Wow, what a crazy three weeks it has been! I officially launched my new book, Reporting Live from the Laundry Pile: The Rockwood Files Collection, on November 2nd at Nightbird Books in Fayetteville. And when the book signing began at 6 p.m., it was eerily quiet in the bookstore and I was worried. Maybe nobody would come. Maybe this whole “write a book” idea was an epic failure.

And then I heard it — the marching band. And that’s when we realized that we’d scheduled the book signing to begin at the exact same time that the University of Arkansas Homecoming Parade was happening on the same street as the book signing. (They tend to close off streets where parades are happening. Good info to remember when you’re scheduling an event.)

So… for the first few minutes of the book signing, I had no guests. But on the other hand, it felt like the marching band had showed up just for me, which — as a former band geek — was pretty exciting. After the band passed by and the parade ended, the book store started to fill up and — hurray! — many of those people showed up for a signed copy of my book! I was over the moon happy. Still am. It was a BIG night for me — a bucket list kind of moment. And I want to say thank you to everyone who came by the book signing and made that night so very special. I saw lots of old friends and met many new ones who have been reading my column for years.

Signing books at Nightbird Books (after the parade).

Joyce Wright and her daughter Sherry traveled from Wichita, Kansas to come to the book signing — a special treat for me.

Speaking of new friends, this beautiful lady on the right, Joyce Wright, came to Fayetteville from her home in Wichita, Kansas. Her daughter, Sherry, drove her there just so they could come to the book signing. What an incredible blessing it was to meet her in person, after several emails we’ve exchanged over the years. She’s a wonderful lady and when she showed up with two yellow roses for me (which are a special remembrance of my late brother) I was so touched. I’ll never forget that.

Greg Moody of Moody Image (book designer extraordinaire) and Lisa McSpadden (super talented photographer for the new book) both snapped photos during the book signing, many of which are pictured here. One of the things I loved about the book signing party was seeing my kids be asked by a few readers to sign their chapters of the book. They LOVED it. And it makes my heart swell up to see their sweet signatures on the pages of the book that are all about them.

Adam signing his first book

Jack puts his signature on the Middle Child chapter.

Kate, now in Kindergarten, signed a few of her photos, too.

Of course, the best part of a book launch is what happens AFTER the book signing party. Because that’s when the reading begins. And the love of reading is why people write books in the first place. The day after the book signing, my friend Heidi sent me these pictures of her daughter, Alyssa, who attended the book signing party and then took the book with her to the park the next day to do a little reading in the sun. Can I just tell you how much I LOVE these pictures? Makes me so, so happy.

Thanks also to my dear friend and business partner, Shannon Magsam, who not only talked me into having a book signing but also arranged all the details for me and made the night a success. She’s pretty amazing that way.

Thank you, Shannon, for making it all happen!

The week after the book launch party, I did another signing at the NWA Boutique Show on November 9th. (Had a blast and talked so much that I totally lost my voice for days afterward!) And then the week after that, I got to do another book signing in the town where I grew up — Stuttgart, Arkansas — at the Open House event November 18th at Coker Hampton Drug. It was so fun to go back “home” for such a special day.

So that’s the book signing wrap-up! We’ll do one more signing in Rogers, Arkansas at Barnes & Noble in the New Year. Until then, thanks again to everyone who has checked out the new book and to those who I’ve had the pleasure to talk to at a book signing. If you missed the book signing but would still like a signed copy, I can help. Just send me an email at rockwoodfiles@cox.net and I’ll arrange to send you a personalized copy. Happy reading!

It’s here! My first book is now available on Amazon and in Nightbird Books. Woo-hoooo!

You can order a copy by clicking HERE.

Reporting Live from the Laundry Pile: The Rockwood Files Collection is a compilation of my best newspaper columns over the past 17 years. In it you’ll find chapters titled “The Marriage Files,” “The Firstborn Files,” “The Middle Child Files,” “The Girl Child Files,” “The Soapbox Files,” “The Pets & Pests Files,” “The Holiday Files,” and the “Just-for-Fun Files.”

This book has been a long time in the making, but I’m thrilled with the finished product. I hope you will be, too. The amazing Lisa McSpadden of Lisa Mac Photography did the photos for this book, and Greg Moody of Moody Image did the incredible design work. I’m indebted to both of them for making the collection look so good.

Now, this next part is really important: We’re having a book launch party! And it won’t be a very good party if you don’t come.

So please come by the book launch event on November 2, 2012 at Nightbird Books in Fayetteville, Ark. This is a drop-in event between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. I’ll read a selection from the book around 7 p.m., and I’ll be signing books as well.

If you’d like to buy a book as a gift, the bookstore offers free gift wrapping.

There’ll be lots of books, snacks and tasty beverages, so I hope you can make it. I’d love to see you there. Nightbird Books is at 205 W. Dickson Street in Fayetteville. Park in the front or back parking lots. If you can make it to the book bash, let us know by posting a comment here or by sending a quick email by clicking HERE.

Here’s a one-minute video preview of the new book. Click the play arrow below to check it out.

This time it was a question, one of the biggest we’ve faced: “Dad, I know that people die sometimes. And I know we believe in God and Heaven and everything… but what if we’re wrong?”

We probably should have seen it coming. In the past six weeks, we’ve been to two out-of-town funerals for family members. The kids didn’t attend the funerals with us, but they knew why we were leaving them with a sitter.

So there it was, hanging in the air: “What if we’re wrong?” But unlike the proverbial monster under the bed, this fear is all too real.

His innocent question echoed the same one I’ve had myself, the same one millions of us have, if only for a split second. But the question brings with it a familiar stab of shame for what feels like a lack of faith. I’ve grown up in church. I know better. At my core, I believe I’m a child of God. I believe in Heaven, even though my human mind is ill-equipped to imagine it.

Tom believes these things, too, and he did a good job of explaining it last night. He told him it’s okay to have questions and it’s normal to wonder if it’s all really real. It’s okay to talk about it with us and with Sunday school teachers, he said. And it’s even okay to talk to God about it. He knows what we’re thinking, and He can handle it.

After they’d talked for a few minutes, I heard a quiet voice ask, “Is it okay if I sleep in your bed tonight?” Sure. That would be fine, Tom said. Our boy fell asleep quickly after that, with his dad’s reassuring hand resting on his back.

As the two of them drifted off to sleep, I laid awake thinking about how kids eventually get old enough to realize that grown-ups sometimes get things wrong. And if we can be wrong about little things then it means we can be wrong about big things, too. It’s a scary feeling. I pray we’ll be able to assure our kids of the things we know in our hearts to be true. But I also know they’ll have to find their own ways of knowing that God is real.

For me, I see spiritual assurance almost everywhere, when I get out of my own way. It practically demands attention. It’s in the skies and the trees. It’s in massive whales and tiny insects. It’s sunlight and mountains and expansive fields. Oceans and lightning. It’s the fine-tuned complexity of the human body. It’s kindness. Compassion. And love. I felt it so strongly the first moment I looked into the face of our newborn baby – that miracles like this can only come from God, certainly not some grand accident.

All of it convinces me and convicts me of what I know to be true – that a world this creative can only come from a Creator. It’s the reassuring hand of a Heavenly Father resting gently on our backs. And if His first act is this amazing, I can hardly wait to see what He has in store for us next.

# # #

I don’t like it. Never have. I want to like it – badly. I love the way it smells. I love the quaint little coffee shops where it’s served. I love the warmth of the coffee cups and the way the steam rises and curls off its mocha-colored surface.

I like its friendly nicknames, like java and cup of joe. When a waiter comes to the table after dinner and says, “Coffee, Miss?” I want to say, “Yes, I’d love some.” It would be wonderful to cradle the cup in my hand and say intelligent things about coffee beans and what a fine roast it is. But somehow I just never acquired the taste for it. My taste buds never got the memo that coffee is delicious, even though it looks and smells that way.

Sometimes a business associate will suggest we meet for coffee, and I always hope he or she won’t secretly judge me when I order a hot chocolate instead of a fancy cappuccino that the other people in line are waiting for. I barely understand the menu at coffee houses. I have no idea what a Cinnamon Dolce Latte is but it sounds, looks and smells divine. If it didn’t have espresso in it, it would probably taste that way, too.

Of course, there’s a big upside to not drinking coffee. If I calculate the cost of a daily trip to Starbucks and multiply that figure over the past 20 years, I’ve probably saved close to a trillion dollars. But that extra money isn’t sitting in my bank account because I’ve funneled it into other addictions, like shoes, smartphones and far too much Dr. Pepper.

Maybe what I’m missing out on most is the sense of community coffee brings with it. Coffee drinkers are in a club, of sorts, and they understand each other. “I haven’t had my coffee yet,” they joke, and their fellow coffee lovers chuckle and nod. They get it because they’re in the club, too.

I do know exactly one other alleged grown-up who, like me, doesn’t drink coffee. His name is Tom, and I married him. There were other factors involved in that decision beyond our mutual dislike of coffee. But we both remember the exact moment of our first date, when the waiter came to the table to offer us coffee, and we both declined. I mumbled under my breath that I never acquired a taste for it, and he said he didn’t like it either. It was one of the first things we had in common.

But we know our little non-coffee drinking club of two is an anomaly. After we got married, we bought a coffee maker so we can properly entertain houseguests and visitors. It sits in the far reaches of a kitchen cabinet most of the time, and I wash the dust off of it anytime someone comes over who might want a cup. I still have to read the owner’s manual just to use the thing.

After all, I’m not really a grown-up – just a kid trying to make her way in a “good to the last drop” kind of world.

# # #

Most men don’t understand it and have been heard saying ridiculous things such as “It’s just hair.” Or the ever popular “It’ll grow back.” But they miss the whole point. Because our feelings about hair are rooted way down deep. No other part of our bodies has this kind of power over us.

Bad hair can set the tone for the day. A woman wailing “I hate my hair!” while standing in front of the bathroom mirror won’t emerge from that bathroom in a great mood. And bad hair makes the difference between a snapshot that gets deleted and one that becomes a Facebook profile picture. It all comes down to hair.

Right now I’m growing out my bangs, which basically means I’m almost crazy. Ask any woman and she’ll agree that the tricky growing-out process has caused many of us to do irrational things. When bangs begin to grow out, they reach a maddening stage where they’re too long to wear as bangs but too short to tuck behind an ear. I’ve battled mine with hair clips, a flat iron and hairspray but they cannot be tamed. They are a thick, angry hedge, begging to be trimmed.

Many women in this position will lose patience and take scissors into their own hands. They think if they do just a few small snips, it’ll make everything better. But it never works. It’s hair suicide, with one snip leading to another and another until pretty soon you’re standing over a sink full of hair, horrified at the reflection staring back at you.

The beauty industry should set up some kind of hair hotline, staffed by professional stylists trained to talk a woman off the ledge. “Put down the scissors, honey. It’ll look better in the morning. You’re going to be okay.”

I’m hanging in there through these bad hair days because I have a hair dream, as almost all women do. When we want a new look, we comb through magazines until we find celebrity hair that we love. Then we cut out that photo and carry it around in our purse so we can show it to our stylist at the next appointment. Right now I’ve got Katie Couric and Jenny McCarthy’s head in my handbag, hoping one day I, too, will have those long side-swept bangs they wear so well. I have a friend who’s carrying around the head of Victoria Beckham.

Hair is so important to women that we can narrate our personal history via hairstyles. In elementary school, I had an unfortunate affection for yarn-like ribbons used as headbands. Then I went through a Farrah Fawcett feathered bangs period, followed by a horrific perm during the 80s. And one time my mother thought I’d look adorable with a Dorothy Hamill wedge haircut, which, as far as I know, has only looked good on exactly one person – who happens to be Dorothy Hamill.

Then I went through a long-hair hot-roller phase, followed by a super short style that seemed like a good idea when I was pregnant with our third baby. (Women cut their hair when they’re pregnant because it’s the only part of their bodies they can control during those nine months. Plus they’re hormonally insane.)

And now I’m back to my good-old layered bob cut, with bangs that will hopefully grow out soon. Because if they don’t, I may find the hedge trimmer and take care of business. Pass the hairspray.

# # #

For those not familiar with this brand of maternal magic, let me explain. The “mama curse” is spewed out at an exasperating child when the mama is at her wit’s end. There are countless variations on it, but the gist of it goes like this: “One day I hope you have a child who acts exactly the way you’re acting right now! Then you’ll know how it feels.”

When my mom hexed me, I was young and just rolled my eyes in the charming way children sometimes do. Little did I know that a mama curse doesn’t kick in until decades later.

And now my frustrating chickens have come home to roost. I have three kids who, each in their own maddening way, act the way I did. It may be most evident in our daughter Kate, whose heightened response to seemingly trivial things is way too familiar.

When I was about 12 years old, my mother took me to the first of many appointments to see the orthodontist. I sat next to her in the waiting room as she filled out the new patient forms. On one of the forms, there was a question that asked, “Does your child display any of the following characteristics that we need to be aware of?” The possible answers were: Fear of dentist? Aggressive behavior? Overly sensitive?

Without hesitation, my mother checked the box next to “overly sensitive.” I was horrified and hurt – far more than any normal person would be offended by a question on a new patient form.

“What is THAT supposed to mean, Mom? I’m not too sensitive! I’ve never been too sensitive. What are you trying to say? Why would you say something like that about your own daughter? I can’t believe you would do that to me. Now the orthodontist is going to think I’m weird and I’ll be embarrassed and all his assistants will know, too.”

With tears welling up in my eyes and my heartbeat racing, I continued my whispered rant in the waiting room. At the end of it, Mom gave me “the look,” the one that tells you to cut it out now before you make her really mad. Then she said, “THAT is why I checked the box. THAT is what they mean by overly sensitive.”

Fast forward nearly three decades to today. I’m on a piano bench next to 5-year-old Kate who is practicing before her next lesson. Even though she’s doing remarkably well for her age, she is getting more and more upset because she has hit the wrong note three times.

I assure her it’s normal to hit wrong notes when you’re learning to play piano. But she’ll have none of it. Her inner perfectionist demands nothing short of Beethoven quality, and soon there are tears spilling down her cheeks. Then in a dramatic, overly sensitive fashion, she declares she will never, ever, ever learn to play piano because it’s too hard and she can’t do it.

Just like my mother did with me, I let Kate vent her frustration and cry her angry tears to get it out of her system. When she calms down and the world stops coming to an end, we begin again.

As the melody gets stronger, I can almost hear an echo of the mama curse ringing in my ears. And finally I understand just exactly how Mom felt.

# # #

But before my first writing gig, I tried other jobs. I was 18 when I snagged my first real position as a dog washer at a local grooming salon. I loved dogs and had plenty of experience washing my own so it sounded like a fun, easy summer job.And it did turn out to be fun, but it was never easy – especially the first day. I’m not sure if the owner was trying to get me to quit or just had a cruel sense of humor. Instead of easing me into the job with patient instruction, she tossed me into the doggie deep-end by assigning me a Saint Bernard to wash and dry during my first day on the job.

Thankfully, the Saint Bernard was sweet so I didn’t worry about getting bit or scratched. But it soon became clear that a back sprain was a definite possibility. This gentle giant was also the laziest, heaviest animal I’ve ever met. His only trick was the “dead weight” game, at which he was a master.The sink at the grooming salon wasn’t big enough for him, so my boss suggested I wash him in a horse trough outside. But Bernard wasn’t interested in jumping into the trough, no matter how much I coaxed and begged. And there was no dog crane on site with which to lift him up and over the side. So I mustered all my determination and picked him up, one half at a time, and lifted him into the trough.

After scrubbing and rinsing for an hour, I was as wet as the Saint Bernard but at least he was clean. My boss came back with a hair dryer and told me I could leave for the day once the dog’s hair was dry. But drying the incredibly thick hair of a dog that’s roughly the size of a Ford Focus takes a while, so the joke was on me.

When I showed up for work again the next morning, my boss seemed genuinely surprised that putting me through the Saint Bernard gauntlet hadn’t run me off for good. So she took it easier on me that second day, asking me to wash a few poodles and a Schnauzer who were so accustomed to doggie spa treatments that they practically asked me for a bottle of Perrier and peeled grapes.

After the Schnauzer and poodles were trimmed and fluffed, she told me that the little brown poodle named Coco needed her nails done. Not just trimmed and filed, mind you. Every two weeks, Princess Coco got a mani-pedi featuring bright red polish, and I was her newest manicurist.

I thought painting poodle toe nails was fun until I realized I’d forgotten one critical step – holding the dog’s paw in order to keep the nails separated from each other as they dried. By the time I’d painted those last few nails on the fourth paw, the first three sets of nails had dried and stuck together. Coco could barely walk with those red nails cemented together. So I had to redo the mani-pedi, being careful to hold the nails apart and blow on them until they were dry.

It was the first job among many that taught me I was probably better off with prepositions and participles versus Saint Bernards and poodle pedicures. Live and learn.

# # #

But before that happens, I’ve got to clean up around here. Why? Because the house cleaners are coming!

Tom always thinks I’m nuts when I fly into my pre-cleaning routine before our bi-weekly Swat Team of Clean arrives. But women understand the two reasons why we clean right before the house cleaners come:

1. Because we don’t want the house cleaners to think we’re slobs.
2. Because the cleaners will be able to clean more thoroughly if they’re not dodging our clutter.

That last one is the only good reason to pre-clean before the cleaners come, but the truth is that the first reason has a lot more to do with it. I’m not sure why women worry about whether or not our house cleaners think we’re slobs, but we do. If I asked our housekeeper about it, I imagine she’d say she rather likes the job security slobs provide. Dirty houses have allowed her to build her own successful business.

After I got married 14 years ago, I never thought I’d have a house cleaning service. I assumed I could do it all myself and worried that, if I didn’t, Martha Stewart would show up at our door with a judgmental stare and revoke my “good homemaker” card.

But after our first two kids were born, I was barely keeping up with laundry, housework and writing deadlines. I was driving myself crazy trying to get it all done. When I got pregnant with our third child and was put on partial bed rest, I finally ripped off the Supermom cape and hired Diana, the house-cleaning savior who swooped into our lives and showed me what I’d been missing.

For the first few months that Diana and her crew came to clean, I felt terribly guilty about it. Part of me wanted to follow her around apologizing for the glob of toothpaste dried onto the kids’ sink or the apple juice that had made the kitchen floor sticky.

But over time I learned to let go of the guilt and instead appreciate how great it was to have the whole house cleaned in a few hours’ time instead of the week it would have taken me to do those same things on my own.

By the time my due date arrived, I was officially in love with my house cleaners. They were like my own magical fairies who flew in to make everything beautiful again.

Shortly after our third baby was born and bed rest was over, Tom asked if we should discontinue the house cleaning service. I laughed – a good, hard laugh – and told him we could discontinue it as long as he promised to take over the round-the-clock breastfeeding I was doing. He saw it my way after that.

Of course, having a house cleaning service does add another expense to the budget. Many people decide to deal with a little domestic dirt or clean it themselves rather than pay that fee. But I’ve decided that, as nice as a newer car might be, I’d rather skip the car payment and keep the cleaners. The sense of calm I get from the gleaming floors makes it worth it.

Now I better get busy straightening up around here. The house cleaners are coming and this place is a mess.

# # #

It started shortly after we adopted Charlie. For weeks we tried to convince him that the things he kept digging out of the cat’s litter box were not, in fact, gravel-coated candy bars. I was disgusted and had to fashion a hiding spot for the litter box so Charlie wouldn’t use it like a snack bar.

There are also times I find Charlie happily chewing on his own back leg, as if it’s a toy and not actually connected to his body. To prevent him from gnawing it off, I give him and his backyard companion E.J. rawhide chew sticks.

Charlie happily takes his chew stick and trots off with it. But when he notices E.J. getting a chew stick, too, suddenly he doesn’t want his stick anymore. He wants E.J.’s stick, and he wants it bad. So he drops his own stick and circles around E.J., nudging and bumping him until he pries it from his jaws, at which point Charlie snatches it and sprints to the other side of the yard in victory.

Because E.J. is much older and wiser and has no energy for puppy shenanigans, he doesn’t object to having his chew stick snatched. He simply picks up the perfectly good chew stick Charlie abandoned and then he lumbers away to eat it in peace. The Beagle is convinced that a stolen chew stick is the superior one, even though they are exactly the same.

Our Beagle is also confused about when he is and isn’t needed for guard-dog duties. He barks – a lot. The new neighbors on either side of our house probably wish we’d move to Alaska. Charlie barks at squirrels, moles, birds, lawn mowers, rustling leaves, moving clouds, neighbors who go for a walk, neighbors who check the mailbox and neighbors who come within 200 yards of the wrought-iron fence where he stands watch.

I’ve tried teaching him that not everything that moves is a threat, but he doesn’t seem to hear me. He’s too busy barking. So at night, we let him sleep on an enclosed back porch so he won’t bark and wake the neighbors. Once inside, he typically settles down on a blanket next to E.J. and they snooze peacefully until daybreak.

But one night last week, at around 3 a.m. Charlie launched a full-scale barking assault on the back porch. I assumed he’d spotted a raccoon or a mole out the window and would settle down once it disappeared from view. But he kept on barking despite all my shushing and finger-pointing.

The next morning, we discovered what had triggered Charlie’s all-night bark-fest. It was a white plastic shopping bag we’d left by the back door. By the light of the moon, it must have taken on a ghostly appearance that scared all the sense out of Charlie because he “protected” us against that plastic bag for over an hour. You’ve heard of the boy who cried wolf? Ours is the dog who barked “bag.”

When we brought Charlie home, we asked a dog trainer to help us civilize him and she did a great job. He learned to sit, stay, and he can even shake hands on command. It’s very cute.

But now what I really need is a lesson on how to make Charlie shut up.

# # #

For the first time in more than a decade, I’ll have seven whole hours stretching in front of me once the three of them walk through those elementary school doors. I’m mostly happy about it. It has been so long since I was able to work and write uninterrupted that I’m not even sure I’ll know how to handle it. I’ve become accustomed to the sudden starts and stops of working in a noisy house where someone always needs a grilled cheese sandwich or a Band-Aid or a witness to their new high score on Super Mario Brothers.

The thought of that much time to myself sounds decadent. I can finally clean out those closets and work on that photo album and tackle the long list of projects that get put off for another day. Heck, I might even stop and take a little cat nap if I want to. No one will be here to wake me and ask for a juice box and a game of Connect Four.

But that’s what makes me a little sad, too – the fact that no one will be here to ask for a juice box and play time. Kate won’t crawl into my lap while I’m at the computer and ask me what I’m writing about. My babies – my best and most important work – will be off chasing their own adventures at school.

As much as I’m looking forward to some peaceful hours on my own, I also wonder if I’ll still feel like a mama if I don’t have a baby on my hip or a toddler to tag along with me to Target. Will I still feel as needed if I’m not shuttling a preschooler to play dates or reading picture books before naptime? It’s not just the kids who are growing up and changing. It happens to mothers, too.

Other moms who have already cleared this hurdle tell me that life will be different but I’ll adjust quickly. They say those seven peaceful hours will go by in a blur and get filled with work and errands and the countless responsibilities we all juggle in addition to kids. They say the main difference is that I’ll get to go to lunch with a grown-up when I want to and not feel the need to pick a restaurant with chicken nuggets on the menu. I’ve got to admit – that does sound nice.

Having all three kids in school will hopefully bring a little more balance to the day – some quiet hours to work while the kids are away, balanced out by the flurry of activity that rushes in when the bus drops them off at 3:15 p.m. There will still be after-school grilled cheese sandwiches to make. There’ll be basketball practices and gymnastics lessons and swim team sessions to shuttle them to and from. And there will be homework, of course, to fill in the gaps.

As they walk away from me Monday morning, I’ll be walking away from this phase of my life – a phase that has pushed me to my physical and emotional limits at times but one that has also blessed me with so many incredible moments. Raising human beings is the ultimate adventure. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

# # #