My good friend, Postal Worker Jane, just doorbell-ditched me. She does that, stopping her truck in front of my house to deliver my mail to my doorstep instead of making me hike all the way across the street to my mailbox. She started that practice when my boys were babies, and she’s still doing it now that those babies are off at kindergarten. Am I spoiled, or what?
Minutes ago, Postal Worker Jane’s doorbell-ditching yielded a wholly unexpected package. Curious, I ripped open the yellow package—and then punched the air in triumph. It was Read More…
I was watching a DVD of Star Trek: Voyager last week and somehow my mind filled with an image of Seven of Nine, half borg and half human, looking at our triplets, all standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their heads tilted up to her. I know what she’d do. She’d regard them detachedly, arch her eyebrow, and say with an air of approval, “Very efficient.”
Surfing is far more hazardous than I suspected. During 
I’ve been rockin’ the boys’ school snacks and lunches. Creative, healthy, tasty, fun. Seriously, their lunch supervisors have been trying to place orders with me for their own lunches. And lunch supervisors don’t mess around, not when it comes to food. You give your kid a lax or unhealthy lunch, and they let you know. My boys’ school is all over the healthy food initiative, and I’m on it like white on rice. Make that brown on rice. Much healthier.
When my triplets were three months old, I cracked. No sleep, little food, and showers… what were those? I’d lost all the baby weight I’d gained during my pregnancy, but then the pounds kept going, dropping until I weighed less than I had since tenth grade. I didn’t take care of myself. Everything was about the babies. My husband had to go back to work—he couldn’t stay home forever, no matter how much I begged—and I felt all alone. 
Five years ago I rolled my suitcase past the sliding glass doors of L.A.’s Hyatt Regency Century Plaza hotel for the first SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) National Conference since my triplets had been born. This was to be my first weekend away from my three babies, who were just seven months old. A few steps into the hotel, I came upon a writer and the SCBWI staffer who’d set up my stay at the conference. The writer looked at me in surprise. “What are you doing here? Didn’t you just have triplets?” she asked. Before I could answer, the staffer, the amazing Kim Turrisi, said, “That’s why she’s here!” For emphasis, she picked up the pillow I’d tied to the top of my suitcase and waved it. Indeed, I was determined to get at least one night of solid sleep that year, if I had to leave town with my favorite pillow to do it.
I’m proud to announce that I’ve just been signed to write Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies for Wiley Publishing’s 
Apparently I only cry over the thought of 
Heartbreak! My firstborn, the loser of the first tooth among the Halverson Trio, lost his second tooth today . . . in the plastic ball pit at Ikea’s playroom. No joke: My frantic boy couldn’t find his pearly white in that pool of red, yellow, and blue plastic despite the help of his equally horrified brother.
On Tuesday we took the boys to their first in-theater movie—Toy Story 3. I’d been told I’d cry by the end, but I’d just poo-poo’d the prediction. What I hadn’t taken into account was how much a certain scene would resonate with me. When Andy’s mom cried about her baby growing up and going to college, I crumbled. Or rather, blubbered. 
I kinda sorta know how to play chess. Which may explain why we had a chess set stashed in our toy closet. Or maybe the set was my husband’s from forever ago and he kinda sorta knows how to play chess, too? Regardless, the youngest of my five-year-old triplets found the chess board a couple of months ago and asked me to teach him to play and now he kinda sorts knows how to play chess, too.
More than 60 beachgoers were stung in the surf along La Jolla Shores yesterday, with three victims needing hospitalization. That would be the same La Jolla Shores where I learned to surf on Sunday and was told to shuffle, shuffle, shuffle instead of walk while in the water.
My boys are getting their first real taste of that. Triplets they’ve known since all six children were infants are moving tomorrow. To the other side of the country.
Remember that