On to the next round

Out of 10,000 entries, a list of the top 2,000 pitches moving on to the next round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award was released today, and...my name was on it!  I was so excited!  And shocked - I honestly believed I wouldn't even make it through the first round of the contest.  I had decided last minute to go ahead and enter, and managed to pull all the materials together hours before the submission period opened.  One of the requirements was to submit a "pitch" for my novel, and the first round selections were based solely on this pitch.  I had no idea how to write a pitch, had never done it before, and had only a couple of hours to do it.  Here is the pitch I wrote, and it must have been decent, since it made the cut (not bad for my first try):
 

Like the heroine of Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, seventeen-year-old Kate Blackmoor has read too many creepy novels. Vampire novels, to be exact. When she moves to the coast to live with her aunt and uncle for the summer, she starts seeing vampires everywhere she looks. Or at least she thinks she does.

But then she meets Hadden Tradd, a guy so hopelessly perfect that Kate is convinced he could never be interested in someone as plain and ordinary as herself. But is Hadden really who he says he is? He lives on the fringe of the little coastal community, in the shadowy and secluded Northanger Plantation, the antebellum plantation home hidden deep inside a thick grove of trees, away from any prying eyes. Hadden's only companions are his sister and his father, a retired military colonel who is more of a dictator than a father. And there is something strange about the siblings themselves, a weird dynamic in which the two are inseparable, painfully shy, and reliant on each other for confirmation each time one of them speaks.

When Kate is forced to spend the night at Northanger Plantation, she learns that Hadden's mother died under mysterious circumstances, and the sinister Colonel Tradd arouses her suspicions. Is it possible that he was responsible for his wife's death? 

As Kate pieces together clues and formulates theory after theory to explain the mysteries of Northanger Plantation, will her friendship with Hadden blossom into something more, or will her obsession with vampires ultimately jeopardize their relationship?

With twists and turns along the way to keep the reader guessing, Norfanger Plantation is a comical look at the current teen vampire craze, but it also explores questions about identity, insecurity, and relationships, themes particularly resonant among young adult readers.

Anyway, I am super excited!  I honestly do not think I will make it through to the next round, but we will see.  The next round will be based on the excerpt (first 2-3) chapters of my novel and will narrow the contestants down to the top 500.  This will be announced March 22.

(And I may or may not have looked at the list several times over the course of the day today out of disbelief, just checking to make sure my name was really there.  Actually, when I first looked, I was scrolling so fast I saw a bunch of names starting with "Sch..." and thought I hadn't made it until it registered that my name would actually be a bit further down the list.  So I was pleasantly surprised to find that my name actually was on the list!)
Also, I have no idea why the spacing is being stupid on this post, but I can't seem to fix it.  Oh well.

These Are a Few of Gemma's Favorite Things:

(in addition to riding in the laundry basket)

Helping "fold" the laundry:

Removing all the contents of her diaper bag and slinging her diapers around/mopping the floor with her diapers:

Licking/looking at her reflection in the oven/dish washer:

Slapping the side of the trash can:

Eating the blinds on the sliding glass door:

When We Say We're Not Doing Anything Special for Valentine's Day...

...we're probably lying.  Okay, not intentionally.  We talked about whether or not we wanted to do anything for Valentine's Day and decided not to, since we both kind of think it's a lame, made-up holiday (invented by Chaucer, but I won't get into my lit crit explanation of that).  Since we decided not to do anything, we of course ended up having a very special Valentine's Day.

I decided that in lieu of going out to eat, I would surprise Cy with a *fancy* (fancy for us) homemade dinner that he really likes.  I broke out the fine china to set the table, and cooked a meal of smothered steak (cube steak cooked in gravy made from golden mushroom soup), noodles, green beans, and peanut butter pie for dessert.  We are not really drinkers, so we had some sparkling grape juice.

Meanwhile, Cy's idea of not doing anything special consisted of him surprising me with a chocolate strawberry cupcake from Cupcake and a beautiful pink-and-green bracelet from Handpicked that he made himself!  He said to me: "I literally hand-picked this bracelet for you."

Gemma got a present too: I had seen these cute Valentine sock monkeys at Wal-Mart and scooped them up weeks earlier.  Cy let her pick which one she wanted, and I got the other one.  Gemma picked the red one and proceeded to eat it.

We enjoyed our "nothing special" evening very much!

Why I'm Never Spending Money on Toys for Gemma Again...

Because it's a total waste of my $$$ when we have far more entertaining things already in the house.  Like shoelaces.  Or socks.  Or our own feet.  Or, laundry baskets:

I've been sick this week and Cy has been at home helping out with Gemma.  Today he was feeling really brave and decided to tackle some laundry.  At one point, he had a load of dirty laundry and Gemma both to carry to the other part of the house, so he plopped her right down on top of the laundry and carted her off in the laundry basket.  A little bit later, he came back by with a basket full of clean folded laundry, sans Gemma.  "No Gemma this time?" I asked.  "Nope," he said.  "She needs a bath and this is clean laundry, so I didn't want her to stink it up."  Apparently our daughter is only allowed to ride along with the dirty laundry.

A bit later, I was feeling well enough to venture out to the living room for some family time.  The empty laundry basket was in the middle of the living room floor and Gemma kept trying to figure out how to get in it.  So I set her inside and proceeded to drag her around the living room in it.  I couldn't tell if she liked it or not, so I stopped and lifted her out and set her on the floor.  Well, apparently she was totally enjoying her laundry basket ride and I just didn't realize it, because as soon as I took her out, she started crying!

And this is why I'm no longer going to waste money on purchasing toys for my child.

9 Months Old

Gemma turned 9 months old yesterday!  Hard to believe she has now been out of me as long as she was inside of me!

Unfortunately we had to reschedule her 9 month checkup and the earliest they could get her in was March 15 so it will be a 10 month checkup instead.  However, she seems to be doing great.  She is crawling like crazy, pulling up, is starting to grasp object permanence.  She can wave and likes to play games with other people involving mimicking the sounds and movements they make.  She is doing great with self-feeding - 9 out of 10 pieces make it into her mouth and actually get eaten these days.  She has not really grasped the concept of the sippy cup yet and mostly just throws it around and chews on it (sometimes she even chews on the wrong end), so that is something to work on further.

 I hate that we will not have a record of her stats at precisely 9 months, but such is life.  I guess I will roll with it and just be excited about her 10 month stats instead.  The only thing I really wish we could have talked to the pediatrician about is feeding.  I would really like to have a specific answer on what Gemma should be eating, how much of it, and how often.  (Anyone with a 9 month old, please feel free to share with me what your child is eating, how much, and how often!)  I'm sure what I am currently doing with her is fine - I'm just being that uptight, first-time mom who worries about doing everything exactly right.  I'm sure I'll get over that (I already have to some extent)!

 Anyway...I think we love sweet little Gemma more and more every day.  She is SUCH a good baby - she sleeps a minimum of 16 hours per 24 hour period (not exaggerating - it's often more), pretty much never cries, eats well, hasn't ever really been sick, and she is so happy all the time and has such a sweet little personality.  She is also very observant and intelligent and will stare at something until she figures it out.  She is so good in fact, that it makes us afraid to have another one, because who could possibly measure up when Gemma has set the bar so high? ;)