Month 2007 and ...

I'm going to share an excrutiatingly detailed account of my day from the moment I woke up until bedtime. You'll be privvy to everything, you lucky dog. No, not really, don't worry. I don't generally make people suffer agony like that for no reason. My days are pretty boring so I'll just hit the highlights. (Oh, and the times that you see on the lefthand side of the events are fictitious. I mean, they're based in reality, but I didn't actually write down the minute that stuff was happening. I'm just guessing. Blogging is an art.)

5:56 Benjamin wakes up fussing for the third time since 11:00 when I went to bed. I roll over and pull the pillow over my head.

5:58 Andrew appears in the doorway holding Ben and translating his babbles. "Where's mom? Can we find her? Mooooom, I need some breakfast. Mom, are you under that pillow?" I poke my head out, Ben smiles and divebombs my boobs. Andrew leaves to keep getting ready for work.

6 ...

I'm sure that every has heard about the study that came out saying that Baby Einstein will not actually make an Einstein out of your child and in fact, isn't as good for your kids as talking to them. (Gasp of surprise)

What I don't understand is why people are surprised by this. Of course it's more beneficial to your child to play with them for twenty two minutes instead of letting them watch a DVD. It's also better if they eat plain oatmeal (hold the brown sugar) instead of Lucky Charms for breakfast. It would be better for me if I'd get up off my duff and exercise instead of typing this blog, but here I am.

In my opinion, what the study failed to take into account is that when most parents put in a DVD for their kids they do it because for the next little while they will be unavailable to play with said child. I bet that Baby Einstein is more beneficial for a kid then being stuck in a playpen to cry for the same amount of time, or drinking Bleach because mom ...