this woman’s work

And no one died, burst into tears (ok Madison did once but it’s because she saw a spider) or fell down the stairs. Yes, we survived the day without Brett. It wasn’t easy — I had to make my own coffee and the children had to suffer through my Mac & Cheese, which isn’t as good as Daddy’s — but we did it.

The kids and I cleaned 3/4 of the basement, which made a pretty big difference. I also moved the bright light downstairs, leaving the living room in near darkness. But it’s worth it to know my children aren’t squinting at their toys.

Madison is a lousy cleaner having no attention span and being easily distracted by every toy we unearthed. Noah spoiled me with his focused, attentive cleaning by age four, I guess. I finally quit nagging her and just set her up out of our way since she kept tipping over piles of stuff we’d just sorted. Now she’s very happily playing with, I think, her duplos. (”No,” she says. “PLAYMOBIL!” Sorry. Missed that.)

I’m grouching about a couple of late checks — both large-ish, one spectacularly late and one the same late it is every month. I dearly wish every client would pay in a timely manner instead of making me send repeated reminders. It’s part of freelancing that I really, really don’t like but there it is. I don’t know a freelancer in the world who doesn’t contend with it.

This is my friend Jennifer Margulis. I know Jennifer a bunch of different ways — various writing groups, literary mama, etc. She’s had a pretty darn interesting life (read the interview and see) and she’s one of those generous writer-types.

See, there are writers who don’t share, who don’t encourage, and who are so centered on their own writing lives that they don’t give a darn about yours. Jennifer isn’t one of these people. (I’ve been lucky that way — my writing circles have been chock full of generous writers with a very few notable exceptions!) So when she said she was looking to get the word out about her latest book I said, “Yeehaw, sign me up for the tour!” This is how I came to have a beautiful copy of The Baby Bonding Book for Dads.

What’s especially nifty about this book is that it’s written by Jennifer and her husband (who has bonded with three babies so is an expert on thse things) and the text is accompanied by incredibly gorgeous pictures.

The book has tips, inspiration and stories — the kind of book that you give to a new dad-to-be) to make him get a little verklempt and a lot more excited about the upcoming baby. Or give it to an old hand at fatherhood and watch him sniff a little bit, too. But really I think of this book as the absolutely perfect gift to bring to a baby shower where dads are WAY too often neglected. You can see, it has a reasonable price point so next time you’re heading to a new daddy’s house to welcome the recent arrival, make sure you have this in hand.