If you’ve been around the blogging block, you’ve probably seen those lists of things blogger should never do. For instance:

1. Don’t fail to respond to your comments

2. Don’t fail to write regularly

3. Don’t stray off topic

4. Never apologize for, or explain, an absence.

Well I’m not one for following rules if they don’t fit my situation (unless they’re rules or laws handed down by the powers-that-be).

I do respond to many comments, but I don’t have time to answer every single one (thanks for being a talkative bunch!) But I definitely appreciate them all, and I look forward to them a lot. So keep commenting so I know you’re out there, and feel free to talk amongst yourselves sometimes. Conversations are a good thing.

Writing regularly is also something I aim for, but life gets in the way a lot. Luckily I have some faithful commenters who give me a kick in the rear if  I take too long between posts.

Staying on-topic is important, but it helps when you actually have just one topic. Crayon Writer is loosely about my journey as a freelance writer and single mother working from home, so there are a lot of topics I can safely cover (parenting, mothering, children, writing, working from home, blogging, and a whole lot more).

Finally, the one rule I think I haven’t “broken” is not apologizing for or explaining a long absence. Or at least I try to weave it into another blog post, like this one. I’ve been gone for a long time getting over my first (and hopefully last) bout of the stomach flu, and it really knocked me down for the count. Coupled with moving, I’ve gotten really behind with everything.

So, thanks for your patience, thanks for still reading, and enjoy my apologetic flurry of posts-to-come.

Do you follow all the blogging rules? Why or why not?

Well, today was moving day.

It’s funny how easy it looks like it’ll be…until you start moving. It’s really a traumatic experience.

My daughter is a little unnerved too. I took her to the new apartment beforehand, she watched me pack (and helped a little), she saw the movers start taking boxes, she saw the old apartment with no furniture, and now she’s seen the new place with our stuff. But she’s a little sad, and wants to go see her grandparents for more familiarity (I suppose).

We’re in for a rough night I think.

To top it all off, I won’t have regular Internet access for several days, so I feel off kilter too.

Now it’s time to unpack it all. Ugh! I’m not looking forward to it.

Have you ever moved with small children? Was it hard on them?

I can dream, can’t I?

A vacation would be wonderful, especially since the last time I went anywhere just for the fun of it was the Bahamas, and I won’t tell you how long ago that was (or how short my visit was). It was beautiful, though. The beach was amazing, with sand that was so white, and with ocean water that was so clear and blue. I’d love to go back one day.

Because I lived in Detroit, I often visited Canada. And thanks to Anne of Green Gables (one of my favorite non-fantasy/sci-fi book series), I’ve always wanted to go to Prince Edward Islands. One day I’ll have to check out the rates for flights to Canada from Arizona.

I just found out about a company called DialAFlight where you talk with someone over the phone to book your next vacation or holiday. If I’m ever in the market, I’ll definitely see how they compare to other travel agencies. It never hurts to shop around.

When was your last vacation? Where did you go?

Well, it’s time for me and my daughter to move to a bigger apartment. The next couple of weeks should be–interesting.

The good news is we’re moving from a tiny one-bedroom to a roomy two-bedroom with a cute backyard (with our own cacti). My daughter doesn’t know she’s really a Georgia peach. She just adores cactus. I’ll be happy because a natural backyard will have lots of bird life. There’s a honeysuckle plant (which will attract hummingbirds), and a neighbor has a feeder with quail and other visitors.

The bad news is that I’ll have to be without an Internet connection for 3 days! Gasp! That’s an eternity. I’ll be frequenting the local coffee shops with free wi-fi, but it’ll be a pain. Then again, moving is a pain anyway.

I’m considering getting a wireless provider so I can use the Internet anywhere I go with my laptop. It would come in handy for working while I’m watching my daughter play at a park or whatever. If you have this type of service, what do you recommend?

Every child is different, no matter how child care centers try to spin it. My daughter simply doesn’t like daycare in the large center environment, or at least not the one we tried. After going for 3 days, she got a terrible cold. But even before the cold hit, by the 3rd day she was crying when talking about school.

After recovering from the cold, we tried again. As soon as she saw the teacher she burst into tears. “I don’t want to take a nap!” she yelled at the teacher. We went for two more days anyway, no more than 3 hours each time, and she was miserable.

My inquisitive, happy, energetic toddler was a crying mess. At home she told me, “Don’t leave me! Mommy stay with me. I don’t want to take a nap!”

On the other hand, her best friend just started there and simply loves it.

They’re all different.

Now I’m looking into a smaller daycare situation, or one where the main teacher stays in the room 95% of the time at least. This place had 13 two-year-olds in the classroom, so it was chaos. Oh, and did I mention that we came down with the stomach flu after taking her back for just 2 days? Yuck!

Back to the drawing board.

What daycare situations have worked for you, especially if you kept your children at home for several years before attempting child care?

Crayon Writer is more than one year old, and I don’t think I’ve ever participated in a “meme.” I’ve always wanted to, though, and I’ve finally gotten my chance. Thanks for thinking of me Mrs. M. from New York Renovator!

This meme is supposed to be 7 useful things about me. Here goes!

1. I have a degree in biology, but my first job after college was as an assistant editor.

2. My favorite books to read are fantasy/sci-fi, and I love those kinds of movies too.

3. I am a single mother by choice, and I am an attachment parent for the most part.

4. I went to law school for almost a year (the year I was pregnant, actually).

5. I can identify more than 100 bird species by sight and/or sound. Comes in handy when I’m watching a TV show and they claim to be in city X and I know the bird call in the distance doesn’t live anywhere near that part of the country or in that habitat.

6. I am passionate and knowledgeable about preventing domestic violence and changing laws to more strongly prosecute the criminals who commit domestic violence crimes.

7. This probably isn’t news to anyone who reads my blog regularly, but I want to homeschool my daughter as long as she wants me to.

Well, that’s all I could think of. Hopefully you learned something new and interesting about me.

Mother’s Day is around the corner, and with it might come a unique marketing opportunity. If any of your clients are mothers, it might not hurt to wish them a happy day. But be careful. Only wish them a happy mother’s day if they are a mother. I remember being nowhere near motherhood, not even pregnant, and cringing whenever someone said it to me. I desperately wanted to be a mother, and hearing that was hard.

This Mother’s Day I’m going to spend time with my daughter, (the best present I could wish for…as long as she’s in a good mood). For my own mother, who makes everything I do possible, I want to give her the world to show her my gratitude. Instead, I’ll make sure she gets to visit with her granddaughter, and I’ll give her a day of rest and relaxation. I can’t say too much here (since she’s a devoted reader of my blog).

When I wasn’t living down the street from my mother I sent her gifts via companies like 1-800-Flowers. They always had great gift ideas, including flowers for mothers, spa sets, and more.

What are you doing for your mother, or for your clients that are mothers, on Mother’s Day?

Tags: daycare, homeschool, home business, wahm

Photo credit: Renee Yarter

Well, I finally jumped into the deep end. I enrolled my daughter, just three months shy of three, in a daycare center. She only went the past two days, but it’s such a difficult thing to do.

My daughter’s been home with me pretty much every day since she was born, and this separation is tough on us.

So why am I doing it?

I mentioned it’s time for me to get a day job so I can amass some money to properly fund my freelance business. And there’s almost no way to look for a job with a busy toddler at home. Her previous sitters, close family, aren’t able to watch her as much as they’d like, so here we are.

So far it’s okay. She tells me she likes school, and she clearly likes playing with all the kids.

But tonight she woke up from a bad dream, saying something about, “I want to go outside to see Mommy. I want to go outside. Where’s Mommy?” Almost broke my heart. The first day I dropped her off at the playground when everyone was out playing, and then I picked her up later when they were outside. So she firmly believes that Mommy is outside, and that if she just goes outside she’ll see me. So far it’s been true. Today I picked her up on their second playground outing.

Both days the teachers said she really wanted to go outside and kept asking to go. They assumed it was for playing purposes. I wondered. Now I know.

Luckily I only have her enrolled part-time, but I

may have to ease her into it a little more slowly. She’s okay, and isn’t crying much, but when she heads out to the playground you can tell that she’s looking for me and getting visibily upset when she doesn’t see me (I was peeking through a window to see how she was doing).

Long story shorter: Daycare is going to be rather hard for us to deal with. I feel horrible for abandoning my baby, but I also need to provide a secure home for her. Maybe when I get back on my feet we can go back to homeschooling, but for now daycare is a necessary part of our lives.

What about you? How has daycare affected you, your business, and your child(ren)?

Before my daughter was born, I decided we would not watch T.V. at all. I heard all about the studies that said T.V. was bad for kids, that there’s no real interaction, that it may affect their ability to pay attention, and other scare tactics.

For us, television has been a sanity saver. There are times when I can’t be my daughter’s only source of entertainment, and we both need a break from each other. My daughter gets to visit places she’ll never see otherwise, she gets to see all kinds of people, and she’s introduced to lots of different concepts. For instance, she’s never seen snow in real life. The other day I pointed out that there was snow on the mountains, and she said, “I can ski on that snow!” I don’t ski. I don’t talk about skiing. She learned that on television.

I tape record educational shows for us to watch together, and we interact with them together sometimes. Our huge favorite is The Backyardigans. While there isn’t a teaching curriculum, she (and I) love to sing and dance together. When she was younger we watched Teletubbies.

Why do I mention this here? Lately I’ve found some shows on PBS that are wonderful programs that teach reading and writing. My educational favorite is Super Why. My daughter watches them read words, sound out letters and letter blends, write letters, and sing the alphabet. I find her telling me, “S. Sssssssss,” or “Tuh Tuh. T!” I love how she’s getting introduced to phonics. She answers their word questions, sings the alphabet with them, and pays close attention when they’re spelling out words.

While I’m still working at home without daycare, television is also a way for me to get a few minutes to concentrate on work.

So if you’re looking for another way to teach your toddler reading and writing, or if you’re a work-at-home parent, maybe rethink the whole television ban idea. Television might not be so bad after all, when used wisely.

Do you need a reason to improve your grammar and writing? If you have children, or plan to soon, you have at least one great reason.

My daughter will be 3 years old in about 3 months. Though I know that genetics plays a role in her incredible language ability, I also credit her skills to my parenting style.

One thing I do is talk to her constantly, in regular language. I use prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, contractions, etc. I make it a point to tell her what things are, how they work, and I use a lot of words to explain. I also give her definitions.

My point is that my daughter uses almost perfectly correct grammar when she speaks. Sometimes she’ll say “me” instead of “I”, and of course she’s no English expert, but it’s amazing to watch her learn English everyday. If I didn’t know how to speak properly, and if I didn’t take the time to actually talk to her, she wouldn’t be able to communicate as coherently as she does.

Hand in hand with grammar is writing. I made sure to introduce and point out the alphabet to my daughter early, and we often discuss letters and words. When we’re playing with crayons, I often wrote letters for her, so it’s no surprise that she likes to make letters as best she can (she’s pretty good at writing an A, H, V, and U.)

Another excellent tool is right in front of you. I’ve allowed my daughter to watch me type, and I let her type letters too. This helped her learn not only her alphabet, but also punctuation marks and numbers. She often tells me, “Let me type my name, Mommy.” Right now she just types whatever letters strike her fancy, but she has fun pretending she’s writing words.

All of these everyday activities will help my daughter become a good writer, speaker, and reader.

So if you need to brush up on your basic rules of grammar, or if you never thought it was important to speak to babies and toddlers, give it a second thought. It really does matter.

Just this morning my daughter told me, “I hear a train. That’s strange. Hey! Train. Strange. Train. Strange!” I made sure to tell her that that’s called rhyming. I’ll let you know in a few years when she’s written her first book.

Note: Look for more stories about my daughter’s amazing talents. I’ll be talking about her more and more, or I might just have to start another blog that’s not about writing.