To read an excerpt from the book, please click on the following link:

ashaveilbook.blogspot.com

An excerpt from The Pleasure Palace, my romantic comedy, can be found here:



Thursday, July 10, 2014

It Begins

First off: Thistle begins kindergarten in September (she will be just a tad shy of five--how the time does fly). I have been on a listserv already of parents. There are the lawyer parents, who are the worst in terms of arguing to get their way (in this instance, a change in the teacher inservice day and time a couple of times a month). Holy crap. The parents who are attorneys (and happen to tell everyone) haven't yet backed off about this change--they want the other day back, and the time changed (you can understand this because of work schedules, but this school has great after school care). There are even threats to take their children elsewhere! All this on a very public forum for the entire school to see, and they are not the only ones

It begins. I'm an older "parent-grandparent" and am already accorded respect due to my age alone. There's something about being a "silverback" that is good--people assume I have acres of experience in life. It is not far-fetched that I would even be a parent at this age--in late fall/winter 2009--at age 50!--I had a positive pregnancy test, but didn't tell anyone because I was apprehensive about the pregnancy "taking" (a pregnancy that close to menopause often does not take, and my health was not that great also), and indeed I miscarried a couple of weeks after the test. I'd had a miscarriage in 2007, so it was sad, partially because I had kept this to myself, but really not unexpected. I never told anyone except my doctor, therapist, and closest female friend as I was afraid also of negative reactions (the father was not exactly enthralled about a pregnancy scare earlier, and I did not want to worry or scare him, either, though I fully intended to tell him if the pregnancy took, and definitely in the first trimester). It was still terribly sad for me and probably my very last chance at having a biological child and I think the miscarriage contributed to later emotional turmoil and health problems over the next year. At any rate, Thistle is often mistaken for my biological child. I did pray for another child rather endlessly, so perhaps Higher Power heard my prayers after all.

I have to go interact with Thistle now and teach her to write "strawberry" on the labels we are making for homemade jam.

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