___1___

Alex and Nicholas have been adorable lately. They’re playing Batman, Transformers, and Lego together as if they’re not 4 years apart in age. It makes me all mushy inside.

___2___

Nicholas’ first-ever homework assignment was to complete an “all about me” page. It took us a tour of the color wheel to determine his favorite color–he just kept listing them as if he was waiting for me to tell him the right answer (yellow; he asks for a yellow vitamin every.single.morning). So when we reached the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I groaned inwardly and started listing professions: “Do you want to be a fireman, or a policeman, or…”

“Awex,” he interrupted firmly.

I ground to a halt. “You want to be Alex when you grow up?”

“Yeah. I want to be Awex when I gwow up.”

Awwwwwww!

___3___

While we’re on the subject of Nicholas, his epic nosebleeds have resurfaced. I called the ENT to schedule surgery, because I can’t handle these nightly nosebleeds much longer, and the nurse said to try Afrin before bed. Would you believe it worked?

___4___

Michael’s recent excessive crankiness turned out to be an ear infection. Duh. It never even occurred to me. I’ve never had a baby get an ear infection before.

___5___

Chalk this one up to the hazards of having superhero-obsessed boys. During all the late-summer craziness, I would express a desire for a low-key evening. Inevitably Alex turned to me with a puzzled expression and said, “Loki?”

(I’m thinking of this tonight because we’re watching the movie Midnight in Paris, starring Tom Hiddleston as F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I cannot separate the man from his dark-side character. Sorry, man. You did too good a job as the bad guy.)

___6___

I finally got enough of my nonfiction work cleared out this week to allow me to start working on my novel again (for the first time this entire calendar year.) I had to discipline myself to get started. Nothing can wig out your self-confidence as a writer more than trying to write a novel. But it only took about an hour before my blood was humming. When 3p.m. rolled around–my “shut down Word and be a mom” hour–my heart kept straining back toward the computer. All night. I wanted to stay up late to work on it, sleep be hanged. No nonfiction project is ever that hard to set aside till tomorrow.

___7___

And on that note, my fiction excerpt this week is from my already-completed, but so far unloved (at least by the publishing industry) novel. Have a peek.