By Courtney Sheinmel, www.courtneysheinmel.com

When I was younger, there were two things I knew I would have in my life as an adult: kids and writing.
 
I am not yet a mother, a fact that sometimes makes me sad, and sometimes makes me anxious. But the truth is, adulthood still looks a lot like I expected it would. My life is full of kids who I consider to be my own—five nieces and nephews, a godson, and a number of my friends’ kids. I am fairly certain that they would tell you they belong to me, too.
 
Their names fill the books that I write.
 
My first few books were written for an older kid audience—tweens and teens. And then I was in London visiting my stepbrother’s family. My niece, Sara, who was in second grade at the time, pointed out that I’d never written anything she could read. “You only write things for Nicki,” she said. (Nicki is my eldest niece.) So I wrote a book called STELLA BATTS NEEDS A NEW NAME, about an 8-year-old and her younger sister, whose parents own a candy store. I didn’t know it until well after it was finished that it would have any audience beyond Sara and her kid sister, Tesa. I certainly didn’t anticipate that it would be the first in a series. But now there are four STELLA books out in the world, and four more on the way.

  
 
In retrospect, it seems it was inevitable, as the girls give me so much material and make me into a better writer. I notice things in the world because they remind me to notice: a flash of color on a bird’s wing, a mysterious gooey substance on the sidewalk. I love when they hear things just a little bit off, but somehow their versions seem spot-on. My recent favorite: “MADhattan,” instead of “Manhattan.” When corrected, Tesa asked, “Why isn’t it Ladyhattan?” They are so similar, they are sometimes mistaken for twins, and yet they are so completely just themselves, individuals—one petite ball of energy, one tall and introspective. How could I not write about them? When we’re together, I keep my BlackBerry close at hand, not because I want to read all the emails that come in, but because I know they will say clever, adorable, and yes, sometimes annoying things, and I want to get it all down.
 
The first STELLA book was dedicated to Sara and Tesa. And though the subsequent books in the series are dedicated to other kids in my life, the truth is that every one of the STELLA books is really for—and because of—those girls. I live 3500 miles away from them, and working on the series, channeling them regularly, keeps them pretty close. (And I hope that for them, having the books on their shelves, keeps me in their everyday lives, too.)
 
As a general rule, I don’t subscribe to the idea that things happen for a reason. I think things happen by chance, and then we add the meaning. Still, sometimes I think maybe I wasn’t meant to have kids just yet because I’ve been so immersed in the girls’ childhoods, and the childhoods of my other niece and nephews, and of my friends’ kids. And my own kids, when and if they come, will get a mother who’s a bit more worn in and has some pretty good bedtime stories stockpiled.
 
I went to London last week to visit Sara and Tesa. I was on a deadline (STELLA #6) but taking a break, sitting on the couch with the kids, my computer in another room down the hall, per their request. Tesa twisted her arm up and around my neck. Behind us, her older sister was braiding my hair.
 
In that moment, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be—exactly where I wanted to be.
 
“Let’s sit here and cuddle and you don’t have to write about it,” Tesa said.
 
I think I showed a lot of restraint waiting until now to do so, don’t you?

Photos: Courtesy of Courtney Sheinmel
Published: March 26, 2013