My son is OBSESSED with Mustangs (the car).

Whenever we’re driving, he points out every single one that passes us.

I drove my husband to the airport for a business trip and our son was in the backseat. I was telling my husband about the bank his father had given The Boy and that The Boy was saving up for a Mustang and had asked me how much one cost.

Me: I told him it was a couple of thousand dollars.

Steve: You mean a couple of tens of thousands of dollars.

Me: It doesn’t matter to him. He’s nowhere close to having even one thousand dollars.

Noah: Well, I will be getting a Mustang soon, you know.

Me: Soon? Really? How do you figure that?

Noah: I am almost 16.

Me: You’re almost 16?

Noah: Yeah. Look, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17…16…see? I’m almost 16.

This morning, I went into the kitchen to make my usual morning smoothie and Noah was watching some TV, as school is out for summer and his friends hadn’t started ringing the doorbell and banging on the front door.

Me: Did you finish your breakfast?

Noah: Yes. Can I have some milk?

Me: Sure. Bring the dishes into the kitchen.

As he brought his plate in, I poured him a glass of milk. I took the plate.

Me: Here’s your milk.

He turned and walked back toward the living room, without the milk.

Me: Noah, here’s your milk.

He turned back to me and said:

“Oh, I thought you gave the Vashta Nerada the milk.”

I took Noah to Chick-fil-a after he got out of school at noon for the next to last day on Tuesday.

I hadn’t packed him a lunch as I figured he’d come home and I’d take him out.

In the car, he told me that they’d had eggs and bacon at school. Don’t really get that and he isn’t always the most reliable witness, so I was confused, but then I always am with school stuff.

Anyway, we went home and he changed his clothes. When we got to the restaurant, we saw lots of cars with stickers from his school, so I told him maybe changing hadn’t been necessary and he’d have lots of friends to play with.

Now, normally, the lure of the playplace is too much and he doesn’t always eat all his lunch. Also, his ADHD meds sometimes take away his appetite, so I didn’t expect him to eat much. And if he’d had food at school…. It didn’t matter. This trip was just so he could play and he and Mommy could do something special together.

At one point he told me he was ready for his milkshake, which is a traditional end of our trips there. I asked him if he was done eating and he showed me that he’d eaten everything.

“Wow,” I said, “you scarfed down those chicken nuggets.”

“I was hungry,” he replied. “That’s what a Noah is.”

Sunday:

I was giving the Boy a bath before we went to 6 p.m. Mass. It was a lovely evening here and our neighbors were outside on their back patio watching the Saints game (apparently). Our bathroom window looks out on a fence that separates our property from theirs. We couldn’t see them but we could hear yelling and after a moment, I realized they must have been cheering the game as I couldn’t hear every word, but I’d hear “Stop him” or “get the ball.”

The Boy kept asking me what was going on over there. I told him they were having fun watching the game and they weren’t bothering anyone.

I was letting him play in the tub a bit – he has an amazing collection of yellow rubber ducks – and I sat just outside the door on my bed reading. Finally, it was time to get him out and I went into the bathroom again.

“Maybe it’s my imagination,” he said.

“What is?”

“That yelling.”

“Then why can I hear it?” I asked.

“Oh. Maybe it’s your imagination.”

Yesterday:

I was in the carpool line to pick the Boy up from school. Our carpool line begins to move once the buses have left the area, but it only moves about six or eight car lengths when the front cars move to fill in the spots right before pick up begins. We sit like this for maybe five minutes before pick up actually starts.

I had moved my car to about three car lengths from the stop sign on the corner across from the school. This part of the line is in front of a house and just as the line began to move for the picking up process, I saw an elderly man approach the car in front of me. She started moving, so he waved her on, but he held up his hand for me to stop.

I didn’t start moving, and he came to the passenger side window and made a motion for me to roll down the window.

I was driving my husband’s car, for various car related reasons, and it doesn’t have automatic windows, which meant I had take it out of gear and put the brake on to roll down that window.

He leaned in and said, “I know you’re not the woman I talked to yesterday, but I told her that I had lost my little dog. I found him and I just wanted to tell someone.”

Today:

I was driving the Boy to school and he started talking about Egypt. I don’t know where this came from but he was telling me how they don’t bury people in Egypt. I told him they had to because people die there, too.

He told me they had pyramids but I explained that not everyone gets buried in pyramids and we talked about Pharoahs, like “King Nut” (his words).

Then at one point he told me that they sit “criss-cross applesauce” when they pray and put their pointer fingers on their thumbs or something.

I asked him how he knew this.

His response:

“I’m smart and you know that someday I’m going to be a mad scientist and take over the world.”

Sigh.

My life certainly isn’t boring!

Current book – writing: Sword & Illusion
Number of chapters declared DONE – Thirteen
Number of chapters waiting for Beloved’s final read – Two (Fourteen and Fifteen)
Chapter working on – Sixteen
Current book – reading – Holly’s Inbox

LIFE UPDATE
Well, the Boy started first grade this morning. Yesterday we went to the school to drop off his supplies so he could see his classroom and meet his teacher. She seems like a nice lady and he’s pretty excited about it.

I feel better about him in first grade than I did last year. I think having him repeat kindergarten was a good idea. He’s matured a lot in a year and his therapy has helped him so much. He’s not shy anymore and on Wednesday, at therapy, he stayed completely on task for the whole half hour! This is a big deal for us!

He’ll be doing therapy twice a week at the private office and once with the public school therapist. His private therapist suggested that he join a new group of first graders with similar language issues, and I think that would be great for him, so he’ll be doing that Saturday afternoons.

Tomorrow is the first basketball game of the summer. He’s really enjoyed it but at least right now, he shows no signs of being a great player.

The grandparents are here now. Well, not here here, but in their own home here in Baton Rouge. It’s been nice to have them nearby, especially for the kids. They are actually managing the stress of the move better than I expected. They lived in their house in NJ for over 30 years but I haven’t seen any anxiety about leaving all their friends and all.

WRITING UPDATE

As you can see from the status above, I’m still plodding through Sword & Illusion. I really want this done before Thanksgiving, so now that school has started again and I have more free time, I’m going to work hard on this.

I still have a few other stories I want to write and I’m going to update this website so you can see what I want to work on.

Please go to www.textnovel.com and check out the submissions by Honor Cummings. I’m posting some of Sword & Illusion there, which is written under that name.

I also have another book called Married for the Money that I’m writing under my own name because it’s a contemporary. Vote for either of these or both. See the other submissions, too. I’m entered in a Dorchester contest. If I win, I’ll win a contract with that publisher.

Beloved and I are still waiting to hear about The Lady and the Necromancer which is still at Baen. He also has his science fiction book, Battle for the Sphere there, too, and is waiting to hear something about that.

Well, gang, it’s time for me to make my breakfast and get started on my writing. When I get some batteries for my camera, I’ll post some pictures to let you see some of what we’ve been doing!

Have a great day!

Today is the first day of soccer camp for the Boy. For five days, he’ll be learning how to play soccer from 9-12. I’m expecting much fatigue from him today as he thought it would be fun to stay up and play V-smile in his room after we put him to bed.

Two days a week he still has language therapy. We’re in a battle with our insurance company about whether they should pay for this therapy or not. He has Central Auditory Processing Disorder and they say they only cover language therapy if it’s something he had and lost due to an injury or other traumatic thing. I guess if he never had complete language processing, that’s okay with them; he doesn’t need to have it.

I think a case can be made that we are trying to restore something that’s normal that he never had, and therefore it is a “restorative” therapy.

Anyway, that’s an ongoing thing.

I also signed him up with basketball at the Y. That’s one evening a week and supposedly games, but we haven’t gotten a schedule yet.

Next week and the week after he’ll take swimming lessons and VBS is the middle of July.

I guess he’ll be a busy boy, which will be good for him.

I need to go now but I’ll tell you about my experiences at the pool yesterday later. Tschues!

Well, school’s out and it’s not even June. It still feels weird to this girl from the North.

Anyway, I’m trying to keep the Boy entertained, as well as doing some pseudo-homeschooling. Monday was good, but the week kinda went downhill. Yesterday I felt like I didn’t want to do anything. I did have him do some reading and some math, but I didn’t do any writing or much with him.

Well, I guess maybe he needed attention or something, but two things he’s been specifically told not to do, he did deliberately.

He got into the refrigerator and took out food by himself. Now he didn’t eat anything bad for him or anything but he’s been told not to eat stuff without asking me. Then later, I took him outside and he climbed on the roof.

I don’t even know how to keep him from doing this stuff short of never letting him out of my sight, literally. He’s seven years old and all the parenting stuff says that he’s more independent now and should be given a little more freedom, but he’s being deliberately disobedient and honesty, I don’t know how to stop him.

He’s been punished with time outs. I’ve explained the dangers of climbing on the roof and explained to him that if he keeps taking stuff out of the refrigerator to eat he might end up eating something that’s not good for him. I told him it’s my job to keep him safe and healthy, but if he keeps disobeying me, I can’t do that.

On the eighth of June, he has week of soccer camp, and I signed him up for basketball from the Y, so maybe once June starts he’ll be more busy and won’t have time to be bored. In July we’ll have VBS and I’m going to sign him up for swimming later.

I just want him to get himself under control so first grade will be better than kindergarten.

I haven’t posted in a while, so I guess I should catch everyone up on what’s going on.

The Boy turned 7 on Sunday.

Yeah, um, not the best picture of me!

The coolest part, besides that he had a lot of fun and got a TON of Hot Wheels, was the cool Hummer Bouncy House I got:

Today is designing day. On Friday, Michelle’s Angels is starting Challenges on the forum. I LOVE challenges, and I get to hostess the “All About Me” challenge. I’m not going to tell you want the challenge is, but this is what you’ll get when you finish a layout for the challenge and post a link to my thread on the forum.

This kit is called Morning Coffee, and next month, after this challenge is finished, it’ll be for sale. If you do the challenge you can get it for free, so that’s your incentive for doing the challenge.

In other news, still no news on our book at Baen. Every time the phone rings I wonder if it’s them, but not so far.

I’m working on Sword & Illusion and started outlining the first Fairy Godmother Bridesmaid Dress, which right now I’m calling The Millionaire’s Secret Desire. I’m not sure I like that, but it sounds like Harlequin or Silhouette.

What do you guys think?? Does it sound too cheesy?

The Triduum begins today. The Holiest days of the year and the end of Lent.

How has your Lent been going?

I started out with a whole bunch of things I was going to do, but ended up only doing the one thing – getting up every weekday morning at 5:45 and not hitting the snooze button. While I had all kinds of other things on my list, I’m pretty happy with this one. Although, I will be glad for spring break next week where I can sleep in, I am proud of myself for getting up that early every morning. I think I might try to keep it up when school goes back after spring break. I might even get up during spring break. I really enjoyed my early morning time alone.

We had a conference with the Boy’s teacher this morning. He’s on track for going to first grade if only because they can’t hold him back another year. However, he will be getting some special attention and some “resources” attention, meaning he’ll be taken out of class a couple of times a week and put in a smaller reading class to help him with his attention span and general overall reinforcement of some issues.

He’s a bright kid and doesn’t really need help with his reading, which is what we told them this morning (I don’t think they see how well he’s reading. We see it at home when he reads to us but in a classroom setting, I think he might get a little lost.), but they said it’s not just for that. It’s more for the confidence and all that. The principal said they want him to be a leader and are trying to work on making him want to be a leader, too. I’m actually pretty happy with that.

He’s on Day Five of the “Monsters vs. Aliens” “prize package.” If he gets a green or a yellow at school today, he’ll get to go to the movies with Daddy, probably Saturday. Maybe he’ll even get pizza and he definitely will get a bunch of his toys back.

I’ve edited eleven chapters of Sword & Illusion and am waiting for Beloved to pronounce them finished. I’m trying to outline the next book in the series, but it’s not coming easily. I have a couple of other places this “saga” will eventually go, so I might work on one of those books instead.

We’re still waiting to hear from Baen, and that’s getting a little annoying because it’s been three weeks since they said they were going to read it, but I guess I don’t know what goes on inside a publishing house.

Well, tomorrow is Good Friday, and the Good Friday Blog Train will leave the station.

I know it seems kinda weird to have a scrapbook kit just for Good Friday. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t take a lot of pictures of Good Friday, but actually those of us participating just wanted to have a kit that was more religious in nature for this holy time.

I hope you come back tomorrow and download the stuff. I plan to have a few QPs done of a couple of my kits to give away next week!

Recently, we got rid of cable and are doing all of our TV watching from DVDs, mostly from Netflix. This also gives me a chance to indulge in my love of the Lord of the Rings movies in all their glorious LENGTH, at my leisure.

The boy loves these movies, too, and I’m happy to share them with him, since the Girl has to be force to sit down and watch them. I think if she gave them a chance, she’d like them. They’re like her kind of thing, all fantasy and magic and stuff.

Anyway, yesterday both kids were sick with bad colds. The Boy doesn’t have school this week, so it’s not a big deal. Last night, while Beloved was at choir practice, I asked him if he wanted to watch Fellowship of the Ring again. (BTW, our copy of Return of the King is a mess because some little boy, when he was MUCH younger, got out all the DVDs and left them on the floor and walked on them! So, I’m going on ebay to get another copy.)

Anyway, we watched just long enough to get Frodo to Rivendell before the Girl remember some homework (she stayed home from college yesterday) that she needed to get done RIGHT NOW.

Now, if you remember these movies, there’s a scene when we first see Liv Tyler/Arwen. She comes out of the light toward Frodo who has been injured by a Nazgul blade.

My darling little boy said, “Mommy, you’re pretty just like she is.”

Aww.

This morning, I was telling Beloved over breakfast that the Boy thinks I’m as beautiful as Liv Tyler (which I sould LOVE to be!)

The Boy, eating his cereal, said, “Or Jackie Tyler.”

For the less geeky among you, Jackie Tyler is the mother of Rose Tyler:

a companion of Doctor Who #9 and #10, and arguably, Doctor Who’s true love.

To understand what a compliment this is, you have to know that the Boy rates all girls in his class (and, according to him ANY of them could be his girlfriend) according to Doctor Who companions.

These are the three he knows (besides Sarah Jane who has/had her own show and he doesn’t really think of her as a companion). These women are the basis for all girls – he often says things like “She’s beautiful like Rose,” in which case I know the girl is blond. He knows one black girl from his preschool class and “she’s beautiful like Martha.”

So, you see, while Jackie Tyler and Liv Tyler don’t actually look that much alike, it’s a big compliment for him to think I’m beautiful like these two women.

I’ll take it!