Here’s a thought: Next time you, say, are thinking of a blog title for your blog, consider the possibility that you may one day meet the people who read your blog. Imagine the moment when you arrive at, say, a dinner for mom bloggers in your area, very late, mind you, and as you walk in you realize you must introduce yourself via your blog name which, horrifyingly, draws attention to your very bad hair cut.

This was my awful realization as I walked in to meet my fellow Philly mom bloggers last night at my very first bloggy meet up. Did I mention I was late? Yes, I was very late. All were seated when I arrived. And as I came in I got to tell everyone who I was when I realized that upon revealing which blog I wrote, every single one of the 20 or so ladies would then be glancing up to my hair, which, unfortunately, looks like crap as of late. Boo.

But the dinner was great! It was so exciting to finally meet some fellow bloggers face to face. Thank you so much to Colleen of Classy Mommy and Jo-Lynne of Musings of a Housewife for organizing such a wonderful event. We’re totally excited about the circus so thank you to Mom Central. And a big thank you to Graco for feeding me and giving some mommies some swank car seats, and particularly Lindsay, who talked me into checking out Twitter, which still scares me but I’m at least set up now. We’ll see if I stick with that or not . . .

So yeah, when considering blog titles, note to self: do not draw attention to any physical attribute that you are not comfortable with a large group of people simultaneously checking out. Got that?

For excellent blog names, however, I’ve loved browsing around on Alltop. There are some really clever blog names out there, and it’s always nice to go through the big ol’ list and say, “Oh, I know her. And I know her!” I am quite humbled to be among them.

There’s a whole lot going on in blog world right now. I’m not sure how to keep up with it all. As I said, the Twitter thing freaks me out a bit. I pretty much am always behind on my blog reading/commenting and even posting, and I just don’t know how people do all of this.

I’ve been having blog-related anxiety. And I think I need to evaluate why it is that I do this and what it is that I want from it. How about you? Do you ever feel like you’ve lost sight of why you started in the first place and get just sort of caught up in the hoo-hah?

Labels: Bloggy Stuff - Memes/Links/Business

We live next door to three fairy princesses, dancing sprites, thin-bodied frolicking goddesses; we live next door to three girls. When we take walks or spend time in our yard, they are usually out. They blow bubbles, twirl in the grass, roll down their hill, and do cartwheels, their long hair flowing behind them no matter what the activity, but especially as they ride their bikes up and down the street. To get from place to place they almost always skip or gallop . . . or cartwheel, and since they are typically wearing their gymnastics outfits and they do it so freely, it seems perfectly natural. I see them through my kitchen window, sneaking around behind our house and giggling as I do the dishes. They are dressed in costumes of long dresses and flower wreathes in their hair. I remember that.

Girls.

I think Sam is in love with one of them, the youngest of the three, around five years old. He talks of her often. Asks what I think she might be doing, wants to play in her driveway even if she is not out, and he had his dad draw a picture of her on her bike for him the other day. When she left her bicycle laying out on the road on its side, he tried to go and pick it up for her. I’m not sure if that is better evidence of his love for her, or his love for things with wheels.

I wonder how I’ll describe my boys when they are roughly this age. I wonder what they’ll be doing each day as they play outside. There will probably be no flowing hair, no twirly skirts, very few princess crowns of flowers. I doubt they will use the cartwheel as a regular mode of travel.

Dense bodied and strong, they’ll run and jump from place to place. Dirt smeared on their cheeks with paths of clean skin washed away by drips of sweat. It will be loud, probably, because dirt hauling is a fairly loud activity, and dinosaurs do need to roar. Bashing will be involved, most likely, and the clothes they wear will act as an obstacle to their physical work of play, the elaborate setting up of vehicles and forts, the catching of various creatures, the chasing of each other and perhaps, one day, a dog. I can see them patting each other on the back and coming inside after a hard day of sweat, grime, and building. They’ll walk in and kick off their muddy shoes as I nag them to wash their hands, because they’ll probably be pretty hungry, and then, maybe I’ll get a hug, one of those great hugs that only a boy can give to his mom, before hearing about what they’ve been up to that day.

Boys.

Labels: Brothers, House, The Big One

While I was changing Sam’s diaper today we were playing a little word game.  He was having me repeat what he was saying as he created a huge, long, made-up nonsense word.  So he’d say a part and then have me repeat it. “Nami…wooki…nugey…baki…woolie…fuman…nokki.  Mommy, that word was bigger than my poopie!”

“Yes, but just barely.”

Labels: Bodily functions, Talking, The Big One

To: Potential Babysitting Candidates

From: A confused mom who really just needs someone to come in a few mornings a week

Subject: What not to say, aka, When To Shut It

Dear Future Babysitting Candidates,

In the future, you may want to learn from your predecessors and take heed of the following tips.

1) Recent college graduate - When asked to elaborate on your experience with babies, you may want to go a little more in depth than simply saying that you used to go to your friend’s house, who happened to have a cousin who was a baby, and you guys would “hang out.” When asked about your experience teaching dance classes, you may want to leave out the part where you tell me about how, “sometimes they’d cry, but nothing major.”

2) Experienced mother of six - I realize you have much experience with children, your own and others’. I realize you may see me as very young and inexperienced in comparison to you, oh, Wise One. But would it be possible, maybe, to not directly criticize my parenting within the 45 minute span of time that you are in my house? Because really, if you can’t keep your yap shut for an interview, I can’t imagine how critical you’d be on a regular basis.

Thank you,

A Mother Who’s Reconsidering

Labels: Mommyhood

Tonight is graduation at the high school nearby. All through our dinner we saw grads in caps and gowns walking by. Parents, trying to find parking, nervously carrying flowers and hurrying to find seats in the stadium. I thought about how many years would pass before I’d be making the same walk. I thought about how proud I would be. And I remembered my own graduation, how my own parents must have felt. And then I remembered something else.

The night I graduated, I wore not only my cap and gown, but a necklace. It was a gold heart. It had a picture in it, a picture of one of my friends, and it was given to me by her mother to wear on the night of my graduation and, what should have been her graduation. She had cancer. She died when I was in 11th grade. Her mother gave three of her friends the same necklace to wear so that she could be with us on that night. And that evening she sat in the audience and listened to her daughter as her daughter was acknowledged at the ceremony.

I remember a lot of things from my friend’s funeral - being surprised that our school principal was there, feeling like the person doing the eulogy didn’t really know her, feeling oddly disconnected. What I remember the most clearly though is seeing her mother laying on her casket and sobbing at the cemetery. She had to be pulled away. Her daughter had died.

Children die. They do. This is something I have tried to both understand and deny since becoming a mom. I wasn’t sure if it was normal in the beginning, but I used to always picture the different ways my Sam might die. I also saw vivid scenarios in which he was abducted right before my eyes and I couldn’t run fast enough to catch the abductor, or I would see myself sitting by his hospital bed holding his hand as he suffered from some horrible disease that I could not cure. I wasn’t sure if it was a common thing, but then I realized it had to be. As parents, how can we not constantly envision the unimaginable when we know how completely and utterly incapacitated it would make us? When we are completely convinced that we could not go on in the horrible event - and horrible isn’t even enough of a word - that something might happen to our child, how could it not always be in our minds?

When I share my feelings with my husband, when I get worked up and upset over just the possibility that something might happen to one of our boys one day, he tells me it won’t. It won’t happen to our children. But it happens to someone’s. It does. Someone’s child dies. Someone’s is stolen, leaving them to ache and wonder where they are, what is happening to them. Someone’s child gets sick, as they have to look on and know that they cannot help. My friend’s mother had to do both - she watched her daughter be sick for years, and then she watched her die. And then she went on. I don’t know how. I don’t know how one doesn’t just curl up on the ground and stay there, whimpering.

I’m sorry, because I know this post is just awful. But I also suspect that if you are still reading that it is because you already know all of this because you feel it too - the threat. And I think in order to keep functioning we sometimes just have to face it and look at it, and just let it be there, because pretending it’s not just isn’t going to work. We know it’s there because every so often we’ll see that it happens to someone else. We’ll be standing at the kitchen sink doing the dishes and hearing Pomp and Circumstance in the distance when an indescribable image will flash into our mind, one of a mother holding her daughter’s casket and refusing to let it go.

I can hear the cheering crowd at the graduation ceremony. I see myself, years from now, sitting in the stands and watching one of my baby boys walk across the stage as I try to remain composed. But I also wonder if anyone graduating tonight wore a heart necklace, a gold one with a picture of a beautiful smiling girl on it. I wonder if there was a mother in the audience, watching a ceremony that should have been for her child too.

There is a truly insightful and lovely essay written on this topic if this is something that rings true for you - Holding Baby Birds, found in Brain, Child - Fall 2007

Amber also posted about this recently.

Labels: Learn More Every Day, Mommyhood

He’s pulling up, ya’ll.  Watch out!

Labels: Pictures, The Little One

So there I am, sitting at the MOST AWESOME PLAYGROUND EVER, congratulating Hubby and myself for making the drive and getting there on such a beautiful day without any major mishaps. Robby and I are enjoying the breeze while Sam plays in the huge sandbox with his Dad. Looking around and taking in the view . . . when I look over and what do my eyes behold but another dad helping his son to pee on the fence of the playground. Uh huh. There they are, zippin’ up. Lovely. I mean, yeah, toilet training, but can you really not go another 20 feet to the edge of the woods over there, really? Excellent lesson.

Aaaahhh…summer breeze. Relaaax. Not too hot. Robby loves the breeze and laughs when it blows his hair. Enjoying the day, but then, “This must be the swing for RETARDED PEOPLE!” I look around to see what horrible person has just proclaimed this, expecting to see a delinquent high schooler trying to impress his friends, but no, it’s another dad. He’s talking about one of those big-seated swings that seem to be at all the playgrounds here. Then he sits his abnormally large butt in it and says again, louder this time, “Yeah. It’s a RETARDED PEOPLE SWING. Heh heh. Retarded people.” Um, how about the swing for assholes? The assholes swing. Heh heh. Assholes. I sat there, willing it to break as he tried to push himself higher by yanking on the chain . . .

Breathe. Relaaax. The weather is just perfect. We’ll have to come back here often despite the longish drive. It’s just such a great playground. Robby and I are watching a mom and her daughters fly a butterfly kite. He loves it . . . sniff . . . sniff sniff. Do I smell smoke? Is someone seriously smoking out here? I turn to see behind me a couple laying on a blanket WITH THEIR KIDS, and smoking. On a gorgeous day, with bountiful fresh air. And I’m sitting like 10 feet away and FEEDING my BABY for goodness sake. I refuse to even try and understand this, not because I think they owe it to me, but they’re sitting with their kids . . .

Turning my attention back to the swings. Aahhh. Joyful children, laughing and smiling…no, wait, that one’s crying. In fact she’s sort of petrified looking and sobbing and yelling for her Dad to stop pushing her so high (and believe me, it was really freakin’ high), and yet he continues, telling her “it’s fine.” And the point of this would be . . . what, exactly?

So go ahead - who wins it?

Is it:

a) “Let’s go pee on the fence, son” dad

b) Asshole on a swing

c) Parents who smoke around their kids (and others’ babies at playgrounds on gorgeous days)

d) Asshole pushing a swing

Labels: Tales