Lynn's Comments: April's birth connected me to a whole new group of readers—new moms who wanted to tell me what was going on in their homes. This happened to me and to many others!
Lynn's Comments: I don’t think I have ever been as exhausted as when I was up all night with my babies. My husband often said he'd take on half the nighttime routine, but when he had to go to work in the morning and I was nursing, it just made more sense for me to handle it all.
Lynn's Comments: Not wanting the family to settle into a comfortable routine, I decided to introduce the "helpful" relative who shows up to make life easier and winds up making everything a whole lot worse!
Lynn's Comments: Everyone has that well- meaning relative who wants to help but is no help at all. They always show up at births, deaths and other times where this kind of help is the last thing you need.
Lynn's Comments: Because there had never been a cat in the strip, I decided to add one that was less than friendly. Stuff like this gave me lots to work with; maybe too much!
Lynn's Comments: Gossiping was an area where I could really let out a good rant! For Better or For Worse became a bit of a forum for this sort of thing.
Lynn's Comments: I had the opportunity to put in a name that wouldn’t be linked to a featured character in the strip. Cecily Beard is a dear friend and at the time we had lost touch. By putting her name in the strip, I was able to connect with her after almost 30 years. We met at the airport, arms around each other, crying and laughing and saying "you haven’t changed at all!"
Lynn's Comments: When I was about 15, my dad's mother came to live with us for a few weeks. Weeks turned into months. It was my room she was given and I had to sleep in the unfinished basement. No matter how nicely my folks fixed it up, I was still banished from my own bed—looking at studs and drywall, watching for spiders and listening for things that go bump in the night. During the day, I'd go into my room for clothes and school supplies, and grandma's teeth would grin at me from a jar on my bedside table. I loved my grandmother but I was glad when she left so I could go back to the security and familiarity of my own space. My room smelled like "Grandma" for ages!
Lynn's Comments: I was expected to do a comic strip that would expose the realities of family life. "Tell it like it is" from a woman's point of view. Sometimes the truth hurts.
Lynn's Comments: The scenarios that took place in grocery stores and pharmacies were fun to draw, but the artists who helped to ink and colour the backgrounds for me hated them—there were just too many little details.