The Simple Joys of Parenthood

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I am, um, the mother of two. That this is sometimes a challenge. That there are occasional moments when I think of the spa treatments and trips to Europe I could be enjoying, were it not for things like Avocado's makeup-habit and related expenses. That I have occasionally thought of throwing the kids out the window (starting when Sarcasm Girl was only 6 weeks old. I am that hardcore). And that I love my daughters fiercely and would not trade them for a month of chocolate covered diamond Sundays.

So this morning jaylake linked to an article in Time: "Kid Crazy: Why We Exaggerate the Joys of Parenthood." I don't think I exaggerate the joys of parenthood. I think I'm pretty realistic about the expense and stress, but I do appreciate the benefits (and yes, there are benefits). And this article, while it appears to be based in a series of psychology studies, seems to me to be veering weirdly all over the place, like a car driven by someone trying to swat a wasp.
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Free Chapter Alert

To celebrate 1) my appearance at FogCon this weekends and 2) the imminent publication of Althea, my first book, as an e-book (coming next month! Watch the skies! Wubba!) I'm the featured writer at Book View Café today. Which includes a link to a free chapter from Petty Treason.

Just thought you'd like to know. (::scuffs toe, looks embarrassed::)

The Wayback Machine

Okay, this is one of those memes I cannot resist.

2011: Here. Now. San Francisco. One child more or less out of the nest. One child deep in teen-hood. Me with eleven novels written, looking for honest work and thinking about what to write next.

2001: the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Sarcasm Girl is in a small, funky alternative middle school on 70th Street; Avocado is in kindergarten on 97th Street. They're both on soccer teams (watching tiny-child soccer is like watching turkeys in the rain: all scrum, panic, and heads looking up rather than at the ball). I'm freelancing and am secretary of SFWA; on 9/11 I was in my kitchen, transcribing the notes from the SFWA Business meeting at Worldcon. No space odyssey (but The Stone War is out and Point of Honour is imminent).

1991: about 10 blocks south of our later apartment: corner of 84th and Columbus. Halfway through the year I go back to work at Tor, this time as Tom Doherty's assistant. Sarcasm Girl will toddle down the hall every morning to our neighbor/babysitters, with a bag with lunch and diapers and some books and toys. Separation is hard, but I hear her laughing with them as soon as they close the door.

1981: 27, an excellent age, and living in Somerville, Mass; for the first half of the year I'm still working at the School of Design at Harvard, running evening professional ed courses and a six week summer program exploring careers in architecture and urban planning. I give my notice, get the program through its first week, then head out to East Lansing, MI to attend Clarion. I learn a lot, return, and take up freelancing and more writing (although my fifth Regency takes me another two years to finish--I'd turned the fourth in just before I went to Michigan).

1971: 17 and living in Sheffield, Massachusetts, at least through June, when I graduate from high school (surviving the prom and other colorful rites of passage). Then I spend the summer in Westchester as an au pair before heading to New London, CT, for my first year of college. I love college a lot; even more than I love not being in Sheffield...

1961: I am 7 going on 8 (with a December birthday I'm always losing track of how old I was when). We live in the bottom two floors of a brownstone on 11th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Greenwich Village. If you've ever read The Stone War? The opening dream sequence is me and my friends playing after school on the street, a 2-3 hour daily exercise in running, imagining, and yelling, framed by brownstones and apartment buildings and the dusty smell of ginko trees. I go to Little Red School House on Bleecker Street, and revel in the sounds and smells of the city.

It goes without saying that in 1951 I was -2 and my whereabouts are unknown.