Leggo My Licorice

movie-munchies.jpgEveryone has their ugly side, and I am no exception to that rule. I admit it: When it comes to munchies at the movies, I would just as soon bite a neighbor’s invading hand as let them abscond with a single one of my Red Vines. I don’t care if that neighbor is my husband, a friend, or even my darling boys when they are old enough to sit through a movie. I truly cannot stand sharing my munchies during movies. Period.

Does that make me a terrible person? Read More…

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Triplets: The Toddler Years

Storm Season in San Diego

halverson-tornado.jpgThis is a post with a moral: *Never* turn your back on 3 three-year-olds for five minutes, even if you are in the same room with them. Ever. Read More…

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GREATEST HITS: A Sampler of Posts for New Visitors, Triplets: The Toddler Years

On the Fritz

computer-boy.jpgHaving computer problems is like trying to walk a marathon with only one shoe–you can do it, but it hurts. Right now, I have some kind of USB cable problem that prevents me from downloading photos from my camera. That’s why I’m posting an old photo of my son at the keyboard. Perhaps the fact that I let my triplets work on my computer is one of the problems… Read More…

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Adventures in Writing

New Gig: Southern California Writers Association

microphone.jpgThis week I spoke with a class of third graders about the joy of stories–writing them, reading them, loving them. Next month I’ll be speaking to a group of professional writers aged twenty to seventy about the business side of publishing. In between I’ll be writing about poker. I have the best job, don’t I? Read More…

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Adventures in Writing, News

Preschool Daze

high-school-visit-jan-08.jpgThe boys are barely three, but their school career is heavily on my mind. I’m a writer/editor and my husband is a high school bio teacher, so you can bet our boys’ intellectual growth is in our sights. We’ve already begun acculturating them for school, taking them to campuses and planning more visits for when they are older—the local university library, which I loved as a kid, is one of the destinations, along with the drama department’s theatre. The boys already know the stages of formal education: Preschool, Elementary School, Middle School, High School, and College. We’ve been telling them about those places since they were newborns being strolled past the neighborhood schools. However, there’s one they stage they don’t know about but in which they are deeply involved: Pre-Preschool. Read More…

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Triplets: The Toddler Years

Shout Out to Ms. Staberg’s Class!

blackboard.jpgThanks, gang, for all your great questions and for being such wonderful hosts. I hope you turn all those clever ideas into stories. Happy reading!

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Adventures in Writing, Especially for Teen Readers

Adventure Day, Jan 2008

adventure-day_v_jan-08.jpgOnce a month my husband, Grandma S., and I each take one of the boys for an afternoon of one-on-one activities. We call it Adventure Day. Read More…

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Triplets: The Toddler Years

Hanging Around

hanging-on-the-rings-jan-08.jpgToday was the best day ever. Really, I think it was one of my favorite days with my sons so far. After an hour of riding tricycles up and down our street, we spent two hours at a local gymnastics center and didn’t stop running. Or jumping. Or balancing. Or hanging around. It was a head-over-heels fun time. Read More…

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Triplets: The Toddler Years

The Triplet Rodeo

bucked-off-the-horse.jpgRaising triplets is not so very different from riding a bucking bronco. You wake up each morning with new energy and confidence, you don your Stetson and strap on your chaps, you pull on your boots and snug your gloves, and then you hop into the saddle, ready to start a new day.

Then someone opens the shoot, and all hell breaks loose. Read More…

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GREATEST HITS: A Sampler of Posts for New Visitors, Triplets: The Toddler Years

Big Mouth to be an e-book!

big-mouth-ebook.jpgWord just came that BIG MOUTH will be published as an e-book. What fun! Delacorte/Random House says the e-book edition should be out toward the end of July, a month after the hardcover hits stores. So folks with an e-book reader will be able to download it come summer. I’ll post more as I know more about it….

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Adventures in Writing, Especially for Teen Readers, News

Three Times Three: Happy 3rd Birthday to My Trio

see-no-evil.jpgYesterday morning I got an email from a publishing colleague telling me that her friend has three-month-old triplets. “Remember those days?” she wrote. “Remember those days?!!” I wrote back. “I spend half my time trying to block them out! I spend the other half trying to recall every wonderful detail. Motherhood is funny that way.” I laughed as I pressed “SEND”, for my colleague couldn’t have picked a better day to send my mind back to when my boys were born: Yesterday my sons turned three years old. Three. Years. I swear, just yesterday they were three minutes old. What did I do, blink?

Three brothers turning three years old together…I have to admit that it gives me pause, for there seems something portentous about the confluence of threes. Read More…

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Triplets: The Toddler Years