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That is the Celtic symbol for chaos. It will all make sense to you in the end. Hopefully, that second sentence is true for most things.

In college, one of my professors told us how J R R Tolkien had several children, and he locked himself in a room and wrote for up to twenty hours at a time.

I was about nineteen at the time, and I remember imagining some kind of Mary Poppins in the background sailing paper boats with them on the banks of the Thames and feeding them porridge. I always imagined British kids sitting at the table eating grayish oatmealy things. It was probably from watching Oliver Twist one too many times. They were constantly eating gray, gloppy stuff out of bowls. I remember being absolutely fixated for a time on the word offal which I could not really believe anyone had or would ever consume.

I figured if I was going to have kids (and I was leaning toward the absolutely never side of that question back then), I would put them outside and go about my novel business. You can tell I didn't babysit much.

I am kind of interrupting myself here on purpose. Blogs are like little snapshots of what is going on with folks and I have been leading a life of non finishing. Here are some things I have learned in the past week or so:

1. When you sit down to work on your new middle grade, you can't believe you have an hour to work. It's a weekend morning. You actually lock the indignant cats out of the room so they can't walk across the keyboard. Five minutes into your manuscript, you hear an insistent "Moooommmmm" and you know, instantly, what is wrong.

2. Strep throat can transform itself into acute pharyngitis. This is when a kid's throat begins to close and fun activities like swallowing and breathing become difficult. You don't know this until you drive up to the ER and your kid is seen.

3. It's a very bad sign when the triage nurse in the ER says, "Aren't you Anne? I remember you..." You shouldn't know the employees of the local ER unless you work there.

4. A steroid shot in the butt can open the throat until the antibiotics take effect.

5. The next time you sit down, it is late on Thursday afternoon, after working most of the day on the non-writing job. The kids are, miraculously, quiet. You get almost a full paragraph written when the door opens, "Mom, I need a white dress shirt for the concert."

"Hmmm, when's the concert?"

"At six."

It is currently 5:10.

A white dress shirt is found in the back of a closet. Emma and I wash the cuffs and neck and use a blow dryer to dry it. You arrive one minute of six. You look up on stage and realize your dashing young man never put on the black dress shoes, but is up there in his dress clothes - and a very well worn pair of Nike sneakers. You decide this is fine because it's an arty, Andy Warhol kind of look.

6. Emma keeps introducing your Malaysian house guest to American music. Because she's 11, this spring's musical selection is Lady Gaga:

I wan you ugly/I wan you dizeese/I wan you ever ting/long as it free...

Eventually, I am going back to that middle grade. It's still waiting for me and it won't change unless I decide it will.

I wish the same were true for the kids.

Ah yes--the end of the school year is such an interesting time in a school library.

1. Librarians run and run and print and print reports that present the grim statistics about the horrific number of books STILL checked out to students even though the end of school is just a few days away.
   
   
2. Librarians send out MORE reminders and requests for the return of missing books.
   
   
3. Librarians cheerfully call home phone numbers and leave messages requesting any kind of response or acknowledgment of the lost school library books.
   
   
4. Librarians cheerfully walk to the shelves with students to look for the book that the student is positive he/she already returned or never checked-out in the first place, "no doubt about it, honest, they remember.
   
   
5. Librarians cheerfully point out that the book is NOT on the shelf, therefore, it will be necessary for the student to look again.
   
   
6. Librarians cheerfully suggest places the child can look for their library book.
   
   
7. Librarians cheerfully invite book characters like, say, Viola Swamp, to go on the morning announcements to request the return of library books. Viola infers she will be roaming the hallways and looking into classrooms for library books
   
   
8. The librarian's child, who is watching those morning announcements in horror, from her classroom, SWEARS her mother is NOT at school that day when her classmates suggest Viola bears a resemblance to her!
   
   
9. Librarians cheerfully roll book carts down to 5th grade and request that everyone clean out their desks in the hope that lost library books will materialize.
   
   
10. Librarians cheerfully roll book carts back to the library having netted at least twenty missing books that suddenly appeared in desks, on classroom counters and mixed in with classroom libraries.
    
    
11. Librarians cheer and clap as the student, who was sure that he/she had already returned or had never checked out that book in the first place, "no doubt about it, honest, they remember." comes running in, beaming with joy announcing, "I found it, I found it!"
    
    
12. Librarians cheerfully listen to teachers who explain they never checked out those materials for their classroom "no doubt about it, honest, they remember."
    
    
13. Librarians gulp hard and hug children who present them with flowers, cookies, picture frames, and precious thank-you notes for a year that was full of reading and imagination.
    
    

My illustrator friend Ginger Nielson gave me this You Make Me Smile Award and I had to post it here. What a wonderful idea and kind gesture. Check out Ginger's wonderful children's illustrations.
Thank you Ginger. You make me smile too.