After our time away, laundry is turning, emails are being answered, work is being done. I will post pictures and video of the weekend once I take care of a few things. In my haste to make sure Erin’s interview for BlogMe was posted the other day, I forgot to link to my own interview for the project. Huge thanks to Mocha Momma for the idea (Miss Smarty McSmartypants), for the Lucious and Lovable Lisa for the fabulous interview and for all the other women participating. Here is my interview at Lisa Stone’s blog, Surfette.
We’re just home now, and before I tackle dinner, bathing the rugrats, and hopefully watching Big Brother, I had to come love up my blog some, on high speed internet for the first time in 5 days. Can you say withdrawl?
There is much to blog about, but I only have a minute.
The night before last, after Dylan had just finished riding the lawn tractor around the property, Thomas was getting cranky for bed, and cried for a tractor ride until I finally gave in and said I would take him. The guys had been taking him and I hadn’t yet driven it and didn’t know how. So I called out to Dylan, hoping he would show me how to run the dang thing.
Thomas, in my arms, leaned over the railing of the deck stairs, and screamed “DINNON! GET OFF THE FRIKKEN TRACTOR!”
Erin of the Queen of Spain is one of my personal favorite blogs. She’s been on my blogroll as long as I’ve been blogalive, and I think she is hilarious, insightful and intelligent. Let’s find out a little more about her, shall we?
1. When did you start blogging and why? Or Talk about your blog. What can I learn about you in under 5 minutes?
I started blogging in September of last year. I know, not even a full year of blogging, and here I am ass deep in the blogosphere. Sadly, I started blogging with a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I was right at the height of my post partum depression and anxiety and mad as hell my very good friend Sarah had started a blog before me. My very first few posts reflect my insanity. I thought blogging was ONLY about writing and politics and news. That s what a newbie I was. So when I finally got my head out of my ass and figured out it was really about community, well, that s when my real blogging began. Once I got into my blog-grove, I immediately figured out who the big Mommyblog-dogs were, and tried to whore myself out to get their attention. I used my professional name as much as possible to try and get myself somewhere. Sure, a lot of people did it for fun, and while I was having a blast, I still wanted more. So eventually I got the gig at DotMoms. Then I contacted Lisa at Blogher-Because heaven forbid I leave the news world alone for too long. The rest, as they say, is history. Now I get to do news, like always, and I get to talk about my sex life and kids. What more could I want? And people actually want to read this crap?
2. Who do you read every day, rain or shine? Or Have you found a treasure on the internet? (or something like that)
I have found a treasure. A HUGE FREAKING Pirate s-booty-buried-under-the-X kind of treasure. There is young gal (I can say that, I m over 30) up in Toronto. Jay at Kill the Goat blows me away with her writing. She s going to go places, I m telling you. And we can all talk about when we used to read her blog. She can write about baking a cake, and the next thing I know, I m crying. Or laughing. Or amazed at how poetic her cake baking skills are- it s art. And she can discuss the construction of a bookshelf and make me hot. I m not kidding. Seriously though, the girl has skills. And if I have any ounce of influence in this world, I will try my hardest to make sure everyone reads her. Or she gets published. Or something. I don t know, because I don t have much influence. But she s young and passionate and talented. And that s all you need to know. Now go read her, dammit.
3. Why did you choose to share that piece of yourself in a photograph?
It is no secret that I have a large chest. These gals are not small. They aren t hurt-my-back big, but they can hold their own. So they have always been a very large part of my identity. But now that I m a mother, they are much less a sexual part of my identity. That cutie patootie cuddling up to them nursed until he was nearly 2-years old. His sister is 15-months old and still nursing. They both love my boobs more than any man ever could. But that whole idea, that my breasts were no longer sexual, but FUNCTIONAL, changed my entire outlook on life. Being a very sexual female, my chest was an, um& attraction getter. Now, much like my life, it s ALL about being a mom. So it seems only right one (or two) of my biggest assets are now totally occupied and wrapped up in motherhood.
4. How would you describe your writing style?
Despite years of training otherwise, I write like I talk. This drives the grammar nazi s crazy and the punctuation freaks insane. Sure, I can play it straight (feel free to see my Blogher News roundups if you don t believe me) & but that wouldn t be how I talk. In real life I have horrible grammar, I love words like ain t and I swear like a sailor. I could blow you away with my mad essay skills& but where is the fun in that??? I can also bang out a post in about 3 minutes. I talk fast. I write fast. I type fast. I am the blog version of the Gilmore Girls.
5. So soon we re going to meet each other at BlogHer. Important question. How do you party?
I party like its 1999. No, seriously. I m a nursing mother of two with no babysitter. If I get a chance to party, I party like there is no tomorrow. At Blogher, I will have TWO babysitters. So I expect to trash a hotel room, get a tattoo, get arrested, and maybe, just maybe, start a fire. I think I m a fun drunk. My husband thinks I m a talky drunk. So if you see me with a drink at blogher, RUN or I may trap you in some inane conversation about world peace and breast pads for hours. I m also (and consider this YOUR warning) usually the person at the party trying to DARE everyone else to do something super stupid. So let s just say you are Dooce or Arianna Huffington& if someone, perhaps wearing a napkin on their head, or perhaps with no shirt on, comes up to you and asks what color panties you are wearing or if you spit or swallow& chances are it was I, Queen of Spain, that put them up to it.
There you have it, blog-world. The ladies of BlogHer Conference ‘06 are all giving away pieces of themselves. You can read more interviews by following the trail here: http://blogher.org/node/7555
Forgive me if the formatting on this post is off. I’m still at the farm and this computer is actually something resembling the Speak and Spell E.T. configured to get home. The only difference is the fact that I’m having so much damn fun, I don’t wanna come home tomorrow!
The kids and I are off to the family farm for an extended weekend of birthday celebrations (yes, we are STILL celebrating my birthday, as well as Troll Baby’s, my Granny’s my Papa’s, my Uncle Timmy’s and pretty much everyone else’s in my family - it’s a prerequisite in my family that you only have sex in October.)
Should be fun. My Aunt and Uncle (who own the farm) are city transplants who decided, years back, they wanted to raise their four girls on a farm. My Uncle loves the outdoors, and since he has 4 daughters, he was likely thinking he could protect them from the big city out there, because a) less boys per square acre; and b) with farm, comes shotgun.
So I expect, when I return, to have flat abs, from laughing so much, first of all (hence the pre-BlogHer trip to see my hilarious family - that way I look gooood for my girls), and to be loaded with stories after being, well, loaded all weekend. Oh didn’t I mention we’re a bunch of Irish mutts? My Granny was Protestant and my Papa was Catholic when they married, 4000 years ago. What resulted was not a family feud at all, instead they created a love for family, bigger than Canada. And I get to be a part of it. I’m so excited to be going! Yay! Family drinkin’ stories! Feel the love!
I’ll try and blog a bit while I’m away, but I’m not sure the computer situation up in them thar parts.
If you’re like me, you’re proud of your blog. And you should be. But you have trepidation. People outside the blogworld don’t ‘get’ why you blog and it’s difficult to explain why you do. Some people may even go so far to call you names. I’ve been called a nerd. A geek. Lah-hooooooo-ser. (That last one was my husband - dorkwad.)
I don’t care. I’m a Wifeblogger, a Mommyblogger and a HappyFrikkenWegoblogger and I’m proud of this blog.
I Write Blogity Goodness.
So I created t-shirts and mugs to reflect just that. Personally I prefer the mug because I drink ALOT of coffee (pulled an all-nighter just tonight!) Plus I SO OBVIOUSLY have a big mouth and everyone in my life knows about my blog anyway, so I need not don the threads. I’m pretty sure they are sick of hearing about it. However, I write blogity goodness and I know all the people on my blogroll (and your blogrolls) do too.
So even though you didn’t ask for it, here is the new fangled design:
Isn’t it adorable? And here is where you can get it.
Working from home certainly has it’s challenges. There’s the whole procrastinating bit, whereby you ignore your own personal hygiene until 3 p.m., your ever growing ass peeled to the computer chair, and your spine, brought to you by the letter S, as you hunch over the keyboard and mouse trying to churn out creative designs and articles for your adoring clients and contract keepers.
With kids? Multiply the procrastinating by at least the power of ten. So here’s where I need to be even more creative. I welcomed the onset of summer. With Dylan at home, Troll Baby has been extremely easy to get along with. No matter how loud and boisterous these boys get, I can work through the noise. It was the clingon that I had living with me back in June that needed a biopsy. Troll Baby helped me master the art of one handed typing.
Now, most mornings, the kids sleep until 9ish, while I take advantage of the quiet to work on some fun projects with some awesome clients, and enjoy my coffee, in my striped jammie-bottoms and cardigan. Yes, the family room is frigid even with the a/c turned low.
When the kids do get up, I stretch and yawn right along with them, and make some breakfast. We’ve been enjoying some morning time, snuggled up in our p.j.’s with one of the Little Einsteins DVD’s playing. There’s two now! Both Thomas and Dylan love these ones.
Dylan is learning a little about what I do at BlogHer. This morning I shared with him this BlogHer article about the Sony Playstation ads that were pulled. I read him the story and let him make his opinion known. He immediately caught on to the implied racism and told me he would never buy one of those games. (Last year he saved up all by himself and bought a Game Boy and 3 games.) I think it’s cool that he is socially aware of real issues and that he feels strongly about his opinions, even as much to ban a product. Sometimes I have to pull out his birth certificate and make sure he is only 7 and a half. He’s smarter than some adults I know.
So this balancing thing I’m doing, as I referred to before, is going really well. We’re settling into summer nicely and the afternoons are quiet as Troll Baby sleeps and Dylan plays with friends, here or at daycamp. I miss him a little some days. The other night he stayed for dinner at a friends house and when I called to reverse the adoption, because c’mon kid, you’ve been there for 7 hours already, and to invite him to come for ice cream with us, he declined. *Gasp!* I totally mother-guilted him into coming ended up convincing him, but it stung a little when he first said no, and then slumped into the car. I know this is the part where we have to let go a little, but I’m not ready. Dammit, I’m just not ready.
You know what is really fun though? Watching Big Brother and Rockstar Supernova with your 7 year old. When he said, “Oh my God, I can’t believe Janelle is playing right into Jase’s plan, like, c’mon already!” I wanted to hug him so hard his head would explode. The whole valley-girl speak is so me, and I’ve passed it onto my very funny, very VERY intelligent kid. Not that I’m biased or anything.
So I found this post by way of Miss Ann Thrope and although I responded to it at the original blog, I have so much on my mind about it that I just had to post a third time in 24 hours. You have to read the post first. G’head. I’ll go get another coffee while you do.
Now I know I said I responded to Betsy Hart’s blog entry, but apparently, if you don’t agree with her, your comment may get deleted. So here’s what I said, in case mine gets the axe:
My kids make me laugh on a daily basis. I m my own person first, I get my moments of quiet, but I also laugh a hell of alot more than before I had kids. I do not prefer my quiet time over my time with them, ever. I chose to become a parent, and I m so glad I did.
On the other hand, I don t think people who did not want to have children are stunted souls. What an awful thing to say. Some people know they don t have the means to be parents, whether it be physical, emotional, financial, or spiritual means. Some people can t have children. Some people choose to give themselves to something else that calls them: marriage, the church, charity, etc etc. To generalize and call people without children stunted souls is ignorant.
And I meant it. I’m not one of those parents who is miserable all damn day because I’m fighting the tide of children’s demands in order to find solitude or peace. Truth is, those who know me well, know that every day with Dylan is a blessing, that Thomas is a bit of a challenge, but a lovable one, and that I spend alot of time with my kids, enjoying them as they learn new things, and in turn, teach ME new things.
Last week I spent more time with my kids now that school is out. We woke up when we wanted, often after 9 a.m. We ate pancakes at noon, played Legos on the carpet, went for walks, talked about anything and everything they brought up and I really and truly enjoyed their company. I see summer as a reconnect with them, of sorts. I didn’t see them as an annoyance.
Betsy wrote about this instance, regarding when her friends visited her home:
I mentioned to my friends that I was determined to figure out how to count the number of Moms I heard in a day, and then maybe impose a limit on each child. And if the child reaches the limit by, say, 10:30 in the morning _ he or she is done. Anyway, a half-hour later my 4-year-old piped up with Mom -something, and one of my friends said, That s 46. She d been counting; 46 Moms in one-half hour.
That really saddened me. At 4 years old, kids are not only still quite dependent on Mom and Dad, but they are naturally social creatures too. Perhaps this perfectly normal 4 year old wanted to find out what grown ups talk about. Perhaps this 4 year old wanted some love, some Mom-time, after being told to “go play” all morning while Mom gabbed with her friends. Yes Mom needs a life too, I totally agree, but she also could have stopped yakking long enough to engage the (obviously bored) 4 year old in an activity, alongside her. Include the 4 year old in the conversation. Would it have killed these women to teach the child something about social structure?
What happens if the child knows he/she has ‘reached quota,’ and is in danger? In need of help? Or a brother or sister is about to do something dangerous? This child is afraid to approach Mom out of fear. Is that any way to raise a child?
And what happens, years from now, when said child is afraid to approach his/her parents with a more serious problem? Pregnancy? Drunk driving? Drugs? What then?
Now I’m not saying kids can’t go off and play alone. My kids amuse themselves often too. But if they need me, I’m there. If they ask me 400 questions by 10:30, maybe it’s time I dropped whatever I’m doing and do something with them. Maybe that’s the problem with society today. Too many kids are being dismissed from the time they can walk, except to look after physical needs such as feeding, bathing and sleeping, with complete disregard for their emotional well-being. What if your spouse constantly rejected you or told you to go do something else every time you attempted to strike a conversation with them? Think about it.
If that isn’t enough, Betsy goes on to judge those without children, the “childfree:”
Again and again, these resources celebrate people, especially married couples, who say they just want to live life on their own terms, and do what they want to do when they want to do it.
Yeah. Whoopee.
In the end, that s a pretty good way to stunt a soul _ and it s no accident it s a growing American trend.
Stunt a soul? Pardon the fuck outta me? My own sister-in-law and her husband have decided not to have children. Do I think they are weird? No. Do I need to know why they don’t want children? No. It’s none of my business. Just like it’s none of anyone’s business if we are going to “try for a girl,” “have another child,” or if “I’m ever going back to work.” I DO WORK. AT HOME. That’s a whole other post for another day.
Have you ever heard of anyone asking you why you did have children? I haven’t. I’ve never had to come up with an answer for that one. Why are there so many expectations?
I think it’s insane that this woman thinks “childfree” people are selfish, stunted souls, because they chose not to make a life-altering choice. They chose to live their lives without kids. SO WHAT? Why should they be judged?
I just have to shake my head in wonder at someone who advocates everyone having children, or else be judged, but turns around and teaches her readers it’s okay to tally up her child’s demands and not only cap those demands, but shoos the child away and wishes for peace and quiet. I think she is stunted, in her confused head, and heart. And THAT mentality is what is stunting souls today: Children’s precious souls.
