She Did It

This week I have been thrown up on, my ideas were thrown out, and just before the towel was thrown in by me, I made a big step. This is a glimpse of our week in BC.  Monday was a pro-D day for my four year old, Lanes. That means she gets to stay home and I get to entertain her all day.

For folks who are unfamiliar with Pro-D day, it stands for Professional Development , and it means the teachers use the day to well, develop professionally. Again, I’m not to be quoted on this. I only retain 35% of the information I am given on any given topic and this is the gist of what I was told back in the day when I was scratching my ears and grumblingly asking what the holiday was for.

Another mom from Lanes’ preschool brought her two girls over and we had a good old fashioned play date. I always enjoy hanging out with ‘adults’. Lanes and her friends entertained themselves for the most part so we were free to have a proper conversation that was not interrupted with comments like ‘mamma there is big bug in the toy box’ or ‘something fell in the toilet’ followed by a sly smile.

The next few days were not so hot for us, literally and metaphorically speaking.  On Tuesday night when I was losing the dinner battle with a petulant four year old, something kept telling me that Lanes was going to have a stomach bug. I brushed away that persistent voice like I was shooing away a fly, since it never bodes well. That voice had also made an appearance two weeks ago when she got her UTI.

Sure enough, as I was in the midst of the breakfast battle the following day, I stepped out of the kitchen to find Lanes in a very peculiar perpendicular pose on the sofa. I quickly straightened her out since she has just chugged her milk. A second later, she yakked it all over our carpet, and less importantly, my legs.

Since I had my ‘premonition’, my face registered no surprise, which was good, since Lanes immediately looked to me for facial cues.  A quick comfort and clean up job later, she was sighing happily when she heard me call the school to say she is not coming.

Soon, her eyes started to look glazed and she wanted to nap, which is most unlike her. In general, she is always on the go. I often wonder if she is never hungry because she swallowed the Energizer bunny. Then again, I guess all four year olds are like that and it seems like a lot of action since I’m more of a stationary kind of gal. I’m simply sedentary.

I stayed by her side the entire time, chuck bucket in hand, staring intently at her and sending good vibes. Luckily, after a bout of the runs, by evening she was jumping around and wrapping her father, P, around her little finger as usual. It seems she has also enveloped him with some germs. P has caught the bug and is still holding onto the virus, but not any of his food.

In the middle of all this madness, I was trying to scour through my e-mails because the author from the seminar I went to last week said he would offer some students a consultation and help them publish on Amazon.  He guaranteed his partner and he could make us best sellers.

I tried to fill in the application, but couldn’t concentrate because Lanes was on a high after her recovery and P was on an all time low, grumbling  about his now serious relationship with our toilet. Plus, I was exhausted.

Needless to say, I never heard back from him, even though I was one of the few folks who had stuff ready to publish. I was really down in the dumps about that. To make it worse, I got a survey from my graduate school, which I was happily filling in, and when it came to the part where there were options to fill in what one did for a living, ‘Supreme Controller and Lassoer of Preschooler and Spouse’ did not come up as an option.

If I was feeling rejected and dejected about not being out there in the workforce before, I was really doused in drudgery at this point. It seemed like all my classmates were doing better and brighter things, and my day revolved around preschool and stuffing chicken in the oven. I was in the mood for a real pity party, and was further disheartened to realize there was no one to invite to it.

Then I got mad. Really mad. I decided, I love to write. It makes me happy. I want to do it. If staying at home driving Lanes crazy has thought me anything, it’s that I want to love what I do when I am free to start working again. And if one person doesn’t call me back, it’s not the end of the world.

It turned out to be a good thing because I really needed the anger to propel me off the couch and into action.  I might not have all the bells and whistles and pony tricks and potions it takes to market on Amazon, but I can sure upload something onto Kindle. 

I just had to breakthrough my fear of starting the publishing process. Technology, like equilibrium and common sense, is not a good friend of mine. But I really had to stop waiting around. Good things don’t happen to those who wait. It happens to people who take the first step. Correction, those who look before taking the first step.

I have wasted too much time hoping for publishers and aging Canadian rock stars to fall from the sky and straight into my arms. Now that the rock star is cancelled, I had to be proactive. I would just take one of the many pieces I have shelved and publish it on Kindle. It doesn’t matter if only four people will buy it and only forty five people I know will know about it. I had to do it for me.

So on Friday, when Lanes was in school, I threw caution to the wind and decided dinner and the laundry can wait. I put my hair up, furrowed my brows, and got busy trying to upload a book to Amazon.  Long before Candoodling was born, I wrote a closed blog about my pregnancy. It’s funny but informative because it also discusses the growth of the baby, like when the baby got fingerprints or could hear sounds in the womb.

Plus, I thought it was unique  because it was from the baby's point of view. A very cheeky baby at that. The only thing that would make reading it more fun, would be to read it while eating warm chocolate chip cookies and milk. Add some pickles & soy sauce to that if you are pregnant.

After waiting all night on Friday while the book was in review with Amazon, I was over the moon when I saw it on ‘the shelf’. I immediately told everyone I know on Facebook. That is the end of my marketing as I have no idea how these things go (and again I was sad to miss out on the opportunity from the seminar). I need a fairy Godmother.

Right now I’m feeling really relieved to finally put something out, even if it is self published. It’s a small step for normal people, but a giant leap for a mom like me (details of the Kindle book are on the right hand side of this blog. It’s called “Blogs from the Belly: Pregnancy From Baby’s Point of View”). Sometimes, when Lanes lets me, I look lovingly at my page on Amazon.

Any old how this book was my test run, and now I’m all ready and eager to brush the cobwebs off some of my other works, edit the life into it, and put it out there!  So thank you Canadoodling fans who follow me every week and give me encouragement. It is because of you that I am trying to live my dream! I might never make a living from it, but it is what I want the most.

Well, I also want to sing at sold out concerts and star in a show, but that’s never going to happen since I have the voice of a bull frog stuck in a well and I’m not sure what wide screen settings TVs have these days can support me. I’m assuming high def is also not a friend of mine either. With that I must sign off. Lanes is about to jump on P’s stomach and that might not end up well for either of them considering his current state. More rollicking times from BC next week…