Latest / Complex Kids, Simple Solutions / The Christmas Witch Who Saw the World Differently | Leigh Crawshaw
Transcript
- In-Person: Hello everyone, welcome back to Complex Skid Simple Solutions. I am so excited today to have one of my friends who we met through the advocacy world and Lee is amazing. Welcome Lee. Leigh Crawshaw: Hello, how are you? In-Person: Huh. Good. Okay. So Lee is like this person who knows a lot about a lot. And so yes, she is. Leigh Crawshaw: Mm, mm. In-Person: She totally is. So and we develop this relationship, this friendship through online. I've never met her in person, but we've become friends over the last I don't know a year or so. And I wanted to have her on the podcast because she is releasing her book and I am telling her that I've been wanting this book for like to read it and she will not give it to me. So we're gonna talk about it today. Can we do that, Lee? Leigh Crawshaw: Jay So excited, yes. In-Person: Yes. Okay. So tell us about the book. Tell us what like just an overall though we're gonna talk about it a little bit more. Leigh Crawshaw: Okay. So it is a children's book Christmas story, even though it's applicable all year round. the title of it is George's Snowy Christmas Eve Ride. And without giving away the whole goody parts of the story, she is a witch and she loves to fly. She loves the darkness of her forest where she lives and all the nighttime animals that she has there, all her friends. And so every night she goes out flying, you know, just to enjoy herself. And she always flies out of the forest eventually and heads towards a town just to see if she can be a little bit mischievous. And she's not scary, In-Person: Mm-hmm. Leigh Crawshaw: she's not out to get anybody, she's just out to have fun. And so one night when she was flying, it started to snow, and as she got closer to town, the town was extremely bright, which she doesn't like because she likes the darkness. And so she went around and got closer and then she realized it was Christmas and she was not happy because what happens to our towns and cities at Christmas time? They're bright, right? They're very bright. And so In-Person: Bright lights. Leigh Crawshaw: we are anyway, so she doesn't like all of that, and so she devises a plan again, not mean. But she devises a plan to make herself happy. Yeah, but In-Person: Chess She's a witch Yeah Leigh Crawshaw: but she's not a witch. She's a happy witch. She's a mischievous witch. In-Person: Okay. Leigh Crawshaw: She's not a mean witch. She's not out to hurt anyone. She's out to take care of herself and In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: meet her need. And so she goes out and she sets her plan in place. And through the flying around the city, she runs into somebody. Can anybody guess who that might be? she runs into somebody and that important somebody helps give her a different perspective and helps her with the problem that she is having in the story and and helps her move on her way and realize that okay brightness is okay I can deal with this in this kind of sort In-Person: Awesome. Leigh Crawshaw: of way so yeah so it's a wonderful it's In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: a wonderful story. it's based off of well I don't know if it's based off of when I was little My brother and I were told a story by my grandmother. And her version is very different than my version, but I took that story In-Person: Mm-hmm. Leigh Crawshaw: and it has carried with me. So the best I can do is guess that it was when I was about five. And I've carried that In-Person: Wow. Leigh Crawshaw: with me through high school. And then like a sophomore year, I had a a children's lit class, and I took that. I we had to write two stories, and so I had her story in my head. So I took her story and rewrote it and made it my own story in high school and then carry forward another hundred and eighty years. forward many, many, many, In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: right? I always say how old I am. So In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: all these years later I rewrote it again and am now publishing it. So Miriam Laundry Publishing is publishing it and I have a magnificent, magnificent illustrator illustrating it. Fernando Lopez Juarez out of Madrid, Spain, and it is phenomenal. And it's coming out on Tuesday the sixth. yeah, I'm so excited. Yay! Tuesday the sixth on Amazon, In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: on Amazon, and Barnes and Noble is showing some interest too, and that kind of stuff. So it's a very exciting time. In-Person: I I was I was like so excited for this book. And the one of the the interesting things is the name of the witch. It's a George. George is a male name. So why? Why George? Leigh Crawshaw: Because her name is Geor her name is Georgetta. In-Person: Georgetta. Okay, and she goes by Geor it's still. Leigh Crawshaw: But we call her George, In-Person: Well, okay. You know, that's okay. Leigh Crawshaw: And and you know, n names are not male or female, names are just who you are and what your parents think and so it's just it's In-Person: Yeah, yeah. It's true. Leigh Crawshaw: and to me George sounds like fun. And that is the In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: name that my grandmother had for her. So that that did carry forward. So that name is In-Person: okay. yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: sixty years old. So yeah. In-Person: Nice. Well, you know, I do have a Rio at home. And when you in Portuguese, Rio is river and it's a it's a masculine when it you put an Leigh Crawshaw: Right. In-Person: O in front of river. And so when I when we go home, my parents, my well, my parents thought that I was crazy. And my brothers and sisters, they were like, What are you doing? What are you doing? It's gonna be so weird to call her A. He you. And so this is gonna be different. But you know, a again it's it's what you wanna call your whatever you're inventing, your child, your witch. Yeah. There you go. Leigh Crawshaw: Your child, George is my child. George is my child for sure. For sure. I she has lived for sixty years up on a shelf. And so when In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: generally when I talk about her, I know where she is parked in her original format is up on my shelf. And so she I mean, that's where she has lived forever is on my shelf. And I've always said I wanted to publish her. I've never someone In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: asked me how long I've wanted to be an author, and I'm like, I don't I've never thought of myself as an author. I just had a story to tell. And so it In-Person: Mm-hmm. Leigh Crawshaw: came out in George. And George is wonderful and fun. And so when you see the cover, I'll be happy to show the cover over if you want to let me share. she'll In-Person: Yeah. Yeah, of course. Leigh Crawshaw: let's see, do I have to request a share on here for you? In-Person: I don't even know. Can you just do you have the book on you? I know. Leigh Crawshaw: You don't know. We're gonna try this out. Say that again. In-Person: Well, the the majority of people are listening to this on podcast and so unless they're Leigh Crawshaw: So we won't do that. In-Person: watching YouTube, then I don't think that do you have a book that you can hold up or no? Okay, alright, not a problem. But Leigh Crawshaw: I do not have my own hard copy yet. So In-Person: my goodness. Okay, well, we're gonna Leigh Crawshaw: No, no. In-Person: that's crazy. But I love it. I love it. Leigh Crawshaw: But you can see the cover on on my Instagram In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: and on my Facebook pages. You can see those c the cover there. In-Person: Yeah. Yeah. That's perfect. And and and I've shared too, so if you follow me, it will be on there. 'cause I think that it's so dang cute and she's cute. And I so the darkness and the light. So, you know, I it that was very interesting to me because and I started thinking just because of the the line of work that you and I would do, which is, you know, supporting the kids with special needs. When you look at the darkness and the light, like I I as soon as you said that something came to mind. It's like, you know, these kids sometimes they're in the darkness and we are trying to bring them into the light. Right? Leigh Crawshaw: Interesting. In-Person: So anyway, it that was just it it was it went straight to that 'cause I don't know why. I just I Leigh Crawshaw: I think it's just we always have we all have our preferences, right? Our our special In-Person: Mm-hmm. Leigh Crawshaw: needs kids have their preferences and often we want them to fit into what our preferences are. And so we have to be aware and be willing to work to hear them in whatever manner that they speak to us. because In-Person: Yes. Leigh Crawshaw: every child, just like every adult, speaks in a different manner. Some people very clearly and some not so. In-Person: Mm-hmm. Leigh Crawshaw: So I that's a good tie in. In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: I like that. I yeah, I can see that. Thank you. I like that. In-Person: Yeah, I I don't know. I'm you know, just my my crazy brain sometimes goes down these you know, you know that. We talk a lot and it's you know, I have my little my little rabbit holes that every once in a while I go down in. But you know, I think that and I I can't wait for the book because my Drake Everybody knows about Drake. This is why I do everything that I do right now. But Drake loves, and when I mean loves, I mean loves Christmas. He Leigh Crawshaw: cool. In-Person: loves it so much that the other day he figured out a way to get in the attic, went all the way up there and went through the Christmas stuff and found his elf. His elf on the shelf. Leigh Crawshaw: Yeah, yeah. In-Person: and his elf mates and he has been carrying those those elves around for the past month and a half and so and he's talking about when they're gonna come and then he he gets cinnamon all over it because all over his elf because then it's gonna bring his powers back. That's what people say you put cinnamon on them like the you know if you touch those Leigh Crawshaw: I've not heard that. Interesting. In-Person: yeah if you touch the elf on the shelf you have to give them the powers back and so you just have to sprinkle cinnamon on them. But then two minutes later he's already holding the elf on the shelf. So the power is never working. but he loves this and so I'm really excited to have that. And on top of it all, like I think Christmas is such a beautiful time where, you know, we do see the lights and we do feel like we I say it we're nicer to people, I think. We're kinder. We are we get in this and I wish that it we carried it out throughout the year, but we're just kinder. We're nicer. I I don't know what else what other word to say besides we're nicer to people. And so Leigh Crawshaw: I think we think more about if you're in if you're a gift giver, you're thinking more in line of about that person, who they are, what they might like, In-Person: Yes. Leigh Crawshaw: not so much about yourself and but like, hmm, will they like this or not? And searching for something that fits with them. In-Person: And you just said something perfect because you are taking it away from yourself because most of the year we we're just trying to survive, we're trying to get the kids to school, we're trying to make sure that things don't get, you know, forgotten. We're trying to do all these things and then Christmas is the time that instead of looking at me, me, me, you're looking at somebody else. And so Leigh Crawshaw: We hope. In-Person: Y well, yes, we hope. But I think that in in general exa so Leigh Crawshaw: Yeah, and that's kinda what George does. Yeah, that's what George does. Exactly. In-Person: yeah, yeah. So it all ties into, you know, Christmas and George and the lights. Now, okay, so you explained to us it kind of came from your grandmother, right? Leigh Crawshaw: Right. In-Person: And then the story now the story changed throughout the years or is it pretty the same from your grandma to now? Leigh Crawshaw: it's it's changed significantly. The base In-Person: Okay. Leigh Crawshaw: of it is still there, but it has changed significantly because it had, you know, it was a bedtime story that she just off the top of her head told. And for whatever reason, In-Person: Mm-hmm. That's crazy. Leigh Crawshaw: it stuck with me. And it's craziness. In-Person: Mm-hmm. Leigh Crawshaw: My older brother was in the room. My younger brother that I asked about it when I told him I was even doing this. I said, do you remember this? And he was like, no. So that's what made me land on the age. I had to be four or five when you start really remembering things. And then I hang on to it until In-Person: wow. huh. Leigh Crawshaw: I'm a sophomore in high school. I mean, how bizarre is that? And then now, In-Person: Yeah. Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: even from there, 40 plus years later, it becomes a book. So yeah, it's changed significantly when I look at the two books. Like that one's maybe 10 pages long, and mine is 44 pages. So it's a longer children's book, but the In-Person: wow, okay. Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: Illustrations are so rich. They are so incredibly rich. It I just like, how could I have made it shorter? There just wasn't a way. In-Person: Yeah. And I remember you telling me how excited you were to work with your illustrator, and how like he really made George and put a face to who George was in your head and he was able to put that on paper. That's a hard thing to do. Leigh Crawshaw: It is. I'm I'm in awe of him and I've told him that because I I had my mom illustrated my first book and In-Person: Mm-hmm. Leigh Crawshaw: and so I thought I wanted it to look like that, but then we couldn't use her, so I just kind of let that go. And then when he sent me his first offer of who George was, I was like, That's her. I had no idea what she looked and In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: I talking for the first time visually, you know, we were like, In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: that's you. And so that's what it was. In-Person: Yeah, yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: There wasn't anything else. It was that is who George is and he nailed it. And so it's In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: yeah. And so it's coming out in Spanish also. So I have an interpreter, In-Person: Okay. Leigh Crawshaw: yeah, Maria Solano, and she's a local translator and so she's been busy working on it. So it will be two languages, so and two two different books for anyone who's interested. In-Person: You should do it in Portuguese. Send it you sh Leigh Crawshaw: Say that again in Portuguese. In-Person: and send it down to Brazil. Yeah. I actually I Leigh Crawshaw: Yeah, that would be cool. In-Person: was thinking I was I was trying to think of what I would do with your books and one of the things like every year I always do I always send these you know, we we do like we take Christmas pictures or family pictures, you know not Christmas, but family pictures actually I need to start like probably get on the the phone and figure out because she just gets so busy in October. But we take family pictures and then we send the picture, you know, with a a Christmas card to our friends. Last year was such a crazy time of year that it was the first year since I've been with my husband. That we have not sent a Christmas card to people. So I was like, you know what, this year to make it up for my family, maybe I'll send it with the book because I think that it's gonna be fun. And Drake is gonna have a great time putting the book in a big envelope to send it down to Brazil to the close family and the friends that we have. So we're excited. Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: Appreciate that. That makes me feel so extra special. wow. In-Person: Yeah, we'll do that for for the you know, for Christmas. So I mean we I d I don't know if I told you the story, Lee, but in my my kids they have this the secret and I hope that they don't ever listen to this. I think that they're trying to figure I think they already figured out that it's not true. But one year we were it was Halloween and they they were little. They were being so awful. They're screaming. It was just we were in Vegas and it like with with John's parents and it was just they were just not listening. And I mean, I don't know, Drake must have been like five, real, you know, three. I don't know. They're pretty young. Then all of a sudden it was Halloween time and they would not stop. And so I say Did you guys see that? Did you see that up in the sky? I just saw a witch. And they were like, what? And I was like, yes. I used to be a witch, so my witch friends are coming to get you guys if you don't stop. So Leigh Crawshaw: You did not. In-Person: I did. So Leigh Crawshaw: Mm-hmm. In-Person: I am telling you that this story has stuck. Drake is 12, Rio is nine. And they still come to me and they go, Can I tell my friends your secret that you're a witch? And Rio's in fourth grade. In first grade, she was telling everybody in her class how her mom was a witch. So for all these years, I have been a witch. And like Drake, who's a really, you know, he's he's very, he's very young. when it comes to these things and he's like, Mom, when am I gonna go to Hogwarts? You know, you went there and so I'm like, my gosh. So now I went to Hogwarts and I had to give up and I'm telling you these stories. I had to give up my wand because I wanted to come here and have kids and marry dad. And so all of these stories have come up because I'm a witch. And so I think that they're finally figuring it out that I'm not. But I really wish that I was. Leigh Crawshaw: Well you get you get invested in your stories. I mean you get invested in your stories. In-Person: Nh Leigh Crawshaw: Wow. In-Person: my gosh. And so you know, it's funny because to this day, like some of the moms that were like 'cause you know, the kids they stay in their classrooms and like here there's not a mout of a lot of movement, you know, so Rio's friends are the same from when she was little and you know, all of that. And so To this day, like the some of the moms come up and say, Hey, I remember when Rhea was telling everybody that you're a witch, and I was like, great, you know, yeah, I'm I'm a witch. And my witch Leigh Crawshaw: Mm-hmm. In-Person: friends come out and if you're not being good, they're gonna come out and get you or do something to you. So so Leigh Crawshaw: You were funny. In-Person: maybe at some point in my life I was George's friend. So yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: Love it. In-Person: I yeah. I love I love these stories and I think that as a mom, I think that these stories, like you know, Christmas stories and stories about witches and wizards, it really like there's a time in their little brains when they still believe in it. And I remember when I was little that I would read these books and it would just like it would take you into the story. Like it it's like you know, you're part of it because you believe in it. And so I I think that I'm so excited to w to meet George. I keep saying that. I'm excited to meet George. Leigh Crawshaw: Well, I'm so appreciate that. And she's she is a transitional book. I mean, she's really because of the lesson she's teaching, but she is a transitional 'cause it's it can be Halloween and what does a witch do, you know, during another season, you know, and In-Person: Yeah, that's true. Leigh Crawshaw: so it's it's a it's a transitional kind of book for it. So it's really good too. My dog just came in and he's In-Person: Yeah. Yeah, and I it's all good. Yeah. Mine I have to keep it her outside 'cause she just barks anytime she hears anything. So I can't record when she's around. That's craziness. But okay, Lee. So I know we're gonna do part two about something that you know a lot of. But right now, I always ask this towards the end of the podcast. It's I and I'm gonna ask you again on the next one that we record. But, you know, think about the podcast. This podcast is for the moms, majority like parents really, who are raising the children that you and I we serve, right? The complex kids. And so what do you have like what is the one thing that you want moms and dads, the parents to get out of today's you know Episode with. Leigh Crawshaw: kids grow up unless there's a a medical situation that unfortunately will not allow that. But kids grow up and they show us who they are and we need to listen. I was listening In-Person: Mm-hmm. Leigh Crawshaw: to somebody talk yesterday about how much her adult, her seventeen, eighteen year old child loves to mow grass. You know, and it's like would mow all day. In-Person: Mm, mm-hmm. Leigh Crawshaw: So there's a job right there. Now you have to In-Person: Yeah. Leigh Crawshaw: fight them, find the right employee, that kind employer, sorry, employer for that kind of stuff. But w we grow up. I say we because I started out in the back of my book says that I started out with a very yeah, struggle, struggle, struggle reading. and so and that In-Person: Mm-hmm. Leigh Crawshaw: that struggle continues. It takes me a little bit longer than takes everybody else, but I've learned how to work it. So it's not usually most people don't ever know about it. Now I'm putting it out into the world. But In-Person: Mm-hmm. Leigh Crawshaw: But we grow up and we find our ways, and there's different levels of what the what the issues are. And so some people need more help than other people, but we have to listen to what our kids are showing us and try can't always In-Person: Mm-hmm. Leigh Crawshaw: do it, but try to find those things that they're interested in to use that to gear them towards some s some sort of independence. It may never be full independence. But some sort of independence that then creates a sense of pride. And we not pride up from us to them that we are proud of them, but they feel pride in what they are doing. And they look forward to what they are doing, going to work, going to the store and helping somebody, whatever it is, we we have to work to develop that. And if we listen to the kids because they are going to grow up and It becomes a good thing. They do. Ha ha And it changes. That's the thing. You have a kiddo who's interested in this right now. So you're working hard for that. You're working on how to work this. And then suddenly they're not interested in that. And you have to veer and not fight the change because any child is going to do that. I'm interested in becoming an astronaut. Okay, let's go to the museum. But then it's like, I don't want to do that. What are you talking about? And so you have to follow that that lead, that change, and be open to whatever ways. I have three adult male children. and growing up, I always told them they could do anything that they wanted to do as long as they were happy, right? If you want to be an attorney, if you want to be a a garbage man, I don't care. You just need to be happy in what you're doing and be able to sustain yourself. And so that's the ultimate goal. And sustaining yourself comes in different levels for different kids, different adults. Caddo. Thank you. Thank you.