The other day, while I was preparing my two-year-old son old for his afternoon nap, my three-year-old daughter looked up at me and asked what I had been working on earlier in the day. That day had been one of my workdays, a day in which I have a sitter come to watch my kids for three hours while I work in my home office.
Looking at my daughter, I gave her a sly smile and asked: “Holland, did you know mama is a doctor?”
Wow! It has been a while. I am sorry for the delay in posting. As I have written about before, things are crazy right now. My husband is traveling constantly, so I have been solo-parenting a lot. When I am not taking care of the kiddos, I have been focusing my energy on my book manuscript. (I do not have much of a life outside of parenting and writing. Seriously.) My goal is to have a reasonable grip on the manuscript before I send my proposal materials to the editor who I have been communicating with since last fall. Because the book has been taking up the majority of my time outside of parenting, I decided to do a post about writing tips and suggestions.
As I discussed in my last post, life is crazy right now. The good news is that I’ve located some childcare assistance. The not-so-good news is that my husband is traveling a lot. So, when I am not solo-parenting, I am spending the bulk of my time on my book manuscript. But, I promise to have another post up in the next month or so. And, I am sure it will be riveting, exciting, and hilarious. Well, I probably can’t promise that. But, it will be something! And, hopefully, it will be informative in some capacity. Until then, be well.
If someone were to ask me: “How are you? What are you up to these days?” I would probably scream back at them, in a quite frenzied state, “Life! I have been doing life!” Right now, things are stressful…very stressful. I’ll explain the reasons for all that stress in a second. But, before everyone gets all worked up, let me clarify that I am fine. Altogether, things are fine and I am on top of everything. There is no need to worry about me venting. Life is hard. It is hard for everyone. Writing is just one way that I deal with the struggle that is life. Writing allows me to wrap my mind around my thoughts and it helps me to process my feelings.
As I have written about before, I am a stay-at-home parent, which means I am a full-time caregiver to our two, young children. They are now 3 and a little over 1.5 years old. I love them to bits, but (shit) they are a lot to deal with singlehandedly. I have no clue how the stereotype of the bored stay-at-home parent developed (possible future blog post!), because I can tell you that myth is a complete and utter lie. Damn, I wish I were bored. If my problem were boredom, things would be a lot different.
“Why am I just now learning about the Haitian Revolution, especially in a modern European history course? Is it really that significant?” She was a young student. Although I cannot fully remember, I think she was a freshman. I stared back at her desperately trying to pretend that I was not frantically searching my brain for a clear answer. The problem was not a lack of answers; on the contrary, the problem was an overflow of ideas. It was my first semester working as a teaching assistant for a course on the history of modern Europe. At this stage, I still thought that as the instructor, I was supposed to know everything and anything at any given moment. In these early days, my discussion sections felt like twice-weekly pop quizzes.
Returning to the young student, I cleared my throat, broke my silence, and insecurely delivered what I prayed was a satisfactory answer. Gazing at her inquisitive eyes and feeling the other student’s predatory stares, I explained how the Haitian Revolution is significant to our understanding of the French Revolution.[1] I continued: “The Haitian Revolution reveals the inconsistencies within the French Revolution.” Gaining a little bit more confidence, I turned the question back to my class exclaiming, “The Haitian Revolution makes us ask, ‘was the French Revolution about liberty and equality, or was it about private property?” I finished: “It makes us question the nature of revolutionary movements.”