Most of you know how I feel about my minivan. Whether you’ve given in to the call of the mini yet or not you’ll appreciate this long overdue link for a laugh. Enjoy.
Reader poll - grossest thing you’ve ever discovered in your car? I’ll reveal mine in the comments… but not ’til someone else goes first.
I have spent several days of the last week at my grandma’s hospital bed as her health fails. I think you learn a lot at the deathbed of a family’s matriarch, and I made a number of observations. I’m still trying to process, and if I ever become the writer I would like to be and can put them into words, I’ll share.
Being around extended family you’ve rarely seen and friends of your parents from their head-shop owning days, and watching the conduct of several days worth of ICU staff, also provides inspiration for lighter notes, and I’m more likely to be able to share situational levity sooner. (For example, apparently: I am the image of my mother; many people think it is a compliment to tell you that you “look pretty good for having three kids,” and when it comes up that you have been to law school there is no venue off limits for people to share their employment law problems ad nauseam.)
Anyway, many thanks for reading this blog. Stick around. With any luck frequent posting will resume.
My local newspaper is as late to the blogging party as me - or perhaps it’s just a reflection of our local world. In either event, the Star Tribune reports that blogs are, as we’ve worried, a place for moms (and a few dads they suggest) to continue a war of words against each other about the choices we make as parents.
We seem to have mostly avoided controversy here (although that could be a function of readership), so (never one to take the news at its word) I looked around a bit to see if the judging is really as pronounced as the article suggests. While most of what I discovered was supportive and interesting conversation, I did find a few examples of this ‘judginess’. My favorite, over at Urban Mommies, someone named linda walks right into my favorite cliche about working mothers when she comments:
“Why did you have kids to have them raised my a nanny? I love when people have kids, hand them off to a nanny so they can go off to job/play then call themselves mommy. Tell your kid the truth- the money and your self esteem is more inportant then [sic] she is. Don’t be surprised when your [sic] old that she sends you away to a home or worse becasue [sic] she is now busy with her stuff.”
But, again, that was one comment of 6, and, that said, I didn’t find all that much warring out there. I concluded that one of two things is happening: either I generally avoid blogs where judgment lives, or the problem’s not as bad as the news suggests.
What do you all see in your surfing? Is the blog the underground home of the mommy wars?
Daylight Savings Time. The flip-flops out in full force at Old Navy. It’s an unseasonably outrageous 64 degrees right now. Today is the first day I have believed it, but bundling season is going to end.
I know we aren’t going to be slapping on the sunscreen or blowing up the wading pool tomorrow. Indeed, around here we could still get 2 more feet of snow, but still - as the day-to-day life of mom goes, I have to say my favorite day of the year might be the first day sans bundling. Happy Bundlefree Day to You!
