Now, if only she’d use the big girl potty, da’s life would be joyous.
I’m still really amazed by the language skills she’s been picking up lately. Just because Michelle and I are the only people who understand a words she says, doesn’t mean anything. Rowan’s sentence structure is improving from one syllable words to multisyllable words and sentences. My own mother pointed out that Ro was adopting an unusual understanding for two years old — she says “I hungry” rather than “me hungry”. She refuses to say her own name, but, if you think about it, the phonetics of Rowan require a mish-mash of dexterity of the mouth. Ask her to say her name and she shyly tells you, “Nooooo”.
Rowan is also amazingly good at counting and recognizing her letters. At two, she can count to three in English and Spanish. I’m proud of my little girl, can’t you tell?
As always, her recent doctor’s visit proved out that she is growing at a termendous rate. Better than 97th percentile. To be honest, she is off the charts for weight and height. Rowan is 36 lbs. and 36.5 inches tall. People regularly ask us if she is three and are surprised to find she is only two.
I’m very much into writing and authors that I can pull inspiration from at this time. Any suggestions? I like Kafka, Sartre, Salinger, Lovecraft, Hemingway — all are circa 1940-1960 authors. I started reading “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath and have enjoyed the first 25 pages…. But I am hungry for others.
I tend to like “old fashioned” writers (to coin another student in my last writing class). I did read some Updike yesterday evening for the first time (okay, second time, but I was prolly too young for Run, Rabbit, Run when I read it back in the ’80s). I enjoyed the Tobias Wolf piece I read recently and I adore BAT by Copote. I’m hungry for other influences for my writing — with the intent of expanding those influences to cover up that I am emulating them.
Okay, over the past few years, I have tried to focus less on the politcal and more on writing.
This, however, is priceless. I have very little sympathy for people who consider waterboarding anything less than torture. This is one of those articulate moments like those that inspired me to go ahead and vote for Ventura as our governor.
M has given me the okay to submit some short fiction for consideration in a “competition” to be selected for a mentor-ship involving other writers — all of which are published much more than I am. “Established writers” is what you would call them.
I have very little hope of meeting the criteria for selection, but if I did “win”, I would be grateful for any opportunity to meet and receive feedback from published authors.
I have done some additional editing, but the piece “A Parley with the Troll” on dormouseconfidential.com is one of the pieces I am submitting. The other is “Control”, a bit of flash fiction I submitted to another local competition.
While I am (probably over-) optimistic with respect to my chances of being selected, I see the opportunity for what it is…. An opportunity.
As much as I’d love to be published, I have no illusions about the growth I must undertake before such publication will happen. Receiving feedback from established authors is essential to my proposed career as a writer. I can only keep my fingers crossed.
I am blessed.
M supports my desire to be a writer. I have a daughter who is two today. Both things, tho unrelated, are blessings, as far as I am concerned.