Panties for Points

SHATTER won another award!  This one’s a biggie, for me at least.  It took the grand prize for all categories of LDStorymakers First Chapter contest.  Yay!  I won a NEO2, pictured here, and got to accept my award in front of hundreds of conference attendees.  I also got to have a panic attack.

See, the killer about writing is fickle feedback.  In the week leading up the conference, I entered the query for SHATTER into a small online contest.  I did not make it past the first round.  On the first day of the conference, I got a form rejection from the only agent to request my full manuscript.  Ouch.  And apparently she’s due with a baby in like a week, leaving me no choice but to forgive her.

I wasn’t depressed with the news, I was desperate.  Like I’m on a 911 call and I’m freaking out because I think the operator can’t hear me (isn’t actually reading my stuff), and then I find out that the operator can hear me, she just doesn’t care that I’m dying. So the next day at the conference, I was so nervous that I’d be nervous when they announced the first chapter contest results that I couldn’t eat and got nauseated.  By ten a.m. my teeth were chattering and I was shaking. By noon my mostly-new-found-conference-buddies were assuring me there must be some kind of nurses’ station at the conference.  Didn’t I want them to walk me over?

I finally confessed that I was having a panic attack (hello, embarrassing).  I was rubbed with essential oils.  I was offered the kindest stories about how my new friends get emotional with writing feedback too, and how post-partum issues are awful (this is the theory behind why I started having panic attacks in November in the first place.  Thankfully, they have calmed considerably since I got on medicine in December).  By this time, it’s lunch and the contest winners are being announced for a sickening half an hour.  My lunch table went silent when my category came up.  I did not place in the top three winners.

I was relieved that the whole thing was over, and all of a sudden I hear my name. I’ve won the grand prize.  My best-friend screamed, which was totally awesome.  It was like winning a Grammy.  I got hugs and congratulations and was sought out by a literary agent who flew to the conference from New York and wants to see my full manuscript.

It was pretty much amazing.

I love the anonymous contest judges who rated my entry so highly (two of the four gave SHATTER a perfect score).  I will sing their praises forever.  But I will still chuckle that a judge docked me one point because of my failure to specify if my characters were wearing panties while they ran around a barn in “just their bras.”  I hereby use this blog post to distribute the potentially missing underpants.  Stock-issue, sports-cut cotton briefs will do just fine, I think.

Okay, other stuff happened recently, too.

We went to Disneyland!

Mike and I have always planned the rite-of-passage trip to the happiest place on earth, but we were afraid of Disneyland failure.  Tantrums, potty issues, sleep deprivation (for me or the kids), getting separated in the crowds–Disneyland just seemed beyond our vacationing-skill. Luckily, my cousin, April, lives in Irvine and met us there.  a-MAZ-ing.  Mike said it was like having our own personal Disneyland guide.  Plus our kids got to hang with hers, and while we were hitting the rides and shows and taking sunset pictures of palm trees, friends back home texted us photos of the brand-new layer of snow covering our neighborhood.  So, yeah, Disneyland rocked.  We never once lost anyone, not even two-year-old Carter, who loved it, behaved well, and took a great nap in his stroller both days.  April had also helped me locate a family to watch Graham, so he got to hang all day with a family of children who apparently spent their every moment adoring him and sending me Instagram pictures of my happy, well-fed baby.

Can life get more awesome?  Yes.

After Disneyland, Grandma and Grandpa traded cars with us and drove all the kiddos north to their house in Manteca, CA, while Mike and I went up the coast to Santa Barbara by ourselves.  Later we met my high school best friends, Susie and Anthony, for San Francisco partying.  We reconnected with the kids to stay a night with my brother’s family in Sacramento and my precious little ones didn’t break anything in their house but the toilet.  All around, the trip was ideal.  Thanks, Mom and Dad!!

More updates:

Every day, Mia skips in the cutest, most elaborate way possible.

Our chore chart can produce a clean house in 45 minutes—sufficient bribery and there’s not even yelling.

In March, Cora was so sick, she missed days of school and had no friends and nothing to do and was still not diabolically misbehaving, so of course I started thinking in terms of another ER visit.  It turned out to be nothing. Thank heaven for my little blond, blue-eyed jester.  Her teacher calls her, “full of baloney.”

Lina does things like bring home a five-paged schedule of instructions typed by nine-year-olds who have formed one of several clubs which perform self-choreographed dance routines for other third graders during recess.  The clubs are impressive, to say the least.  They are also exclusive, which leads to the most drama Lina has ever had with her friends before.  I think she’s navigating life with the most courage and kindness she can, and I’m proud of her.  Good luck, honey!  Happy dancing!

Graham has eight teeth and throws temper tantrums. Okay, he threw one temper tantrum. He was allowed to play with a friend’s bracelet during Sunday school, gagged on it, and had it taken away. He screamed. I took him to the hall and brought him back, calm. The friend had a cheerio waiting for him as compensation and Graham took it right in his mouth. Then he realized the bracelet would not be coming and, “ptugh!” he spit out the cheerio in such dramatic protest that half the class laughed and drowned out the poor teacher. I’m sorry, but the D&C has nothing on tiny furrowed eyebrows, red baby cheeks, and spikey, Alfalfa-like hair which cannot be controlled even with ShortSexyHair Hard Holding Gel Level 9 For Men.

Carter is a crazy maniac who will never stop running in the street.  Our fence is supposed to be finished in a few weeks.  Pray for attentive drivers in the meantime.

Adorable/Disconcerting Quotes:

Mia walked into Grandma and Grandpa’s house and clapped her hands on her cheeks.  “It was my dream to stay at Grama’s house!”  (Later it was her dream to sleep downstairs, to sit in the front seat of the van, etc.)

 

Carter and I were hugging one evening at home.

Me: You’re tired.

Carter: I wanna got to bed.

Me: Mm, I could just eat you up.

Carter:  No.  (He pauses to think, then corrects me.)  Chicken.

Me: (Laughing)  You think I should eat chicken instead of you?

Carter: (offended that I’m laughing)  Go off!

That was the end of the hug, unfortunately, because it was a good one.

 

Cora secretly-not-so-secretly wants us to have more children.  She’s always asking things like, “What if we have a new brand-born baby?”  Answer: “We’ll get rid of one of the first five.”  Our van only seats seven.

 

The other day Carter tore off a piece of pizza to eat it.  But he made sure to say, “Oh, sorry, pizza.”

 

Cora was entertaining a half dozen neighbor kids with nonsense and stories, part of which included the statement, “I am Mrs. Heavenly Father.  I am the mother of God.”  It was seriously like Darth Vader telling Luke that he’s his father.  It was awesomely disturbing.

 

Me: Say please, Carter.

Carter: Please, Carter.

Me: Say sorry, Carter.

Carter (head down): Sorry, Carter.

You think I’d learn.

 

Me: Carter, you need to give the toy back to Mia and tell her you’re sorry you threw a knife at her eye.

 

PS.  No children were harmed in the process of acquiring the above quotes, but they only escaped just barely.