Blogging Baby Shower!

(Please excuse the horriblespacingproblem...the spacebaron my laptop is broken andthere's only so many times I canhitand curse at itbefore givin up.I give up! I am moving on with my life. I hope youcan too.)

(Also, the G keyis acting upand I don't want to encourage this behavior byacknowledgin it with exra keystrokes. I believe keyboards operate the sameway toddlers do.)

Not to be delving into reruns here, but once, a loooooong time ago, I did a post about the awesomeness that is anOnlineBaby Shower.

Well, you have GOT to checkthis oneout:

Shower Me, Baby!

It's a huge collaborative effort to throw a big virtual shower for Liz of Mom-101, Christina of A Mommy Story and Tammie of Soul Gardening. Thereare games.Thereare prizes. There are fun post ideas and linkage galore.

You can already check out the games (like "Match the Baby Mamas" or "Match the Baby Bellies") and contribute to a group gift over at party central, but there'salso a meme you can participate in on your own blog:

Sometime between April 27th (tomorrow) and 29th  (Sunday), we're   asking you to post the best ASS-vice you received before or after you had kids (first, second, 12th...) as well as the BEST advice, and dedicate it to these three ladies. Send us the link and we'll round all the posts up on our "party" site. (Dads, feel free to to join in here! And if you don't have kids, just use your creativity and post a virtual toast or shout-out to the ladies - let us know and we'll link you up!)

Email Catherine (herbadmother[AT]gmail.com) and Julie (mothergoosemouse[AT]gmail.com) if you do a post for the shower.

I love when our Friends Inside the Computer can be some ofthe coolest people we know, don't you?

Tammie is actually getting induced today, and the other two mamasare both ready to pop very very soon. Congratulations to everybody. Now go party!

(And again, am sosorry about the spacebar thing. Gettin it fixed will bethe number-onepriority this weekend. Rightafter sleepingin.)

Single Mom Round-Up Time!

I've gotten a couple requests for links to single-mom blogs. And I've been sitting on a post about single-mom blogs because I couldn't figure out how to "frame" them. You know, how to start and end with some quirky annoying little anecdote about me, me, me and my kid, my kid, my kid, blah blah run-on sentence punchline the end blah.

(OMG, I just gave away the secret recipe to my blogging success! Now you know!)

But everything I tried seemed kind of forced and weird, and I still ended up saying something like, "so, uh...here are some links!"

So. Uh.

Here are some links!

thumbscre.ws

Kvetch Blog

Whatever Works

Diary of a Single Mom on the Edge

Surviving Single Mom

The Mommy Blog

In the past, no list of single-mom blogs would be complete without a mention of Mir over at Woulda Coulda Shoulda and Jen at Jennnster. But they've gone and gotten engaged and are going and getting married like, incredibly soon. Well fine! Mess up my nice neat category! And also, congratulations, you crazy kids.

Happy through the tears

Whoa. Is it Tuesday already? How in the world is it Tuesday?

I've been in a bit of blog-reading funk for about a week now -- alternatively unable to pull myself away from the endless drama going on at Jen's blog and waiting for news about Annika on Moreena's blog -- and of course, preoccupied with my own sick kid.

A cold and an ear infection are absolutely nothing compared to what others in the blogging world have dealt with, and I feel stupid for even bringing it up, but you know. Toddlers have no sense of the big picture of universal suffering. A sick kid is a sick kid and it's hard to type and surf when he spends most of the day sprawled on my lap, grabbing my hands off the keyboard and wrapping them around his feverish little back.

But I am blessed. I know this.

Haley-O over at the Cheaty Monkey knows she is blessed too, and her post about prenatal depression (after a commenter said "I am tired of reading about how sick you are from being pregnant") just about broke my heart. Someone did that to me too, when I suffered from (horrible, crippling, omgbad) anxiety late in my pregnancy and tentatively wrote a couple posts about it. They said I should know better. I did Clomid and struggled and my pregnancy was a wonderful flukey miracle, so by gum, I should shut up and pretend to enjoy every second of every day.

Pregnancy is hard. It's baffling and strange and just physically and emotionally hard. It's probably supposed to be hard, since all that discomfort forces us to focus on preparations and look forward to the actual baby part. There is nothing wrong or selfish or bratty about admitting that pregnancy -- no matter how wanted or  fought for -- can just really suck for some of us. 

Obviously, when I was getting negative test results months after month (like, uh. now.), there was nothing I craved more than a big pregnant belly and the whole shebang. But in the end, I signed up for a baby. The whole gestation thing, with the ups and downs and swollen ankles, sometimes seemed like a bootcamp obstacle course I had to complete before someone would award me that delicious baby.

Haley-O has a similar take on the pregnancy (and pregnancy-blogging) as a process, not the prize:

I also don’t like to complain about my pregnancy symptoms because this SEEMS to suggest that I’m ungrateful for what I know is such a blessing, such a gift. I am CONSTANTLY reflecting on how blessed I am to be pregnant, constantly THANKING THE UNIVERSE for granting me this miraculous gift. (This is starting to feel a little too personal even for me, but….) Every night I devote time to being thankful for this pregnancy.

Pregnancy is very painful for me. But, it’s also an opportunity. An opportunity to release and to cleanse. This releasing and cleansing involves a disturbing and debilitating manifestation of major anxieties. This is what you’re reading on my blog. A process. An honest (but light-hearted) cleansing, releasing and preparation for another beautiful miracle.

Good Enough Parenting

Wow. What a downer of a week it's been. Both out there (gestures vaguely) and here at the Dose.

So how about some posts that made me happy this week, because they made me feel like I'm not the worst and laziest mother in the entire world? If only because everybody else admitted that they are also lazy?

Purple is a Fruit: Like Linda, Noah doesn't get a bath every day. I blame his dry skin and tell people he gets one every OTHER day, but...well. Sometimes it's more like every three days. Or just when he smears bananas in his hair.

Okay. FINE. He smeared bananas in his hair last night and I just wiped his head with a wet paper towel. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT.

Cheeky Lotus: A reader took Lena to task for only changing her daughter's sheets once a week. And I, like many of her commenters, thought: You change her sheets once a week? Well! Ain't YOU fancy?

There and Back Again

It's always a little heartbreaking when one of your favorite bloggers stops writing. Okay, a lot heartbreaking.

The infertility blogs, in particular, have lost a lot of great voices over the past couple of years. Some quit because they found their happy ending (like getupgrrl), and some quit because they didn't (Hardscrabble). Naked Ovary, The Rabbit Lived, Beavergirl...I could probably list about a dozen blogs that haven't existed in ages but I still remember almost every word they wrote. And I often think about those women and hope they are all okay.

Sometimes a blogger comes back, which is awesome. Like Soper of Uterine Wars. Hooray!

And sometimes a blogger comes back and it's not so awesome.

Last night I got an email from Arwen telling me that Jen was back. Old-timey-ites like us remember Jen as the Vintage Uterus. To say Jen had a "rough time" pursuing infertility treatment would be...durr...a massive and insulting understatement. Miscarriages and an etopic pregnancy and loss of a tube and just an awful rough time.

When Jen decided she was ready to move on to international adoption, she changed her blog's name and kept writing. Then she went private for awhile, if memory serves, and then came the glorious news of her daughter Pearl. Jen left for Guatamala to foster her baby until the adoption was finalized, and there were pictures and stories and much rejoicing...and then a lot of silence again.

I think we all assumed that Jen was just too busy enjoying her very happy ending to be bothered with a blog.

If only it were that simple.

Come with me dear Readers on an adventure you will never forget!

It is a summary told by a woman who after 2 failed IVFs, a couple of miscarriages and thousands of dollars lost, threw in the towel on infertility treatment and began to forge the rocky stream called International Adoption.

Yay!

Follow her and her husband as they embark on a once romantic vision of parenthood through supposed philanthropic interests! Laugh at our naivity! Share in the horror as they pour out over $50,000 on their Guatemalan adoption! Share the shock and awe of being stuck in a third world country for over 4 months because of a corrupt Guatemalan adoption attorney! Revel in the joyful reunion of mom, dad, and The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Us when I returned home with her!

But wait! There's more!

A China referral! What, you say? Yes, A CHINA REFERRAL! Even though we cancelled with the agency, the CCAA still processed our dossier and WE GOT A REFERRAL!

What Infertile in their right mind would turn it down?

Then comes....

The most heartwrenching experience of my life... a journey to China, a Gotcha Day —on Christmas no less— and then saying goodbye to our daughter-to-be a couple of weeks later.

Check out Jen's new blog for the full story: Soul Autopsy: Chinese Adoption Heartbreak.

Mistakes & Omissions

I get a lot of email. But about 75% of it is junk. Absolute junk. Pitches from PR companies, spammy requests for product reviews and plugs, newsletters I didn't ask to receive and about four million emails from Amazon.com telling me that since I once came very nearly close to buying a copy of such-and-such book, perhaps I would be interested in THIS such-and-such book, which is now on sale and eligible for free shipping on the third Tuesday of every month.

The problem with all this extra junk is that I end up skipping real emails. An message from an old friend gets sandwiched between some spam and a Sephora marketing message and I glaze right over it by mistake. I have 922 messages in my inbox right now, and God knows how many of them I really, really ought to have read.

I spent about an hour today going through my Inbox and trying to clear out the junk and catch those unread messages and found one from reader Cindy asking me to spotlight Snickollet as soon as possible, since she could really use our support.

I'd stumbled onto Snickollet a few months ago, actually. I think someone emailed me the link. I'd added her to my Google Reader and checked in occasionally -- she has very young twins, a great sense of humor and a husband who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

I meant to write about her here. I really did. I have no idea why I didn't.

Cindy sent her email on April 11th. Snickollet's husband died that night.

She's still writing, of course. She has her babies and things to do and arrangements to make and life goes on. She could still use our support, just like Cindy said.

Stupid is as Stupid breeds

Sherry from Chaos Theory investigates the phenomenon of expelling your brain out with the placenta:

It’s not pregnancy brain. It’s not sleep deprived brain. Hayley is four and a half years old, Breanna is 16 months old, and I’m still doing things that make me dig for excuses for why I am a moron.

I used to think I was pretty smart, actually. I was witty and quick and good at a kind of hard real-like office job! I rarely went to work with my shirt on inside out and never locked my keys in my car. I never put Similac in my coffee or forgot my own phone number.

What about you? Do you find yourself doing more of those really dumb things now that you're a mom? Are you more absent-minded? Do people need to speak VERY SLOWLY and LOUDLY so that you can understand the words coming out of their mouths?

And what's more, does it ever stop?

I’ve often hoped that it would clear up and I would stop with the pregnancy/placenta/sleepless brain tomfoolery but it appears that it’s still hanging in there. I visited my parents recently and I never noticed my mom pouring coffee into the plants or accidentally eating her napkin while thinking it was a sandwich so maybe there’s hope that my brain will return to normal when the girls are in their late 20s and early 30s. Let’s hope I don’t get confused and wander into traffic before then.

My Favorite Kind of Post to Write, Ever

Frema is having a baby!

And she totally has me beat in the pee-stick-ratio department, too.

Congratulations, you crazy kid. Welcome to mommyblogging, where we turn the neuroses up to 11.

And don't even get me started on what my husband thinks of Gilmore Girls...

I just straight-up love this post by The Lovely Mrs. Davis about the different ways men and women approach pop culture:

The female approach to popular culture seems to focus more on relationships and personal aspects. This applies both to characters in TV/movies/books as well as to real people. (Let's talk about the Meredith and McDreamy saga on Grey's Anatomy. Meg Ryan has a difficult relationship with her mother. Richie Sambora used to be married to Heather Locklear.) Female judgements about pop culture relate more to the behavior of characters and people. (They never should have gotten married....She should have stayed on that show....I can't believe they went public with her cancer diagnosis....) Female reactions to pop culture tend to be more emotional than critical -- I know this sounds cliche', but I do see some truth in it.

The male approach to popular culture seems to focus more on the technical and factual aspects. (Before he joined this group, he played bass on so-and-so's last album. Adam Sandler joined the cast of SNL in 1990.) Male judgements about pop culture relate more to the quality of the end product. (30 Rock is a great show. This album is better than her last one. Steven Spielberg makes terrible movies.) Male reactions to pop culture tend to be more critical than emotional.

She pretty much just summed up my household. Jason rolls his eyes at the sight of my US Weekly, seriously fears for my sanity when I cry over Jim and Pam on The Office, yet remains the closest thing to a living, breathing version of IMDB.com that you will ever meet. We're both pop-culture junkies (uh, OBVIOUSLY), just in vastly different ways.

Still awesome after all these years

Mimi Smartypants was one of the very first web journals I ever read, back when they actually were called web journals and "blogs" were some kind of awful bastardization of the art form and everybody made fun of the word "blog" a lot. I think I even tried to get people to consider my site a "journal" instead of a "blog" for awhile, but nobody bought it, even though I would pretend to hold an imaginary monocle up to my eye whenever I said the word "journal." I still can't believe nobody took me seriously -- monocles are fancy, people.

Uh. Anyway, despite doing this journalling thing longer and better than most of the Internet (she's even published a book) Mimi Smartypants hasn't changed a thing about her site: same platform, same design, no comments, no ads.

And OH YEAH, the same brilliantly witty writing. Her latest entry is the kind that reminds me why I love her.

So I don't have a "philosophy" about my mommy thing, but I do have plenty of hacks.  I realized the other day that my number-one hack, the only thing that works every time (just like Colt 45!) is Making It Talk. Seriously, all I have to do to get Nora to calm down, chill out, stay on task, pay attention to me, or get sh*t done is make it talk. Doing a crazy dance instead of stepping into the underwear? The underwear says, "Hey, over here! I need to be on your butt!" Dinner not going in mouth? Sometimes it screams, "Don't eat me!" (Nora delights in ignoring the piteous screams of doomed vegetables.) Our shoes want to be worn, the hairdryer asks to be turned on, my two fingers walk around and discuss current events.

See? Funny AND totally freaking useful, because that really works. (Noah's little Pumas have a sexy Latin accent, it turns out.)

Oh, and this?

Also, if I ever wrote a parenting book,* my "discipline" or "gentle guidance" or whatever-you-want-to-name-it chapter would have a section called "Stop Asking: How To Learn To Quit Saying 'Okay?' At The End Of Directives To Your Kid" (man, that one took me forever).

Dude, I do that too. And Noah already has a near-Pavlovian response to the word "okay" (particularly when it's said in a cheerful? Upbeat? And punctuated-with-a-question-mark? sort of voice). No matter what I say ("it's time for a bath! Okay?" or "let's go to the fireworks, candy & puppy dog store! Okay?"), he vigorously shakes his head NO and then melts to the floor in a boneless puddle.

---amalah apologizes in advances to those of you who are going to spend all day reading mimi smartypants' archives today instead of working.