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Harold Lizcano died on September 11, 2001.  He was an accountant on the 92nd floor of the first tower of the WTC.

Somewhere in Fallujah today, an American flag is flying in Harold’s memory.  A member of the United States Navy wanted to remember him  - to honor him - in that way.  He never knew Harold, just as I didn’t.  But he recently read the list of September 11 victims, and came across the name Harold Lizcano.  Although unrelated, he’s also a Lizcano.  

He doesn’t have an address for Harold’s family members in order to send them this flag.  

He asked me if I did.

I don’t, but I told him I’d try to find it.  Emily, if you’re reading these words - or Sonia - or someone else in Harold’s family… please email me by clicking the “contact me” link at the side.  I’d be very happy to put you in touch with the man in Fallujah who is honoring Harold today.      

Caden-4yr:  Mommy.  When were you ever a boy?Me:  Uh… never.  Caden-4yr:  But when will you get to be a boy?  Do you get a turn?Me:  Nope.  I was created a girl, and always will be.Caden-4yr:  Oh.  Well.  I’m glad.   You’re good at it. I could have prolonged this conversation indefinitely just for the entertainment value alone, but he was stalling at naptime.  What a cutie.    

What a fantastic, Olympian effort y’all made this month! WOW!  Excellent!  You Club 17ers are wonderful.

There couldn’t just be one winner. The random number generator picked our Gold Medalist as Jen. But seriously, how could the random number generator NOT pick Jen? She wrote a big poem in the comments y’all have to go read!!! So funny! Way to go, Jen!

Silver goes to…. Lauren! Brand new to BSEs. (And didn’t you feel SO proud of yourself?!)

Also atop the podium is Ashley, who probably has a whole family of vigilant BSEers.

So! I’ll be emailing the three of you, asking which prize you’d like. If you’d like a copy of my book and I didn’t already send you one, then that can certainly be arranged.

If you’d like another book, I just so happen to have a few extras this week. Seems I accidentally purchased several extra copies of books the last time I went to Amazon. The first is (friend!) Julie Carobini’s, Truffles by the Sea. I can tell you it is WONDERFUL, and I don’t know how I ended up over-ordering, but I’m pleased to send you the delicious extra.

Also, I over-ordered MatchPoint by Erynn Mangum, and Faking Grace by Tamara Leigh. Those three authors, along with Kristin Billerbeck - are my absolute favorites. If you have a preference about which of these titles you receive, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll pick one for you!

As long as we’re talking about books: The book I wrote, A Love for Larkspur, was published by what used to be called Capstone Fiction. They have since changed their name to Copestone Fiction, and are having to ‘pull’ all the books that bore the Capstone name and re-publish them with the Copestone name. As a result, my book is not currently available for purchase, and may not be for several weeks. (It can still be pre-ordered through Amazon, I think. ) For those of you who emailed and said, “I’m trying to buy it, but i can’t….?” THANK YOU. That was so nice to hear. Sort of. In a frustrated, but yet still reassuring sort of way.

Yea winners!

And if any of you Canadians actually received the book I sent you, would you let me know, please? Seems those went out with all the other ones, and extra postage was not affixed. I keep expecting them to all come back one day, stamped “insufficient postage, dummy!” I told Mike this, and he said, “nah. Don’t worry. They probably made it there with “postage due” stamps. That did NOT make me feel better! (If that happened, i am SO sorry!)

How I loooooove the Olympics.  Life stops around our house every two years, and we just watch in awe.  Or, I do. Mike goes stir crazy, and the kids ask lots of questions which I try to answer during commercial breaks.

And when a child ceases to be amazed, I usually oh so patiently shh them and say, “This is the OLYMPICS. This [pointing to the tv for emphasis] only happens once every FOUR years. And YOU are only four!” [Or eight. Or two. Depending on the kid I”m talking to.]

Caught up in Olympic spirit, I forget that this is not an inspiring thing to say. Not once has one of them said, “Oh! NOW I get it. I should totally stop screaming and pretending that my arm is a light saber and sit and quietly watch women’s water polo. Thanks for the suggestion, Mom!”

But it’s the Olympics, and after all, anything is possible with the right Olympic spirit. So they’ll probably hear that lame line a few more times, because I am way too distracted with counting all those tattoos of the Olympic rings on the athletes’ biceps to possibly come up with a creative, effective way of getting them to watch.

Oh! That’s it! I’ll just have them count those with me!

Seth-2yr is the strong, silent type. As my mom put it earlier, “His style of leadership has his brothers following and behaving in ways he wants them to, without them ever knowing…” And it’s true. He can start activities, or trouble, or projects, and get everyone else in the room in on the action without ever saying a word.

The kid has a quiet, powerful charisma. It’s not something you often see in a two year old, but there it is.

Until now, he hasn’t spoken much. We knew he could if he wanted to. He just didn’t have a need for language.

And now, it seems, he has decided to talk. And talk. And talk some serious smack.

He started calling Caden-4yr ‘The Baby.’ I affectionately call all my kids, “Baby” and it isn’t derogatory even when Seth-2yr says it. He likes to remind us that he is the baby, also. But when you call your OLDER brother The Baby, it creates desired drama.

Seth-2yr will stand in the middle of the room, and look around. Then, pretending not to see Caden-4yr, he’ll say, “Where is The Baby?”

Caden-4yr shrieks and freaks and tells Seth-2yr where he is and asks me if I heard what Seth-2yr called him.

Seth-2yr turns to me, raises an eyebrow and gives me a look that says, “wow! that was fun!”

And then I remind Caden-4yr about not reacting, and then I realize that Seth-2yr has been doing the exact same thing to me. What a sweet little stinker he is.

And I’ve been reacting, and reinforcing the Smack Talking Seth-2yr to keep it up. Which he has.

With a questioning look in his eye, he’ll ask if there is a baby ‘in there.’ He points at my stomach.

And I.
Freak.
Out.

His timing happens to coincide with a recent, very brief, lull in my usually frantic workout schedule. I start to wonder if my stomach looks different. Then I talk myself out of it. I assure and reassure Seth-2yr - and myself - that there is no baby (and silently tell myself that my stomach is fiiiine.)

There is certainly no baby. Seth-2yr is it. No more. 4 is all we’re up for.

Especially when the little one give me that look that says, “wow! that was fun!”

Today is one of those inevitable days of motherhood.  The not fun, not glamorous, not rewarding,  just plain NASTY days of Motherhood.  It’s only halfway through the day.  It might get better.  It can hardly get worse.   

Seth-2yr is potty training.  He’s the easiest so far, not to any credit of mine.  He’s just like that.  

The kids and I had a picnic lunch in the backyard, and then afterwards they played while I collapsed on the couch and tried to keep my eyes open.  Unusually tired, I was telling myself that all I had to do was wait another 20 minutes, then get them nap-ready and I could really relax.  Maybe even sleep.  

And then I looked out the window and noticed one of Seth-2yr’s legs looked much darker than the other. Poo color, to be exact.  I sent Ethan-8yr and Caden-4yr inside, and decided a preliminary garden hose cleanup was indeed necessary for this particular mess.  Off came the shorts, and the undies.  Almost.  

[Sidenote:  why is there always, always the most poo when it occurs in a non-ideal place? At those times it is never a small amount. EVER.] 

Seth-2yr is holding on to my arm, trying to step out of the undies, and I’m mouth breathing and visualizing cake frosting. I do that, in order to trick my gag response. Perhaps it’s because I’m distracted with thougthts of faux-chocolate that I make a massive miscalculation and say, “just kick your leg out of it.”

Y’all.

That was not smart.

He DID kick his leg out of it. And a giant poo clod shmacked me straight on the right side of my face. Other smaller clods rained down upon us both. We looked at each other and screamed.

[Sidenote #2: Mouth-breathing and cake frosting visualization can only go so far, and it goes nowhere near the vicinity of this particular nightmare.]

So we’re clean finally. We’ve been hosed down outside, bathed inside, and antibacterial hand washed at numerous points in the process. And I’m not in the least bit sleepy anymore.

The bright side is that the final child is almost completely potty trained, and not a moment too soon.

(That’s just me trying to sound positive. It actually translates to: “If I’d potty trained him already, like I KNOW I SHOULD HAVE, I wouldn’t be sitting here wondering if I still smell like poop.” Yeah. That’s more accurate.)

The whole book thing really freaked me out. For awhile. I didn’t want anyone to actually KNOW I’d written it, or that it was out, and that’s really a ridiculous un-author-y way to be. It’s fading a little.It still feels completely bizarre to sign them. “Enjoy! Blah blah blah. -Kelsey Kilgore”Which actually translates directly to: “OH. MY. GOSH. IF YOU HATE THIS, PLEASE DON’T EVER TELL ME. -Kelsey Kilgore.”I mean, y’all. That’ s not even my name. It’s my Pretend Name. Have you ever tried to sign your Pretend Name? Right. Probably not, because most normal people do not have such things.Anyway, at least I AM making myself sign my Pretend Name and send a few out into the world. If you’d like one, just tell me. If I haven’t already sent one your way, I will. Mike orders them in bulk and proudly passes them out on the street corners, so I figure I could at least give them to y’all. (No blog required.) Leave a comment. Or email me. Include your address. Whatever.You know what’s really strange? Signing a Pretend Name in a book for my mother, who knows FULL WELL who I really am.Clarification: DON’T put your address in a comment. There are crazy people out there just looking for addresses to start loading you up with junk mail catalogs full of faux crocs and other such stuff. Somewhere to the right are the words: Contact Me. That’s how you email me to send your address.Clarification: I’m not a croc snob. I have no preferential views for the ‘real’ crocs vs. their lookalikes. I think they’re all bizarre and do not understand why so many of you love them. Let’s just agree to disagree on this one. (But seriously? They aren’t even real shoes, y’all!)[ Here’s the book. ]UPDATE: Okay! I’m out of free copies. If you go HERE you can order (or pre-order, should it be currently unavailable) a copy of your very own!

J-Mom had the idea to go walk around a certain local garden.  I love a good garden, and I hadn’t been to this one in awhile.

We were promptly greeted by the cat who lives in the garden, and she served as tour guide. She’s done this before, a service each garden should have, but few do. THe layout of the garden bothers me. Well. No. It bothers me that you come in at the very CENTER of the garden.

Then you have to turn right or left. Which means that then you’d be backtracking to get to the other side. I decided we should walk briskly all the way to the left, looking at nothing on the ground, then make one large left to right sweep.

My mother humored me, and suggested we look at a large red and white tower of some sort, spiking into the sky.

Lest we see a plant.

In a garden.  

We reached the far left side, then were making our way back when we encountered the next volunteer guide. Our faithful cat guide was still at our side, unfazed by the brisk leftward sprint we made. I suspect people must do that all the time.

Our new, human, guide got into a conversation with J-Mom about copper plants and she told us of many of the plants, of previous students who had studied there, of pretty much everything. She’d been weeding when we arrived, but seemed willing to stop and give us her next 45 minutes. She invited us into the greenhouses (I never knew the public could go in them, but she assured us we could), and there she regaled us with the history of many of the plants.

She must have sensed we were the sort who would be receptive to such tales. Receptive? More like invigorated.

I loved how she knew the exact age of each plant, and how it had come to be. She showed us a bougainvillea who had suffered a brutal pruning by a student’s mother who never should have laid a hand on it. That was 3 years past, but you could tell it had been difficult to forgive such a misdeed. The plant had finally recovered.

She showed us an entire table full of small jade plants. They were all descended from her personal jade plant, which she’d received from her father’s friend in Denver in the 1940s. He was a dry cleaner, he sensed he would soon die, and so he passed along his jade plant. Now, 70 years later, that table overflows with baby jades. She picked one up and offhandedly said, “If you ever need a plant for a gift, just come in. We’ll always have jades or others for purchase…”

Each plant had a story, an age, a memory. It was as if she were introducing us to her family members.

She pointed out a plant that had familiar, tiny leaves. Years ago I’d fallen in love with a tiny pencil illustration of the same plant in a very thick Sunset gardening book. I looked in nurseries until I found it, and had been delighted to finally bring it home. It did fairly well, and I’m not sure what happened to it. Maybe it didn’t survive a move. Or a kid. Or maybe I just didn’t take care of it as well as I could have. I don’t remember.

But our greenhouse guide must have seen that this plant - for me - had a significance and a story, she tore off a part of it and told me how to start it at home.

I felt like she’d just handed me a baby.

It made my day.

Then we went back outside, and on our own, J-Mom and I looked at the passion vine, and admired the butterflies and caterpillars our guide had told us to look for. Our cat guide rejoined us.

We left, with me cradling my new cutting of Baby’s Tears. The cat stayed behind, waiting for her next visitors.

What a perfect morning.

[This is NOT the Winner of Club 17 post.  That’ll be in a few more days.] 

I’m wrapping up a very informal, ultra private celebration. What is that, exactly? Well. It’s been fun. I set up a hot pink ipod on a speaker right next to the bathtub and grabbed some little bath gel things in the shape of whales. So cute. Do you know the kind I mean? They’re clear, small, and they dissolve and give the bath a burst of moisturizing stuff. Fun. These were green whales. Which seems odd. They should have been blue whales. But anyway. They were also stubborn, and took over an hour to actually dissolve, and I refused to help them out by squishing them. It was a loooong bath. 

While soaking, I painted my toenails navy. Then one smudged. So I started over, and went with purple. Loooovely.

The playlist for this particular bath included:
Elvis — Are You Lonesome Tonight? (oh yeeees! Gloriously so, Elv, since the kids are gone)
Franki Valli — My Eyes Adored You
Dwight Yoakum — Honky Tonk Man
Oak Ridge Boys — Bobbie Sue (of course there’s an explanation, but it’s not that interesting.)
Eddie Rabbit — I Love a Rainy Night (am i the only one who loved that album cover? it caused me to fall in love with the 5 o clock shadow. it was a short phase.)
Prince — Kiss (yes, of COURSE i pretended to be Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and air kissed. It was totally that kind of bath)
Metro Station — Kelsey (it’s just funny)
A whole bunch of songs that I downloaded because they have my mother’s name in the title. Now. This is a good idea if you’re giving your mother an ipod, and want to add a few unexpected songs. However. It is VERY important to edit out the songs that make it sound like your mother is evil. Oops. Deleting those soon. Every time one of the evil ones came on, I sunk below the water, bugged my eyes out, and alternated between giggling and gasping at the horror of some of the lyrics. How can those little song previews leave out so much negativity?! Deleting. Deleting. Deleting.
The Mavericks — What a Crying Shame
Willie Nelson — Shotgun Willie (i just like it when he twangs, “shotgun willie sits around in his underwear…”)
Bon Jovi — You Give Love a Bad Name
Black Crowes — Hard to Handle
Eva Cassidy — Over the Rainbow
Lyle Lovett — Long Tall Texan

So how long was that bath? More than 2 1/2 hours. Plenty of time to learn something utterly disgusting about the green whales. After the bath water cools, the moisturizing liquid within the whales actually transforms into a solid. A white solid that sticks to your entire body exactly as if you had shmeared yourself with Crisco. Did you know that? I had no idea. The discovery of being coated in a lardlike substance REALLY takes away all the appeal of those little whales. Never again.

So the purple toenail painting, Crisco wearing bath was a celebration because… my book is out! Julie emailed and told me she saw it on Amazon. I thought she was mistaken. I had no idea. I checked. Surreal.The next day a copy arrived from Capstone (the publisher). It was tied up with a chocolate-y brown ribbon. It’s prettier than I expected.It took less than 5 minutes for me to find a mistake. On the last sentence of the About the Author page, it reads “A Love for Larkspur” is his first novel. Did I write that? Uh, probably. Did I approve that? Definitely. My photo is there on the page. I look like a girl at least. But then there’s a description of all my non-girly hobbies. Mudding. Kickboxing. Etc. And then the ‘his first novel’ phrase.  Well. Apparently I had a trannie moment. That’s what every first time Christian author wants. A trannie moment. In print.

So when an author’s book comes out, there’s a certain expected response.  She (0r he, as the case may be) should publicize.  Ask others to do the same. Etc.   i just caaaan’t.  It’s taken me days to even write this!   

There’s a huge part about writing that I’ve never been comfortable with, but just always assumed I’d get over when the time came.  Except I haven’t.   When you write, a huge amount of yourself ends up on the page.  Flaws, biases, insecurities - all those things I don’t often point out to everyone.  It’s all there.  I know.  I tell y’all most of that stuff anyway.  But it’s in a very deliberate way.  And this is different, somehow.  

So I should tell you to all go and buy one.  To tell your friends to do the same.  But if I’m really being honest with you, I’m quite afraid that this was all some sort of mistake and it - and I - completely stink.  I keep remembering a time in elementary when I was sooo excited about Show and Tell.  I was a VERY shy kid, but for some reason I was excited that day about whatever I’d brought.  And when it was finally my turn, I changed my mind and told myself that what I’d brought really wasn’t that great after all, and that no one would be interested in it. I stayed in my seat and just shook my head no when the teacher asked if I had something to share.   

I’d still really like to just shake my head no and keep it to myself.  It was ages ago that I signed a contract with Capstone saying I’d get out of my chair and share.  The day was coming, of course, when it would arrive in a chocolate-y brown ribbon and a friend would tell me what websites it was listed on…  I thought I’d be ready. Who wouldn’t be ready for that…? This is my proverbial Big Break.  It bothers me to think how ungrateful it must seem to not be playing the role of excited author/marketer.    

I have a friend who likes to say, “It is what it is.” I hate it when he says that.

I sort of thought that by the time I was this age - and published - that I wouldn’t be such a trainwreck of insecurities and would hardly resemble the shy elementary kid I used to be.

I wonder why I thought that…It is what it is.

1.  I’ve been long gone - haven’t even turned ON a computer in weeks.

2. I’d like to blame my mother for this.

3. Except that it is VERY tacky for a grown woman to blame her mother for her own actions.

4. But ya’ll!  My MOM is here!

5. She lives in Australia, and comes to visit twice a year, and now is one of those times!

6.  The shopping!  The SHOES!  The conversations and dreams she has that revolve primarily around handbags!  LOVE THAT!

7.   Mucho chocolate consumption.

8.  We’re working off the calories with laughter.

9. Yeah, that’s what I’m telling myself.

10. Caden-4yr calls her ‘Fanmother,’  since ‘g’s are hard for him.  I call her J-Mom, and you can too if you’d like.