One Parent's Universe...

All my life, I knew I wanted kids and a family of my own. The funny thing is, I have NEVER been interested in other peoples’ kids… at least not to any great degree. My paternal instincts just never kicked in. For the past few years, as I rounded the bend toward 40, I have wondered if they ever would.

I’ve been surrounded my entire adult life by great people with (mostly) fantastic kids. None of that “family feeling” ever rubbed off on me. I have always been happy to hold a baby or spend time reading with a toddler or playing games with older kids, but in the same breath, I must admit I was just as happy to hand them back to their parents.

Some of you reading this are undoubtedly the best examples of parenting I have ever seen. Your families make other people jealous.

My friend, Susan, in Seattle, is the most shining example of how to be a successful single parent. Her daughter is the most mature, curious and precocious kid I have ever met, despite the long hours Susan puts into an average workweek. And, Jesus is she cute.

My cousin, Jennifer, in Reno, has four boys (the last two, twins) and handles a household like a rock star [and I don’t mean Ozzy Osbourne-style]. There isn’t a situation that comes up that she doesn’t handle with style, grace, and fairness. Her influence is clear, and her kids are the benefactors of her efforts. Her boys are some of the best-behaved, nicest, and kindest kids I have ever known.

My friends Kathy and Stephen, in Seattle, round out the list. Kathy is a successful physician and Stephen is a multi-talented stay-at-home dad. I think they were the first of my friends to have kids, and I must say, I was always jealous of their lifestyle reversal. Their three boys are SO beautiful and SO bright I can barely stand it. I will be shocked if one of them doesn’t grow up to become president (of some huge company, if not the country).

With examples like these, I always wondered what kind of parent I would be.

I will say, that since Elliott was born, I have surprised even myself at how easily being a parent has come to me. From the very first day, I have felt connected to him in a way I didn’t realize was possible. Additionally, I have felt pretty “in tune” with all of his subtle nuances and needs. For the most part, I have been pretty at ease with being a dad [to the truly most beautiful and perfect son anybody could ever wish for… and I know people always say that, but in our case, it’s the truth]. I cannot explain the bond I feel, but I will try:

In my life, I thought I have experienced all the love I had ever thought possible …until I held my son. Words simply are not enough to describe the surge of love that fills you on the day your first child is born. It’s like that sense of calm that comes over you when you know you just nailed a job interview. It’s the serenity one must feel when crossing over to their version of heaven. It’s a chemical feeling that saturates all your pores and cells with elation. It’s a peace in your heart that restores your faith in humanity. It is most definitely overwhelming, but in a good way. The responsibilities and possibilities are vast, but you find it easy in your heart to take the challenges on with confidence, pride and enthusiasm. In an instant, the life you knew is over and a new one begins. Ideas you used to hold precious and profound no longer matter and no longer seem to make sense. Parenthood is a complete and utter shakedown of everything you’ve known life to be as a person. Priorities shift. Previous unknowns are elevated to “urgent” status, and “we” takes over where “I” used to exist.

This must be what “happy” is supposed to feel like.

I can admit now, that after knowing Kathy and Stephen, I always fantasized about a life where I could stay at home with the kids while my Uber-Successful wife brought home the bacon. I would have happily fried it up in a pan. Now that I am a parent, though, I know one thing: I couldn’t handle it. As I am learning, there are just times when all Elliott wants is his MOM, and I am ill-equipped to provide that for him [except when I am able to place him solidly in her arms].

Luckily, Stephanie and I have made decisions and set up or lives in such a way that she is able to stay at home with Elliott, at least for the most formative years. Our own anecdotal evidence has proven true to us that kids turn out best (better at a minimum) when at least one parent stays at home. Thanks to smart planning, and a couple of real estate booms, we are able to provide that for our son.

I picked the perfect woman for the job.

I can also admit now, that I knew I was going to marry Stephanie within 24-hours of having met her. That same calm, confident, elated feeling that I described above also came over me when I met my wife. I knew she was “the one” almost immediately.

“They” say, “When it happens, you will know.” I guess that’s true, but I never believed in things like that until it happened to me.

One of the last things I asked Stephanie on our 24-hour first date was, “Do you want to be a mom?” – Notice I didn’t ask her, “Do you want to have kids?” To me, the two questions are as different as speed bumps and sweet potato pie. Anybody can say they want kids, but answering yes to the other question implies a commitment to all that being a parent entails, which to me, was much more important. I think so many people have kids for the wrong reasons. I just wanted to make sure she would be in it for the right ones. And she was.

I asked Stephanie to write last week’s blog as a lead-in to this one.

My poor wife endured the nastiest pregnancy possible. And now, three short months later, is already talking about having more kids. I know that women experience a sort of “birth amnesia” at some point after pregnancy, but MY wife spent nine months with her head in a toilet. I cleaned more barf off the floor than a janitor at a Dave Matthews concert, and she’s already talking about doing it all again despite the possibility her next pregnancy could be just as complicated. That’s a tough woman. My mom worked 10-20 hour days at times when we were growing up just to make ends meet. I used to think she was tough until Stephanie reset the gold standard for all mothers. Until you can say you spent every day, from the time you peed on the stick until the day your doctor says, ‘OK, Push’, throwing up 3-4 times a day, you haven’t seen tough. Then, to say you’re ready to do it all again after only 3 months… I mean, holy crap, that’s a MOM!

Stephanie has patience like I have never seen. Elliott loves to listen to her read stories. Her “theme song” for him is forever expanding. She sees changing his diapers, not as a chore, but as a privilege. Elliott loves bath time with Mommy more than anything [For some reason, when she gets water in his eyes or mouth, he likes it. When I do, he thinks I’m drowning him]. She is able to console him when he is sad. She manages to figure him out when I feel stuck. Clearly, she’s the mom for a reason. Sometimes I feel lucky just to be able to sit back and enjoy the show, participating when necessary for the interactive portions of the program, but clearly, it’s all about MOM for Elliott.

No feelings of inferiority here… I LOVE that!

I enjoy waking up every day next to my wife and son. Elliott is at the point now where he starts off the night sleeping in his crib, but when I wake up in the morning, he has somehow magically levitated out of it and landed between Stephanie and me in our bed. That makes me happy. When I wake to find her sleeping peacefully, and him staring at the ceiling fan [his favorite thing, I swear] with a smile on his face, all is right with the world.

I take over the morning duties on my days off so she can recapture the sleep I know she lost during the previous night. It’s my pleasure, really. Elliott is bright, smiling, talking and singing in his own language, and for brief moments, I am the only person that matters. That is, until he wants his mom.

I sit here, with the sage knowledge of a 3-month parental veteran, and I confess I don’t have all the answers. Not even close. But, I know this: I am along for the ride. I look forward to waking up every day and being the “dad” of my “family,” and I feel secure knowing that Stephanie is my son’s “mom.”

“Family” means something different to all of us. As I face the challenges of parenthood, my hope is to not just do “the best I could with the knowledge I had at the time” like our parents did, but rather to fully engage as a husband and a dad and to lock horns with life every day so that my son can evolve into a happy, healthy, kind, caring, contributing human being in a world I feel has lost its way. I don’t expect to be the perfect parent. I don’t think any of us can. I just hope to be the best parent I can be, like my wife does every day.

I cannot imagine a Universe where I couldn’t call Stephanie my wife and Elliott, my son. For these things, I am truly grateful.


[Thanks, babe. I love you—for all that you are, and for all you are to me and to Elliott every single day.]

Guest Blogger: Stephanie Freeman

Cory asked me to write about my pregnancy experience. The bottom line is that it was so awful it’s indescribable. One of the hardest things while going through the experience was communicating how depleted, tired, and sick I was. Everyone understands feeling sick for a few days or weeks, but for an entire pregnancy, the longevity factor was brutal.

Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG or hyperemesis) literally translates into “Pregnant Woman who Vomits Excessively.” It affects about 1% of the pregnant population, and I had never heard of it before. Vomiting excessively doesn’t even begin to describe the horror of my pregnancy. Yes, the vomiting was uncomfortable, constant and messy, but the debilitating 24-hour nausea was worse. Vomiting usually relieves nausea from the flu or crazy evenings. I can write these words and intellectually conceive of the nausea horror, but living with it for 10 months is indescribable. Remember your college day hangovers? Have you ever had a horrible flu? What about seasickness? Have you ever experienced them all at once for 38 weeks?

As many of you know, Cory and I wanted to have children right away. I had a miscarriage two months after we were married. It was the most devastating experience of my life. I experienced all that you would expect during a pregnancy: nausea, exhaustion, a little vomiting. I didn’t get far enough along to experience hyperemesis. After that loss, I was terrified that we wouldn’t be able to have children. When we conceived a few months later, I thought, “You won’t hear me complaining about a little morning sickness.” I was definitely not feeling well, but thought I could tough out the first three months, because everyone knows, women are only sick for the first couple of months of pregnancy. I had just moved to Portland after teaching 1st and 2nd grade and was off for the summer, so fortunately, I thought, I didn’t have any work obligations. In retrospect, that contributed to me not seeking help sooner. I absolutely could not have worked. I was exhausted; the kind of exhaustion where you feel like someone poured concrete into your veins.

I told my doctor I was pretty sick, and I had lost a few pounds, but it’s not unusual for women to experience morning sickness. She actually said it was a good sign that my HCG levels were rising and the baby was healthy. The initial sonograms showed a heartbeat and other healthy indicators. She mentioned not taking prenatal vitamins for a while, and I heard, “Stop taking them,” so, I did. Because I didn’t have any obligations, I was able to rest. If I had to work, I would have had to seek help sooner, and I may have had an earlier diagnosis and treatment. I wanted to be a relaxed “Zen yoga” mom, but the two times I went, the yoga teacher kept reiterating how terrible I looked. After I vomited during class, I decided it wasn’t a good idea to go back again. My deteriorated state also led to Cory and me missing part of our birth classes.

At the four-month point, I couldn’t take it anymore. I scheduled an appointment and tried again to Google morning sickness remedies. Maybe there was something that I missed. There was. I found a site www.hyperemesis.org, which compared morning sickness with HG.


MORNING SICKNESS
You lose little if any weight.

Nausea and vomiting do not interfere with your ability to eat or drink enough each day.

You vomit infrequently and the nausea is episodic but not severe. It may cause discomfort and misery.

Dietary and/or lifestyle changes are enough to help you feel better most of the time.

You typically will improve gradually after the first trimester, but may be a little queasy at times during the remainder of your pregnancy.

You will be able to work most days and care for your family.

HYPEREMESIS GRAVIDARUM
You lose 5-20 pounds or more. (> 5% of pre-pregnancy weight)

Nausea and vomiting cause you to eat very little and get dehydrated from vomiting if not treated.

You vomit often and may vomit bile or blood if not treated. Nausea is usually moderate to severe and constant.

You will probably require fluid hydration through a vein and/or medications to stop the vomiting.

You usually feel somewhat better by mid-pregnancy, but you may continue to be nauseous and/or vomit until late pregnancy.

You will likely be unable to work for weeks or months, and may need help caring for yourself.


I read the above chart [mangled in translation from Word to Blogger] and knew I clearly had HG. I had lost 12 pounds, couldn’t eat, had constant nausea and needed help caring for myself. I couldn’t give a urine sample because I was so dehydrated. My doctor personally walked me to a hospital room where I received the first of many IVs and began the first of many medicines. I stayed overnight and needed three bags of IV fluid before I could give a urine sample. I received IV Phenergan that gave me hours of blissful sleep. Sleep was my only reprieve from HG Hell. The IVs brought me back from an almost delirious state. I almost felt drunk because my thoughts were blurred, my body wouldn’t do what I asked it to do, and of course, I was vomiting. I was sent home with Zofran, which is an antiemetic drug given to chemo patients to help with the nausea. It helped on the mornings where I didn’t vomit it back up.

There were days I was too tired to change the channel with the remote. Moving my arm was too strenuous. Cory would come home from work and I would ask him to help me off the couch (which was a good day since I moved from the bed to the couch at some point during the day, proving I could walk a little) to the bathroom to vomit. I would lay in bed and think, “If only I could make it to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice, I think I would feel much better.” Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night when it’s cold and you think, “I should get another blanket,” but you’re too tired and sleepy to get up and do anything about it? That’s how I felt about getting orange juice.

My personal hygiene became non-existent. I went days without brushing my teeth because toothpaste made me nauseous and a toothbrush in my mouth activated my gag reflex. I was too tired to lift my arms over my head, so Cory had to wash my hair. The steam from the shower caused me to vomit also. At least it was a quick clean up.

Well-wishers offered sage, old-wives-tale advice: Eat crackers; try vitamin B-6, drink 7-Up. I was so dehydrated, the thought of eating crackers sounded like pouring sand into my mouth. Any kind of advice that included swallowing any kind of substance was out.

I feel like I’m writing information and still am not able to convey the awesome devastation of this disease. The sure but steady decline is hard to describe.

I went from washing the barf splatters on my shirts, to wearing the barf splatters, to just hanging out naked. Cory surprised me with maternity clothes early in my pregnancy, and they’re hanging in my closet in pristine condition. My aunt, Maggie gave me a bathrobe that I lived in for many months. It was all I could manage.

As my body deteriorated, so did my good cheer. Remember, I was thrilled to be pregnant and planned so that I could stay home with my children as a stay-at-home mom. My patience was non-existent. I asked Cory not to eat in front of me. If I smelled him making toast, I mentally stabbed him with sharp knives, but tried to muster enough kindness to simply ask he “open the doors.”

I definitely felt isolated. I had just moved, so didn’t have any local friends and couldn’t have gone out with them even if I wanted to. Even when I felt lonely, it was a huge chore to talk on the phone. Engaging in conversation was exhausting. My grandma and aunt came to visit and it was wonderful, but tiring. After they left, my grandma offered to pay for a cleaning lady. Did I mention how gross the house became? The bedroom floor was littered with Popsicle sticks because for a time, that was all I could try to eat. On one good day when I managed to make my garbage into a can, Cory commented that I must have been feeling better.

Any kind of smell made me sick. Cory was offended that I told him his breath stunk. I even tried to mitigate the comment with a “It’s not even bad breath, it’s just breath.” The musty smell of the basement made me gag. I could tell if the basement door was open from any room the house.

I am officially an expert on vomit. I know how many seconds I have to reach the toilet from the onset of nausea. I know how food will taste going down and coming up. I ate food depending on how it would taste and feel when I vomited. After the food would come up, the battery acid bile taste would follow. Worse than that was the time I vomited up blood. It was very scary for me. How much else could go wrong?

Some of the details are such a blur, and from a delirious mind, I can’t put the sequence of events in order, but at some point I also got a permanent IV line. The motion of the car made me vomit also. I couldn’t stand to drive myself to the hospital for IVs any more. My mid-line IV came with a home health care nurse who came to change my bandages. Cory was a big help with the IVs. I was tied to my IV pole most days and evenings. Dehydration is awful. There is a reason people can only live a few days without water. I felt very close to death most days. I fantasized about it even, but was too tired to act upon my suicidal thoughts.

I wanted to believe people when they told me the morning sickness would go away soon. The problem was that I didn’t have morning sickness. I had HG. During my fifth month, my doctor put me on steroids. This is usually only offered as a last resort for the severely sick. I had a two-week reprieve from vomiting, but as I tapered my dose, it worsened again. The rest of my pregnancy, I only vomited about three times a day. My doctor and I thought that was a great success.

Needless to say, I missed out on a lot. Because I rarely left the house, no one asked me how far along I was, if I was having a boy or a girl, or if I had picked out names. Only one person, a real-estate agent a few doors down giving an open house noticed my pregnancy a few days before I delivered. I barely noticed it either. I didn’t feel pregnant, I felt like a cancer victim. I ended up gaining only about ten pounds and didn’t really have a belly. I was too sick to have a baby shower. I didn’t bond at all with the fetus, and actually had negative feelings. It’s hard to imagine now because I love Elliott so much, but at the time, I blamed him for making me so sick.

My doctor had mercy on me and induced me two weeks early. I had to wean completely off the steroids the last week, and it was miserable. I didn’t care if I had the teeniest preemie in the history of the planet. I wanted him out. I told Cory that the doctors had ventilators and medicine to keep the baby alive outside the womb, but that my body couldn’t do anything more. Elliott was only 5 pounds 10 ounces when he was born. My doctor said it was common to have small placentas and babies with hyperemesis. I was starving the poor thing. Elliott is healthy, big and thriving now. He is also loved more than I could have ever imagined.

Re-reading this makes me want to cry. I feel like I had a year of my life taken away from me. Any fantasy I had about being pregnant was destroyed. What should have been one of the happiest experiences of my life was the worst experience of my life, usurping my miscarriage.

Fortunately, three months later, I have some pregnancy amnesia. Like I tried to describe before, I know this all happened, but it seems like a nightmare. I’m somehow strangely detached from it. Loving Elliott definitely helps. He’s the mellowest, easiest baby. He’s beautiful and interesting and fascinating to watch grow. Elliott is the most wonderful present ever after surviving the misery of HG. I definitely want more kids. I just don’t want to have to go through another pregnancy.

This week is INTERACTIVE...

Apologies for the double mailer.

This weeks blog is completely interactive. I have outlined my most current ideas for projects to work on, and it is my hope you will provide feedback in order to help me choose a direction for upcoming weeks. I am interested in knowing if any of these projects appeal to or repulse you in any way. Please make your comments public, so that others may join in on the commentary.

Browse, bite, banter!

-C

On Novels...

‘Jump’
I got the idea for ‘Jump,’ oddly enough, while watching the movie ‘Parenthood’. The movie’s opening scene depicts a young boy going to a baseball game with his father for his birthday, only to be pawned off on some usher who the father pays to watch him. As the scene unfolds, the audience realizes the boy is actually a flashback to the main (Steve Martin) character’s childhood and that the usher is merely an amalgam of all the other ushers his father had paid to watch him over the years.

This led me to having flashbacks of my own childhood. I started thinking about taking it one step further for the sake of a story and came up with the idea for what I have tentatively called ‘Jump.’

I envision ‘Jump’ being a story of a man living on the edge, literally, as in the form of standing on a ledge getting ready to jump. As he does, he experiences “life flashing before his eyes”… and that becomes the story; his life and the events that led to the point of him taking his suicidal leap.


‘ONE’ [and subsequently ‘TWO’, ‘THREE’, etc.]
I don’t know where I got the idea for this series… probably from J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter marketing machine, although this is completely unrelated from a storyline standpoint.

The allure of this entire project centers on great serial characters, like James Bond, Mike Hammer, etc. I am interested in writing a story of a serial killer that is much less flamboyant than, say, a Hannibal Lecter type, and more like the guy who lives next door to you or sits in the cubicle next to you… which ultimately [to me] makes him that much scarier because he could be anybody. I think it would be a neat idea for the title of the book equal the number of victims in that volumes title. So, as his killing skills become more refined, he has to figure out a way to kill more and more victims at a time without getting caught. Perhaps each spree could take place in a different state until he hits all 50.

This project is still in the infancy stages, obviously. Like I said, I am drawn to the ongoing paycheck potential on this one. With so many CSI type shows around nowadays, I think there is avid interest in true-to-life crime stories.

‘Code Blue Killer’ or ‘Munchausen By Murder’
Beginning to think I’m obsessed with murder crimes? Perhaps. I definitely have a degree of fascination with the underbelly of life.

The idea is this: An adrenaline junkie nurse type gets off on inducing death on patients, and subsequently being seen as a hero for resuscitating them back from the dead.

Part of the appeal in this project comes from being in a nurse for so long. In the spirit of ‘write what you know’, I think writing about hospital scenarios would come as second nature. I also like the irony of somebody who works in a helping profession going completely cuckoo.

The funny part about this story is that there are actual cases similar to this. After sitting on this idea for quite some time, I was watching some true-crime show that told a story of a Reno up-and-comer politician type and her RN husband who, as it turns out, plotted the murder of her ex-husband. Then he ends up killing her. In both crimes, he uses Succinylcholine [a paralytic used mostly for intubating patients—known in the biz as simply “Sux”] to paralyze his victims, rendering their muscles useless, thereby taking away their ability to breath, speak, flee etc. Supposedly it’s hardly traceable on autopsy also. How he got caught was particularly interesting also. A co-worker put 2 and 2 together after hearing him tell stories of “perfect “murder drugs and seeing the story on the news some years later about the death of his wife and her ex-husband’s demise. The drag about Sux if you’re the unfortunate one to receive it without a sedative, is that you are still completely aware and able to experience pain, you just can’t do anything about it. I just took care of a patient a couple days ago who had been intubated using Sux before being sedated. He remembered everything. He said it was like somebody poured concrete in his veins. He was unable to move, speak, close his eyes and that he was terrified. That SUCKS.

‘F. Dupp’
I don’t know where I come up with this stuff. The story of “F. Dupp” is a sad one, about a boy whose parents are killed tragically when he is a little boy. He ends up in the home of his Southern Baptist alcoholic, abusive grandmother who locks him up in a storm cellar for 20 years. Police discover him when his grandmother passes away. Needless to say, having been held captive for 20 years has taken a toll on him. When a foster family tries to help him assimilate back into society problems ensue. He gets his name from un-educated hillbilly town folk who, upon seeing him, say, “Man, that boy is F’d Up.” Not understanding the difference, our main character takes on the identity F. Dupp.

I’m not sure about the details on how this one will unfold, but I can’t help but think it would have a happy ending.

On Screenplays...

“Battle of the Blue Hairs”
I got this idea while driving down S.E. 39th Avenue in Portland last summer. I saw a Goth-type teenager with her hair dyed blue, waiting at a bus stop. I started thinking about the clients of my mother’s wig shop growing up. They would come in to have their grey hair dyed, and it always seemed to turn out blue.

I started thinking it would be funny to see a movie with Youngster Punkster types in a battle with the older jet set in some kind of turf war. I have been tumbling this story around in my head for a while now, trying to figure out what would give the story enough purpose to produce it. Here’s what I came up with. Initially, the punksters and the oldsters would be at odds [like a granny running over a skateboarder]. As the story unfolds, a real estate developer wants to build some heinous condo conversion building that would destroy the park where the punksters hang out and the oldsters feed the ducks. The punksters and oldsters would unite forces against the evil developers empire. I have hysterical visions of the oldsters riding skateboards and scooters and punksters learning walking cane Tae Kwon Do and souping up the oldsters’ golf carts in a Pimp My Ride style.

I think this would make a great summer feel-good comedy and perhaps unite grandparents with teenagers.

See, I’m not always dark.

[This is funny: My spellchecker doesn’t like the word “punkster,” but it is letting “oldster” slide]

On Children's Books...

“O Little Elliott”
I am currently writing a book for my son. It is called “O Little Elliott” because the two are anagrams. If we had only used one ‘L’ in Elliott, the anagram would have been ‘TOILET’ (Thanks, Uncle Ron). Here’s an excerpt:

On the day he was born
The doctors and nurses all said,
“Oh, He’s so very little…
From his toes to his head.”

Mom and dad also said,
“He’s really quite small…
He may be the smallest,
The smallest of ALL!”

Even grandmas and grandpas
Agreed he was little.
He was small in his arms and his legs,
And all through his middle!

[That’s it so far. I just see it being a cute picture book that he can enjoy later on. In the story, he will of course go on to accomplish great and wonderful goals]

“Maggie and the Magpie”
I actually started writing this story years ago when I was living in Virginia City. It’s a story about a little girl with a small physical flaw [a white streak in her black hair] that her siblings and schoolmates ridicule her for. It upsets her so much she decides to run away. On her journey, she befriends a Magpie [chosen because a Magpie’s markings are similar to Maggie’s flaw. The bird eventually teaches her that she is unique and special-- the beauty of kids lit—something that could never actually take place becomes perfectly plausible] and eventually returns home and lives happily ever after.

“Not All Bad Things Happen In Basements”
This is a sleepover story. Two boys spend the night in the basement (on their insistence) and are scared by the noises a house makes (confabulating ghosts and goblins and scary creatures when they hear the noises). Scared, they wake up the dad of the house, who ends up spending the night with them in the basement and is able to assuage their fears by explaining all of the noises. All is happy in the morning.

On Young Adult Fiction...

“Fire Bug”
I started writing this story as the result of taking an online Children’s Writing class through The Gotham Writers Workshop [ www.writingclasses.com ] in NYC last summer. It is loosely autobiographical. I received enough praise on my submissions that I feel like the story is marketable. Here are some excerpts:

Simon is nine, pushing ten, and has a fascination with fire. Ever since he was five and found a book of matches on the floor of an am/pm store, he has been attracted to all things that flicker, like a fish to a shiny lure. At first, he experimented with single matches, holding them tightly to see how long he could last before the flame burned his fingers. Then, he advanced to burning entire books of matches and small household items. His fascination has escalated to the point where he knows he’ll get caught someday, and that fact alone provides most of the thrill. No object is off limits. Experiments with burning matches, twigs, and string have become passé to Simon. Even burning his sister Samantha’s stuffed toys and making hair spray torches has lost its appeal. Simon knows his next quest involves gasoline and a fire pit. He just needs the right opportunity. He keeps waiting for a time when both his parents will be gone at the same time, but ever since they announced their impending divorce, they never leave the house together. Waiting for that precious moment burns his belly in every waking moment.

Simon’s build is slight, lanky even. For nearly ten, he is tall. The magic height line never stood in the way of him getting on any carnival rides, but that didn’t matter much because he always sought out the flame jugglers anyway. Simon has a dress code. Shorts. Striped t-shirt. Slip-On shoes. It doesn’t matter if it is winter either. The uniform remains the same. His hair is blonde, white really, but his Fremont Elementary School student I.D. says blonde. Once, his mother had said, “People would think he was albino if he didn’t have such a great tan.” Simon toted a red L.L. Bean backpack, complete with the essentials: two books of matches, a lighter for special occasions, flints, lighter fluid… and, oh yeah, textbooks, pencils, and a 3-ring binder that held his math homework and the rest of his college-lined kindling. His only scar, a BB-sized blemish on his left thumb, the result of burning a plastic Q-tip swab and not moving in time before the flaming drops began to fall. At the time, it burned like the devil, but Simon now saw the scar as a badge of strength.

“What on Earth do you think you are doing, Simon?” asked Karen Culpepper, next-door neighbor, second grade teacher, snoop.
“Burning weeds,” Simon replied emphatically. “What are you doing? Letting your dog deliver a present to us in person?” Knowing he had been busted, he tried to throw her off his trail.
“Never mind what I’m doing,” she said. “Do your parents know that you’re out here playing with fire so close to the house?”
“Of course they do,” Simon replied. “They asked me to do it. This was on my list of chores to do today.”
“You mean to tell me your parents gave you the green light to burn plant material directly adjacent to your home?” she queried.
“Yep. You can ask ‘em if you want to, but you’ll have to wait until my mom wakes up. She worked the night shift at the hospital last night. She’s sleeping right now.” Simon could sense her tone of voice easing up.
“What about your father, then. Is he available for me to ask?”
“Nope. He’s at work.” Simon said, thinking she was about to back down.
“Do you have the number?” Ms. Culpepper asked.
Simon had always wondered why “Ms.” Culpepper never became a “Mrs.” Culpepper. Now he knew. She asks too many questions. “I think the number is listed in the phone book,” he answered. “He works for the law firm of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe. You could look it up.”
“Listen, Smarty McSmartypants, I think you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing. Let me see your chore list, this instant,” she demanded.
“Just a minute,” he said.
Dejected, Simon ran inside. He scrambled to find a piece of paper and pencil. In his best handwriting, he wrote down a quick list of chores to show Ms. Culpepper. He began sweating bullets, but tried to remain calm, determined not to let her call his bluff. His hand trembled, as he scribbled. “Think. Think. Think,” he chanted as he wrote.
Out of breath upon his return, Simon handed Ms. Culpepper the list, thinking he had her beaten.
“This is some list,” said Ms. Culpepper. “One: Let mom sleep. Two: Be nice to your sister. Three: Take care of ‘weedz’, W-E-E-D-Z in the side yard? Four: Let mom sleep. I mean it. –Dad,” read Ms. Culpepper.
“See, I was taking care of the weeds in the side yard when you showed up,” said Simon. “Just like the list says.”
“Tell your mother I would like to speak with her the instant she is awake, do you understand me, young man?” Ms Culpepper scorned. “And, when your father gets home, tell him I want to talk to him about YOUR spelling.”
“Please don’t tell on me Ms. Culpepper,” Simon begged. “I’ll never do it again. I promise. Just don’t tell my parents.”
“I can’t do that, Simon. It’s not the right thing to do. We’ll talk about it together with your parents,” she replied.
“I’ll pull the weeds in your yard if you don’t tell,” Simon pleaded.
“Nothing doing, young man. You’re not going to talk your way out of this one,” she stated and walked hastily away.

Simon spent the afternoon destroying all possible evidence and pulling every weed in the yard. If he was finally going to get caught, he would have a bargaining chip against his impending punishment, which no doubt would entail being grounded for the remainder of his youth. By the time he was finished, four hours had passed, and he had picked 127 dandelions and 422 weeds he didn’t know the names for. He didn’t even mind picking up the dog poop that Ms. Culpepper’s dog left behind. He decided he would try to convince his parents the clean yard was merely a gesture of good will and he acted out of boredom, nothing more. He would claim he had seen, but never spoken to Ms. Culpepper. “Besides,” he would say, “What kind of person would let her dog go #2 in front of you and not pick up after it. Clearly, she’s crazy.” Simon kept the poop in a plastic bag marked “Exhibit A”, just in case he was forced to make a case proving her mental ineptitude.

[Here are the parts that are true: I did, in fact, set the ear of my cousin’s toy fox on fire when I was a kid. I think at the time I denied doing it and got away with it. (Sorry, Jen—I don’t remember if the toy was yours or Missy’s, but I’m the guilty party). I also used hair spray as a blowtorch. It’s a wonder I didn’t burn a house down. I also went to Fremont Elementary School in Carson City, NV. Beyond that, the rest is fiction. I used the name Simon because that’s what Stephanie and I called Elliott when he was still in utero. As the story goes, my wife had hyperemesis when she was pregnant (barfed incessantly). We called him Simon because Stephanie was not in control of her body at the time like a game of ‘Simon Says’: Simon says, “Barf.” or Simon says, “Eat watermelon, then barf.” It’s funny now, after the fact, but at the time it wasn’t funny at all. Actually, it’s still not funny, at least not the barfing she endured.]

On Non-Fiction...

“The Montessori Mom”
The title is self-explanatory. I think a book like this could be a good resource for parents trying to decide whether a Montessori-based education would be good for their kids.

For those of you that don’t know, Stephanie is a teacher. For the past three years, she taught 1st and 2nd grade at a public Montessori school in California. I keep trying to talk her into writing this book, but she is currently disinterested, and would rather focus on raising Elliott properly. I can’t argue with that much, but I still think it’s a fantastic idea.

On Poetry...

No current projects under consideration.

On Book Publishing...

Here’s the idea that has gotten the fire back in my belly about writing and getting into the publishing biz. For more background, check out my other blog at http://sidewalkstories.blogspot.com [It’s still under development, but check it out and let me know what you think]

“Sidewalk Stories”
I am interested in publishing short stories using a contest-based platform aimed at launching the careers of first-time writers. Eventually, I would like to see this as an annual publication like the “Best American Short Stories” series published by Houghton Mifflin.

“Playground Poetry” and “Sandbox Stories”
These would also be contest-driven series that would feature the work of young writers. Besides being published, contest winners would also win scholarships for creative writing programs across the U.S.