Losing Focus

While scanning my Google reader the other day, I came across this wonderful nugget from The Greenhouse Agency's Julia Churchill. She was describing her wish list, what kinds of books she's anxious to find (and acquire) these days. Almost at the end of the post she penned this paragraph:

"The most exciting moment in my job is when I’m reading a submission and my professional eye loses focus for a minute. I stop appraising the manuscript and for a second I’m a reader, invested in the story and asking myself ‘What is going to happen next?’ So yes, I have a list of stories I’d love to see, but really all I am looking for is that moment when the shift happens - all of a sudden I become a fan, rather than an agent. The moment that I start to see through the page and beyond the words to the scenes, characters, feelings and drama below - that’s what I’m looking for."

Though I'm not an agent, I can relate! A couple weeks ago I was bemoaning the fact on this blog that I couldn't even read a good book anymore without analyzing it and picking it apart and trying to figure out what I'd do differently. It's a curse, I tell you. A curse!

Right now I'm reading Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. And, oh joy! I've stopped analyzing. It's so different than anything my brain could come up with that I am letting myself go. Enjoying it. As Ms. Churchill wrote, "My professional eye loses focus for a minute."

May I read many, many more books that make me lose that horrid, curse-like focus....

And, thank you, Ms. Churchill. Well said.

Optimist

I tend to be an optimist. Unfortunately.

When it comes to our house remodel, I'm afraid I've been a terrible optimist.

Me: "Sure, counter-top-installer, you can come to my house on November 13 to install our countertop. We should be done with the kitchen at least by then."

Reality: November 11 -- Here comes the truck to deliver the cabinets. November 12 -- Here is the cabinet-installer on the phone telling me he can't install my cabinets until December 4. "Um, counter-top-installer, I'll have to call you back...."

Me: "Today I'm going to clean my new house."

Reality: Yes, you will clean it. After you use a utility knife to hack away at all the blue tape you left on the walls far too long. And after you make a trip to the grocery store to buy cleaning supplies. And after you organize all the paint cans and carry them out to the garage. But first, spend twenty minutes hanging the bathroom mirror back up. And another twenty looking for the other bathroom mirror which is lost ...Then you may have several moments to begin cleaning.
**
November 12:
Me: "Tomorrow I will paint a second coat in the bathroom."

November 19:
Me: "Tomorrow I will paint a second coat in the bathroom."

November 26:
Me: "Tomorrow I will paint a second coat in the bathroom."

Yesterday:
Me: "Forget it. It looks fine."
**
November 12:
Me: "We're moving in next weekend."

November 19:
Me: "We're moving in next weekend."

November 26:
Me: "We're moving in next weekend."

Will someone please whack some reality into me with a crow bar?

Bring on the Bird

Happy Thanksgiving!

And what a Thanksgiving tomorrow will be. My parents-in-law have been cooking almost non-stop for the last two days. I think they're outdoing themselves because it's the first time they've had all their children at home for Thanksgiving in over ten years.

Since the smell of stuffing and pumpkin pie is in the air, I found myself remembering interesting Thanksgivings of years past. When you live in a different culture, Thanksgivings aren't always as -- um -- predictable as they are in the States. When you live overseas, it seems, almost nothing is predictable.

I remember one Thanksgiving, some friends of my parents offered them a turkey. They were a Chinese family who found out about our American tradition of eating turkey and they wanted to do something nice for my family.

They called the day before they were going to deliver the bird to ask my father, "Would you like us to cut the turkey for you?"

"No, no," my father assured them. "We can cut it ourselves."

So, the next day, delivered to our doorstep was a large, beautiful, very-much-alive male turkey. My parents kept him in the backyard until they got up the nerve to take him down to the butcher. I think my mother grew quite attached to the bird. I wasn't at home at the time, but she sent me pictures through email. (He may have even had a name. I didn't ask her what it was like to eat an animal with a name.)

And then, of course, was the time a Canadian friend of ours in China asked if we'd like him to order us a locally-bred turkey. They were drastically cheaper than special ordering them through our foreign-food store, so we agreed, asking him to get us a twelve or thirteen pound bird.

The day before Thanksgiving, my friend called and said he had our birds. Yes, birds. Plural.

They arrived, six pounds each.

It turns out, he'd received them dead, but otherwise unaltered. Since he'd grown up on a farm, he knew all the ins-and-outs of de-feathering and gutting animals. So, he'd kindly plucked them and taken out all the innards for us before he brought them over. Bless him.

Still, we took our two turkeys -- pigeon-sized though they were -- baked and served them for Thanksgiving. Um, and, needless to say, the next year we drastically overpaid for a frozen imported American turkey.

I don't think this Thanksgiving will be anywhere near as interesting, though it promises to be just as delicious. The table is already set, the stuffing is made, the pies are cooling on the dining room table. Predictably delectable. Comfortably satisfying. No live turkeys turning up on our doorstep.

Let the festivities begin.

I Ask Myself....

...why do I spend money on toys for my children when packing bubbles entertain them just as well?

Close-Up

Every baby goes through this stage, but that doesn't make it any less of a milestone.
Now that Sophie's walking, I can't take normal pictures of her anymore.

She sees me with the camera, stops whatever photograph-able thing she's doing, speed walks over to me and tries to grab the camera out of my hands. She likes to see herself in the screen.
That means all her pictures these days are close-ups. A quick snap before she can reach and disarm me.
In addition, she knows how to open up the plastic craft bin under Gabe's bed. And take the lid off markers. And, apparently, apply "lipstick."

I also noticed when I got her up yesterday that she has a neck. A neck! When did my small, chubby baby grow a neck? I always knew it was under there somewhere, hiding itself. But when did it make its public appearance? Somehow I missed the actual day.

Sigh. My baby's growing up too fast.

Nutty for Nutcracker

Believe it or not, Christmas is in the air already here in Prosser.

This year, we had a first for our family: Anna wanted to be in the Nutcracker, performed by our very own Prosser School of Ballet. We went to her performances this weekend.
She auditioned a couple months ago and got the part of a Little Mouse. Of course, as a completely unbiased mother, I have to tell you, she was the cutest little mouse you ever saw.
If you haven't spent much time with Anna, you may not know that she spends most of her day singing and dancing ... and flipping around the living room doing all the moves she learned in gymnastics. When I mentioned auditioning for the Nutcracker originally, she was instantly interested. At the audition she sat wide-eyed, silent, and attentive. When it was her turn, she gave it her absolute best. She remained focused at every rehearsal (for little mice there were only two regular rehearsals and two dress rehearsals) and for both her performances. I never knew a three-year-old could have an attention span like that.
I expected her to get burned out, to get bored of practicing and performing. One night I went to pick her up around nine o'clock from practice. "No, I can't leave yet," Anna told me. "I have to practice one more time!"

Needless to say, when I asked her if she'd like to start ballet classes, she was over-the-moon with the idea. She'll probably get started after Christmas. Next year, if she's still as interested, she might be able to expand her Nutcracker repertoire to include a lollipop or a ginger girl or, her ultimate goal (don't ask me why!), a soldier.

We'll see how it goes.

I'm trying not to be a stage Mom, but I did have fun putting glitter on her face and watching her practice.

Maybe I need to sign up for adult ballet classes so I'm not tempted to live vicariously through my munchkin ballerina daughter.

(By the way, notice the flowers Anna is holding in the last two pictures. Her very-proud daddy gave them to her after the show. She was tickled.)

Chinese Road Rules

This CNN article about driving in China made me seriously homesick for Tianjin. There was always something fun, exciting -- let's just call it challenging -- about crossing the street. I don't get cheap thrills like that here in Prosser. Maybe I should start a sport called running-across-freeways.

And all that honking. I don't get to hear that anymore. Maybe I should have one of my friends make a CD of traffic noise for me to play on days when I'm really aching to be back in China.

You have to watch the video associated with the link above to get a real taste of what driving is like in China. I've heard there are other countries in the world that are even more dangerous. India, for example, where people sit on the tops of buses and trains, and cows cause traffic jams.

For a rapidly developing country like China, safety on the road and clogged thoroughfares are serious problems. I actually began to loathe going to Beijing because of all the time I spent sitting in traffic. In fact, Tianjin traffic was getting so ridiculous before we moved back to the States, I barely left the confines of our neighborhood. If I couldn't bike there, I didn't go. (Well, before my bike was stolen, that is.)

So, why do Chinese drivers ignore road rules? As Americans, we have a hard time understanding. Our culture is based on rules, because it was founded basically on a Judeo-Christian value system. We know if we disobey laws, there will be consequences.

Chinese society isn't based on law, but on relationships. So, if I don't have a relationship with you, I can cut you off on the freeway and it doesn't matter at all. If I feel like turning left, I can turn left. If I get stopped by a cop (which is doubtful), well, all I have to do is build a relationship with him ... slide a little money into his hand and make friends with him that way.

In America we'd call that dishonest, rude, unethical. Over there, there's nothing wrong with it all. You're just doing what any logical human being would do: looking out for yourself and your friends.

Interesting, isn't it?

(I stole this link from my friend Sharon's blog. She and her family are still in China, weaving through Tianjin traffic on their electric bicycle/limo. Thanks Sharon -- and ride carefully!)

WIP Wednesday: Uh, It's Thursday

I know, I know, it's not Wednesday, but I haven't written one of these posts in so long, and I finally have something to share.

For the last few weeks I've been tinkering with my eighth draft of V-Day. My writing group read it and critiqued it. I pressed and polished it.

Now I'm querying it.

It took me a couple weeks to get up the guts to jump into the querying process again. Probably just nerves. Probably that feeling I get, the twisting in my stomach -- "Ugh, I hate form rejection letters." Something akin to going to the dentist or getting a mammogram. You know you need to do it, but it doesn't make it ... fun.

Then I read this post by highly esteemed literary agent Janet Reid on How to get no more rejections, ever.

Her post was the dose of reality I needed to jump back on the query train. That, and an email conversation with my writing-friend Florence about how her queries were going. Florence is absolutely fearless when it comes to querying, and I realized my attitude needed to be more like hers. Not cringing, hiding, gnawing the insides of my cheeks -- but actually getting out there and doing something. Putting myself out there again.

Now, just a bit of history. With my last (first) book, I queried approximately 17 agents and got 16 rejections and one request for a partial. That request for a partial was for the very last query I sent out. It was encouraging to get a request for a partial for that book, but I think I'd already accepted the fact that there were problems with that story that no amount of editing (short of rewriting the entire book and changing the main character's personality) could help.

After I received the rejection for the partial, I decided to shelve the book. I was already almost done with the first draft of V-Day; it was so nice to have another project on the burner to distract me.

So here I am, back in Query Land, this time with a whole new project.

I felt a tangible increase in comfort-level as I emailed my queries. Last time, it took me weeks to send out one or two. This time, I didn't feel so anal. I made my short-list of dream agents using Querytracker (invaluable tool!) and sent out all my queries over the course of a couple nights.

The next evening there was an email from one of the agents in my inbox with a request for a partial.

I'm ecstatic about that. Not because I'm jumping way ahead in my brain to the day V-Day will be published. No. I keep reminding myself that this is a journey and I still have a lot more books in me. V-Day is great, wonderful, exciting (in my humble, definitely-not-biased opinion), but it may not be the one that makes it to the bookshelves in Barnes and Noble. Only time will tell.

The encouraging thing is, I'm making progress. I'm taking baby steps in the right direction. That's the exciting part.

FiTG Update: Criss Cross

I'm glad I read Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins. She captures something about the beginnings of adolescence, something intangible.

I loved her characters. They're regular people in a small town, but they have wit, spark, and a million questions about life.

At first I didn't like it. I kept waiting for something to happen.

Then I decided to stop hoping something would happen (good thing, because nothing really did happen) and just let myself enjoy the people she was writing about. There's this group of kids: Hector learning to play the guitar, Debbie driving a stick-shift, Lenny taking things apart and putting them back together. And all of them sitting around watching fireflies.

Unfortunately, I always read books as a writer. It's a curse, because the only books I can truly enjoy are books by dead people. I think this is true because you know dead people are not your competition. Whenever I read a book by someone who's alive, I'm always comparing. Many times I'm trying to learn, too, but even learning turns books into a lesson and not a means of enjoying oneself.

I learned from reading Criss Cross. One of the things I learned is that it's okay to write something different from what everyone else is writing. This book was the polar opposite of fast-paced, pop fiction. But that's okay. It stands as it's own contribution. And it won the Newbery medal when fast-paced, pop fiction books did not.

I'll probably remember it a lot longer than fast-paced, pop fiction too. Not so much the plot, because there wasn't one, but the feelings I had while reading it, how it played out a rhythm in my brain, reminding me what it's like to be a twelve or thirteen year old again.

It wasn't one of those page-turners. I didn't stay up all night reading it. It didn't have a universal lesson where I walked away feeling enlightened or liberated. It was a little sad, a little funny, a little lonely. And it felt real, which is a great achievement unto itself.

Selfishly

Thursday was the last football practice of the year.

I don't like being selfish. Everyone knows I love Prosser football, and it would have been awesome to see the Mustangs go all the way to the King Bowl. I would have been in the Tacoma Dome cheering louder than anyone.

But.

Selfishly, I don't mind having Friday nights free.

Selfishly, I don't mind when my husband rides into the driveway on his bike at four o'clock instead of seven or eight or ten.

Selfishly, I don't mind when he's there every night when the kids go to bed.

Selfishly, I don't mind when he tells me, "Maybe we should start going on a date once a week." (Ooh la la!)

Selfishly, I'm glad to get my husband back.

It's sad because this is the first time in twenty-two years the Mustangs haven't been in the playoffs. I'm sad for my brother-in-law who's in his first year of head coaching here.

But I don't feel sad for myself and I don't feel sad for my kids. Abruptly I find I can breathe again without gasping, float on my back with my toes pointing at the sky, stare at the blue overhead expanse without panicking, without feeling like I'm sinking into Life too deep, pulled too many ways by too many small people with Agendas -- and transition issues.

The Mustangs can go to the playoffs next year, when we're adjusted, settled, and everyone's a year older.

That's how I feel. Selfishly.

He's Six

What craziness possessed me to schedule our furniture delivery on my son's sixth birthday?

Needless to say it was an exhausting morning. I ran between our new house (still laying floors, by the way; the cabinets are sitting in boxes in the kitchen; and even though our renovations aren't going as quickly as we had planned, it's all coming together beautifully) and Aaron's parents' house (where we are still living) where I baked, sliced, and decorated for Gabe's birthday party.
Here he is -- the birthday boy -- blowing out the candles on his mountain/volcano cake. I'm not a great cake decorator. I don't have the necessary attention for detail ... or the patience. Gabe told me he wanted a chocolate cake with blue and green frosting. I made a chocolate pudding fudge cake and a bunch of blue and green buttercream frosting. After spending a few minutes slapping frosting on the cake, I realized it looked sort of like a snow encrusted mountain with lots of landslides. I added a few green tree-shaped sprinkles and white crystal sprinkles. Since I made it in a bundt pan, I made a volcano with red sprinkles out of the hole in the middle. It actually turned out pretty cool. (The picture doesn't do it justice, of course.)

Most importantly, Gabe loved it.

And it tasted pretty good too.

Here's my brand new six year old with his cousin, Josiah.

And here are three generations of Sonnichsen men: "Papa" Ben, my fabulous husband Aaron, and my sweet little big boy, Gabe.
Gabe received many cool toys, but he spent all afternoon after his party making his Lego Star Wars X-wing fighter with his daddy. Here he is wearing his new Star Wars Lego pajamas and holding the completed X-wing fighter. That's one happy boy.

I'm incredibly thankful for Gabe. This may sound trite, but I couldn't ask for a more wonderful son. He's sweet, thoughtful, affectionate, not to mention incredibly intelligent, absurdly handsome, irresistibly cuddly, and boundlessly energetic. What more could a mom want?

It's hard to believe that it's been six years since he lay in my arms at the hospital in Beijing. We slept curled up next to each other that first night. I couldn't bare to put him in his bassinet. I remember how aware he was of me, how he snuggled up close and adjusted his breathing to mine -- or did I adjust my breathing to his? I remember how I couldn't go to sleep because I was so busy staring at him.

And sometimes I still find myself staring and holding him and not wanting to let him go. He still runs up to me and wraps his arms around me. He tells me he loves me. He smacks me with kisses. Sometimes slobbery ones.

Though he's getting taller and running faster and reading books all by himself, he's still a little boy.

Thank goodness.

Happy Birthday sweet Gabe!

Wanna Go To Red Robin?

"Do you wanna go to Red Robin?"

The Loy family in Bellingham, WA are our dear friends. We met them when we lived up there for two years before we moved to China, while Aaron was in grad school.

The Loys have four amazing children. When we first met them all those years ago, Morgan, the oldest, was three, and Hannah was two. Sydney was a newborn and Carter, their now eight-year-old, wasn't even thought of yet.

"Do you wanna go to Red Robin?" was our favorite phrase in those days, because the older Loy daughters would ask us that question in their cute, high-pitched toddler voices. Red Robin was our "special" place to go with the Loys.

To this day, when we see a Red Robin, Aaron and I look at each other and grin. One of us then inevitably says: "Do you wanna go to Red Robin?" in a tiny Morgan-and-Hannah-Loy voice.

So, it was with nostalgic excitement that Aaron and I looked at each other after the Disney On Ice show on Saturday and said, "Let's eat lunch at Red Robin!"

Our kids had never been to a Red Robin. We don't eat out much these days (quite a contrast to our eating habits in China, where food and restaurants were CHEAP). Red Robin and other chain, sit-down restaurants like it are in the Tri-Cities, where we go occasionally, but not a lot.

It was quite a treat to pull up in front of Red Robin and walk inside. We ordered burgers and pop and kid's meals. We loaded up on steak fries covered in Red Robin special seasoning dipped in liberal amounts of Ranch dressing.

Splurge.

I walked away from a very messy table (and an even messier floor where Sophie had thrown all her unwanted food) with a sense of being very pampered. That's how you feel when you haven't eaten out in awhile: you notice yourself being spoiled.

Loy family, if you ever read this, just know we think fondly of you, especially when we eat at Red Robin. We think of those happy days sitting with you around the table when we were clueless newlyweds. You made parenting look so effortless, we couldn't wait to have kids of our own. And we didn't wait, obviously, because eight years later, here we are with FOUR of our own.

So, here's to Red Robin. And family. And steak fries dipped in Ranch dressing.

Red Robin ... Yum.

Boo!

Talk about culture shock. We barely got into September before I was walking into stores and seeing Halloween everywhere. Everywhere.

Aisle after aisle of candy and costumes. Even costumes for dogs.

People here decorate their houses. They put big blow up witches on their front lawns. They drape fake cobwebs on the bushes by their front doors.

At the beginning of October it began at school. Olivia was abuzz about her upcoming Halloween party. Every week she was bringing home Halloween books from the library. She and Gabe were singing rousing choruses of "Dem bones" at the dinner table.

What a contrast to China where most of our friends didn't celebrate Halloween, and for the rest of us it was basically an afterthought. "Oh, is it October 31 today? Quick, run to the store and get some candy. Kids, pull out the dress-up box. What do you want to wear?"

Here, several weeks ago our kids were being asked by kindly people, "What are you going to be for Halloween?"

Aaron and I looked at each other, a little baffled. Should we take the kids Trick-or-Treating this year like we did in China? Here, it was so much of a bigger deal. Did we want to support all the hoopla? I mean, the fact that Halloween rivaled Christmas in the stores was slightly scary to us. (Pardon the pun.)

In the end, we opted to keep Halloween as low-key as possible. Just like in China.

We pulled out our dress-up clothes at the last minute. We took the kids to Disney On Ice in the morning and went Trick-or-Treating at the local elderly center in the evening. It was a fun day. I wish Halloween hadn't been a two-month focus, but I guess that's part of the culture we're living in now.

We could say, "We don't celebrate Halloween," and shut off our lights and hide from Trick-or-Treaters. Or go to a Harvest Party at church. Sure, we could do that. A lot of people do and I don't blame them.

But I think it blessed the people in the elderly center to see our kids coming through to get candy. (I know Sophie scored smiles of admiration in her jingly, pink Xinjiang dress.) Olivia and Gabe enjoyed their Halloween parties at school. It was fun for my kids to put on their dress-up clothes and, of course, we are still enjoying the Halloween candy. That's the focus: fun.

Below are some pictures of my kids in their garb: Gabe the pirate and his gypsy princess escorts. To her Halloween party at school, Olivia wore the Felicity dress Grandma Nai Nai made her. She told everyone she was Elizabeth from Pirates of the Caribbean. (I have a feeling that being Kiera Knightley is a slightly cooler option than admitting you're dressed as an American Girl doll.)

Sophie the XinJiang princess

Gabe saying: "Arggh! Where's me candy?"

The Happy Pirate, "Kiera Knightley", and Uighur Dancing Girl

Firsts: The Pumpkin Patch

(Anna's overly-sensitive sniffer was greatly offended by the smells at the pumpkin patch. She spent most of her visit plugging her nose -- even through the hay maze.)

A couple weeks ago, Anna, Sophie and I went to the pumpkin patch with Gabe's kindergarten class. Confession: I'd never been to a pumpkin patch before.

I'd never taken a hay ride.

I'd never wandered through a corn maze.

Don't feel sorry for me. That's just part of the trade-off of growing up overseas. Instead of going to the pumpkin patch as a kid, I celebrated Octobers by burning my fingers on candle wax and cavorting in the light of the full-moon carrying a fancy paper lantern during Mid-Autumn Festival.

I was not deprived.

Still, I was excited about our first trip to the pumpkin patch.

Here's Gabe's kindergarten class. (Gabe's the kid in the blue hat, front row.) Miss Skyles is his teacher. Hint: She's the grown-up in the picture.

Here's Gabe roasting a marshmallow -- and Anna wishing she were in kindergarten so she could roast a marshmallow. "Don't worry, honey. Your time will come ... soon enough."

And below are the kids on the hay slides.

Anna

Gabe
Sophie
And of course you can't leave the pumpkin patch without a pumpkin. Here's Anna with hers: "It's just my size!"