Putting Your Foot in Your Mouth

My son is happily gnawing on his sock right now. It’s amusing because he has this expression on his face like, “Dude! Did you know I have FEET? And they’re edible! How cool is that?” Sometimes I’m afraid he’ll choke himself, trying to stuff that little foot in his mouth, but he usually just ends up with a sodden sock.

He was back to his old terrible habits this week, in sleeping. Midnight, two a.m., four a.m., you get the idea. Very fussy, very gassy. Last night was the first time I managed to break the cycle a little. I gave him his rice cereal just before bedtime, and this time I gave him no medicine or Mylanta at all. I’m not convinced this is truly reflux, though he is very gassy. He went to sleep at 9:00 and was up at 11:00 p.m. It really throws your night off when you only get an hour’s sleep before you’re woken up. But I got him settled again at 11:30 (I gave him gas drops instead of Mylanta) and he slept ’til four. Now that was much better. I can probably manage to string together a sentence today.

And speaking of sentences, I’m hard at work again on new stuff. I’m dividing my time between several proposals and the self-imposed revisions on Wedded to the Enemy, and am having a blast.

An aside–you know how I was laughing at my lack of interior design capabilities? I got an e-mail from an interior design company promising that my style of interior design could work with theirs and how I should set up a marketing form on my site to bring my interior design clients to them. Um, gee, really? The graham-cracker ridden floors and sticky walls would work with their clientele? Who knew? Gotta love Spam.

So Mother’s Day is coming up this Sunday. There’s only one thing I want, and I am BEGGING my husband to let me do this. I want someone to come and clean my house, twice a month. (Can you hear the angels singing? They’re holding sponges and spray bottles of Lysol.) This is the only thing I want, and I’m hoping against hope that we can find a good person to do this.

What are you all doing for your moms? If you are a mom, what are you hoping for?

Interior Design

**Update**I know I sound like a broken record here, but I’m still searching for that All Powerful Answer to why my baby won’t sleep for longer than four hours at a stretch. There’s something I’m not getting, and though some nights are better than others, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of pattern. The only other thing I can think of is teething. My little guy is grabbing at his mouth constantly, jamming anything he can find into his gums. Today I felt like a walking chew toy as he proceeded to stuff my t-shirt into his mouth and gnaw on my shoulder. Hey, whatever makes him happy. If it would make him sleep for ten hours, I would consider letting him gnaw the entire arm off.
And, good news! My editor accepted the revisions on Her Warrior Slave, so my next book will definitely be out in November. **

Today, we enjoyed walking through the Parade of Homes in a local luxury neighborhood. I’ll admit, I love looking at houses. I love to dream about living in a fabulous home that looks like the pages of a catalogue. I think it’s because I have absolutely zero talent at interior decorating. My mother is amazing and she knows just how to put a particular lamp or a certain picture in the right place to make the house inviting. I tend to shy away from buying pictures, because I’m slightly afraid of having to live with them for twenty years and what if they don’t look right? On the rare occasions I got hammer-happy and started putting up pictures, almost inevitably I took them down later because they looked as if my four-year-old hung them up.

But then, when I look at homes done by designers, some of them strike me as too frou-frou and overly complicated. I saw a lot of random bird cages in these houses. Maybe it’s a mystical subliminal message that in this house, you’ll feel free and uninhibited. More likely, I’d trip over the darned thing and go flying down the stairs.

I also saw a lot of chocolate-colored walls. Darker tones seem to be the trendy thing right now. I’m just not into that. My walls tend to be softer, shades of blue and green for the bathrooms, a light sand for the den. Okay, and I’ll admit there happen to be some hand prints that belong to a certain few toddlers. I think that will be my own nod to interior design. Instead of sponge painting and glazes, I’ll have my children dip their hands into chocolate and milk, and just touch everything. And maybe I’ll artfully scatter newspapers across the coffee table, combined with the stacks of coupons that I really should cut out. The carpets will have trails of graham cracker crumbs and crushed goldfish crackers, along with jelly beans from Easter two years ago.

We’ll call it the Realistic Look.

Thursday Thoughts

You know, I think babies are God’s way of saying, “You’re not in charge.” After a nice weekend of the baby sleeping better, we’re back to square one. Last night was the worst yet, despite the elevated crib mattress, gas drops, antacid, and attempted nursing sessions. The baby was awake Every Single Hour.

Note to husbands everywhere: This is the part where you get out of bed and say, “Honey, I’ll get the baby. You try to get some sleep since you’ve been up for the last five hours.”

On the bright side, I did get my foreign editions in the mail. Both the German and Italian copies of Her Irish Warrior finally showed up at my door. I was particularly excited about the German version since I read German. I’m hoping the translation holds up.

In other very cool news, I saw that The Warrior’s Touch has been released this month in Italian! I get such a kick out of that. You can see the Italian cover here. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t use Connor’s bare back, but that’s okay. It looks like they re-titled it, too. Seems to be “The Warrior’s Revenge.” That’ll work.

I’ll be stumbling my bleary-eyed self to work in a bit, but just thought I’d drop in and share my news. I’m contemplating doing a web page redesign in the next six months or so. I’d like to have a better organization system for the Books page. If you all have any suggestions or things you’d like me to add in, I’m all ears!

And there was great rejoicing throughout the land

Thanks to Treasia, the baby slept last night from 8:00 until 2:00 a.m. I elevated his crib mattress a little more by putting a pillow under it, and he slept so much better (and so did I!). Treasia, e-mail me your address and pick a book of your choice! We’re still not sleeping through the night, but I will TAKE 8:00-2:00 over 8:00, 11:30, 2:00, 4:00, etc. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

And in other good news, yesterday my editor accepted Wedded to the Enemy, my Victorian manuscript, as the second book in my contract. That one should be published in 2009 (will let you know the date later on). I’m excited since I really had a lot of fun with that story.

Let me tell you, this has been a great Friday so far!

Guest Blogging Today

I’m guest-blogging today over on Magical Musings about how music inspires me when I write. Come over and say hi!

I broke down and took the baby to the pediatrician yesterday to see what’s been causing the constant wake-up calls at night. She said he has reflux and recommended I try an antacid like Mylanta. I tried it, praying for results…and he still woke up every two hours. I swear, he’s just playing me. But at least I know he doesn’t have anything serious like an ear infection or strep.

In good news, I e-mailed my revised book to my editor and am now plotting another. Should be fun!

The Philosophy of a Six-Year-Old

Me: What do you want to be when you grow up?
Eldest son: I’m not really sure. But I know I don’t want to be a leader.
Me: (puzzled) Why?
Eldest son: Because leaders always seem to die or get killed.

I’m guessing they’ve been learning a bit about Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln in kindergarten. We had a little discussion about how leaders are not always assassinated and what being a leader means. I think he understood.

But oh, the hardest dinner discussion came when he confessed another truth.
Him: (girl’s name) had a bad day. Her family is splitting up.
Me: I’m so sorry to hear that. It must be hard on her.
Him: How can a family split up?

I could see the worry on his face. But the hardest part for me was trying to explain how some adults just don’t love each other any more and they decide to live apart. He replied, “Well, that’s not very nice. You should always love each other.”

Oh, the death of innocence. They never tell you how to answer these sorts of questions. It makes me want to squeeze him tight and shelter him as much as I can.

Baby’s first words

Thanks to all for your suggestions on getting Little Man to sleep better. I did something slightly different on Friday. He gets rice cereal at breakfast and baby food at lunch. I used to do cereal and baby food at night, but this time I did two jars of baby food–no cereal. It seemed to cut back on the gas pains. He did a 5 hour stretch for me before waking up.

This was a weekend for milestones. He rolled over from his stomach to his back and said his first words. Of course, it was, “Da-da.” I swear, this is the universe’s way of laughing at mothers everywhere. We stay up with our babies, nurse them, cuddle them, change them. And what words come first? Da-da. What is up with that? Not Mama or Mum-mum. Nope–it’s all about Dad. Yesterday, he was muttering Da-da-da to himself, grinning away.

Yeah, pal. Just wait until Da-da is the one to stay up with you.

Hey, maybe that’s the solution to my sleep deprivation. Wean the baby, go on vacation alone, and leave the kids with Dad.

Despite everything, I’ve managed to get my act together in regard to book revisions. I nearly finished them last night. Tonight I hope to revise the epilogue and then maybe Tuesday do a final read-through. After that, I’m hoping to get started on something new!

Hitting a Growth Spurt

The past three nights have been grueling. The baby has woken up usually around 11:30, then 2:00, then 5:00. Last night, he was up from 1:00-2:30 a.m. There’s something disconcerting when you realize that you’ve had about 4 hours of sleep over the course of two days.

I’m starting to wonder if this is another growth spurt. He’s almost five months old, and I just question what I’m doing wrong. Is he not getting enough to eat? Is his room too cold at night? Has he been “conditioned” to wake up in the middle of the night, whether he’s hungry or not? With my firstborn, I was able to coax him into taking a pacifier instead of nursing. With this baby…he rips the pacifier out of my hand and tosses it across the room. Let’s just say that my little man knows what he wants and it ain’t a pacifier. I’ve also tried giving him water in a bottle.

What did you do when your baby kept waking up in the middle of the night? I’m open to any and all suggestions. And if whatever you suggest happens to make him sleep from 8:30 p.m. until 5:30 a.m. with no interruptions, I will send you an autographed copy of every book I’ve written. Plus, you’ll have my undying gratitude.

Babies at 3:00 a.m.

This morning at 3:00 a.m., my darling baby decided that it was time to play. In the still darkness, he rested on my chest, gazed me with those big blue eyes, and proceeded to coo and sing.

I swear, it’s survival of the species. Otherwise, we’d sell them on Ebay.

Tomorrow I’m guest-blogging over at Romance Vagabonds. They’re featuring authors from Harlequin Historicals all week and I’m on Medieval Monday. My wonderful editor Joanne will be there on Friday to answer questions as well. Stop by and enter to win an autographed copy of Her Warrior King.

How Romance Covers are Made

This link shows the video of how author C.L. Wilson’s newest cover was made. I find it fascinating since I’ve always been interested in cover art and how it happens.

After I write a book, I have to fill out an Art Facts Sheet that includes a questionnaire on everything from hero hair color, eyes, clothing, etc. to the mood and tone of the story. There are also places where I can describe two key scenes. I’ve started putting in book excerpts instead of just a scene description, and I think it makes it easier for the artist to get the right mood. I’ve been very lucky with my covers, but Connor’s cover (shown) will always be my favorite. Why? Because it looks exactly like the man in my head. It’s so rare for that to happen, and I was very happy with it.

Now if only they had invited me to THAT photo shoot.

Have you got a favorite book cover? What are some things that catch your eye?