The Limit

The Limit coverMy 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…

admin Comments (2)
Adventures in Writing

Borgs Know Best

Seven_of_NineI 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.”

Then there would be Seven after spending some time with triplets… Read More…

admin Comments (0)
Triplets: The Preschooler Years

Swimming with the (BIG!) Fishies

gw sharkSurfing is far more hazardous than I suspected. During Lesson #1, my friends and I shuffle-shuffle-shuffled our feet to ward off the lurking stingrays that stung a man near us just after we finished our lesson… and that stung 60 beachgoers at that spot the next day. During Lesson #2, this past Sunday, we swam with a great white shark. Read More…

admin Comments (2)
Especially for Teen Readers

Because You Just Never Know

Lunch DI’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.

But yesterday I went a bit overboard. Dried seaweed snacks. I know, I know: Dried seaweed snacks?! WHAT possessed me? Even I recognized the craziness of that idea, once I got home from Trader Joes, that is. See, the cashier had recommended the snack, swearing that all the kids were going nuts for it. “Really?” I asked. “Oh, yeah. Weirdest thing,” he said, “but totally awesome. I like it—I feel like a turtle when I eat it.” Then he made a chomping turtle face. I thought I could use that with the boys.

Then I got home and thought again. Dried seaweed snacks. How was I going to sell this to them? Read More…

admin Comments (2)
Triplets: Kindergarten Days

The More, the Merrier

more the merrier picnic 2010When 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. Read More…

admin Comments (3)
Triplets: The Preschooler Years

What Happens When You Blink

suitcaseFive 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.

My time at this weekend’s SCBWI-National Conference at that same hotel wasn’t about sleep and surviving the bumpy transition into the Triplet Experience, but it was Read More…

admin Comments (3)
Adventures in Writing, Triplets: Kindergarten Days

News: I’m Writing a For Dummies book!

dummies_logoI’m proud to announce that I’ve just been signed to write Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies for Wiley Publishing’s For Dummies line. The book is scheduled for June 2011 publication.

I’m so excited! And with my triplets just having started full-day kindergarten, the timing certainly couldn’t be better. An amazing new chapter in our lives kicks off with a bang.

admin Comments (6)
Adventures in Writing, News

Kindergarten Trio

Kindergarten brothersApparently I only cry over the thought of animated children leaving their animated mothers. My boys started school last week, and I didn’t shed a tear. It helped that we all got a two-hour orientation day first, where we parents got to stay in class with our kids. Grandma S. joined us, ensuring that each of our boys had someone dedicated to him. That made for an easy slide into this whole school thing, and zilcho tears. Well, for me, anyway. Read More…

admin Comments (4)
Triplets: Kindergarten Days

A Very Literal Loss

ToothlessHeartbreak! 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.

But have no fear, Super Mom is near: I calmed them both with ice cream cones and a triple pinkie swear that absolutely, positively, for sure and without a doubt THE TOOTH FAIRY WILL STILL COME.

No joking about that, either. Trust me. Super Mom knows these things.

Disclaimer: No, you’re not seeing things. This photo is after the loss of the FIRST tooth. My camera’s batteries were kaput tonight.

admin Comment (1)
Triplets: Kindergarten Days

The Dark Day Before Kindergarten

Toy Story 3 at moviesOn 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. Read More…

admin Comment (1)
Triplets: Kindergarten Days

Beware the Sleeping Board Game Giant

chess VI 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.

Yesterday, he beat me—no kinda sorta about it. Read More…

admin Comment (1)
Triplets: Kindergarten Days

They Weren’t Kidding!

Surf Diva deb with boardMore 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.

Guess they weren’t kidding. Read More…

admin Comment (1)
Triplets: The Preschooler Years

Afloat on a Board with No Boogie

Surf Diva_D with pier

So there I stood, a pen in one hand and a yellow legal document waiving responsibility should I be “maimed or killed by a carnivorous or poisonous creature” in the other. To sign or not to sign? Or more correctly, to surf or not to surf? That was the question. Read More…

admin Comments (4)
Triplets: The Preschooler Years

The End of an Amazing Chapter

By the time you’re an adult, you’re used to the fact that people move in and out of your life. And you also learn, what with social media being what it these days, that the “out” part doesn’t have to be finite.  IMG_3351My 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.

I’m pretty near devastated to see my sons’ first great friends leaving. Their mom is a frequent blogger, so we’ll be able to keep up, and there’s Skype, and there’s email. But that’s very different from walking up the street to their house, or meeting them in the park or at the pool at least once a week. And what will it be like to drive by the park and the pool in our van without looking out window for Read More…

admin Comments (2)
Triplets: Kindergarten Days

Turning “Yes” Into a Book

yesRemember that “Yes Challenge” I took a couple of weeks ago, where I was supposed to say “Yes” 70 times a day for 7 days? Well, I did it, and I learned four things …

Read More…

admin Comments (2)
Adventures in Writing