I'm sitting here thinking back. Jan 1 of 2013, I was walking on air because my editor had requested to see my full manuscript. In publishing speak, that's... very promising. A week later, I was offered a contract. A year later, I have two things published--a novella and a short story--and three more pieces accepted. One of them, a novella, has just been edited and the cover request sent in. I don't know exactly when it will release, but I guess Feb/March.
The children have come a long way as well. I can hardly believe that C is three. She's a dynamo. Strong-willed, yet savvy. She can climb like crazy yet she knows her limits and sticks to them. She loves animals, art, and cooking. She enjoys carrying lots of various things around, generally small toys or things like corks and acorns or conkers, and refers to them as her "freasures" (treasures). A few weeks ago, after I scolded her for doing something silly, she put her hand out to my face and then made fake chomping noises. I asked her if she'd just eaten my nose.
"No," she said, "I eat your mouth, so it stop talking."
She loves her brother, and tries to boss him around. Sometimes she's successful. When they play together, it's awesome.
As for E... he's so much fun to have around! He makes amazing observations, his math sense is superb, his reading is off the charts (probably literally), and he wants to be a volcanologist when he grows up. Sometimes that changes to "train driver" and occasionally he'll say he just wants to do "EVERYTHING!" which is also fine. He still loves trains, and volcanos, and he loves talking about anything under the sun. We have a big map of the world on his wall and he likes to point to different places and talk about them. Sometimes we play a game, covering our eyes and pointing to different parts of the world. Often, we wind up in the ocean, but that's part of the fun.
E is in Year 1 now and has really found his stride in school. He's popular with other children but he isn't afraid to march to the beat of his own drummer. He's got his own sense of what's important in life.
