One Year Later: Toddler & A Manuscript

Hanging out in front of poetry

My son's one year birthday is coming up soon (we're still accepting ideas for his time capsule.) He's taking tentative, straight-legged steps and we're either close behind him or holding his hand.

And I have a rough draft of a full length manuscript. The manuscript spans my first pregnancy, a miscarriage, a second pregnancy, birth and one year of parenthood. About half of the book was written in the last twelve months. It is a very chronological and memoiristic manuscript. Some of the poems have been recently published poems. This summer, as I teach and parent, I hope to continue to edit and revise the individual poems and the manuscript as a whole.

This all adds up to quite a year! There are nights when we all sleep soundly for more than a few consecutive hours, and there are nights when we are so tired we can't remember having ever slept very long. It isn't easy to teach, write and run errands while co-parenting our son, but it is possible (most days).

I've been blogging monthly over at Minerva Rising on this topic of writing as a mamma. This most recent post is about being ok with sometimes not writing, as some writing friends who kindly shared their experiences said.

Overall, I hope that I remember in his second year that it is possible to write and parent, and ok if I don't. Some days we need to simply get through and be kind to ourselves and others. Other days the sun is shining, we're well-rested and we can write fresh lines.