#grandgoblins

My husband and I are both disabled. When we take care of our grandchildren (Bean, f age 3, Spud m age 2, Seed m age unborn due late June), it's imperative that the ambulatory ones learn to come back to us when called. We live near a parking lot, and our apartment building's commons are part of a short cut between the tourist cabins and downtown. Cars, strangers, unleashed dogs, older kids who can be careless.

Bean and Spud are learning bits of ASL and have been since they were babies. (Thank you, Ms. Rachel.) Their Mom and I sign to them as best we know. They don't quite have the manual dexterity for some signs but they do understand the signs we've used with them.

Today, Bean ran off and the husband and I called to her to come back to us. She put her hands over her ears so she couldn't hear us then firmly turned her back to us so she couldn't see us sign to her.

I'm flummoxed. I know what would have happened if I'd done anything of the sort. My ass hurts just thinking about it. But we're learning alternative means of discipline when it comes to this generation. We just don't know how to handle this new misbehavior. It has to be nipped quickly because it's a safety issue.

This one is going to be all about writing. I would love to have The Book of Questions entirely done and scheduled by the end of it so it's off my plate and I can focus more on the newest (and probably last) grandgoblin.

I'll be taking off of full time writing from June 21 until August 2 to give myself lots of baby time. Notice I said "full time". I will be writing after the baby is born so I won't lose my last cracked marble. If I don't get The Book of Questions finished entirely, I'll be putting it on hold regardless -- as long as I've got enough in the queue to cover my absence.

During "baby time" I'll be working on a project that I'd planned as a 13th anniversary gift to @justletmebeokay. It's a Halloween story, the protagonists of which are adults in the current timeline but were 12, 10, and 7 back then. They're going trick-or-treating; they're going to end up with more than candy. This is going to be an attempt at short fiction, between 2,500 and 5,000 words.

For a boost, I'll be participating in the Heart Breathings Rough Draft Challenge. There may be a couple days that I won't have internet access because I have to return the laptop I'm currently on to the library before my new tablet is due to arrive. I'll still manage to get some work done by hand and do research on my phone.