The Lull Before the Launch

My friend, liz, emailed today to tell me she was tired of reading about my 21-er, and to get on it with a new posting. You'll read all about liz when you read my BOOK, which will be available January 17th, which, as you well know, is just 2 short weeks away!

Let me tell you, friends, enjoy the lull before I talk more about the book, the book, and more about the book! Truly, there is very little on my mind besides it, oh, that and the fact that I'm the world's worst mother - more on that in a minute.

If you want to test your own endurance, write a book.

If you want to drive yourself crazy over and over and over again, write a book.

If you want to mine your life, write not just a book, but a memoir.

If you want be kind, write, then edit, then edit some more, said memoir.

If you want to know who your true friends are, write a book.

If you want to know where you were, where you are, and where you (think) you're going, write a memoir.

If you want to eat, sleep, breath nothing else for years on end, but then only end up with a 233 page document, write a book.

If you want to go from excitement to dread, from hope to apprehension, in a rapid and repetitive cycle, launch the book.

I could go on, but I think you get it. You get it, right?

Now, about that world's worst mother thing. Here's the deal. As I have gone through the BOOK over and over again, I've been struck, mostly, with what a perfect mother I am for Rojo. NOT the perfect mother, to be sure, but the perfect mother for HIM. Yet, my Achilles heal is the fact that he eats so poorly. "Poorly" being an understatement. Toast, bacon, pizza, taco meat, hamburgers, Goldfish, frozen yogurt and junk food. That pretty much says it all. Try as I might, he outplays, outwits, outlasts me. He is the survivor in the game of eating.

Took him to the naturopath today. Haven't taken him there in over 2 years. Got tired of paying $100 a pop, out-of-pocket to be told he needs to eat better. Because it had been so long since we checked in, we went, and I took all his supplements/meds/vitamins with us for her to review. Turns out, he's been taking a prescribed multi-vitamin the pediatrician has prescribed (with fluoride), plus the one she prescribed, thus over-dosing him on certain vitamins. And not for a time or two, but for nearly 3 years. She's worried about damage to the kidneys and liver. She's worried about a variety of things. Plus, she basically gave me the you've-got-to-pick-your-battles-and-this-one-is-one-of-them speeches. Of course I know all that, but if you lived in this house, I dare say, you'd have a helluva time getting Rojo to eat better, too.

At one point Rojo said, "Well, I'm a really picker eater."

The naturopath said, "You're old enough for me to say this to, that's a load of crap."

Some of that must have sunk in, because Rojo did say on the ride home, "I'll eat a vegetable in 2 weeks."

I'm going to gear up and really give it the ol' college try to get him to eat better. She suggested (urged) me to withhold frozen yogurt if he doesn't eat his green veggies. I told him I didn't eat enough of those myself, and we'd do it together. So, dear readers, you have two things to look forward to hearing about ad infinitum, the BOOK, and Project Veggie.