My father, when I was a kid, used to bake onions in the fire, and upon serving them would quote Frank Lloyd Wright, who reportedly said, “What a boon to the creative imagination is the baked onion.”*  That’s sort of the way I feel about children.  When I had my kids I began to look at the world through their eyes, which gave me a knee-high perspective on all sorts of things I’d fallen into the habit of regarding from five feet up, and that perspective had a way of inching into my work.  To its betterment, I must add.

Having kids also gives you an appreciation for nature and nurture, both.  The other day my younger daughter sent me a text begging me to pick up the next book in an SF series she has started reading.  The text ended, “I am your daughter, after all.”  Well, she had me there–I started them early on books, and both of the girls got hooked which makes me very happy.  What startles me, sometimes, though, is that it’s not just the reading that got passed along, but the writing.  And this ventures into family history and Mommy Kvelling. Continue reading →