“A message? What’s that?” he swipes a whole section of my sandwich.
“What the reader will learn by reading my writing.”
He shrugs. “The reader will learn that battles are dangerous, and you should be careful around cannons.”
He leaps up the stairs. I lumber behind him. I tuck him in and kiss him goodnight.
I lumber downstairs. I type the above. I may or may not have begun to play Castleville.
I try texting my husband, who is at someone’s house for a fantasy baseball draft thing. But I don’t know how to text his phone from my computer. So I try sending him a message through Facebook, which just deteriorates into more Castleville.
The garage door opens, scaring me half to death.
It’s Ken, coming home from the fantasy baseball thingie. My status as Saturday night homebody is confirmed.
“I need you to help me with this post,” I say, after brief hellos.
He attempts to read over my shoulder at what I’ve written so far. I put a defensive hand in front of the screen. “No! You can’t violate the integrity of the post!” I declare. In my mind, this statement makes perfect sense.
He wanders off to the bathroom.
When he comes back: “Seriously, what should I write about?”
“But you’re already writing something,” he wisely says.
“Stop looking.” I mutter.
He wanders off again.
When he comes back, he tells me to write about the looming time change. “Write about that. How it always throws the kids’ schedules off. Or pizza night. Write about pizza night. With pictures.”
Long slow blink.
“But what would the message be? I feel like I should start striving to have a message in my posts.”
“Oh, you’re getting all pious now?”
I snort. “It doesn’t have to be a pious message. How about just a point?”
He tries looking over my shoulder again.
We go to bed, and I resolve to find a purpose and a message in the morning.
(I would just like to insert a brief rant against Day Light Savings Time. Seriously. If there was ever a move made by people who did not have small children in their care, it’s that one.)
I lumber downstairs, 6:45 a.m., (which is really 5:45 a.m.), and every single person is already up and loud.
Very loud.
I grab some coffee and a child. The four year old to be specific.
“Hey Gabriel,” he stops his kitchen recon, scouting for signs of breakfast. “What should I write about for my story?”
He looks at the apple in his left hand, then at the toy car in his right. He grins.
“Write about a zooming car!”
“What does the zooming car do?”
“It zooms around and chases down bad guys and gets them with its headlights!”
“Nice. What should people learn when they read the story?”
“They should learn to fight bad guys! And go crazy! “ He runs off.
Long slow blink.
The four year old runs back to me. “And scream!” he adds.
“The people should scream?”
He nods, eats half his apple in one bite, looks around hopefully for breakfast, and runs off.
I lumber to the computer. I type the above. I do not play Castleville because it is pointed out to me that it is NOT actually 6:47, that the clock has not been reset, and I’m now going to be late for Sunday School.
The three year old is next to me, coloring pictures of robots.
“Jude, I have to write a story. What should I write it about?”
The long slow blink comes from him. He stares at me, blank faced.
“A story. What should I write it about?”
He gets a sly grin on his face, then opens his mouth. “Aaargghhthhshp!”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “What?”
“Aaaaaargghhthhshp!”
“Do you have any words for me? Real words that convey meaning?”
He shakes his head. Behind me, Ken snorts. “I’m sure that plays well into your story.”
