With a dad like this, of course I write sci-fi

Maybe it's nature. Maybe it's nurture. But with a Dad who put up his own 100-foot radio tower in the backyard, how could I have avoided becoming a devoted science nerd? 

Educators, want to know how to get girls pumped up about science? I think it starts at home. I just had to be told that a book titled ANTENNA METHODOLOGY was exciting, and therefore it was!

Or maybe we just have a very strong nerd gene in the family tree...

1970s aficionados, please take note of the calendar towel behind us. It may still be in my mother's or my towel drawer.

Now if you're excuse me, I need to go cue up the latest Radio Lab podcast.

Lessons learned from old family slides

When my mother cleaned out her house, I inherited all of the old slides from the 1960s-1990s (YES, 1990s) that my father had been accumlating. I snagged a couple of GroupOns to scandigital.com, which scans slides into digital format. Those GroupOns run out very soon, so I've been going through them to find gems.

I can't wait to share some once they're in digital format. For now, a few lessons I have gleaned:

1. If you get a haircut and you think "I'm not so sure about this," wait 30 years. You'll REALLY hate it then.

2. We really don't change much from our earliest selves. When I was three, I seemed to like eating, playing pretend, wearing strange hats and scribbling things on paper. Talk about a novelist in the making!

3. Take more pictures of your entire family together. I think I've found three so far. And they're all treasures.

4. In fact, taking the time to document family events, and to properly archive the files/prints, is NEVER a waste of time. These photos of my childhood are one of the best gifts my parents will ever give me.

5. If you are contemplating wood panelling, don't. Just... don't.

Just you wait, I have some AWESOME photos to share with the world. Don't worry, family, I will make sure you are cute in the pics I post. I may not be, but YOU will be...

5 tips for bringing your kid on a Mediterranean cruise

We recently got back from a wonderful 7-night cruise of the Mediterranean, starting in Barcelona and going to Cannes, Cinque Terre, Rome, Naples, Mallorca and then back to Barcelona. And yes, we brought our six year old along. I think some of our friends thought we were nuts, but it was a great trip with him. That being said... here are my top 5 tips for bringing a first grader along on such a trip:

1. People will tell you that Rome is hot and crowded in the summer. You will likely say "OK, thanks for the tip." But you will not understand what they were trying to tell you until you are shoulder-to-shoulder at the Trevi fountain, hoping nobody pings you in the head with a penny. (See that elbow in the below shot at the fountain? I did not know that dude at all but I suspect I am also in HIS Trevi fountain photo...). I know everyone in our group found it overwhelming, even the adults. But to be a foot or two shorter than everyone else, in that kind of crowd, is especially scary, I think. We got in and out as fast as we could.

2. Unless a guided tour is especially for kids, it's probably not going to engage them. Exhibit A: our six year old repeatedly dabbing the blood from his loose tooth on his tie-dye (thank God) t-shirt for about a half hour during our Colosseum tour. I don't think he picked up a single word of the tour! But he did manage to leave behind a drop or two of blood on the floor of the Colosseum. Just like the gladiators, I told myself... (erp). 

3. Cruising on a ship with a great kids' program (we did the Disney ship) is worth every penny. Little Dude cheerfully stayed for most of a day at the Oceaneer Lab while we hiked Cinque Terre, and again when we toured Sorrento and Pompeii. He also dashed off to the Lab as soon as he finished dinner, which let us drink coffee and have dessert without worrying about his patience unravelling.

4. Bring Clif bars or other tasty meal-replacement bars with you when you're in port. This was a lifesaver one day that we got tapas in Barcelona. There was nothing that interested Little Dude except plain bread--but since he ate a Clif bar instead, I didn't worry that he was starving. Of course a regular course of gelato in every port helps with this too!

We also pumped that kid full of lemon Fanta. I'm not proud but I'm not apologetic either. If that was the fuel it took to keep him smiling and marching down Las Ramblas... I'm buying. Even if it's ten bucks for a liter. (The straw provided about an hour of entertainment too...)

5. The best ports for Little Dude were the ones without a Big Plan--ones where we could wander and discover things. For him, at least, a leisurely pace was the best. This of course is exactly counter to what most of us do when we have ONE DAY IN A PORT GO RUN GO HURRY MUST NOT MISS THINGS! For example, we had a great time just playing in the water at the beach by the Cannes ferry terminal (at right). 

If you have the chance to go on a big overseas trip but think your elementary-age child is too young, I say GO FOR IT. Just be ready to make space for their needs and pace in your travel plans. It's totally worth it.

A small mommy triumph: Star Wars cake

So, when we were getting ready to celebrate Little Dude's sixth birthday, I asked him what sort of cake he wanted.

"Star Wars", said he. "All Star Wars. With frosting."

Proof that he is my child, for a vat of frosting combined with Star Wars is pretty much my idea of heaven too. Especially if Han Solo is involved. But I digress. 

We started at my mainstay, the local bakery near our house that has been in business for decades. I love this place. You timewarp into the 1950s the moment you step in the door. But they do NOT make Star Wars cake. That's the problem with timewarps to a time before George Lucas could lift a camera. Strikeout.

So we went to Safeway, where they keep the cake book (you know, the big shiny binder with the pictures of all the cakes they make) behind the deli counter. They kept one eye on me at all times while we flipped through it, as if I was going to tuck it under my arm and sprint for the exit. And look! There's a Star Wars cake in there, but... "we don't make THAT one," they said to me. Their tone suggested I'd asked them to lace the cake with LSD and hand out glowsticks at the party entrance. 

I looked at the Giant supermarket cake book online. They DO make a Star Wars cake, the same one that Safeway decided was just too crazy to offer. But the toys... well. They'd snap after a few good light saber volleys. And the bright-red frosting gave me flashbacks to the fourth birthday cake--firetrucks. Good luck washing that red frosting dye from your fingers. Ew. I felt like the goody bag should have included an apology note.

And let's face it. Little Dude wanted a Star Wars cake for one reason: THE TOYS that would be on top. That is the same reason he chose McDonalds for his birthday dinner. I doubt he even tasted his stone-cold fries because he had a cool Tonka Glacier Basher Thingie in front of him. 

So I did something else.

I went back to my beloved neighborhood bakery and ordered a half-sheet cake. "In desert colors--like Star Wars? Tatooine?" I said. To their credit, I saw the baker actually write down "Tatooine". "Leave room for toys," I told her.

Then I went to the Toy Exchange in Wheaton, Maryland, just north of DC. This place is Star Wars collector heaven, but they've got toys at decent prices too, so you don't feel guilty handing the toys to your six year-old. I picked up two different Luke figures (Little Dude's favorite) and an original landspeeder. "I had one just like this when I was little!" I exclaimed. The owner's patient look told me that I wasn't the first to say that... or the hundredth.

On the day of the party, I cleaned off the landspeeder and pulled the Luke figures out of their packaging (no doubt incurring bad Collector Karma). Then I set them on the cake (the landspeeder got a layer of wax paper between it and the frosting). The cake came out great: a light-tan frosting with dark brown and white decorations and a few little blobs that I think were desert scrub. Very fine rendition of Tatooine. 

Result? A gang of little dudes grouped around the cake saying "Whoa. Wow."

And a huge smile on my Little Dude's face.

And a landspeeder I can play with when he's in bed.

All around, winner!

Even if the cake was nowhere these Star Wars cake masterpieces over at Cake Wrecks...

6 random learnings from 6 years as a mama

Little Dude was born six years ago today. This means he has to endure--and has been enduring, for about a week--both of his parents repeatedly exclaiming "I can't believe you're six!" and "When did you get so tall?" and "Seems like yesterday we were holding a tiny little baby and now... wow!"

Yeah, we know. We've got to stop that. At least he's pretty tolerant (so far).

So, for six years, six random things about motherhood, working parenthood, and being a writer mama:

1. Brownies make it all better, especially in the three months after birth.

2. If someone tells you that pacifiers are evil--tell them to shut up. They probably let their kid have a paci until they went to sleepover camp and they're just covering their tracks.

3. You will always be tired when you sit down to write. And most of them time you will have more energy after you're done writing. Even if it's just energy to curse the drivel you just committed to bytes or paper.

4. The TV shows just get more entertaining as they get older, even if the questions from them get hairier. ("Mom? What's detention? Mom? How do you hot-wire a car?")

5. New parents, you might as well face it now: your determined family "rules" are going to shift and sometimes just plain erode. When Little Dude was born I sworn we'd never have toy guns in the house. Guess what we put in the goody bags for his birthday party this year? (But they were SQUIRT guns!)

6. Having other mama friends? Critical. I don't care if you go out to happy hour with hair that hasn't been washed for three days and a shirt that smells faintly of applesauce (just tell yourself that smell is applesauce). GO. It's hard to be so harsh on yourself when you find out all of your girlfriends have been through the same exact thing. 

So, happy Parent Day to me and my husband, happy birthday to Little Dude, and happy Valentine's Day to everybody else!