My Annual Guilt Trip

It's summer. Hooray. Notice the absence of exclamation points.

I love having my children home for the summer. They are great kids. They get along (most of the time), and I really do enjoy their company.

However, it is not always good for my writing life. As I explain to my students when advocating for quiet writing time, composing poetry engages both hemispheres of the brain. The logic/math side is also home to your brain's dictionary, the awesome vocabulary you need to write a rich poem. The creative side of your brain helps a poet translate visual and sensory images into words, recreating experiences for the reader.

Exploration International.

So, with my whole brain concentrating, if a teenager interrupts my writing time to say "I can't find my socks," I short circuit. It feels a lot like getting a shock when you pull a cord out of an outlet too quickly. I have a hard time switching from that level of focus to laundry.

The push and pull of being a writing mom is never greater than from mid-June to August. That's why my biggest summer trip isn't to the beach or the woods. It is my annual Guilt Trip.

And, since this is only the second official day of summer vacation (13-year-old Julia finished school Friday), my children are happily laying on the guilt.

Here is Julia's parody of the Pink song, "Just Give Me a Reason."

Pink is a new mom. I wonder if she'll be taking a guilt trip this summer.

Enjoy, all you writing mommies and daddies. Then, let me know whether this should be a proud mom moment, or whether I should lobby for a worst parent of the year award.

Right from the Start
Parody by Julia

Right from the start
I had work to do.
It wasn't fun
but it needed to be finished.
You came along to the laptop
asking me for hugs
and I just couldn't focus.
Now I need to get this poem done,
uh-oh.
Then we can have some fun,
uh-oh.
Right now please leave me alone
so I can write
my
poem.

I'm sorry I don't understand
why you're so upset at me,
I only want a hug.
(I don't have time right now.)
Please don't get angry at me.
I'll just walk away slowly
so you can do your work.
(That would be very nice.)

Every time you do your work,
uh-oh.
Your attention levels start to change,*
uh-oh.
Why can't I just have a hug?
One hug. One hug.
Oh.

Oh, llamas are cute**.
but you can't care
while you're working
at your laptop.
I want a hug. It'll just take a sec,
why can't you show me some love?
CAUSE I'M WORKING

Here's the official Pink music video. I love this song. Julia and I are fond of singing it together in the car, when I am not busy writing.



*While I appreciate Julia's use of slant-rhyme in this line, I am even more relieved that she did not rhyme "work" with "jerk." As in: "You start to act like such a jerk."

**It's a family in-joke. Unless you're a Monty Python fan. Then you'll get it.

Amok in Song Parodies

Merry Poetry Friday! One of my favorite poetry activities -- the one I do with my own kids -- is making up song parodies. It's silly fun, but spoofing familiar songs is a great (unappreciated!) way for children to work on word-rhythms and rhyme. NinjaGirl and I made up a parody this week called, "We Wish it Was a 'Winter Wonderland.'" In Baltimore it isn't snowing. It's so warm, the grass is growing. We sing a sad song to pass the day along. We wish it was a winter wonderland. In the morn, the roads were icy, so we drank cider, hot and spicy. But now skies are blue. Oh, what can we do? We wish it was a winter wonderland. There's no chance that we will build a snowman. We can't skate on an unfrozen lake. So we'll stay in and bake a lot of cookies and eat them all up over winter break. When Santa comes, we'll be dreaming of sugar plums that we'll be eating. The reindeer will fly through clear, starry skies. We don't need a winter wonderland. Other parodies famous to our household..."London Bridge is falling down on my foot. Ouch, that hurts. London Bridge is falling down. Someone help me." Also from DJRobMan's Suzuki lesson days, "Don't Tell Aunt Rhody" (trust me, our bad news & Aunt Rhody's temper = disaster). And one of NinjaGirl's piano tunes, "Down in the Valley," with new lyrics: Down in the valley, valley so low, I lost my sweetheart in the deep snow. His nose was frozen. His feet were numb. He had no jacket. Boy was he dumb. Happy holidays to all you song spoofers out there! I'm sure there's more traditional poetry at our Poetry Friday round-up, hosted today at The Miss Rumphius Effect.