Tea and chocolate...and Friday

I love tea. Earl Grey is my favorite, I'm pretty much addicted to the taste of bergamot. And I recently picked up some Ritter Sport hazelnut chocolate that tastes especially good when paired with a hot cup of tea. It's Friday and we just had an awesome morning with one of my most supportive and sweet friends, and her little daughter. We went to the Seattle Children's Museum and enjoyed all the fun activities there. Cora took a nap this morning and is sleeping again now...She seems super tired after this long week of activities and sleep disturbances while I try to figure out her schedule.

Tea and chocolate. Yum. I love that Cora is fast asleep, growing her brain and her body while I decay mine slowly with sugar and caffeine. I have enjoyed a complicated struggle with caffeine, and wish right now that I was drinking full-strength coffee and buzzing about with a million fresh ideas, instead of soaking up whatever small strain of caffeine is left in my decaffeinated tea, and waiting for it to give my brain a midday boost.

I'm looking forward to the weekend and a few good adventures. Cora spent 10 minutes kissing and waving goodbye to her Dada this morning, and I know she will be all abuzz with excitement when he comes home tonight. She has a different personality with him, gives him tons of wrinkled-nose smiles and giggles, and joyfully watches him perform silly antics for her. This morning we waved frantically at him through the living room window while he did a dance on the sidewalk, kicking up his feet and clicking them together, then spinning around in fabulous ballet form. And then she just quietly settled down and started playing with her animal flash cards and books while I did the dishes. She loves to come in to the kitchen and hang on my leg and then take small journeys to the cupboards and shelves, rummage about the drawer with all the metal lids, and then head back for another leg snuggle.

I have been thinking about my MFA program, and voice and character development and all the writerly things that we studied and thought about intensely for two years. It is so much easier to write about little Cora, a tangible little character in my house who wanders around and laughs and cries and waves and kisses. But I am excited to start writing short stories about quirky characters' lives and adventures. It occurs to me that I should know my fictitious characters as well as I know Cora; I should imagine what they were like as children, the environment where they grew up...it's important, it's formative. It sticks with us. It's something I've thought about loosely before, but it honestly hasn't struck me with such force until now. What I am thinking is that I had better be in love with my characters enough to write about them. Even if I hate what they stand for, I should love them as human beings enough to write carefully about them, to research their first words and first crushes, elementary and high school memories.