I will be lying if I say that things have been very smooth here in Guangzhou – in managing a house with twins, that is.
The twins were screaming when they got here and I was beyond tired for three straight days having stubbornly refused my husband’s insistence in hiring a full-time nanny. I simply cannot trust someone I do not know to hold my children. The case was different with Joy and Elsie because my Mom knew them before they joined our family. They were her students from catechism class.
It’s been tough primarily because I was so used to househelpers doing majority of the dirty, messy stuff. But I know that these are tasks I need to accomplish because I am a Mother now and with it comes the responsibilities of holding master’s degrees in Changing Beyond Dirty Diapers, Washing Infinite Number of Milk Bottles , Getting Very Little Sleep, and Feeding Endless Amount of Gooey Baby Food.
My reading pace has been so slow to the point that it’s depressing. I am stuck with Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed, which is sort of a sequel of her phenomenal book “Eat, Pray, Love.” In Committed, she started dissecting the institution called marriage as she and Brazilian lover, Felipe were forced by a circumstance called United States of America Laws and Regulations to get married… the reason being that Felipe is a foreign national and has to be married to an American citizen in order to be allowed to stay in the U.S.A. Did they ever get married? I don’t know yet. I am still on Page 97! Why? Because I have been reading and rereading pages. I just can’t absorb it what with all the screaming and crying I have been hearing in the last 15 days. Ah, and Committed is boring too so… you know. You get my point.
But I couldn’t discard it. Or just tell myself to stop reading it. Why? Because I already started it. I am not really the type of person who stops reading a book because it is boring. I started it so I should just finish it. That’s a reading mantra. So as not to make my reading life miserable, I turned to a non-fiction book called “Author 101 Bestselling Book Proposals: The Insider’s Guide to Selling Your Work” by Rick Frishman and Robyn Freedman Spizman. I don’t have any idea why they have names that ended with “man” but I must say that I enjoyed this book more than Miss Gilbert’s. it was published in 2005 and it is a practical guide to anyone who wants to get his or her book published. I am not finished reading this too so I cannot share any further. But the last three chapters have been very interesting and intriguing. It is giving me a no-nonsense reality check of the publishing industry.
Last night, I also finished writing my very first story, which I will use as a learning material for the twins with the help of my brother, Hendrix who will be working on the illustrations. It’s called “The Alphabet Village” and talks about the journey of Amazing Apple to reach the far end of Alphabet Village to meet Zealous Zebra. I had some friends look at it but I am not yet confident in sharing it here. Maybe in the future…
The twins are growing up so fast in a matter of 15 days. China is being kind to them. And so far, it has been kind to me also.
More updates in the coming days!
