Guest Post: My Annual Sanity-Saving Scrapbooking Vacation

The PBKMoms are pleased to welcome Amy Moss and her sanity-saving vacation tips!

It started so innocently, like most life-changing, amazing ideas do.

I was sitting around a dining room table with my four close girlfriends.  Two years prior we had all taken up scrapbooking as a hobby.  This is not a story about scrapbooking; so if you are not into scrapbooking, don’t worry. In place of scrapbooking you can insert knitting, crocheting, needlepointing, cross-stitching, quilting or any other favorite craft.  We’d found a hour or two here and there on rare weekends to get together, drink wine and try to put pictures of our children into scrapbooks.  Scrapbooking is a great hobby because it is a shopper’s dream.  There is always something new to buy – sparkly jewels, Mickey Mouse die cuts, just the right shade of black paper (It does not exist.) and on and on.  I have more scrapbooking supplies than I will use in my lifetime, but still I buy that new Victorian Halloween paper that would be perfect for my imaginary fall layout.

Anyway, it was not for a lack of supplies that led to the great revelation, but rather an over-abundance of them.  We had so many neat scrapbooking toys that it made it hard to get together.  Even with Creative Memories rolling luggage bags, it was a hassle to pack it all up.  We’d complained about this problem at several crops.  Then enlightenment hit - What if we went away for the weekend and scrapped?

Wait a minute! Could we go somewhere away from the kids, away from the husbands, away from the jobs, away from the cleaning, cooking, laundry, playdates, swim teams, etc.??  This idea was pretty unheard of outside of bachelorette parties to Vegas or New Orleans.  Our voices dropped to whispers, lest anyone hear of our novel scheme.  The more we talked, the more we loved the idea, and so we made a list of requirements:

1. Location must be within driving distance – shorter the better.
2. We each need our own room – Ladies, after college you are too old to share a room.
3. We need a place with a large space to all sit together.
4. We need a TV, DVD player and sturdy blender.

The plan was born: Friday through Sunday in a rented house on the beach in Galveston, Texas.  Just us girls - all together with no responsibilities (and, as it turns out, a lot of tequila) for three whole days!  After our first weekend together we knew that we had something unique and precious.  Something we were determined to do again… regularly…  and our annual scrapbooking weekend was born!

Unlike other girls-only vacations there is no running around to see antiques or museums or going out to restaurants or bars.   And no shopping.  No need to worry about what to wear or wanting to go home because you are tired when everyone else wants to party.  With this vacation there is no schedule!  You get up when you want to.  You go to bed when you want to.  Hell, you even get to take a nap if you feel like it!  You also don’t need to worry about what to bring.  Pajamas, t-shirts and yoga pants are pretty much all you need.  No one to see you.  Your girlfriends don’t care that your hair is in a scrunchie and you are wearing old Eeyore pjs.

Remember there is no schedule here and you have nowhere to be.  So cocktails start whenever you want them.  It is a safe drinking environment because there is no driving.  Your girlfriends are watching out for you with Advil and water.  So have that mimosa with breakfast and smile!

This is the time to watch all those chick flick movies that your husband and kids don’t want to see.  So pull out the Notebook and the tissues!  Haven’t seen the first season of Downtown Abbey – you can watch the whole thing this weekend!  Want to watch Gone with the Wind again – all four hours of it – with enough vodka you can do it.  I also recommend a PBS mini-series, any Jane Austen movie and missed seasons of Glee.   

 Now is the time to indulge in the food you love.  Never have you seen a grocery cart so full of delicious and unhealthy junk.  Oreos, five different kids of cheese, salami, BBQ potato chips, peanut M&Ms, etc.  You name the junk food and we eat it guilt-free.  This is vacation and the calories don’t count.  We take turns cooking dinner or we decide to just eat olives and cookies.

However, the best part about these scrapbooking weekends is being with friends that are family.  We talk.  A lot.  About everything.  Life’s scary challenges have been tackled with laughter, tears and loving support (plus a little drunken dancing).  If I have a problem, I know these girls will be there with at least three possible answers and a shoulder to lay my weary head on.  Their experience with home and business matters is invaluable and this weekend gives us the opportunity to swap stories and best practices.  It is a safe place to bare our souls…. and we get a little scrapbooking done too.

In short, this is a wonderful stay-cation away from home with your best girlfriends doing a hobby you love.  This relaxing time is the best weekend any over-stressed mom could have.  I hope you can plan your trip soon!

Amy Moss is Corporate Securities and M&A partner at Haynes and Boone, LLP in Houston, Texas.  She is the proud mom of two amazing kids, Z-Girl who is finishing up third grade and Z-Boy who starts kindergarten in the fall.  She is lucky to be married to Z-Husband, whose idea it was to pick names for the children that start with Z.

C, D, P, M and K – can’t wait till scrapbooking weekend in September!

Build Her Confidence: Guest Post by Samantha Grace

Today the PBKMoms are thrilled to welcome fellow author and mom Samantha Grace.

It’s an honor and a privilege to be blessed with a child to raise. You want to keep your children safe and have them grow into healthy, happy, successful, loving, and productive individuals that will make the world a better place to live. You want the world to be a better place for them.

It’s no small task to be a parent. The hours are long, the work is hard, and the pay stinks, but the benefits package is priceless—snaggle-tooth grins, sweet belly-laughs, admiration shining in their eyes. Yeah, it’s totally worth it.

Having a daughter feels like even more responsibility, at least for me as a mom. I’m THE example in my daughter’s life of what a woman should be. Or if I’m horrible at this mother gig, maybe I’ll become a precautionary tale. (grin)

I feel it’s every generation’s job is to be better than the one that came before it. Our pasts should not be projected onto our children, and mistakes shouldn’t be repeated in an endless cycle. My mom was a great example for me in that respect. She didn’t have an affectionate, loving home growing up, but that didn’t stop her from trying her best to give it to me. I never doubted my family loved me.

My mom wasn’t able to give me was the confidence that comes from being comfortable in my own skin. I want to give this to my daughter so badly. I don’t want her to look in the mirror and zero in on what she sees as flaws. I believe how you actually look has little bearing on how happy you are. Beautiful women can feel lacking and large women can be living the best life imaginable. While I always want to focus on health, I don’t want my ten-year-old daughter to ever feel anything less than a goddess and unwilling to settle for anyone who isn’t going to love her fully.

Here are steps I’ve taken to help build her confidence, and so far, they seem to be working.

Being a good example: Actions always speak louder than words. No matter how many times I might tell her she’s beautiful, smart, funny, and sweet, my efforts could be for nothing if I’m critical of myself. My daughter is a part of me and therefore anytime I put myself down, I’m putting down a part of her. That may sound far fetched, but as I’ve grown into a woman, I see more of my mother in my features. If I complain about how ugly my nose is and my daughter has my nose, I’m telling her she is ugly too. (Personally, I have nothing against my nose. It does its job.)
Sometimes it means faking confidence when I may be wrestling with insecurities, but it’s amazing how something that starts out as pretending can become real.

Letting her fail and be successful: It’s normal to want to protect our girls (boys too, really), but always coming to the rescue can send the message that our daughters aren’t capable of handling things on her own. That’s a slippery slope because then her focus as she grows becomes how to find someone who can take care of her rather than her seeking a partner to stand by her side.

One simple way I’ve worked with my daughter in gaining social confidence is having her make her own phone calls to RSVP for parties. I model for her what to say, have her practice, and then stay by her side while she makes the call. Sometimes it takes a vote of confidence. “You can do this. You’ll be fine.” And I always follow it up with praise for how brave she is. I’ve done the same thing with helping her approach service counters and ordering at a restaurant. We also practice different ways she can respond to classmates who aren’t being nice to her.

Reinforce that she was born exactly the way she was meant to be:
As a teen, I remember hearing how pretty I was. And how I could be a ‘knockout’ if only I would lose five pounds. Oh, the ever present five pounds, the only thing standing between bliss and me. I know my mom meant well and probably thought she was being helpful. But in my head, I only heard “You’re not quite good enough.” It also seemed incredibly important for me to be a ‘knockout’ and to be attractive to the opposite sex. But you know what valuable lesson I learned eventually? I didn’t need to change anything to be loved. I only needed to love myself and once I’d started down that path, my husband came into my life. And you know what’s even more amazing? The things I considered my weak points – i.e. curves—he loves. So there ya go! I’ve told my daughter since she was a tiny girl that she is exactly as she’s supposed to be, because I believe that with all my heart.

Focus on her strengths:
I don’t give my daughter false compliments, and I don’t praise everything she does. I think that only makes kids more reliant on outside reinforcement that they are okay. But I do notice her strengths. She’s a decent singer, budding artist, and good writer. She is a great friend. She’s sensitive to others and she’s kind. Her teacher chose her for a special leadership program at her school because she is always helping other kids. In fact, in kindergarten she became the self-appointed buddy to a classmate with special needs, helping her get to the bathroom and into line for different activities. She has a great work ethic in school and she isn’t shy in the least.

So how do I know the efforts I’m making are working? If you follow me on Facebook, you’ve probably seen postings about things she says and does that illustrate how confident she is. Her latest show of confidence came when I said something about her talking distracting me from what I was doing, and she responded with absolute seriousness, “I’m sorry. I know I’m interesting.” Gotta love that girl!

Samantha Grace is the author of several Regency romance novels. Lady Vivian Defies a Duke (released May 7th) is the final installment of her Beau Monde Bachelor series. Publisher’s Weekly describes her stories as “fresh and romantic” with subtle humor and charm. She writes what she enjoys reading: romantic comedies about family, friendship, and flawed characters who learn how to love deeply.

Samantha is a part-time hospice social worker, moonlighting author, and full time wife and mom. She enjoys life in the Midwest with her husband, two witty kids, and a multitude of characters that spring from her imagination.

To Connect with Samantha, you can find her at:

Samantha Grace Author | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Lady Scribes

Finding Your Miracle – An Unsubstantiated Guide to Dieting and Parenting

When my dear friend Shana invited me to be a guest blogger on the peanutbutteronthekeyboard blog, a blog dedicated to motherhood and written by writers, I was flattered but a bit hesitant.  I’d tried blogging once before, and it was a dismal failure.  But let me explain…

I, too, am a writer, but of a different variety than the lovely ladies who are regular contributors here.  For the past ten years, I have written a parenting column for several San Antonio publications.  Mommy Matters started out as a newspaper column for my local neighborhood newspaper.  The column grew until I eventually moved it to the magazine circuit where it changed a bit, but was still basically me talking about my kids and trying to come up with a “moral of the story moment” so I didn’t sound like a complete loser of a mom.  Mothers related.  Who knew?  My singular blogging attempt came at the request of my editor at the magazine, who was trying to bring all her regular columnists on board for the magazine’s new blog site.

You would think after all those years of writing a parenting column, it would be easy to sit down and knock out a quick blog about what was going on in my life, but that damn blog tormented me for weeks.  Bloggers were young and hip.  I was not.  Bloggers made people laugh and think about political issues.  I would not.  Blogs were streams of consciousness or pithy comments that flowed easily from the keyboard with little effort or foresight.  Seriously?  I could not.

When I finally submitted my one and only post, about signing my kids up for swim lessons or some other nonsense no one was interested in, I prayed no one would read it.  I think I got my wish though I’m not one hundred percent certain as I promptly forgot my password and never returned to the site.  (My editor never mentioned this.  I don’t think she knew any more about blogging than I did, or she read my lame post.)

So, when Shana asked me to be a guest blogger here…well, I was uncertain.  Then I read the topic for the month—food, weight and eating issues.  Now, here was something I could talk about.  Relate to.  Here was something I specialize in discussing with my girlfriends on long walks around the neighborhood!  Or at lunch.  Or while grocery shopping.  Most importantly, here is a topic that rattles around my brain incessantly all day, every day, and has for the past sixteen years.

I’m a forty-three year old mother of three children, ages sixteen, fourteen, and three.  Battling my after-baby-weight has been an ongoing struggle since baby number one and is still going strong.  Babies one and two came in my late twenties/early thirties.  Two years after baby number two came along, I was finally fed up enough with the baby weight I had been carrying around since baby number one to actually do something about it.  I joined Weight Watchers where I did have some success, met my goals, and became a lifetime member.  (Toot-toot.  That’s my own horn.)  I started running, and between the running and occasional returns to Weight Watchers for “maintenance issues,” I was able to keep my weight pretty stable for about ten years.

Then baby number three came along.  She was born exactly two weeks after my fortieth birthday and is the brightest little ray of sunshine in our family.  But this blog isn’t about her, so forget I mentioned that.  This blog is about me.  And my weight.  And my struggles.  Don’t put on your happy face.

I don’t care what Hallie Berry looks like right now, having a baby in your forties is NOTHING like having a baby in your twenties or thirties.  It’s as if the fat around my middle has been stuck there with Gorilla Glue and refuses to budge.  Same goes for under my chin.  And the back of my arms.  Three years after giving birth to number three, I am fifteen pounds heavier than that “goal weight” I maintained for ten years, and it’s not going anywhere fast.  Yes, I returned to Weight Watchers, and it helped for a while, but it was so HARD.  Much harder, this time around.  One tiny little glass of wine was five points, and my normal glass was probably more like seven or eight.  Times two glasses…I hardly had any points left for eating.  So, I gave up on Weight Watchers and decided what I really needed was a good get-skinny-quick scheme.  If I could just lose the weight really quickly, I would go straight to the WW maintenance plan to keep it off.  I justified this by telling myself that as long as I eventually got to the healthy eating aspect of the diet, it was a good, solid plan.

So, here I am, two years later, and that is still my goal.  Find the miracle cure for these pesky pounds, then keep them off using a sensible, healthy, portion-controlled eating plan.  Sound familiar?  Well, it’s been a long, hard road.  As far as diets go, I’ve tried them all:  Southbeach, Atkins, The Zone, Paleo Eating…throw in a couple more attempts on Weight Watchers, and that about sums it up.  I’ve also tried pretty much every diet aid on the market.  Here are a few I have tried so far that have NOT been my miracle cures:  Acai berry (juice and pill form), Ally (beware the Ally-oops!), Lipozene, Hydroxy-cut, Hoodia (Thanks, Oprah), Metabolife, Slimquick, Cheaters, Raspberry Ketone (Thanks, Dr. Oz), numerous cleanses and juice concoctions, and a cream that you rub on your belly before putting on this fat-burning belt.  I have even tried an illegally obtained Mexican diet pill sworn to completely suppress the appetite. (Don’t ask.  I will not give up my mule!)  To date, I have lost and gained the same six pounds more times than I can count.  But I’m still optimistic that the miracle cure is out there.  I will not give up.  I am anxious to get rid of these extra pounds, so I can get on with some good sensible eating.  Just as soon as I lose this weight.

 

The Stash

So here is the moral of my story:  parenting is kind of like dieting.  It’s not an exact science, and there is no miracle pill to make you skinny or the perfect mom.  It’s trial and error, success and failure, baby steps in both directions, and a lot of hard, hard work.  There are lots of experts out there willing to sell us a miracle—make us skinny, fix our kids’ problems—but really, the only miracle we can count on is the one God gives us every day.  The miracle of motherhood and the children who make every one of these pesky pound worthwhile.  Occasionally, we get a toot-toot moment, and that’s what keeps us going.  But perfection is rarely on the radar, and sometimes you just have to say, I’m doing the best I can.

Wishing you lots of toot-toot moments today.

Courtney

 

 

Courtney Burkholder is a writer, mother, and professional dieter who lives in San Antonio, Texas with her husband and three children.  She is currently a biographer for Epic Bound Books, a private publishing company for families and businesses, and an aspiring author of young adult novels.  She has recently completed her fourth manuscript and is, once again, on the hunt for agent representation.

 

Lessons That Matter

Some years back…could it really be over a decade?…I was utterly panicked when the goddess editor who purchased my first manuscript at Harlequin went on maternity leave with twins…and didn’t come back. I was orphaned. I didn’t have a champion. A newbie, I was DOOMED. Then one day I answer the phone to the sweetest voice. Stephanie Maurer was calling from New York to say hello and let me know she’d be taking over as my editor, and one of those little Universal gifts dropped into my lap. We’ve been through a lot since then, Stephanie and I have, not just stories, but big stuff like 9/11 and miscarriage, weddings and babies and all sorts of other unexpected life events, but all these years later I’m still fortunate to have Stephanie in my life, no longer as an editor, but as a friend. These days Stephanie is a Children’s Librarian in the New York Library system, where she shares her love of literature and beautiful outlook on life with countless kids, parents, and grandparents lucky enough to cross her path.

Today, we’re fortunate to have her share a few thoughts with us.  Without further ado, Stephanie Maurer Whelan:

The other day I was home in the morning, watching my kids play and occasionally playing referee. My son is going to Kindergarten next year and I’ve been reading all sorts of articles about what kids learn and what parents should be teaching them or helping instruct them on. And it kind of struck me that all this stuff he’s learning and going to have to learn . . . isn’t the whole of it. There are so many important things I need both of my kids to know—tools I want them to have for their lives. They aren’t things that can be tested or measured according to standardized tests and exams. They aren’t things you can grade or “assign” as homework. This is a brief list of what I came up with that morning.

I want to teach my children integrity. The opposite of hypocrisy. Don’t say one thing and do another. Don’t smile to someone’s face and snarl behind their back. Don’t cheat on a test to appear better than you are. Don’t set one ideal of values for others and avoid keeping them yourself. Be honest in who you are. Be prepared to defend your choices and values in the face of criticism and disdain. Be prepared to change your mind out of intelligent and compassionate consideration rather than peer pressure and propaganda. Do not hold to ideas or opinions out of pride, but out of conviction.

I want to teach my children compassion. That every life has value and to treat any living thing like it beneath contempt is to harm your own psyche. That compassion is about caring, but not about being a doormat, or about being silent in the face of wrongs, or to accept falsehood in place of truth. To understand that the person you are facing may be unpleasant or rude or nasty, but you do not have to be in return. To love those who others deem impossible to love. To be guide and a hand and a mentor and to dispense mercy when you can. That compassion means loving others even at their worst, and even when they make you angry. To treat everyone with dignity, that a moment of kindness makes a difference, even in the face of the most awful things. To know that the words from your mouth are a double edged sword and can hurt or harm–especially when you aren’t thinking.

I want to teach my children responsibility. That no one else in this life is responsible for your happiness, and that sometimes being happy is as simple as looking at something from another perspective. That when you do a thing, even if it’s a bad thing or a poor choice, you own up to it. That you are responsible for the things you do and the actions you take whether or not you are caught out. A stolen pencil is no less stolen, a lie is no less told. To be aware of the choices you make, and know when you can make a different choice. Own up to punishments, face them, and learn what you need to from them. Responsibility may not always mean fair, or enjoyable, but to be a whole person who reflects outside what is inside means accepting all you do and the impacts it has.

I want to teach my children hope, confidence and imagination. I want them to step away from the words “I can’t do it” “don’t bother” “let someone else do something” and step up to doing, being and acting. If the situation is untenable, make an effort to change it. If wrong is being committed, speak out against it. If this world is in need of solutions try to find them. Think outside the box, believe you can do anything you set your mind to. Even if you fail to reach the goals you set, you will have succeeded in trying. Don’t place your self-worth in “winning” or “finishing”. The journey is our life, not the end result. If you see a problem, believe you can set yourself to solve it, no matter how vast. Sometimes it just takes one person to believe to convince others of it. Don’t give up on yourself, or on the world.

I want to teach my children to love themselves for who they are. This is no easy thing. We are told by the world around us we have to be better, we have to have the right car, the right clothes the right hair, etc to be loved and accepted. But no matter where we are in life, the lowest or the highest points, you can’t be happy and whole if you can’t love yourself for who you are. The core of “you” the piece of you that watches you act and interact, the thing that holds your deepest loves and values—that’s where you must love yourself. Because if you attach that love to your beauty, or ability, or your social status, then it is a fragile thing that will break and leave you with a broken heart, over yourself. You can hate what you do, but if you love yourself it will give you the tools to change those things you hate. If you cannot love the “self” you are, figure out why—it means something must change. There will always be those better at things than us in life, those that shine brighter, are more popular, have more money or more strength—this does not make them good people in and of itself, it does not make them necessarily happy or whole. There will be people that are worse at things than us in life, those that fail where we succeed, those that come in second to our first, those that aren’t as bright or as bold or as lucky. They are not “losers” or bad people because of this. They aren’t of less value or worthy of less. There will be people who will try to tear you down and make you feel you have no worth, unless you are useful to them. Don’t believe it, and don’t be that person. Love that self, find it and hold to it and it will be the lighthouse through the storm, the rope to hang on to when everything else falls away. Then take that love, and look at others through the same eyes.

I think it’s a lot to teach my children . . . and it’s only the tip of the iceberg. But they won’t learn these things in school, or without my help. But I think it is the least I can do, for them and for the future of this world.

** Be sure to swing by Stephanie’s fabulous blog devoted to children’s literature, http://shanshad1.wordpress.com/, where she explores all manner of children’s media related to speculative fiction, from the perspective of fostering more interest, understanding and conversation about the genres–particularly in how they relate to children’s items. **

Isn’t  she awesome?

The Brighter Side of IVF by Guest Tina Hergenrader

Almost a decade ago, when my husband and I found out we were infertile, I dedicated every spare second to learning about IVF.

Seriously.

As soon as our doctor told us IVF (thousands of dollars, a couple small surgeries, hundreds of painful injections) was the only way we would be a family, I went straight to Google.

And stayed there for the next several months.

I stalked Trying To Conceive (TTC) websites like I would be tested on what they said. At our doctor’s appointments, I had so many anecdotes and testimonies from my online friends rattling around in my head, I questioned our doctor like his professional peer. Because, truly, at this point I probably was. I certainly spent more time reading about Lupron injections than he did.

The TTC world is a strange one. I knew more about strangers’ menstrual cycles than I did about my own. It’s also a sad world. Obviously. Most women going through IVF want a baby worse than they’ve ever wanted anything. No matter how much money they spend trying or how many hormone-altering shots they grit their teeth through, the process often ends in heartbreak.

This is the stuff of (really, really sad) Hallmark movies.

Because of this, the whole TTC world has kind of a dark cloud over it. Even if (yea!), you get pregnant, you’re so worried your cycle buddy won’t be, you don’t want to tell any of your online friends. You certainly can’t ask your dearest infertile friend to throw your baby shower.

This is why people name their IVF blogs and TTC websites “MY IVF JOURNEY.” Women need a somber tone for this terrifying, lonely business they’re going through…and “IVF IS HELL” seems so brash.

Anyway, if the Lupron and progesterone shots don’t get you down (they always do, by the way), this dark cloud of TTC websites will. I distinctly remember one particularly low day with I googled, “IVF Humor.” The response was, “Your search did not match any documents.”
Ha ha…eh.

All this to say I’m here with some perspective. Four kids later (yes, they were all conceived through the miracle of IVF) and ten years worth of perspective, has helped me see that all of IVF wasn’t hell.
Only the shots were hell, really.

And the miscarriage.

But, wait, that’s not funny.

Let me try again.
Here’s the lighter side of IVF…
1. Look on the bright side! With IVF you have the perfect opportunity to choose your child’s birthday! Or close to it. Actually, the laugh is on me with this one. I chose summer birthdays for all our kids. Which, really? Every mom who has ever debated her child repeating kindergarten knows summer is the WORST time to have a baby.

2. Conceiving your child through IVF means you can call your dad, tell him you’re pregnant, and also never have to admit you’ve had sex.

3. When someone says, “you can’t be just a little bit pregnant,” you can say, “Actually, yes you can.” You can be a little pregnant when you have a couple of perfect embryos in your uterus, and you’re waiting to see if they’ll “take.” So, there’s that.

4. Twins! Triplets! The goal for IVF clinics is “one healthy baby” per IVF cycle. But, let’s be clear, the goal of the patients is “as many babies as I can get for all this pain and money.” The idea of multiple babies to an infertile woman is like dangling Louboutins in front of a shoeless SJP. So, when the doctors tell the patient, “Now, you understand there is a risk of twins, right? You understand the stress two babies can cause, right?” The patient is thinking, HECK YES! I know about the twins. And that’s exactly what I’m praying for, buddy.

5. When your kid is older, and they claim you don’t love them, you can always bring up how much money you spent conceiving them. “Sure, Jimmy might have a new XBOX. But, we had you instead. Sorry, honey. But now maybe you understand how much we wanted you.”

6. Most every day you get a progesterone shot, which is one of those deep-tissue ones that goes right into your thigh muscle. It’s one of those shots the nurses describe as, “you’ll know your husband hit the right spot if it hurts really bad.” Yes. One of those. Every day. The bright side of these shots is that you have the most amazing dreams on Progesterone. Like 4D, super-magical, intense dreams that really give your brain a work-out. Which is nice compared to the mush it’s been before that with the estrogen suppositories (yes, seriously) and daydreaming about babies for months.

7. You get an up close and personal look at what your body was designed to do. While tracking your cycle and egg production and ovulation, you see how outrageously perfectly God designed your body to function. Even the most cynical, egotistical doctors admit that whether or not the embryos “take” was a miracle they couldn’t understand.

8. Prayers. When you’re going through IVF, you can ask your best friends or your whole church to pray you’ll get pregnant. They can even have a little prayer vigil while you’re high on Valium and your legs are in stirrups at the hospital, getting surgically impregnated. When you’re trying to get pregnant the old-fashioned way, a prayer vigil during the actual act is a little more awkward.

9. You will grow closer to your husband. We would do lots of fun little rituals together during IVF. My husband would name the shots he gave me. “Oh, look. This one is the DOUBLEYOURENERGY shot. Take this and you’ll wake up with twice the energy!” Truthfully, he should have named all of them the THISHORMONESHOTWON’TMAKEYOUSOCRAZY shot.

10. The best part of IVF is, of course, the babies. Our four IVF babies are a blessing beyond my comprehension. The years have faded the memories of the miscarriage, hormone shots, and heartbreak. But the joys of IVF—the help conceiving these precious, beautiful kids—is obvious everyday.
———————————————————————————————————

Christina Hergenrader is the author of eight Christian books. When she’s not writing, she loves to bake, take pictures, and soak up life with her husband and four kids. They all live in Texas with their ancient Cocker Spaniel and unusually slow Greyhound. Her most recent book is Starring Roles, a devotional about friendship.

Guest Mom Tiffany Clare: Beautiful Children

It’s such a pleasure to have fellow St. Martin’s Press author Tiffany Clare joining us at Peanut Butter on the Keyboard today. Thanks, Tiffany, for being you. Your honesty and courage are inspiring, and we wish you and your family all the best! 

When I came onto this blog last week, I felt a connection with the women here (whether they knew they were making that connection or not). And then I knew I had a write a blog after reading Maisey’s entry because it hit so close to home.

The blogs were inspiring, uplifting in their mutual melancholy and honesty. I have always believed that sharing your experiences, be they good or bad, is always key in life if you want to grow as a human being. Sharing allows you to open up to the possibility of learning more, teaches you sometimes to listen, and if you’re lucky it helps you find that illusive piece to the puzzle you’ve always tried to fit in place when all the pieces you have seem too small, too crooked, and just not right.

The day I found out I was pregnant I remember lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling and Billy the Cat (God rest his loving soul) nudged against my face over and over again, telling me he loved me in his cat way. All I could think was wow-shit-wow. I was in such a state of shock that my then boyfriend of three years (now my husband) and me were pregnant that I just couldn’t process it. Could. Not. Process. It.

What did it all mean, I thought? I was young and was still learning life and figuring out my career (it wasn’t till I had my daughter that I started writing for publication). After the shit-wow-shit factor wore off, we took pregnancy very seriously, and I got a midwife, prepared to do the whole thing naturally, and the right way, whatever that is (shh—we will not talk about the mars bar I ate EVERY day of that pregnancy). I prepared myself, knowing I had to make room for someone who would always be more important than me, who I would cherish above all. Whose needs would forever come before my own.

When we brought our healthy son home, I was so terrified I would break him that I couldn’t put him down. I brought him to bed with me, not the crib nearby, so I could hear him breathing throughout the night to make sure he was okay, well, safe and alive. It’s such a hard feeling to describe. I think sometimes only another mother can understand that need to protect the baby so new from the womb. They are just so defenseless, so precious . . . I digress.

Babyhood was lovely. I had the happiest baby you ever met. He ate. He slept. He played. He smiled and laughed. He was so, so happy. The perfect baby.

When we went for his two-year check up with the family doctor he failed to meet certain criteria with his development. He didn’t talk and he had motor skill difficulties. He was our happy, little chub-monster so eager to make everyone smile around him that for some reason or other hadn’t learned how to communicate ‘normally’, or with language, but with sounds and hand motions instead. So ensued the endless tests: hearing, mouth, eyes, nose, throat, blood work, physiological, blah, blah, blah, you name it, we probably did it. Everything was normal except his motor (gross and fine) skills, and his speech, which was non-existent until well after three.

In broad-term-medical-speak he had a ‘Learning Disability’. What the hell is that we asked? Everyone just said, it’s LD, like that helped. We had our son see doctors, pathologists, psychoanalytical people that speak non-English to you like you understand every word, teachers, tutors, people who think they can tell you what’s wrong and offer unsolicited advice, family that ‘knows’ what’s wrong, theories from people that love you saying that he’s just a boy, they develop slower, he’ll be fine.

When you have young children, everyone is there in the background as feedback. It’s so hard to tune it out when your kid can’t play with other kids their age and communicate with them on a normal level, or doesn’t hit any of the other milestones at the ‘right’ age. And believe you me, as a writer, it was a really hard pill to swallow that no matter how hard we tried we could not teach our son to read, never-mind writing. How’s that for failure?

I felt lost as a mother. Like I’d done something wrong. We pushed for special placements in school, we pushed for speech pathologists, we pushed, we pushed, we frickin’ pushed till we were blue in the face fighting for him when we didn’t understand what was wrong anymore than the people treating him and teaching him the best they could. It was so tiring, but we kept on, knowing that if we stopped he would suffer and be lost in the system.

We had him privately tested again with a child psychologist after years of frustration and answers that weren’t good enough for us. Believe it or not, the testing didn’t come out any clearer than before. This time we had a term called Combined ADHD and LD that was mostly language focused in the write up (I still think it’s some type of dyslexia, but I’m not a doctor to say so, just a mother who likes to think she knows her child best). The one good thing about this testing was that we were finally referred to a doctor that dealt with this kind of stuff.

When we met the specialized pediatrician he knew what we were going through, he could explain why to every issue our son had ever had and had to deal with in his non-language way. Keep in mind this person was the FIRST person that understood and could explain to us what no one else had been able to explain. He had the best description for my son’s condition that it merits paraphrasing. The only difference between my son and a child with autism is that my son has a social aptitude that is acceptable in society’s eyes and therefore will never have the support systems sprouting up for the recognized disability of autism that is societally less desirable in ‘normal’ peoples eyes. Harsh words, but the truth we had waited so frickin’ long to hear.

With that new knowledge came a further realization: the plan we had for our child from womb to adulthood would be delayed. I raged and screamed inside because it’s already so hard to find a balance between growing as a person, and supporting and teaching your children to grow into who they need to be to survive in the wild-world. We weren’t going to go about raising our son normally no matter how we tried, we had to break out of the mold that told us normal was best. So we had to face facts. Our son who is now coming up to his twelfth birthday will probably get worse before he ever gains enough confidence and understanding of the world around him to grow into the adult we had always envisioned in our pre-conceived notion of what was acceptable and normal in the world we live in today.

There was a false sense of failure in all this for a very long time, though we didn’t see it this way for years and years. We felt like we did something wrong right from the beginning. Then we felt like we’d never get our life back on track with ‘us’ because our son would never fit into that ‘normal’ mold and reach the milestones every other kid reaches at certain ages in life. In essence my husband and I grieved the life we thought we would have with children. We had to learn to set that aside and come to terms with abnormal being okay.

Let me go back a moment and share just one more thought about when I was pregnant. I put it away when it happened in real life and brought it out and examined it years later.

I went for an ultrasound at five-months. Turned out there were shadows, or cysts, found on my baby’s brain in utero. I remember my midwife calmly telling me that this could mean something, or it could mean nothing since technology was so advanced that oftentimes things found were ‘unexplainable’.

I think back to that moment more often now and wonder if the universe was testing me to see if I was really ready for this next step in my life. If I could put someone before myself, If I could commit to a lifelong journey that would no longer be just about me, and that normal should be reserved for someone more boring, staid, less creative in solutions, in life—those things were never me.

The worst case scenario from my midwife came next: the cysts could mean that the baby had trisomy 21 which essentially meant the child would unlikely make it past the first year of life. They offered genetic testing (which involved a ginormous needle through my belly and into my uterus to determine if this was the case—very dangerous). If it was that particular disease, we would be referred to a psychologist, some other something-gists upon something-gists to discuss aborting so late in the pregnancy due to ‘special’ circumstances.

I went home after that and cried and cried and cried. I talked extensively with my husband about our options. About the what ‘ifs’, after the changes we were ready to go through already for this child, about what this meant for us as parents if there was a chance we lost the child later. It was a long road of discussions and crying and heartache which only lasted a week but felt like a millennia to make that decision. I did not opt for the ginormous needle, the cysts on his brain eventually faded (and have nothing to do with his LD). So maybe we had accepted doing things the abnormal way before we ever met our son, we just forgot that in our journey as parents.

I think life throws you a curveball once in a while, even if that curve drives you far from your original path, and all so the universe can teach you something worthwhile. While I don’t pretend it will get any easier, I have learned to let go of normal. Maybe I’ve always felt inside I would have to do that. Maybe this is my life lesson, and this path with my son will make me sprout into the person I always envision I’d become in the end. Who knows, but it’s food for thought.

---

Deciding that life had far more to offer than a nine to five job, bickering children in the evening and housework of any kind, Tiffany Clare opened up her laptop to rediscover her love of the written word. Tiffany writes historical romances set in the Victorian era for St. Martin’s Press. She lives in Toronto with her ever-patient photographer husband, two mischievous children, a cat that thinks he’s a dog and a dog that thinks she’s a princess.

Find Tiffany on her website, Facebook and Twitter.

A Mommy on the Edge…or at Least the Verge of a Massive Purge…by Heather Snow

Thank you so much for having me today at Peanut Butter on the Keyboard. I’m so excited to be here amongst such fabulous writer and reader mommies! A little about me for those who don’t know me: I’m a sleep-deprived mother of two young boys, known affectionately on social media as The Heir and The Spare. I’m an avid reader…or at least I was before deadlines and diaper duty. Now I’m more of an avid listener—God bless audiobooks! I’m a cat person who somehow just got tricked into agreeing to get a dog this summer (rotten husband…and he said it in front of the boys, who are now over the moon. I would be an evil mommy to say no now…)—oh, and I write historical romance with heroines who put the blue in bluestocking, the men who love them and the mysteries they have to solve.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’d like to applaud the ladies here at PBOTK for their April theme of miscarriage, infertility and special needs. I’ve really enjoyed the open and honest discussions that have been happening this month. I never understood the devastation of these issues until I experienced them myself. Robyn DeHart and I have discussed our histories in the past, and mine is very similar to hers: PCOS, infertility, miscarriage and finally the family we were meant to have through adoption. When I visited the site earlier in the month, I almost switched my topic to be in line with the theme, but it’s been covered so beautifully that I really haven’t got much to add there.

So I decided to stick with the topic that I’d originally planned to talk about because it is a part of my everyday reality that, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to get a handle on. The MESS! Oh. My. Goodness. Who knew two small children could wreak such havoc on what was once a tidy little domicile? Our home was once a place of peace and refuge and…well, tidiness. No longer.

It all started when the Heir was a baby. You see, I waited years and years for him to come along, and in the meantime I read all of the baby and parenting books and magazines, picking up tips on how I was going to give this cherished child every possible advantage I could reasonably give him. One thing I knew I wanted to foster in him was creativity. I wanted him to be an outside-the-box thinker, and one early suggestion was to stimulate his curiosity by giving him a cabinet and drawer in every room (while safely baby-locking the rest, of course) and filling it with things he could tactically explore: you know, crinkly things, plastic things, things of different textures, weights, etc. You were supposed to change it up every once in a while so it never got stale. He loved it of course, and I loved watching him discover new things. What I didn’t love was watching him string said items all through the house.

It’s only gotten worse since then. Yes, I fell for the “Crazy Hat Box!” which became the “Costume Box For Dramatic Play!” and the “Color Your Own Rice For Sensory Play!” (what a mess that was), and “Recycle Your Household Items for Arts and Crafts!” and “Blocks for motor and spatial skills!” and “Legos to strengthen imagination and creativity!” and “Books! Books! Books!”. Dear God, the books. You could fill a children’s library in a small village from our shelves alone… We have rolling drawers full of art supplies, so they are available when creativity strikes. We have a play kitchen, filled with realistic food items. We have a variety of instruments in case the need to express themselves musically cannot be denied. I could probably run a darned good preschool just from the things in my living room alone. Yes, I am that mom.

How did I get so far gone? I’m not a hoarder in my real life…and if I were, I’d certainly hoard something better than blue and purple rice and a bunch of toilet paper rolls waiting to be made into trees when we finally get around to building that cardboard city!
Just to give you an idea of what this has done to our happy home…one day last week, I went to the restroom for a few moments, leaving the two boys (4 ½ and 1 ½) at the breakfast table. I emerged a few minutes later to this.

Oh, and that trail of foam letters from the art box? Strewn not just through the living room, but the hearth room, the dining room, the kitchen, and completely around the staircase. This despite all of my efforts to keep it reined in. And I’ve tried. We have bins. Lots of bins. And cabinets. And rolling drawers. Organized by category and stacked neatly, with a rule that one never gets opened until another is completely put away. (I’ll let you guess how often that works for me).

Some days, it makes it all back in. But some days it doesn’t. And those days start to pile atop each other until I’m pulling my hair out and swearing that the moment my little darlings go to sleep that night, I’m going to pile it all into the mini-van and drop it at the neighborhood daycare center. Or at least lock it all away behind a giant padlock so only I can control access…mwu-ha-ha-ha.
Tell me I’m not alone. Better yet, tell me there is hope. How do those of you with small children keep the mess between the lines without devoting every second of your life to it? Is there a way to balance the desire to foster creativity and the need for a clutter-free space?

Heather Snow is an award winning historical romance author with a degree in Chemistry who discovered she preferred creating chemistry on the page rather than in the lab. She lives in the Midwest with her husband, two rambunctious boys, and one very put upon cat.

The final book in her Veiled Seduction series, SWEET MADNESS, hit shelves April 2, 2013. RT Book Reviews Magazine gives it 4 ½ stars, saying “In this emotional, compassionate romance…the powerful love story will sweep readers away.”
Find out more at http://www.HeatherSnowBooks.com or connect with Heather at http://www.facebook.com/AuthorHeatherSnow , http://www.twitter.com/HeatherSnowRW or at her blog, Heather’s Historical Reader Salon at http://www.heathersnowbooksreadersalon.blogspot.com

Guest mom: Rhonda Peyton (Robyn’s sister!)

This is Robyn and today we have a super special guest blogger…it’s my older sister, Rhonda. I asked her to guest blog today because we’re getting close to summer vacation time and she’s a veritable expert on traveling with children regardless of their age. So without further ado…I give you my sister…

My name is Rhonda, I am the mother of 2, married to my best friend and and we have been traveling across America together for the past 20 years. As I look back on our travels I realize that not only did we travel well with young children, but have given our kids, now 20 and 18, a love for the great Road Trip. In part, passed onto me from my own childhood.

Here are the trips we’ve taken over the last 18 years.

Disney World (flew) ages 2&4
Washington DC. 3&5
W.Virginia 4&6
Florida 5&7
Colorado 6&8
Mississippi/New Orleans 7&9
Big Bend, TX 8&10
St. Louis, MO 9&11
Disney World (flew) 10&12
Tennessee 11&13
St. Louis/Chicago, IL (drove/Amtrak) 12&14
Mt. Rushmore 13$15
NY/Niagara Falls/DC. 14&16
Tennessee 14&16
California/Las Vegas/New Mexico 15&17
Wisconsin/St. Louis 16&18
Big Bend, TX 18&20
Beach trips (10 or more times) from the age of 2 and up. Corpus Christi, Galveston, Padre Island, Bolivar (all beaches in TX)

TRANSPORTATION: 5 different vans, Taurus, Suburban, Highlander, steam engine, Amtrak, subway, taxi, trolly, bus, fairy, boat and airplane.

FOOD: White table-cloth steak houses, Triple D diners, local dives, fast-food and chains.

AMUSEMENT PARKS:  Six Flags, Astroworld, Sea World, Fiesta Texas, Busch Gardens & Disney World.

ZOOS: Amarillo, TX; Ft. Worth, TX, Houston, TX, San Antonio, TX; Waco, TX; DC.; St. Louis, MO

AQUARIUMS: Corpus Christi, TX; Moody Gardens (TX); Chattanooga, TN; DC.

OTHER SIGHTS: Museums, mounments,bridges, national parks.

CAR TUNES: Joe Scruggs, Veggie Tales, various vbs, Toby Keith, George Straight, Beach Boys, WOW’s, oldies, and music from multiple shows we were in or saw.

Each time we decided on our next destination, I began the research. I think making as detailed of plan as possible is the key to having a successful and enjoyable trip. I would divide the miles to be traveled by the hours and then begin preparing my 2 lists:  the 1st list was of items we always traveled with and the 2nd list would be more specific to the particular trip at hand.

Usual list 1: gallon ziplock bags,mileage bags, cd’s, addresses & stamps, first aid, wet wipes, towels, travel cups, snacks,box of sandwich bags, books on tape, swim suits, cooler with drinks, receipt envelope, window shades, travel boxes….

Gallon bags : these I used to pack the kids clothes in. Each bag had the childs name on it and date to be worn. This helped when planning which clothes were for traveling (for comfort) , which were for parks, museums, the White House or meeting famous people like senators or Mickey Mouse! Packing in ziplocks also helped save room (like space saver bags) and made for a great way to store dirty clothes separate from clean, by putting them back in the same bag they came in. (Great for wet swim suits too)

Mileage bags: these were life-savers when traveling with small children. I used small paper bags, each numbered and labeled with kids name. Each bag usually contained 3 items : a snack (animal cookies, fruit snacks…) an activity (crayons & book, silly puddy, wipe off  bd,paper dolls, stickers…) and a character for pretending (action figure, small stuffed toy). I would divide the miles we were going to travel into small sections, like about every 90 to 120 miles and then the kids would get their bag. This helped pass the time, and taught them about mile-markers and time of travel.

CD’s : music we All liked as a family that we could sing to….without judgement.

Sandwich bags: were for all the treasures we would find during our stops and a sharpie so I could label each bag so we knew whose treasures they were and where they came from.

Travel boxes: each kid had a plastic box with a lid that could hold all their travel needs and double as a desk. This helped things not get lost, and not be so cluttered in the back seat.

Being a stay home mom with a 1 income (educator’s salary) we were usually on a tight budget, so we found ways to enjoy our trips without spending too much, especially on the traveling days. I did however, research the trip and area we would be in so if we were going to be near a park or a specific interest of 1 of ours….like my son went thru a phase where he was interested in bridges. Well when I did research I found all kinds of bridges we would have missed had I not been looking. Seeing these extras didn’t add much time to the trip and were free! Maybe you are going to be near a famous persons place, in history, like Billy the Kid or Laura Wilder. Just do a search for interest that are near where you will be traveling.

A typical, long travel day for us would have looked something like this…we packed the car the night before and had everything ready for departure, so when we woke them up all they had to do was get dressed and we would each grab our travel cups. We would leave as early as possible, before breakfast, so that we could get as many miles as possible behind us before stopping for breakfast. I know fast-food is not the healthy choice, but we would look for a stop that had one of those indoor playgrounds, this way we could eat while they played and then we would all visit the restrooms and bring any of the kids breakfast with us when we left. When we got back into the car the kids would eat and then they would get their first mileage bag. We would just talk and let the kids get the most out of their 1st mileage bag…we wanted it to entertain them for long as it could. We would then play a book on tape, music or play a car game to pass the time. ( ie… Car bingo, alphabet game.)

Our kids did not have a movie playing device for the car until they were 10 & 12, so we had to use what we had to entertain them. We tried to plan our lunch by packing one with us or we would stop and pick something up and head to the nearest park or rest area. We tried to go somewhere outside so that they could walk around and get some exercise. This is when we would use the little ziplock bags and let each kid pick up some ” treasures” rocks, acorns, a leaf….the point was to get some moving in, so that just maybe they would nap when we got back on the road. After lunch and hopefully a nap we would sometimes look for another indoor playground stop, we could get a drink, maybe a small cone, the kids could play and of course we would all go to the restroom before loading back up. The kids always knew that these stops would be short, so they were prepared for us to give them the 5 min warning and they seemed fine with it. 10 – 20 min went a long way in helping the weary traveling kid, and helping them…..helped us!

On travel days we always tried to stay in a hotel that had 3 things in common: cheap, free breakfast and a POOL! We would try to get to the hotel with enough time for us to swim, for at least 30 minutes. Swimming is great for tired, stiff muscles that have been sitting in a car all day and it makes for a great nights sleep. We liked to go out to dinner to a place with the “local” flavor. If time permitted, we would try and swim in the morning too, this would cause us to have a later start on morning 2. When scheduling our trip we tried to have our heaviest travel day on day 1 so that day 2 could be lighter. If we had several days of travel in front of us then we often alternated long then short travel days.

We have traveled 35 of the 50 states, we even had one of our new teenage drivers get his driving hours in 25 of those states. We have seen the Grand Canyon, Pala Duro canyon, the white sands desert, Hoover Dam, Niagara Falls,the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, the giant red woods, the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic and the Pacific, Crater Lake and a great lake, the mountains of Colorado, the Smokies in Tennessee and all the plains in between….memories for a lifetime

My advice, make your trips as personal as you can, for your family. Maybe you and your family like a specific food show, make a list of places and dishes you would like to try. Maybe architecture is interesting or battlefields, maybe courthouses, Route 66 , national monuments or windmills…..whatever your family finds interesting will add to your family trips. When crossing state lines stop at the welcome centers, they have clean restrooms, complimentary maps, information about state wide attractions and often a state-themed activity book for kids. Just do your homework so you know how much things cost, so you can plan for it. Be prepared for plans to change due to unforeseen things that Will come up. Rain closed an attraction, sick kids, car trouble….we have sat on the side of the road and played cards or gone to a movie because of a rained out attraction. Don’t let things outside of your control ruin your trip, you are making memories…make them good ones!

Souvenirs. We did like to buy post cards to send to family, friends, teachers…we helped the kids write them until they were old enough to do it themselves. We sent them to a variety of people depending on when and where we went. Our souvenirs were not always the same but we did have some usuals. I like coffee mugs & christmas ornaments, my daughter liked bells or playing cards my son liked things that were specific to the trip, sometimes both son and husband got hats. We also liked getting music from someone we had seen on our trip or a soundtrack from a musical or show that we got to see. We tried to keep them to small items, with a few exceptions…like the walking stick my son had to have and has traveled with us to every park since. He has it with us on this trip we are currently taking to Big Bend and we are also listening to our soundtract from Grease that we got to see on Broadway.

We have a shell luggage carrier we put on top of our car, so that everything inside the car is for traveling purpose and that gives us a lot more room. The luggage carrier makes our vehicle look like a turtle and so that is what we call it, it also makes it easy to find in a crowded parking lot. As we take this trip to Big Bend and plan for a summer wedding trip to Gatlinberg, I am mindful that any of these trips could be the last “family” trip we take. My kids will both be in college next year and our lives are changing daily. I cherish the travels and adventures we have had and look forward to getting postcards from them when they travel with their own families some day. I wish you safe and happy travels, now go make some memories!

---

Rhonda Peyton is a wife and mother. She’s a former Dance Team instructor and taught high school for ten years. She’s the sister of the fabulously famous Robyn DeHart.

Having grown up children means the chaos of everyday life takes on a different perspective. The only peanut butter I have on my keyboard is actually sticky fingers on my iPad when my grandchildren come to visit. They love watching Mickey Mouse cartoons, and of course Nanny’s chocolate cake, and jelly sandwiches always end up on the screen.

This post is for all you writing mothers out there. I came to writing after I retired from teaching. (I did retire young!) Years of regimented schedules with a husband, two children, assorted cats and dogs, a house to run as well as full time work theoretically prepared me for a structured writing career.

Ha. Didn’t work out like that. Even though I try, I still live in chaos. Deadlines are always met at the last minute; I spend way too much time on social networking and always have my best ideas in the middle of the night and don’t write them down.

But there was one thing that I knew how to do well. Years in the corporate world taught me how to market and promote and I was very successful establishing my brand as an author prior to publication.

My debut novel with Entangled Publishing, Holiday Affair,  stayed in the Amazon best seller lists for  twelve months after release and I decided to write a little ‘how to’ book to share my marketing strategies with aspiring authors. Imagine my surprise when that little marketing book also went straight to the bestseller lists!

Promotional Tips and Tricks for Aspiring Authors in the Digital Landscape.

So now between deadlines for my Entangled series books, I am writing another ‘how to’ book. I hope if you read them, they help you on your journey!

Come on down to the beach and visit with me http://annieseatonromance.com

---

Annie Seaton lives on the beautiful east coast of Australia, where she loves sitting in her writing chair, gazing at the ocean and writing stories. She has always been fascinated by all things historical and has found her niche writing romance, ranging from contemporary, paranormal and a foray into steampunk, where strong heroines and brooding heroes fight together to make their alternative world a better place!

Annie lives with her husband, and ‘Bob’ the dog and two white cats, in a house next to the beach in a small coastal town of New South Wales. Their two children are grown and married and she loves spending time gardening, walking on the beach and spoiling her two grandchildren.

I Wrote a Book With Two Kids At Home by Amber Dusick (from Crappy Pictures!)

I wrote a book with two little kids at home and I survived. Barely.

This is how I did it.

Late at night, fueled by pints of ice cream. The kids were asleep so the only distraction I had was Crappy Cat stepping on my keyboard. He loves the delete key and is super skilled at pressing it.

Of course since the kids were asleep it technically meant that I was supposed to be asleep too. Which I wasn’t. Which meant I was tired. Always.

I did learn a few very important things along the way though.

1. Backing up a manuscript isn’t a good idea. It isn’t a great idea. It isn’t an idea at all. It is a requirement. It must be done. It should be #1 in “book writing 101″ classes. (Maybe it already is. I don’t know, I never took that class. Is there a class?) Anyway, I lost a handful of pages before I learned this lesson. Those pages that I lost were the best, most funniest thing I have ever written and had I backed them up I’d be rich and famous and living in a mansion with a hot tub in every room. Instead, I don’t have a mansion or even a single hot tub. See? Not backing up will ruin your life.

2. Haagen-Dazs® chocolate ice cream is too darn hard. It doesn’t ever seem to melt. You have to leave that one out for a good 20 minutes before digging in. Which is basically impossible to do so I stopped buying it. Ben & Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough and half baked are also way too distracting to eat while writing. You spend too much time digging for the little dough or brownie nuggets. Stick with the simple flavors like chocolate, strawberry and mint chip. Those are writing-friendly flavors. I told you these were important things. You’re welcome.

3. Did I say I learned “a few” things? I should change that to “a couple” things. Whatever. You know what I mean.

Honestly, I can’t remember much.

I do remember telling myself that “I will never, ever, ever do this again” but I can’t for the life of me remember why I would feel that way. It wasn’t so bad. Was it?

I should probably try it again just to make sure.

Or maybe this is just an excuse to eat ice cream.

Amber Dusick’s novel Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures is available for pre-order now and will be on sale March 26!
Want a copy? One person who comments today will win a copy, courtesy of the PBKMoms!

You can find Amber Dusick blogging at Parenting. Illustrated with Crappy Pictures.