#thisallegra

I got this amazing book for Christmas from @thisallegra called Animal Land Where There Are No People (you can buy it here). It was published in 1897 in Scotland, and, essentially, the mother of a four year old drew all of these creatures that her daughter dreamt up. She included her descriptions of them, and then drew them based on how her daughter said they should look. It is priceless. These are some of my favorites. The descriptions, in order:

The Booba: This is a funny little animal. It makes no noise and runs.

The Ginniwits: This beast is larger than any table and is always there.

The Kank: This animal lives in a forest, eats hay, comes every morning up to the front door. It's a kind little animal. It can do everything and that's all.

The Joox: This animal's name is Joox because it is not a bear. It growls and eats cabbages and beans.

The Weedle: This animal has such dainty little ways of pulling up potatoes.

The Burkan: A nasty biting thing. There's none more about it.

The Jumma: This animal likes chocolate and rabbits. It is a little bit blingey.

The Melly: This creature is so surprised and eats toffee.

(And, no, "blingey" is not a word, and I suspect it's pronounced [ˈblɪn.dʒi], rhyming with dingy, as in dingy and dark.)

LOL OMG That is SUCH a four year old thing to say! I love it! And now it's so nice that it's preserved forever in your first stage-ready conlang. Congratulations!

My little sister Natalie (who's 21 now) had a gem when she was four or five. @thisallegra and I were watching her, and @thisallegra made her dinner, including chicken (which is a thing, since she's vegetarian. It was a treat that Natalie was getting chicken!). She asked her what she thought of the food, and Natalie reflected a moment, then said, "Well, it's better than nothing." We still bring it up to this day.

Ten years ago today my wife @thisallegra and I got married. All told, we’ve been together sixteen years, and I couldn’t be happier or luckier. Additionally, Erin was also instrumental in a lot of my major life choices the past sixteen years. For example, without Erin...

I would not have gone to Linguistics graduate school—or any graduate school (it was never a plan of mine).

I wouldn’t have known what Digestive Advantage for Lactose Intolerance was, meaning that I will still be living my life like a lactose intolerant person, which, let me tell you, was just the worst.

I would have had no idea what A Song of Ice and Fire was (I’d never heard of it before her).

Add to that, I never would’ve known what Worldcon was (which means I wouldn’t have met @lbardugo and wouldn’t have been a part of the YA award committee).

We certainly wouldn’t have bought a condo when the market was low (I never thought I would ever own property of any kind—and certainly had no idea how to go about it).

I never would have gotten a cat! <:O I can’t imagine my life without my cats!

I never would’ve known my wonderful daughter. For those out there who grew up in abusive environments, there are a lot of times you think you could never be a parent, because you never had a positive model at home. That was how I felt, never having met my birth father, and basically living in fear of my first stepfather until my mother divorced him. I can tell you from experience now: It’s not true. You are NOT forced to repeat those patterns. It starts with understanding yourself, understanding what happened in your own life, understanding what impact that had on you, and understanding how you react (how you feel) when you’re put in stressful situations—and if the reactions aren’t healthy, working on fixing them. It’s a lifelong process, but after a bit it gets to a point where you are your own person, and you’re actively making your own choices—and you can choose to be a healthy, whole person. It’s possible. And for me, having an actual, long-lasting, healthy relationship was enough to give me the confidence that I could actually be a parent. And now things are honestly amazing. My daughter turns labial stop and liquid clusters into bilabial trills! How you resist that?!

Last movie you saw: Suicide Squad, which was excellent

Last song you listened to: uhh, probably something on the radio in the car earlier. Last song I remember listening to was “Still Have My Heart” by Caitlin Crosby. Here’s the video for it, it’s pretty funny.

Last show you watched: I don’t think I’ve watched any TV since I’ve been in Omaha, except for my kids’ shows. (So, probably We Bare Bears or Steven Universe or something.)

Last book you read: First Star I See Tonight by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Last thing you ate: homemade nachos with salsa

If you could be anywhere right now where would you be: in Japan, so I could eat at Coco Ichibanya

Where would you time travel to: nah, I’m not gonna mess with time travel

First thing you would do with lottery money: Probably make some travel plans, then give some away, then save the rest. #BoringAdultStuff

Fictional character you would hang out with for a day: Data

Time right now: 2:56am CDT

You came to the right place. I’ve been a parent for 9 months now, so I know EVERYTHING there is to know about parenting.

lol Seriously, though, if you are pre-baby, I do have one major recommendation: Get someone else to live with you for like 10 days—preferably a parent. It’s so helpful in easing the transition. The baby-producer is going to be beat the fuck up for a minute no matter the method of delivery, but it’s not like the other parent can be all, “Don’t worry! I’ll take care of everything!” as if they’re sick, because, like, NO. Now the baby needs constant attention. That baby don’t give a French braid if you’re tired, if you need to use the bathroom, if you need a shower, if you could just use a break cause you’re on the point of tears. Nah. Baby be all like, “HOW ABOUT I CRY ANYWAY”, and you kind of can’t do anything.

@thisallegra‘s parents came down a few days before the birth, and then her mother stayed for a full ten days after. She helped clean, she made meals, she sat with the baby when she didn’t need to nurse, she changed diapers… I cannot imagine what it would have been like without her. When it was time for her to go back, we honestly would have been fine with her staying longer, but we were ready to be functional without her—not perfect, but functional. I have a daughter now, and I’m already planning to drop everything to go help her out should she decide to have a child one day in her first days back home. I know what it’s like, and I won’t forget.

If the child is going to be nursed, I’d also strongly recommend that the nurser stay home for 6 months. I say that knowing full well that both @thisallegra and I have jobs that allow for no time off at all, and we didn’t do that. I mean, theoretically, we both could take however much time off we like, but we’re both in the same position: If we didn’t do our jobs, there is literally no one to take over. There’s no one that translates my stuff if I’m not doing it. And for her, she can take time off and not do whatever, but it won’t get done in the interim—there’s no one! I have a feeling a lot of parents in countries that aren’t Finland find themselves in exactly the same position (I just heard about an editor of a major fashion magazine getting let go while she was on maternity leave, like wtf?! This is America?!), though for different reasons.

Also, be prepared for the child to kind of be miserable a lot. You’ll hear people say “Babies just cry”, but I kind of thing it’s all either gastrointestinal distress of various kinds, or teething. And please understand that when I say “teething” I mean LITERAL POINTED JAGGY BONES PIERCING THROUGH THE BABY’S SENSITIVE GUM SKIN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THEIR LIVES!!! That sounds HORRIFYING. It’s like Wolverine’s claws emerging a millimeter a week from his gums. And I bet it hurts like hell. You can give them teething rings, but sometimes it doesn’t help. Sometimes it just hurts, and they’re just going to cry. Understand that this isn’t your fault, and the baby will never remember it. Listen to music, and try counting games. For example, I’d play a game where I’d have to walk back and forth across my daughter’s room while holding her 3 times in a row—and then a 4th time just to be sure—without her moving. It’s SO exciting when you finish that 3rd one—and SO disappointing when she jerks awake in the middle of the 4th leg! But hey, it gives you something to do!

It helps to have a partner to trade off with. It also is advisable to sleep whenever possible. (I say this knowing full well that when our daughter is napping, @thisallegra and I are working. But, you know, ideally…)

Also, especially for creative individuals, nothing will force you to treat creativity like a job more than having an infant. You can’t do ANYTHING when you're watching the baby. You can watch TV (with the TV volume way, way up to overpower the occasional yowling), but that’s it. It’s tough to even read, because the baby will get squirrelly. TV goes whether you’re holding them or not, and you can listen with your back turned (can be tough to pause with your hands full, so try to set that up ahead of time, with the remote within arm’s reach). This means that if you work best at a certain time, too bad! You now work best whenever you have a free moment. Either that or you don’t work. Period. So be ready to take every opportunity you’ve got to work on your art, because those are the only ones you’ll get until they’re old enough to entertain themselves (in theory, anyway. Haven’t gotten to that level yet).

Those are the most important bits, I think. If you’re pre-baby, changing diapers isn’t really that bad (they don’t smell at first). Feeding can be kind of awful. It’s messy, and they tend to get upset by it. At first. It gets better. Still a pain, though. Can’t wait till I can take M. out for a fancy dinner and watch her feed herself with her own utensils. What a day that will be! Until then, though, it’s not too bad.