Breaking The Dress Code

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Blog Today

I have had this blog since about 2003 – the entries don’t date back that far thanks to a powerful mood swing that included too much wine and over zealous use of the delete key. But it’s been here, puttering along getting almost no notice. And that’s cool. Really. It is.

I am not a brand. This is a hobby, not a source of revenue. I don’t get product review offers. I don’t do product reviews (unless of course your product involves the word Nikon or Vivian Tam Netbook in which case I stand ready to be your product placement pushing whore). I don’t go to conferences and have rarely met other bloggers in person. Not that I don’t want to meet anyone it’s just there’s not a lot of time in my schedule to do that sort of thing right now. Maybe one day.

So there, that’s my state-of-the-blog statement.

Lately there’s been a lot of argument talk about the state of blogging – it seems to be tied up in the labeling of bloggers but mostly it seems to really be about the content. I’ve occasionally left comments here and there about how I could care less about the label, I just miss having good stories – and want to stop being sold to at every turn.

So there, that’s my state-of-the-blogosphere statement.

So of course you know what happens next right….

For the first time in 7 years, in a span of 3 days, I’ve received 2 offers to review something. LOL. Never got a single one before and all of sudden two in one week! I can’t help but wonder if it has something to do with those comments. Are they combing them trying to find new people to push products? How is it suddenly out of no where these sorts of things are coming my way? It’s not the blog because it’s been in sad shape of late.

I have to say both were very nice, polite, respectful offers. Not the crap you hear about some people getting addressed to Dear Blog.

One is for a product we already own, and I have to admit has not been that popular. I know other families who have loved this product and I bought it based on personal recommendations of people I trust – it just hasn’t been great for us. In fact I tried it again today to see if things have changed. Not. But I know for a fact that two doors down it’s a smash hit.

The second was for something I’ve never heard of but am intrigued by because it’s supposed to fix a problem I definitely have.Something I’ve been trying to find a solution for.

So here I stand on the top of a pile of comments and principles – looking down at the slippery slope. Like a future crack addict I tell myself – you could just do one time. One time won’t hurt.

Honestly I’d feel bad doing the first because I know too much about it and how it hasn’t worked for us. It just would not be right.

The second though… she’s a temptation that I haven’t said no to, yet. I rationalize that I could use it as an example for why not to do reviews when it has little to no impact on the blog (which it won’t I’m sure) (Great Movie Quote,: The Big Chill - Michael played by the recently undead Jeff Goldbloom: Rationalizations are more important than sex. Have you ever gone a week without a rationalization?)

So the 7 of you who read this blog, what do you think? High minded road less taken principles? Or just a quick toke of the latest doob being passed around in hopes that nothing happens?

When I grow up I want to be Bossy

One of my favorite bloggers is Bossy. Melizzard wants to be Bossy when she grows up, where “grows up” means that she gets to a point in her life where her kids are older and she kind of has a life again.

Bossy blogs her life, which is sometimes about kids and sometimes not, and Melizzard enjoys Bossy’s life a lot.

Melizzard really really looks forward to a time in her life when she can look at her children and know that she worked hard and they are great people but at the same time her life is full enough that she’s not living vicariously through them. That, Sister Mercy, her life is so full and interesting that’s its peppered with hundreds of Little Known Facts.

Melizzard also likes referring to herself in the third person and admires Bossy’s spunk in just owning that one. Melizzard wonders if she will every “embrace the curl” because the Chi Flat iron is still her best friend.

Melizzard wants to grow up to have the kind of friends who will come over for a dress up mystery party. Melizzard wants to learn to cook artichokes. Melizzard is jealous of the fact that even the snakes in Bossy’s porch are more beautiful than the ones on hers –of which there are no pictures because finding a snake on Melizzard’s porch generally requires that it  immediately be decapitated and thus freed from it’s poisonous ways and then who really wants to take pictures of that anyway. We do however get an occasional stray turtle who has lost it’s way from the pond across the street so Melizzard’s got that one over Bossy.  Melizzard does not want to own a great dane.

Melizzard hopes that one day Bossy will embark on yet another Excellent Road Trip and that this time she will get to meet her as she rushes through.

A Camera of One’s Own

Since I purchased my first digital camera in 1999 I’ve taken over 20,000 pictures. My oldest child is in over 8,500 of those pictures. I know this because Flickr keeps count for me.

Her very first moments on this earth.

Every major baby milestone.

First day of school.

Moments of rest.

You name it, I’ve got it “on film.”  Her whole life in pictures. Her story told in the captures of moments in time.

Except that there’s starting to be a problem. She’s growing up. She’s walking away.

This is a good thing, I know that. I encourage it! I’m the one yelling “YES” at the radio when Ayelet Waldman told Terri Gross. “I’m terrified by the idea of a world governed by these people who’ve never had to govern themselves”, when talking about over-parented children who never do anything or go anywhere without adult supervision. I believe in Free Range Children

I believe it is essential to her development, her character and her independence that she go away, without me, and learn about her world – that she explores, and imagines, and learns to get along – with me.

My problem is this: There are starting to be holes in the story. Un-illustrated pages in the book of her life. Because I’m not there (and I shouldn’t be) to take a picture of it.

I want to put on a trench coat and sneak behind her jumping behind trees and bushes like some kind of crazy cartoon spy. Not because I don’t trust her or I’m worried. But because I want to take pictures!!

We went on vacation last week to our annual Not-Blogher trip to the mountains. It was perfect but I have so many pictures like this now.

“Bye Honey! Enjoy the creek! Come back by dinner time”

… take the camera…. I think inside my head knowing I’d never let her take my Nikon with her.

I mean I trust her with her own safety and all .. but not the safety of The Precious!!! Let’s get real.

So I’m not sure what there is left to do but maybe this…

A camera of her own.

I’m getting jazzed about this idea. A camera of her own. Nothing too expensive. This one is cheaper than her DS. It’s got good ratings. Seems easy to use.

Then she can bring me pictures and I can see what happens after the screen door slaps shut. I can fill in the gaps that are naturally a part of her growing up. She can look back and remember the first time she did this or that without me. And smile. And hopefully be happy she has a Mama who believed in documenting AND in letting go.

A camera of one’s own .. to make both mother and daughter happy and healthy .. cheers to  you Virginia Wolf, your lessons hold true even in a digital age.

His Lovely Wife

Once or twice a year I am called upon to assume the role of His Lovely Wife. I do not resent this, after all he has on more than one occasion donned the mantel of Her Charming Husband.  But these days as the doctor’s wife I’m the one that more often is just along as the arm candy.

One of the benefits of these nights is that they generally come with free booze and a breath taking view. There is no view in Jacksonville that compares to that which you get from The River Club downtown. My sad iphone photos do not do it justice.

 

Perfectly Put

Today’s Story of the Day from Story People perfectly describes how I’ve been feeling lately. I don’t know exactly what shoe I’m waiting for to drop but I can feel it out there somewhere.

Leaning out as far as she can, hoping she'll fall soon, so she can stop worrying about whether it will happen or not.

Softball Mom

As a young child, I was never involved in team sports. I ran track later in life but never played softball or soccer or any of the other league sports as a kid. It was never presented as an option. What I understand now, years later is that my older brother had many years before and my parents just weren’t interested in doing it anymore.

As a parent now I’m torn on this front as well. My oldest loves sports and we make sure she gets to play. We sign her up and take her to practices, we never miss a game. She loves it and fully support her passion.

But man do the other parents make it hard. Especially softball. Basketball we did through a church league and that was okay. No inner snarkiness amongst the parents. But softball man that one is getting to me.

We switched leagues this year because we didn’t like the league we started out in. Way to competitive. I don’t need a grown man yelling viciously at my child when she’s trying her best.  So we changed to one that when we played them seemed to have good coaches, one we had heard good things about.

I’m not the world’s most outgoing person. Who amongst us that prefers sitting behind a computer is. But I decided for Puddin’s sake I’d jump in with both feet and do my best to be a social creature, a softball mom. I don’t know if I’m just not good at it or if it’s just a click that I can’t seem to understand – but man every day I sit in those stands it stresses me out.

This group of AB (advanced skill) moms only talk to each other and that group of lesser skilled player’s moms all sit around and fuss about the coaching – and then there’s the moms who just don’t talk to anyone. Everyone is terribly polite to everyone else but there is such tension.

I volunteered to be the Team Mom and there’s the strange vibe with the coach’s wife – she only want me to handle the parts she doesn’t want to do herself.

I think I’m supposed to organize a team party for the end of the season and no one really seems to want to do anything.

I’m crazy I guess for thinking that it should just be a group of parents happy to be watching their little girls having a good time.

I’m lost.

I don’t know what to do. Or if I’m doing it wrong.

This seems harder than it needs to be. Harder than it should be.

Please excuse this rambling mess….

There is something that I don’t remember about myself very often. Fortunately I don’t have to. I’m the person you want beside you in a crisis. I don’t mean an every day run of the mill crisis (although I’m alright in those too) I mean the god awful kind where people are hurt or dying.

I learned this about myself for the first time at 17 when my sister-in-law was in a terrible accident. It happened as she was turning into her workplace and her employer called my house knowing we lived only about 1.5 miles away. My mother (a trained EMT) fell to pieces. Freaked Out. I took her keys, I drove us there, I kept my mother from jumping out of the moving car when she saw my SIL’s small pickup truck in the ditch embedded into a wall of trees with the bed wrapped up over the cab. I remained calm, I talked to people, I determined it was going to be fine (miracle!) and I was the rock to my mother’s crazy.  But when I left there and went on to school and walked into the last minutes of my homeroom .. something unexpected happened. Suddenly and without warning I fell apart, crying and gulping. All that plugged up fear and stress – blame out it came.

I am also a person who will cry at every single hallmark commercial ever. I cannot watch someone on TV cry for any reason without crying with them. The college kid who surprises his family on Christmas morning by sneaking home and making coffee get me every time.  My husband laughs at me regularly for this. It doesn’t seem to play correctly against my real life abilities to deal with these moments.

And yet this reaction to real life drama, this rhythm has repeated itself enough to be predictable. I am the person who asks the right questions, handles logistics, contacts the necessary people. I’m the person who makes arrangements and who doesn’t forget to put glasses and underwear in the clothes bag for the funeral home. I’m the person afterwards who gets handed personal effects because I won’t forget to ask for them.

But I am also the person who, when everyone one else is starting to smile again, leaves and goes and sits in a stream of boiling hot water on the floor of the shower and quietly looses her shit.

I was surprisingly reminded of this all yesterday from an unexpected place.

Last week when we – the internet – found out about sweet Maddie’s death we were shocked. I was so sad for her mother, a woman I only know through reading her blog. I was definitely thrown by the awfulness of losing a child but I did not cry. At the time I didn’t think much of it. After all, I didn’t really know them, only read the blog.  I donated, I posted March of Dimes widgets, I turned things purple, I twittered @realhughjackman. I did things. But I did not cry. Until last night.

Last night I sat down for the first time in a couple of days to read blogs and I found the recent posts, the taking home of the urn.  And sitting in my living room I started crying big hot tears for that little girl and for the mother in that back seat and for the man who had to drive them home. For the strength it took those two people to do that. For a split second I did what all mother’s do.. try to imagine yourself doing it and instantly , instinctually, reject the thought. But still have a flash of what it must have taken, what it must have cost them. To read what the Fat. Hot. Tears. Cried for those sweet people.

My husband walked in and looked at me and shook his head.. the TV was on, he assumed a commercial had gotten me. I didn’t correct him. I couldn’t find the words to explain it without sounding silly. A lady in California, who I don’t really know, lost a child, I read her blog… it just doesn’t give that moment justice. I was afraid I couldn’t explain properly that these were real tears, not silly ones, shed for people I really felt a connection to.

All of that brings me around to what I’m really trying to get at which is this…

It’s made me realize just how real reading someone’s blog can make them feel when they do a good job. I’ve been struggling of late on what this blog is to me. What I want it to be. Of late it’s been trivial and of little substance. Just posts to keep the ad ladies off my back. I’ve struggled to find the way to put myself out there the way Heather did (does) because I don’t feel like a writer and because on many levels I fear getting too real. Being truly open is not something I do well.  It makes me squirm.

But if the point of blogging is to connect with people – and for me I think it is. I’m not a brand, I am not selling things, I am not trying to make a living here. That BlogHer survey recently frustrated the hell out of me because I was all – where the damn option that just says I read blogs to hear a good story about someone’s life? The same reason I listen to Ira Glass, because I’m interested not because he’s selling something.

So I think that’s my answer. About this blog anyway. I’ve been bored with it because I’ve got to make the leap to really tell a story, to be real. To be more me. I’m sorry I took the long way around to that. It’s just been running around in my head and I got it out there. I’m not going to edit it. Sorry for the ramble but I hope that it’s first of many posts where I learn to really say what I’m thinking. Maybe I’ll get better at it.

There is no interneting on vacation

We’re back from our Spring Break vacation where-in I agree to act like the internet does not exist and the Dr. agrees to stay married.

Actually it wasn’t that hard because we were so busy doing doing doing stuff. Suffice it to say that this recession is treating “Florida Residents” well when it comes to playing in our own backyard. We’re all acting like tourists down here.

But back to the grind… can’t wait to catch up with you all.

Hysterical Exacerbations, and by hysterical I don’t mean ROFL

It’s odd that in my life with MS that something odd happens. In fact the reason that I rarely write about my MS is that there is generally nothing interesting to say. But last night something happened. Something new. Something weird.

Last night we were having one of “those” nights as parents. The kids were not listening , not minding, talking back, on our last nerve. Every parent has had one of those nights, usually 100s of times. We loved them but OMG they needed to stop making so much noise!  So finally we had reached our limit and we both yelled at them and said Go To Bed, No Ice Cream Tonight!

Yes I was stressed but in than normal my kids are driving my crazy stress. Earlier the Dr and I had argued over an upcoming family vacation but just the typical I want to do this, he wants to do that – nothing major. We bicker to reach agreement. It’s our way.

So as I’m standing at Puddin’s bedroom door fussing at her that we had been planning to do fun things before bedtime but now that’s a wash.. I step away and notice numbness in my right big toe.  My right big toe is where any residual numbness always pops up now in heat or times of fatigue – it’s my barometer of sorts. But this isn’t just the faint numbness I usually feel that warns me I’m overdoing it. This is full on rubber-band around the toe pins and needles. Instantly – not there one minute, there the next. Things this numb are very very rare and generally make me call the neuro.

We got the kids to bed and thankfully they stayed down. I went and sat down with a glass of wine and did my best just to clear my mind. I took my Imuran early – even though I know it has nothing to do with symptoms, only prevention. I guess it made me feel like I was doing something. I thought about digging up my store of old Prednisone but didn’t do it. Instead I vegged on the internet while the Dr did the supper dishes.

Sure enough, an hour later it was gone. Completely. Gone.

I stood up and it was as if it had never been numb.

So a moment of parental stressed caused a temporary exacerbation? Signs that I’m actually going bat-shit crazy? I don’t know.

I’ve looked I can’t find anything on anything like this.

Yes I know stress is linked to flair ups but it’s supposed to be “life event” stress – not “my kids won’t stop talking” stress.

Oh dear.. if this keeps up I can just hear me yelling now…

“You need to mind Mama and do as your told or Mama’s foot will go numb – and you don’t want Mama’s foot to go numb! Trust Me.”

Is it just me? …

I should probably start this by explaining that my 7 year old has a DS. She begged for it for her birthday and we got a red one for her. Six months later I’m happy to know that for her, it was/is more of a status symbol than an obsession. She wanted one because everyone else has one but she has about 10 minutes of interest in it and then throws it down to run off and play. This makes me happy.

I should also mention that I tend to be pretty free range with my kid. She plays up and down our street with supervision. She walks to and from the bus stop by herself. She goes to the restroom by herself at restaurants. She is allowed out of our site in public. I usually have to dial back her freedom when we are with other kids because their moms are not as comfortable as I am with letting their kids roam.

All that being said   … here is what happened on Sunday that sort of freaked me out…

When we were in Titusville in that big old crowd of folks (and at a time when she was thankfully off somewhere with her father) there came a woman walking by with a 7-ish little girl. The girl had a pink DS open and tapping. And I guess because my three year old was still with me and I was clearly a mommy-type and we were camped out under the main flag pole, the little girl stopped and asked me, “Have you seen a little girl with a pink DS sitting under a flag pole?”

She got my immediate attention because anytime I hear the words “Have you seen a little girl …” in a crowd I immediately go into “OMG there’s a lost child” mode. Then I processed the last half of the sentence. Then looked up immediately to my left and then back down at her because WE were under the flag pole, and she was a little girl with a pink DS. I was confused. I said “I see you”

Then her mother clarified.. “No, she’s looking for a different little girl who says she is under a flag pole and has a pink DS”

Me – What do you mean?

Her – They chatted and she wants to find her

Me – They can communicate on those things?

Her – Yeah, within a short range they can find people and IM with them

Me – WHAAAA?

They left me standing there all slack jawed and moved on in search of the little girl with the pink DS sitting under a flag pole.

And I was all OMG OMG OMG

When I say my daughter plays with her DS and gets quickly bored and moves on, I’m not joking. She is more of a can-I-go-outside-and-ride-my-bike kind of gal. As a result her skill level with the darn thing is minimal and her knowledge (and previously mine) of what it’s capable of is thankfully limited.

Seriously!

Am I the only one that sees a problem with some perv sitting in a crowd of people electronically trolling for little girls with pink DSes? Seriously!

Would you, Do you, let your kids pick up messages from strangers? In crowds?

I came home and googled it and evidently the feature is called Pictochat and YOU CAN’T TURN IT OFF!! I looked it up on several DS forums and it seems to be a big concern from parents, especially those in urban areas where they are always in crowds, that there are no parental controls built into the Pictochat feature.

It claims it only works within 20 feet but most users seem to say it’s more like 100 feet. We were no where near where that woman had been sitting and whoever was luring the child over said they were under the flag pole so who knows where they really were. And even then the fact that it requires proximity seems almost worse to me. The perv knows they’re close… Just meet me behind that bush over there. Yeah that one… 

So how do you guys handle this? Is there a No Pictochatting in Public rule? How do you police who they are dealing with if they use it in public?