Popcorn

I sit down to write my first blog entry. I begin the first sentence. I hear, “Mommy, we want popcorn!” I get up. I pop popcorn. Never mind that it is 7:43 a.m. and some other mommies might think popcorn isn’t a breakfast food. I deliver the bowl to the requesting parties. I return to my office. I begin sentence two. “Mommy, my juice spilled!” I get up. I fetch paper towels to clean up the half-apple juice/half-water mixture which has disobediently escaped from the sippy cup. I replace the sippy cup with a new and hopefully more obedient one. “Tanks,” says one of the two requesting parties. I return to my office. I begin sentence three.

And now, allow me to introduce my children, Chicken Noodle and Chicken Little: co-conspiritors, helpmates and hinderances on my writer’s journey, depending on the day. Also included in the cast of my life is Captain Daddy, but he’s not here this morning, which is either a bad thing (if he were here he might possibly play with our chickens and give me some time to write) or a good thing (equally possible is that he would serve as judge and jury to the video/popcorn situation).

I predict that in just a moment, Chicken Little, who is not yet two, will lose interest in “Toy Story” and appear here at my desk, her little blond curls just coming to my elbow. “Up, Mommy,” she will say. I will lift her on to my desk alongside photos and seashells and stickers and to-do lists until she destroys something (the possibilities here are endless: the phone? The picture of her and Santa? A magazine contract?), at which point I will accept defeat for this writing session, having completed 200 words.

This leaves only 2,999,800 to go to meet Ray Bradbury’s criteria of success (he said that the accomplishment of writing one’s three millionth word would equate with achieving writing mastery).

Here I go...