Today I received my first-ever—let’s hope first in a looooooooooooooong line—royalties check.

My part’s pretty small, less than a grand. The book has been out only half a year. The author royalties are being split four ways. Plus, our fees for photos and illustrations we chose for the book come out of the first check, so the publisher deducted almost half of it.

But that’s OK.

Cuz it’s the first.

FIRST. 

ROYALTIES CHECK!

OMG

I just heard from our publisher that our textbook Medical Terminology Complete has just been adopted by Cabrillo College and its three branches. That’s 800 books per year! Yippee!

The department chair says, "Our instructors are impressed and we have adopted the textbook! The first change in 41 years."

As this comment implies, instructors are notoriously reluctant to change textbooks, so winning over a new school takes a monumental effort.

Lucas is coming into his “feeling years.” You may ask yourself, as I did, “What the hell have we been in all this time then, if not “feeling years”?
            Well, as he approaches 7 and spends most of his day now navigating the social morass of other 7-year-olds, we are hearing from him about his good days and bad days at school. He has good buddies and kids who were good buddies yesterday, or last week, but who now are hated and bitter enemies because of some infraction—real or imagined. Lucas has always been a sensitive child, and although he usually lets his soft underbelly show only at home, he now spends more than half of his energy every day figuring out how to be in these social situations.

            Partly because of their age and partly their gender, the boys at school have roughly formed into “teams.” I think team membership fluctuates. Lucas describes “battles” and “fights” in which bad kids do bad things, and Lucas and his “good guy” teammates try valiantly to make the “bad guys” stop. He tells us he is part of the group of first-grade enforcers of good, moral behavior, fairness, and rule following. He thinks he is a kind of cop. I know the boys at school do sometimes wrestle and roughhouse in a way that is not tolerated at public schools. They are permitted to tussle in the mud and run with sticks and build forts to keep the enemy out. And I think this is good because he’s playing these war games in a supervised environment with others who are his size and age, and not with little Asher. I’m told I mustn’t coddle the boy; he must be allowed to play out his aggressions, work through his fantasies. Lucas, like Captain Kirk, must be hit on the chin a few times to cement those best-friend bonds, right? So, mostly I don’t worry about this stuff. I expect that the teachers are on top of it; I know that Ms. Duncan put a damper on some too-rough behaviors earlier this year.

            So, that’s some of what’s going on at school. When Lucas comes home, he’s a little beat. He often is tired and needs down time, and he seems to need to take out his frustrations on me. I don’t like it, but I know that’s what he’s doing. Sometimes he forgets to take off his psychic armor and put down his weapons before he comes home. He is churlish and rude, spouting sarcasm and criticism, like say, if I don’t get the car door unlocked quickly enough and he has to stand there a moment waiting. I love this kid, but that shit don’t fly! We frequently have an “attitude adjustment” period each afternoon, usually less than an hour, in which we butt heads and I remind him that he mustn’t speak to me so rudely. I remind Lucas of our looooong talk of a couple of months ago.

            See, we had been fighting all the time and were both frustrated and short-tempered. In our looooong talk, I told Lucas that if he wanted fewer Noes and more Yeses from me, if he wanted more “Good jobs!” and “Thank you, honeys!,” he would have to give me more “OK, Mommys!” It finally clicked, and I have been getting lots more “OK, Mommys!” since then. So, our daily attitude adjustment period often involves a reminder of this deal we struck.

            Ian is often flummoxed by Lucas’s sudden crying jags. Yesterday’s was about cereal. It’s really easy to set Lucas off at home (where he is safe to fly off the handle and lose his shit), and we all manage to do it frequently. It can seem like the wind merely shifts direction, and suddenly Lucas’s mood turns from joyful to deeply wounded. This is where my theory of feelings comes in again. I think he’s just enough aware of other people now and his place among them that he is constantly measuring and weighing every comment against his ego. In short, Lucas is developing a filter. Every word he hears, every action, every interaction goes through Lucas’s Feelings Filter: Does this build me up or tear me down?

            Sound familiar?

            Growing up is hard.

            But I should end this with the bright side of the coin because it truly is shiny. Lucas is also delightful to be around. He manages to do a lot for himself these days, can entertain himself, and is resourceful and creative. He is often very kind to Asher and does his best to keep Asher happy and safe. He gives great hugs and still craves attention from me and Ian. He has learned to be friendly with his adult friends, engaging people in conversation and making jokes. He is a wonderful kid with many interests and I’m really proud of him.

I finally have the whole morning to work on libmemcached functions! This is great because I really need to kick ass on this thing. The publisher finally sent me answers to four queries. I’m thrilled because now I can just fix stuff instead of wondering whether I understand it correctly and querying everything, which is a waste of time.

I also have a swirl of distractions in my head. I am attempting to banish them by making a list:

* An old friend who is a cop in Oakland just lost five cop friends in one incident with a guy with a gun. But "guns don’t kill people … "
* Baby Liam is still in NICU. This is day 14.
* My not quite-SIL sent me her nursing school application essay to edit again. She’s coming tomorrow afternoon to entertain the kids.
* My DE work needs me today too. Can’t find a way to do both tasks at once.
* My house keeps breaking: light fixtures, garage doors, etc.
* SPRING! My tulips are starting to bloom. My weeping cherry is gorgeous.
* I need a date. BAD.

Despite Asher being sick today, I managed to work 6 hours and 42 minutes. That’s nothing short of a miracle, considering how crappy he felt and how he really doesn’t like me to get anywhere near my computer—unless it’s to show him "manamana" or "Elmo’s Song" clips on YouTube. (Makes me happy I have two monitors. I can sometimes show him clips of Sesame Street songs while I work on the other monitor.)

Much thanks to:
Tina for picking Lucas up from school and taking care of him till 5.
Jeff for being available via IM for my questions about Perl and hashing and stale references and the wacky writing in this book.
My mom for picking up Asher after work and taking him to her house for two hours this afternoon, despite risk of infection.
Ian for cooking dinner AGAIN and making me medicinal drinks for my nerves!
Lucas for being a cool kid today and pretty damned easy.
Carrie for the pep talk she gave me.

It takes a village.

If Asher is still feverish tomorrow, I’ll call the Dr. It’s possible his ear infection has returned. Or not. Perhaps we’ll get to see her a fourth time this month!

Today I was able to put Asher down for a nap without nursing him. This kind of thing happens rarely, such as when we’re out and about and he falls asleep in the car. But until today it had never happened while we were home alone and ready for nap. I credit this in part to his being sick and unable to put up much of a fight for milk. But also, the last two days have passed without milk at nap time because Ian had Asher away from me and home in the middle of the day. I’m going to try to go with it this week. If it works, he’ll be down to a single bedtime nursing session. He actually passed out this evening without that one, too. So it’s been 24 hours now since he had mama milk. Weaning is afoot. I’ll probably write more about this, as I have my usual plethora of mixed feelings. Right now, I am just too tired and must hit the hay.

Good night, Interwaves.

I once had a girlfriend in a faraway place. She was from Oregon. She was blond, beautiful, funny, wicked-smart, and into reading Latin and snacking on tea and scones. She suffered from homesickness, long-distance love, and asthma just like me. We studied together. We poured out our heartaches together. I crushed on her. We kissed once. I took care of her when she got very sick and helped her not flunk for being unable to take exams. We parted ways, promising to be forever friends. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding. I attended her wedding the next year in Portland. Then we lost touch. A few phone calls and a Christmas card or two are all that have passed between us in the last 15 years. I know she got divorced. I think she might have gone into nursing. I don’t know where she is or what she’s doing or if she’s happy. I’d like to know all those things about her and more. Today is her birthday. Happy birthday, beautiful Jenny. I’ll always love you.

I have stuff I want to write about, but I’m currently drowning in work that is tricky and boring and freaking me out. [meta-data, master/slave, debian packages, Boolean, instantiated, Ubuntu, libmemcached, Perl, insert statements, incrementing] Gah! Please wish me luck this week: A huge mountain of editing must be done, and done well, before I can really come up for air.

Thank goodness I got to see some friends last night! My people are beautiful, clever, and indispensable.

Happy spring to everyone. It’s so gorgeous outside—wet and overcast but with blasts of sunshine breaking through. The boys are planning to work on Lucas’s latest brilliant idea: a chess board and pieces made from all recycled materials. Gotta love those Waldorf kids. "I want something. I’ll make it!"

A Facebook friend posted this link and I had to share: http://corcholat.com/!13H

I am wondering about the possibility/practicality of refinancing my house. Our interest rate is already pretty low—I think 5.375%. I’m wondering if the cost of refinancing it would be worth it. Would it end up saving us money each month? Anybody know what kind of rates are possible right now? Is there some kind of magical formula along the lines of "if you can go down X percentage points, it’s worth it. If not, then no."

Looking for creative ways to weather the storm.

"Love is everything it’s cracked up to be—It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for."  —Erica Jong