I've been meditating on this passage a LOT this week

[pegkerr]

From Lois McMaster Bujold's The Vor Game:

[after Miles Vorkosigan made a difficult, strategic decision to disobey a possible criminal order from his superior officer and ended up getting cashiered out of his military command, he has to go home and face his father, Aral Vorkosigan, the regent of Barrayar] Miles looked up at his father. "Did ... I do the right thing, sir? Last night?"

"Yes," said the count simply. "A right thing. Perhaps not the best of all possible right things. Three days from now you may think of a cleverer tactic, but you were the man on the ground at the time. I try not to second-guess my field commanders."

That is what parenting has been like lately. You think when you bring this darling angelic baby home from the hospital, that if you can just figure out how to keep this darling angelic baby from squalling her lungs out and sleep all the way through the night, your troubles will be over. But it's not like that. Your challenges become greater as the child grows older, and wouldn't you know it, there is no owner's manual. There is no one to tell you, when you have to make difficult decisions for your child, that you are doing the right thing. That has sometimes been extremely hard for me, even perhaps the hardest thing of all about being a parent. But it's comforting to reflect, when I'm deep in the trenches of parenthood, making the tough decisions that get me reviled by this child that I love, that I can do a right thing. Not the definitive right thing, because perhaps there just isn't one.

This week, I'm hanging onto that all that I can.

Edited to add: Dagnabbit, why aren't any of the Vorkosigan books available for the Nook?

Comments

[wintercreek]

I think they're all up in a Nook-compatible format, for free no less, here at thefifthimperium.com. Let's hear it for Baen and their free ebook stance!

[cyllan]

They are! I downloaded them all when I first got my nook. :-)

[sraun]

All but one - Memory, if mine serves me correctly.

Peg - two things. The format you want is epub. Also, you have to side-load them - use the USB connector, the Nook should show up as a drive on your computer, drag&drop to the Nook. AIUI, they'll then show up as 'Unshelved'.

[pegkerr]

Thank you! I've downloaded them.

I wonder why they didn't include Memory?

[sraun]

My understanding is that it was actually a production error. They meant to include Memory, but, IIRC, this was when Arnold of Webscriptions (who prepared all their e-books) had just been incapacitated, and it was just missed in all the stress.

[pegkerr]

Awesome! Thank you! I've downloaded them all and put them on my Nook. I am so grateful!

[phoenixsong]

*hug* I've got a one-year-old with chronic health issues we're STILL trying to get nailed down. And before he was born, I swore I never wanted to be the parent who dragged her kid from one doctor to another over stupid stuff. Instead, today we potentially added a third specialist to his list of healthcare providers -- for cause.

That is to say, I know that hanging on feeling all too well. :( *hug* It's all we've got to go on.