Quite the Hiatus

Alright, so admittedly, I don’t have the best track record when it comes to writing this blog, but this has been the longest break I’ve ever taken.

Here’s the quick catch-up for the past three years: I’ve got two kiddos now (my son is no longer a baby, he's four and a half, and I have a daughter who is seven months old), I’m still writing children’s books and my debut books are coming out next Fall (check out my website for more details https://serenagingoldallen.com/), I still read a ton (aloud to my kiddos and to myself on my Kindle in the middle of the night), and I will climb rocks again someday (it’s been over a year—first because I was pregnant and then now because, you guessed it…COVID-19).

Despite having less time to myself than I’ve ever had before, I decided I should start blogging again. Crazy, you say. There’s probably some crusted spit-up on the floor that needs cleaning or a load of laundry to fold, you continue. You probably shouldn’t overextend yourself anymore. Yes, yes, you’re correct. But I need something that’s just for me. All of my other writing is critiqued, edited, revised, sometimes changed beyond all belief. But this blog is mine. I can do whatever I want with it. And the worst that can happen is that no one will read it. So here’s what I’m going to do: refocus it, at least for the time being, on my life at home as a mom and a writer.

I spend a lot of time with both of my kiddos, but currently more with my son since my daughter is in the three-naps-a-day stage (on the good days). My son LOVES books of all kinds. I’ve been reading the Harry Potter series aloud to him and we’re now on the sixth one. We started the first one shortly after we locked down and he just can’t get enough of them. At first I was a little worried that he wasn’t following along, but whenever I asked him questions about what we’d read he definitely understood. After we finish each book, we watch the movie version of it together. On numerous occasions, he’s asked why something is different from the book or has been left out. It’s been really fun having these conversations with him because my husband is not a Harry Potter fan. My son still loves picture books and he has a renewed interest in board books, thanks to his sister (he also has a renewed interest in baby toys—is that normal?).

My sister-in-law and I are each planning one project a week to do with our “big” boys (my older nephew is three and a half and my younger one is five days older than my daughter). Having projects to look forward to each week is helping a little with the stay-at-home fatigue. The first project we did was to make playdough. Back when my son used to go to preschool (you know, way back in March when life was still normal), I was the mom who made the playdough each week. I had the boys help measure out the ingredients and stir them together. I did the cooking and kneading and then they got to choose the colors they wanted. Then they kneaded the dye into the dough (I put small balls of dough into plastic sandwich bags and they squished to their heart’s content—we did have to help them at the end to get the dye fully mixed into the dough). And then the boys played blissfully for at least five minutes without fighting.

  

I got really excited today because my daughter scooted over to her shelf of board books and started pulling them off and throwing them on the floor. I was like, “YES! Another reader in the house!” My son’s love affair with books started in the same way when he was her age. Every morning, I would set him down in the living room and he would immediately scoot to his shelf of books. He would then pull all of them off and chew on them. Hopefully my daughter doesn’t get in to the habit of consuming large enough portions of her books to get sick.

All right, I gotta stop procrastinating. Time to stop blogging and get a little work done. Until next time (which hopefully isn’t in another three years).

What I’m reading: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. Written in the first person, it’s about Ernest Hemingway’s first wife and their life together. I bought this on a whim. Well, really because it was on sale for Kindle and had a lot of stars. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but so far it’s quite good—well written and captivating. It’s reminiscent of Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan and Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, which are also based on the lives of the partners of famous men.