More Fun with the Lensblall

Persona-Fluid Josie

Her small self and mama have been enjoying a girls' weekend in Florida with friends. Claui reported back the following story:

In the airport, someone asked Josie her name and she said it was Clara. (Ever since The Nutcracker, she's been Clara off and on.) 

"Yes, that's what you like to call yourself," said Claui, "but what's your real name?"

"Stephanie," said Josie (whose real name is Josephine Claire Skemp.)

I'll be interested in finding out where that Stephanie came from.

This persona fluidity may be an inherited quirk. Her uncle went through a spell of insisting that his name was Rover. And later that it was Reth. And I, when I was old enough to know better, begged my mother to legally change my name to Deirdre. Or Lillith.  

The answer was no and I got over it.

Looking forward to her small self's return tomorrow, whoever she is.

Irrational Exuberance

Almost Entirely About Poop

"This is my medium-sized poop book," Josie told me as she plucked  The Last Don from a bookshelf just outside the bathroom door. 

There's been a lot of poopy talk around the house ever since Thanksgiving when the Big Push to get her little self out of diapers  began.

Anyone who's ever been involved in potty training will understand. The rest of you may prefer to tiptoe quietly away.

Over a year ago, when Josie was about one and a half, her staff provided appropriate potties in the three houses where she spends time.  No particular goals or methodology were set, just a general consensus that when she was ready, she'd decide it was time to lose the diapers and use those cute little potties. 

In the beginning, I tried to get her just to sit down on the potty.  At first she was having none of it but after a time (months), she humored me and sat. Fully clothed with diaper. There had been some talk of stickers as a reward for actually using the potty but it wasn't working here. 

The fact that Josie shuttled between three houses and three different sets of caregivers who had no unified plan may have been part of the problem. And she simply may not have been ready. I think it's part of her personality that she hates to try something and not succeed. She was a little slow in talking but when she did begin, by golly, she had all the words ready.

When Claui instituted the use of yogurt melties as a reward (one for a pee in the potty, two for a poop) things began to move, so to speak. Josie was still in pull ups but more often than not she'd use the potty. To pee. Only. Pooping took longer and she got frustrated. 

Then about the time I'd begun saying that surely she'd be out of diapers by middle school, Thanksgiving came and Josie discovered frozen pumpkin mousse. She isn't given many sweets and this was an instant hit with her. So, I upped the ante on poops. "If you poop in the potty," I told her,"you can have a spoonful of the special treat."

Now began a few weeks of poop-focused days at Meema's. We watched videos with Daniel Tiger using the potty. "If you have to go potty, STOP and go right away. Flush, wash, and be on your way" played incessantly in my head. We watched Elmo using the potty. 

We spent diaperless days watching videos and taking her dolls and stuffed animals to the potty. She sat on the potty and I sang Poop songs to her so she would stay seated. Josie's pooping on the potty, All the live long day or Where is the first little poop, poop, poop? or Old McJosie did a poop, Poopy, poopy, poop.

It was all we talked about. 

And I discovered Potty Monkey -- probably the worst kids' video I've ever seen--pathetic animation and voicing (see for yourself HERE) --but IT WORKED. We watched Potty Monkey OVER and OVER and she began to quote it as she sat on the potty. "The pee will not come out!" or "I think it is beginning to happen!"

By Christmas our girl had been diaper free for a month. We stopped watching Potty Monkey. And all the frozen pumpkin mousse was gone. 

But why Puzo's book should be designated a medium-sized poop book is beyond me.

Josie Is So Excited

Library play group is BACK!

Hurry up, Meema!

I had to see about EVERYTHING!

I did puzzles.

This baby said he missed me.

Dance time was GREAT!

I have some fancy moves.

We do a circle goodbye.

We also do Car Wash and run through the ribbons.

I had to make sure the playground was still there.

And that the slide still worked.

Now we're going to choose some new books to take home.

YEE HA! I love the library!

This Is the Part I Hate . . .

And the Crows Took Their Eyes is getting closer to publication (pub date is October 16, 2020,) and I've just finished yet another read-through of the typeset proof.

It's kinda amazing how many errors crop up in the typesetting -- not to mention my own errors I'd overlooked in previous readings.  I was so happy to correct a particularly bad mistake I made--on one page I have Polly shut and bar the door and a few paragraphs later, a man runs into the house. All it took was a quick removal of bar the door, thank goodness!

Most of the confusion occurred with letters and quoted Bible verses and songs where extra indenting and line spaces are called for. I wanted all that stuff in italics but the publisher's house style doesn't like italics except in small doses. 

Two days of intensive proof reading and back and forth with the editor and all that got straightened out. Now I'm faced with the cringe-inducing task of asking for blurbs.

Early blurbs will go on the advance reading copies (ARCs) that are sent out to the big reviewers and a positive notice from a well-known author increases the chances that one of these big reviewers will even open the ARC.

So I'm gritting my teeth, girding my loins, squaring my shoulders, and doing whatever I must to solicit blurbs. I have three folks already who say they'll take a look at an ARC, for which I am really grateful. But there are a few more out there from whom I'd really love a stamp of approval.

Like I say, this is the part I hate.

I Hab A Bad Code in the Head

Will schedule this post now and get to bed before 7 pm. These hopeful signs...

Writing Class at John C. Campbell

From the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion:

Come June, on the 7th to the 13th, I'll be back at John C. Campbell for my eighth year of leading a class called A Practical Guide to Writing Popular Fiction.

The class is open to anyone writing or even thinking about writing fiction -- all levels of expertise welcome.

The beautiful surroundings and friendly non-competitive spirit at JCC make this a perfect chance to kick-start a new project or breathe new life into a partially finished one.

Follow THIS LINK to learn more. If you have a question about the class or JCC, I'll try to answer it

Floating World

                                      Island mountains rise
                                      Out of a sea of white mist
                                      In this floating world.

Green Resolutions

So, Australia is on fire, the Amazon rain forest is being destroyed, there is more plastic in the ocean than fish, there are still children in cages and separated from their parents, and the bone spur idiot in the White House is trying to get us into yet another Middle East war to distract us from his impeachment. 

It is, as someone commented, like putting a band-aid on a gangrenous leg, but I continue to struggle to do something positive in the face of so much awfulness. 

On my wish list this Christmas were re-usable produce bags, stretchy silicon lids (to replace plastic wrap, and glass storage containers.  So I guess that's my resolution for the new year -- to reduce my consumption of single use plastics. 

I've ordered some new canvas shopping bags to replace the smelly recycled plastic ones from the grocery. I've also ordered a bar of shampoo/soap and a cardboard packaged deodorant stick in hopes of getting rid of a few more plastic things in my life. 

Though I'm quite good about recycling, I realize that recycling isn't the answer.  And these tiny steps aren't either. It's going to take a massive world-wide effort to stop treating the Earth and her oceans like a garbage dump.

I'd like to see huge incentives for scientists to come up with naturally degradable plastic replacements and with a means of transforming existing plastic into something useful--like maybe energy, or building materials. 

I'd like to see the end of dumping garbage at sea.

I'd like to see this country wake up to the perils of climate change and begin to treat it as the global emergency it is.

I'd like to see the end of the Bone Spur presidency.

Meanwhile, I'm lighting that single candle ... rather than cursing the dark.

Stone Trolls

In Tolkien's Middle Earth, sunlight can turn trolls to stone.  

Is that what happened here?

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

My New Year's Day treat. A multi-generational novel centered around a grand house, its inhabitants, and their sometimes surprising obsessions. Love and hate and revenge and redemption come and go in the old house.

Patchett's a master at this. Beautifully, seamlessly told--the lives of all the characters from the owners to the servants intertwine--sometimes predictably, sometimes surprisingly. 

Kinda like life itself.

The characters grabbed me right away and I kept turning pages in search of answers: what happened to the missing mother? will the nasty stepmother get what's coming to her? will the various children sort out their lives?

A little like a soap opera, yes, but so well done.

Happy New Year!!!

Can you see the future?

May it be bright

And full of beauty.