Books to Prisons???

Did you know that when kids visit their parents in prison, they can't bring toys with them? I guess maybe because some toys are potentially dangerous or something, but in any case... the poor kids! Just sitting around with nothing to do while Daddy gets brought down from wherever-he-is. No dolly for comfort. No gameboy for distraction.


Imagine a poor kid, alone on a metal folding chair or something, fiddling with his fingers, looking down an institutional hallway, waiting for Daddy.


Shivers.


But now imagine that same kid... with a book to read.


Okay, it's still awful, but books are the best escape a kid has, really. A transport to other worlds. A way to learn other lessons, visit other lives.


So here's the deal.


A friend of mine is organizing an effort to send books to kids with parents in prison. Books those kids can read while visiting, and then take home with them. A gift. Something nice for the poor kids.


I'm putting a box together. Want to help? Any and all new/gently used childrens/teen books are most welcome.


Backchannel me at laurelsnyder(at) gmail.com and I'll give you my address.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...

The Good: I got rough drafts of TWO book covers this week!


"The Myth of the Simple Machines" has me all aflutter, because I'm using art by the illustrator of my picture book, "Inside the Slidy Diner". To create a kind of continuity between my poetry and kiddie-lit. Neat, huh? And "Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains" is being drawn by a man named Greg Call, who recently did the pictures for Dave Barry's series about Peter Pan. Shmancy!


Very very exciting. I'm not going to show them off here, since they aren't set in stone, but this is pretty dang cool.


More Good: Lewis is smiling. Smelly, but smiling...


The Bad: We all have pinkeye. We all have headcolds. We keep passing these things back and forth amongst ourselves. How does one cope, when one has little boys who poke each other in the eye, and give sloppy kisses? I do not know.


The Ugly: I met a woman the other night who does shots of tequila after she drops her kids off at pre-school. I think this is very very very sad. Also this week, I read a memoir by Anne Sexton's daughter. Then I re-read "The Hours". So now I am thinking about depression and parenting. Not an uncommon pair. Amazing what lack of sleep can do to a girl.

This week in pictures...

In Mose's week-- there was swinging! While Lew did NOT swing, he DID hold his head up a lot, and he also got sat on by a kitten...

Turned a corner...

I can't blog long, as Mose and Lew are both sleeping, and so I need to rest my eyes while I can, but I wanted you to know I turned a corner. Found a little bit of sanity.


See, on Monday I was unshowered, unbrushed, unfed, and cruising the streets of Atlanta because I needed to do SOMETHING! I was, dear reader, losing my mind.


And then I remembered a place someone had told me about. A room for mommies. Really.


So I went in search of the room. And found it. Really. It was not a myth. I found it. In a church basement-- a child-proofed room with carpeting and lots and lots and lots of toys. And a bubble machine and free organic beggies from a neighbor's garden and a kitchen with little Mose-sized chairs at a long table and a CD player and rocking chairs and about 5-10 nice mommies (depending on the day) and nice kids. They were kind to me there, in the mommy room. They held Lewis while I changed Mose. They fed Mose while I changed Lewis. They talked to me. We laughed.


And by the end of the day I felt sane. Able to go home and function.


Every day I've gone back to the room, and each day has been the same. One day I even read a little. In the outdoor (fenced in) play area. While Lew slept beside me and Mose went on the slide like a big boy.


Can you believe it? It's a community room. Not a day care. Just donated space and donated toys and donated toilet paper and bees buzzing and flowers blooming. For a suggested $1 a day (donation) anyone can go there and relax. It is truly and wondrously amazing.


By the time we get home, Mose is tired and ready to nap. And I can check email and eat in a silent house. Amazing.


Yesterday, I was so well rested that I took Mose swimming at the YMCA when Chris got home from work. So well rested that I actually cooked some chicken, did some laundry. And I actually felt good enough to enjoy it all.


The house is still a mess, and I'm behind on my book, but I'm feeling like a person again!

A day (or days) in the life...

Just some pictures from recent weeks.


The eyes that watch me wherever I go. My wickedly pricey stroller. The afternoon spent at the Firestone with the babies and the brokedown Honda. The little guy. The whorl I peek down at all day long. The way my house looks on a (rare) lazy Sunday...


Pretty sweet deal, no matter how tuckered out I might be.

Reading Jeff's defense...

My friend Jeff has a blog, and at the end of his blogger profile he says this (of his blog)...


,,,there are words for which I've been paid and should be writing. Instead, this. Unrevised reviews of things I saw, heard, thought about. The stuff that saves me from working.


Which has me thinking about blogging. A bit.


I know people who have blogged for a while and then quit. When they got busy or famous or depressed. And certainly I've thought of quitting. But I don't. Quit. Not ever. I take little breaks, but even then I still blog occasionally.


And even when I'm not blogging, I'm dreaming of blogging. Dreaming up posts.


Why is that? Why is this blog important to me?


Hmmmmm.


I think Jeff has stumbled on it. With the word "unrevised".


This blog is important (not because it's good or bad but) because its unrevised.


It's important to me, having unrevised writing. Work that doesn't have to meet some standard someone else has set for me. Or even a standard I've set for myself.


When I began writing, long long loooooong ago, it was all about me. Poems about me. Stories about me. Songs about me. Even when the words were about other things, they were all about me. And they came fast and loose and easy and fun, and most of the time I didn't take them too seriously. And that was good.


As I've gotten closer to the brass ring, as other people have paid me to write, published my words... I've spent less and less time writing things for JUST me. Less time with the fast and loose.


This blog (and lonelysongs.com before it)is the one place that's all about me. Unrevised me. Me without marketing dreams and publishing hopes and paychecks.


This is where I say what I want, even when want I want to say is dumb.


This, my blog, is the closest I can get to being young again.

Someone said...

Someone said to me...


"There are two kinds of people in the world. People with kids, and people who don't know that there are two kinds of people in the world..."


I want to believe this isn't so. But it is so.


I know that the cult of diapers can be hard to take. That for non-parents, the world of babies and baby-chatter and strollers and screaming in coffee shops... all of that... is horrible, or boring, or frustrating. I remember that feeling. That boredom. That frustration.


But its equally hard to be the parent. It makes me feel invisible. In so many places I am only a reason for a deep sigh, a tired groan. Waitresses hate me. People waiting for my parking space hate me. Cab drivers hate me. Nobody opens the damn door. Not even when I'm dropping a living person on the ground, scrounging for my groceries. And I've been up since 5 am and I only got 2 hours of sleep. So forgive me if sometimes I wish someone would get the door.


It's a disability. Kind of.


A baby makes me vulnerable, cumbersome, slow. Only a host-creature. I found that out when the crackhead held the knife to my giant stomach instead of my throat.


I know. I know. I chose this disabilty. But still...


I'm still here, me, a person... underneath all the other people.


I listen to you talk loudly on your cell phone. I deal with the dog you tied up outside the coffee shop. I smell your smoke. I peer over your tall hair at the movies.


We all have to carry sometehing around. We all make choices. We are all obstacles to each others choices...


I'm doing the best I can.


Maybe you don't have kids. Maybe that wasn't your choice. But once... long ago... you were someone's baby. Have a heart.

It is hard...

Hard and wonderful. Being the mother of two kids in diapers.


Especially when one of them is into climbing windows, eating toilet bowl cleaner, and hugging the cat.


And the other one is into imitating a milky geiser, partying from about one am to 5 am, and pooping every time he eats.


But the hardest part from me right now, apart from sheer exhaustion...


Is the divided attention. The emotional stuff, the personal time.


I HATE not being able to read Hop On Pop to Mose whenever he says "Pease!?" Not being able to run in the sprinkler with him.


"Pease, Mama? Pease?"


And I HATE that Lewis isn't getting what Mose got-- a couple of months of all day skin-on-skin snuggling. My eyes staring into his eyes whenever they open. My kisses on his soft little head every third second. My voice singing his name to him when he cries.


Instead, I'm dashing, always dashing, from one obligation to the next. Mose falling from the windowsill trumps Lew spitting up in his swing. But Lew spitting up trumps Mose "sorting" the kitchen garbage. And Mose sorting the trash trumps Lew needing a diaper change. And Lew needing a fresh diaper trumps Mose wanting to do spins (he likes to dance) in the kitchen... and so and so and so...


And so every moment is a moment of evaluating "what matters most".


And since I'm the mom, it's up to me. What matters most. It's my call.


Lord, help me.


"Pease?!"

Guest blogging!

Today, right now, this minute!!!


Over at the Happy Booker...


Come play?

This is an amazing site for anyone who does bookish events and readings!!!


Booktour.com is a fabulous way to let folks know about your gigs, and also a good way to *find* new gigs. Not to mention a super way to discover when other writers are coming to town...


Seriously. Awesome.

Mose had his first (RAIN)shower!!!

Lewis had his first bath!

Oooh!!!

I know I've posted before about Thousand Dollar Dress, but I just found this image online, and can finally stick in here, in my own blog.


Can't resist.


This is me, playing myself at 16. Only I'm wearing a wedding dress. And really I'm 32.


Whatev.

Still here...

But more than a little busy.


Car is dead. Babies are great. Houseguests are (wonderfully) everywhere.


Just too much going on for long posts.