On Mommy Blogging

When I started this blog back in January, I wasn’t sure where I was going or what I aspired to be, blogwise. I had just closed shop at another blogsite on MSN Spaces that had, strictly-speaking, been nothing more than a family bulletin board with the occasional wisecrack about the President thrown in. Unfortunately, MSN would only allow its members to comment. So if you weren’t someone with a hotmail or MSN address, you wouldn’t have been able to remark about my son’s conviction that he knew Rachael Ray or my irrational fear of men with Elvis-style sideburns. You wouldn’t have been able to offer me advice about how to cook a pumpkin pie in less than three hours or how to appropriately thank someone who gave my child pumpkin and watermelon seeds knowing full well that we don’t have a private yard. On top of the non-MSN-member censuring, sometimes I was even prohibited from saying the risqué things that I wanted to say (Evidently, MSN took offence to the word ignoramus. It was either ignoramus or fungus. I never did figure it out) And so I did the only thing I knew to do — I started the new year with a nice stretch as I finally emerged from beneath MSN’s thumb.

But I decided that I wanted more out of my blog than just a place to show off my children’s gorgeous faces and sing praises about their wrinkled, bulging, smartsy brains. Mostly, I wanted to write about my experience getting published because it’s been my dream for the last twenty-odd years. And, since it’s pretty much all I want to talk about these days, I thought I’d cut Allan a break and find an audience that might be able to relate to my anxieties and self-criticism. EXCEPT that my other job keeps demanding air time as well. Because there are all those praises that need to be sung about the wrinkled, bulging, smartsy brains. And as all you other mothers out there know, it’s hard not to talk about THE most AMAZING people who just so happen to be spawned from your body.

So for anyone who has actually tuned into my blog to hear publishing news, let me just say that I’m STILL revising. And I know I said this back in January, but it's true this time. I'm ALMOST DONE. I am currently researching EVIL because I need to make my antagonist just a tad bit more SINISTER and DISTURBING to ensure that the little hairs on my readers’ backs are standing at attention at the mere mention of this dude's name. Also, I’m trying not to be nervous about the prospect of finally meeting the publisher face-to-face which will take place in about three weeks. Meanwhile, I’m hard at work reading Stephen King’s IT in hopes of gleaning some creepiness for my bad guy, to put it mildly.

But back to the children… trying not to constantly blog about them is virtually impossible. Especially when they are always giving me such great material.

Like this recent conversation:

Me: How was your day, son?
Jonah: Sweet and Sour.
Me: Tell me the sweet first.
Jonah: We went on a Listening walk today.
Me: What’s a Listening walk?
Jonah: A walk where you can’t talk; you can only listen. And then you go back to the classwoom and wite about what you hud.
Me: So what did you hear?
Jonah: Cwickets. Buds. Wind… and dut.
Me: Dirt?
Jonah: Yes, dut.
Me: Very cool. So what was the sour part of your day?
Jonah: Mr. Cwybaby. He nevah lets me think.
Me: Sorry, son. Is there anything I can do?
Jonah: YES. You can buy me a Happy Meal.
Me: Is there anything I can do, BESIDES that?
Jonah: (sigh) Well... I guess you can just buy me a Sad Meal.