Growing, Writing, and Summer Cooking

This morning, I dropped Jordan off at Summer Institute. It's a summer enrichment program for AG Students, rising 5th graders all the way up to rising 8th graders. As we pulled up to the local high school, where the group would be meeting to study Medieval History, including but not limited to castle architecture and defense, blacksmithing, catapult building, and of course, time appropriate food, I worried a little. See, Jordan didn't know any of the other kids signed up to participate. As we watched student after student trickle in, all strangers to my typically shy boy, I thought to myself, "Jordan might not want to go in..."

And then, before I even knew what had happened, my ten year old muttered a quick, "See ya later, Mom" and he was out the door and up the stairs without looking back even once.

Huh.

My boy - my sweet, shy, worried in new places boy has suddenly grown up and I hardly know what to make of it. I'm so proud of him - proud of his progress, proud of his confidence, proud of his... well of just all of him.

And I'm terrified. No, terrified isn't quite the right word. Anxious, perhaps? Because after 10 comes 11 and then 12 and then a whole slew of emotions and experiences that will involve much more than just walking into a room full of students that you don't know to learn about catapults and giant turkey legs.

I have a lot of memories from when I was 10. I remember concrete experiences - not just fuzzy ideas of experiences, but exact details of how things looked and felt, of how I looked and felt. And now my kid is that old... old enough that I can remember feeling just like he feels now. Like a ten year old.

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So, I'm writing again. After Ivy was born, it was hard to fall back into a routine. I was constantly tired or tired, or well, just really tired, so the words dried up for a bit. The magic is creeping back in though, and I am oh, so excited to get my next book on paper. (Or screen.)  I've got a rough outline, my characters are named and my thoughts are constantly consumed with conversations between individuals that don't actually exist. It's an exciting way to live. Want to know how I most know that I'm ready to write? I've stopped listening to music with words. Because words in a song conflict with my own thoughts, see? So I'm cleaning and driving and relaxing to William Joseph, pianist extraordinaire and writing muse, instead of to Coldplay and One Republic.

One of my main protagonists? His name is Henry. Not because I have a Henry, but because the name fits so completely with who and what the character is. I was discussing this very thing with my children this afternoon and Jordan and Lucy both felt incredibly slighted. There was a Sam in my first book, and now Henry is getting the spotlight. "You better write us in, Mommy!" Lucy insisted. "You're in charge, after all."

Ha. I told them the frequency of their name's appearance in any book that I write would directly coincide with how clean they keep their rooms. Good system, yes?

And now, I make burritos for dinner. What do you like to eat in the summer time? The heat makes me want to not cook at all, ever, even a little. Ideas not required, but welcome.