The Summer I Lived with a Mime and a Grizzly Bear

Raise your hand if you’ve cleaned slushy out of your car seats in the past two weeks.

Yeah. It’s definitely summer now.

My house is a wreck. I’m out of band-aids. My pantry is empty. I find myself near tears at least once every day.

And, yes, my blog has been neglected.

So here’s what we’ve been up to in the past few weeks.

We had a garage sale and got new-to-us couches. Somehow these two events have resulted in the complete rearrangement of my house. There are toys all over my normally off-limits front room and couches and nightstands in my garage. We plan to move Monkey into his own room this summer so the upstairs of our house is in flux. I’ve decided as long as my bed is where it belongs when I finally fall into it, the rest can just take care of itself.

Chunky, who was wearing all black and obsessed with vampires two weeks ago, has now moved on to mimes. Yes, mimes. He is always demanding that I watch him “stuck in a box” or “walking down stairs.” Unfortunately, he seems inspired to perform while we’re in the car, so every red light has me twisted around in my seat applauding “running while stuck in a booster seat.”

Mimes? Really? Is this better or worse than vampires? You tell me.

Monkey has spent the last few weeks being ten-going-on-thirteen. He is really, really cranky. He sleeps till 10:00 AM then spends the rest of the day trying to meet a caloric quota that would have me wearing a tent by the end of the week. I think he’s also grown an inch since school got out. I tiptoe around the office where he's holed-up and frantically wave food offerings whenever he pokes his head out. It’s a lot like living with a grizzly bear.

So there you have it. If I wrote a book about this summer it would be called The Summer I Lived with a Mime and a Grizzly Bear. I just hope the final chapter doesn’t involve the grizzly bear eating the mime. Maybe the mime will turn out to be a vampire mime and thus an even match for the grizzly bear.

Speaking of writing books, I finally finished this round of edits on The Immortal Heathcliff. I would feel good about this if I wasn’t nauseated by the mere mention of The Book that Tried to Kill Me. I’m excited to get back to work on my dystopian/steampunk novel, provided I’m not devoured by a grizzly bear.

For the writers out there, what does your writing life look like in the summer time?

For the older moms out there, are there any foods that keep a growing boy full longer than five minutes?

For the psychologists out there: 8-year-old vampire mime. Should I be concerned?