TheMommyBlog

While not being able to sleep because my daughter invaded my bed and pressed her heat-seeking missile body ever closer until I fell off the edge, I began to read up on some of the links I mentioned a couple of posts back. No surprise, Jenn Satterwhite of Mommy Needs Coffee had a totally spot-on take of the genre of Mommy Bloggers. I usually stay out of the fray, either because I’ve said it all before somewhere in last six years or because I know that the title of my blog has become more of an impediment than a novelty. Yes, I’m cranky. My daughter was radiating heat like a… heat radiator thing.

Read these excerpts from Jenn’s post, and then my comment, which should have been a post here in the first place (and now is).

While we are on the topic of respect, I have to mention a great conversation that took place today. The question was asked:

“Tell me, is ‘Mommyblogger’ still a negative term in the Social Media space? Has it changed? Do you still look down? Be truthful.”

The response was quick and thorough.

Momologue responded with: “Just last week I got a ‘oh your one of those, an MB.’ Complete with a wave of hand. Dismissed.

But was quick to also add: “But I do love the online community we create. It’s the best — and it’s about diapers and changing the world.

Banannie put in her two cents with: “I always felt the mommy-blogger label was too confining, and I shook it completely a year ago when I started a new blog… much of that was because of reaction from others that made mommy-blogging feel second tier- looking back I should have ignored.”

For many of us, we remember the time when the very term or idea of mommybloggers was dismissed, shunned and looked down upon. The very first BlogHer conference had a session on mommyblogging that was a “room of our own” and was expected to bring in few people. It was standing room only. Back then, one of the main focuses of the discussion was whether or not the term mommyblogger was derogatory. Today, as I followed the discussion on Twitter, I saw many responses that were along these lines:

Shelisrael shared: “I never knew that mommy bloggers were looked down upon. Not ever. Why do you perceive otherwise?”

From Karoli: “Maybe b/c I’m older or whatever, but I never saw it as a derogatory term. Still don’t quite understand why it’s seen that way.”

And my personal favorite by Dave Taylor: “I never thought “mommyblogger” was other than a statement of heroic survival ability!”

Not everyone was loving the term or category. Lone Sophist stated:"I think that women who are mothers and blog are more than mommybloggers, that’s why I don’t like that ‘category.’”

The point is this. Just a few years ago we were in a small room and felt like second tier bloggers. Today, we are much sought after by marketers, talk shows and magazines. We’ve come a long way, baby.

I responded: “Try having a blog called THE MOMMY BLOG. Judged right out of the gate, anyone? Named yourself the Kleenex of the blogosphere? You’re such a dork. Now I’m going to get a lot of “sure thing, Al Gore, you and the Internet” crap for this, but the only reason I have that name is because I had to pick one when I opened up my Typepad account in 2002. I was stumped. Uh, blog, blog, who the fuck am I, I’m the mommy, so that will have to do until I figure out how all of this works. And then you realize it’s now fixed as part of your URL and you’re stuck with it.

Further proof of dorkitude? I created a blog for my mom at the same time called The Grandma Blog. Towering genius. But it never caught on.

So there you have it. I coined “The Mommy Blog.” Doesn’t it count if you come up with it with no outside influence? Oh yeah, there WAS no influence back then. And now my blog name is a descriptor that has become so commonplace and emotionally charged that it’s practically meaningless. Brilliant. Good luck with that.

Now I am surrounded by dozens of blogs calling themselves The Mommy Blog, Mommy Confidential, and even variations on Wonderbelly. I can’t service mark the whole dictionary, can I, so what am I complaining about? Well, I don’t want to be confused with a pro-swinger blog, or one that consists almost exclusively of blinking meme banners, or, and this really feels good, someone who does it a whole lot better than I do and makes total bank doing it.

It’s like I need a do-over, but I have six years of recognition and branding associated with the title of my blog. I called it first! Wait - can I change it?”

First let me state for the record that I have a real job, one that pays the bills.

In my FREE time, I have cheerfully agreed to try to fit the following in:

1. The reading and review (or at least a mention) of all of these books, generously sent to me by authors and publishing houses and PR reps, oh my. I haven’t yet heard back from any of them about having a look at my own books, both published and pending. It seems that if I want something done, I will have to do it myself. Again. But I digress. Anyhow, although there are twenty-six books pictured, I have a nagging feeling that I’m missing some, and that they may be buried among my children’s schoolwork, which we all know never gets sorted until they go off to college. If they go to college.
2. Resolution of the 2005 tax return misunderstanding with state agencies so that they will release the hold on my 2007 refunds and drop the claims for tens of thousands of dollars in taxes due were I to have earned since then what I earned that year. They funny thing? I was barely employed between 2005 and 2007, and actually earned LESS than I paid in mortgage interest. Life in these United States! Boy, that was a good one.
3. Ditto with federal agencies. I have been on hold with the Nutcracker Suite for a collective ninety minutes between yesterday and today. I’m walking around with the phone clipped to my shirt so I can hear the music and be ready to pick up when the rep finally comes online. HOTT.
4. Multiple attempts and finally success in reaching someone who can effect a full payout on what’s left of my meager retirement accounts. As you may or may not recall, I gave ninety percent of my retirement away in the divorce, so we’re not really talking about all that much. Which makes it all the more pathetic that I’m happy to pay the ten percent penalty to get my ass out of this sling.

Ooh! he just came online and said that they have everything straightened out, and that I should receive my check in, oh, about eight to twelve weeks.

*tucks grenade in blouse, pulls pin*

Well, now that we’ve established that the invitations to Daphne’s birthday party were NOT distributed, I can reschedule and work directly with the moms via email.

However, today is her birthday, and I can’t find her present. I bought it in January.

I custom-ordered pre-printed birthday party invitations for Daphne’s birthday party this Sunday, and just realized that no one had RSVP’d yet.

So I sat down with my daughter.

“Daphne, did you pass out your birthday party invitations at school like I asked you? Were all the names clear?”

“Um, I gave one to Piper...”

“Yes, and we gave one to your friend at after school care. What about the others?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if they are coming? You don’t know if you passed them out?”

“I don’t know what happened to them. They were just gone.”

Holy sweet baby Jesus in a corn crib. If no invitations were distributed, there will be no guests at the party. Rather, there will be no party. I can’t even check with her teacher; she’s away for Spring Break like everyone else in the school. We’ll see everyone on Monday, but that’s a bit too late.

I’m off to look up the class contact list in a last ditch effort to keep the date, or I’ll be calling the two who did get an invite to reschedule… damn, those invitations were so flipping cute.

I just went out to pick up my prescription, but didn’t get out of the driveway. The car won’t start.

That’s right! This is getting so repetitive I can’t believe it. This is not a gimmick, I do not make these things up.

I just returned from three hours at the urgent clinic where I paid a fortune for chest Xrays and treatment. Why? Because I couldn’t get an appointment with my own doctor to save my life. They had an opening for “flu” but not for “sinusitis and probable pneumonia.” I am not making this up. That is what the receptionist told me.

Also? He asked if I was a nurse or a doctor or something, because I was using words he’d never heard before. Oh. So, “prolonged URI with secondary bacterial infection of the sinuses” is something wacky in your office? What trade school did you roll out of? I finally asked that if the doctor couldn’t see me, could he please call me and we’ll do it over the phone.

A while later, a woman we’ll call Tweedledum phones to say, “He says you should steam, and use saline drops, and get some cold medicine.” It was all I could do not to reach through the phone and throttle her. I can’t even begin to tell the story, so I’m pasting a conversation I had with a friend before I went to the doctor.

Oh, and keep in mind that when I got to the counter with the freshly restored insurance coverage information, it couldn’t be verified. I had to pay cash. In advance.

My ex took the kids for the night so that I could rest and get over what I hope to be the last of this cold. I know it’s gone bacterial, but saltwater gargling and a little rain dancing have kept it down to a dull roar, which is nice because I really don’t want to see a doctor as I STILL DON’T HAVE INSURANCE. I’ll stop shouting that when they stop fucking up my coverage.

Anyway, I’ve been tracking fevers in my two youngest; diagnosed a double ear infection for Daphne, and just fever and cold for Dylan. However, Dylan’s fever went up, not down, over the weekend and when his dad came to get him he wanted to stay with me so that we could watch over each other. It was so sweet; he was worried about me and I was worried about him. He went anyway and I promised to stop by to give Daphne her antibiotics and to check on him.

Of all the children, Dylan has had the most surgeries, the most serious illnesses, and the most bizarre conditions. He nearly died when I passed the Coxsackie virus to him in utero, but he didn’t develop the antibodies in time to be able to fight it himself because he was born within a day or so of my exposure at the day care. By the time he was a week old, he just didn’t feel right, so I took him to the ER, and a good thing, too because he was in heart failure and stopped breathing a few hours later. Seventeen days of Level Four care in the NICU at Stanford, that’ll be two hundred fifty thousand dollars, please. He couldn’t just get a blister on his tongue like his brother did when he had it the year before.

And then there was the time he popped three hernias on Thanksgiving Day 2002: two inguinals and a rare Spigelian about two inches off to the right of his navel, too far to be umbilical. I pushed it back in with my fingers and scheduled surgery.

I’ve got a gut for his gut.

So when I walked into my ex’s house tonight they were eating dinner in front of a movie on the floor with huge piles of salmon skin all over the place. If you’re new here, you may not know that I have a thing about salmon. Which is exacerbated greatly by the smell of salmon skin. I nearly lost it, which is about the funniest thing ever to my kids. It’s their favorite food, and I never cook it for them. Keep laughing, smart guys.

While their dad took plates away so I wouldn’t have to smell them, I sat down for a minute to watch The Simpsons Movie. And I kept looking at Dylan. Finally I said, “Dylan has a fever, and there’s something wrong with him.” He coughed and said that his hip still hurt, just as it hurt this morning when he crawled into bed with me. So I gave him some Motrin and had him stand so I could check his lymph nodes.

Oh, it was all kinds of funny—he laughed so hard he farted—because I had to shimmy his shorts down his hips to see. As I walked my fingers down the trail of nodes leading to his groin, I said, “Uh, Dylan, these are HUGE. Does it hurt when I press on them?” As I let go he said, yes it hurt, and I said, “Okay, well, there’s a whole lot of fighting going on in your immune system, and it’s all in one place. If it keeps hurting, we need to think about appendicitis.” At this my ex looked up. “Well, it’s right there, it feels wrong, he’s got fever, it could be appendicitis. You can leave him with me in the morning. He shouldn’t go to school.”

I wasn’t home fifteen minutes when my ex emailed to say, “You’re so right. Dylan totally has a knot right at McBurney’s point (thank you Wikipedia). I’ll see if the pain occurs more on the release of the pressure rather than the pressure itself (thank you again Wikipedia).”

There you go! This was my favorite part of the Wikipedia entry: “Tenderness at McBurney’s point suggests the evolution of acute appendicitis to a later stage, and thus, the increased likelihood of rupture.” Jiminy. We tried to get more specifics out of Dylan, but at that point the Motrin had kicked in and he was half asleep.

I’ll check him in the morning. If I can sleep, that is.

Hi everyone! I’ll give you three hints!

1. I’m so sick that I can’t talk, can’t eat, and shouldn’t be sitting upright!
2. My neighbor asked me to take her to the shop to pick up her car, which had a flat!
3. While gassing up to take her, my car died and had to be jumped!

Thaaaaat’s right! It’s somebody’s birthday!

Happy Birthday, Mom! Enjoy the beach today! I promise to rest up so we can still take you to dinner tomorrow!

Man, this is the third day in a row that Daphne has woken with a temp, even on her second day of antibiotics. Long live Wednesday.

Also, I am certifiably sick as well, with the whole “I had a code ib by dose” diction and sniffly punctuation. After dropping the boys at school and firing off an email to a teacher, assuring her that I do, in fact, bathe my children every day, sometimes twice, and that they have clean clothes when they leave the house no matter what they look like after recess, I scrubbed my face and hands, chugged some Dayquill, and sat here to see if I could stand it.

I might last long enough to hit “publish.” I guess you’ll know that when you read this.

Anyone else not answering thier phones? I mean, I’m a bad American and a fraud for not voting yesterday (see, sick kids and moms might account for lower turnouts; who wants to wait in line as a restless, germy, family of four?), but COME ON. If Dean McCain is still calling me at 4 pm with anything but a reminder to get out there and vote, he’s maybe a little late with the messaging. Minds were made up, man, stop leaving me voice mail. At least during the last elections, I received calls from Arnold, Clint Eastwood, and other hunky celebs. Not McCain.

Yipee. Daphne’s medication has kicked in way ahead of mine, and she’s begging me to do a puzzle with her. Gee, I hope it has a lot of tiny pieces. Anyone remember Schmuzzles? That would make my head explode.

I have all these things stored up (not least the week-long tutorial in butchering, rendering, marinating, rendering again, packing, and eventual preparation of Duck Confit tomorrow night. I drool. Also? Am amazed at the amount of fat two ducks can hold.), but haven’t quite gotten here before being sidetracked by, well, life. Pictures soon, and stories.

What finally reduced me to a spineless pool of Mindy was the content of my Google alerts. I don’t know that I want them any more.

You know what I’m talking about - I bet you have some sort of search set up that looks for mentions of your business or name so that you can track press, etc. If you don’t, pretend you do. Now pretend that the name you’ve chosen for your business has become part of the modern vernacular, and that, in short, you are the Kleenex of the Blogosphere.

“Mommy Blog” is a probably in the dictionary by now. “The Mommy Blog” is damn near meaningless and has been co-opted by everyone and their sister. Not only that, “Mommy Confidential” has come in vogue. There are blogs now called Mommy Confidential, or bloggers who call themselves that. I’ve even seen Wonderbelly all over the place, sometimes in major newspapers and going online concerns. It’s a little deflating. Who wants to lawyer up for that? Also? Who wants to be confused with others who just set up shop last Tuesday but are who people find when they look for you?

In case this hasn’t sunk in, I’ve been writing The Mommy Blog, have done since 2002, and have published a book called Mommy Confidential: Adventures from the Wonderbelly of Motherhood. My bad.

This morning’s alert was the last straw. There’s a new Mommy Confidential in town, and she’s quite the swinger.

Lots of holding back hair!

That, and “Mom, can you finish the Rubick’s cube for me?”

Whiplash. I have fucking whiplash on Christmas Eve.

When I woke up this morning, all the muscles in my neck were screeching, my shoulders were up around my ears, and my head hurt, though not as badly as last night after the roller rink.

Mom thinks I should act my age and stop with the skating this and skating that, and she’s right. I just took Daphne over to Dad’s so I could have a couple of hours to put something warm on it and rest until it’s time to go to Mom’s for dinner. At four. Which should give me about two hours to get my ship in order.

Whiplash. Why am I even typing? That’s it; I’m leaving the computer. But first, the exchange in the car just now:

“Mama, can I sit in the middle seat since my brothers aren’t here?”

“No, Daphne, you need to sit in your car seat. You’re not six years or sixty pounds yet, so the law says you have to ride in your seat.”

“CURSE MY BODY!”

And then she continued muttering, “How dare you?” as she gnawed on her knee.

P.S. The first thing she said this morning was, “Wasn’t last night the greatest?”

I am slowly losing my mind… took the kids to the store after pickup and it was like guiding epileptic rhino babies down the aisles. Noisy, too. Got some psoriasis-strength lotion for Daphne’s bloody hands and wrapped them in gauze again. Had to pry Logan off the Zappo’s web site and think he finally understands that if they were out of a shoe this morning, the are still out of that shoe now. I just gave my car key to Dylan to get his backpack and really didn’t care if he went for a joyride. Was hurting so much today I took a Vicodin, so it doesn’t bother me as much to be losing my mind, and I think the kids sense that. They are doing homework, and if they do well, they can have Lunchables for dinner in front of Home Alone. Tomorrow they go to their dad’s, Allah be praised.

Just now I had to lift the leather club chair two feet in the air so that Daphne could crawl out of her secret “hiding place.” Have also yelled over my shoulder three times for Logan to stop dropping Goldfish on the ground. How far is it from the table to his mouth? Don’t answer.

Dylan: “I think my homework’s at Dad’s.” He wasn’t at Dad’s last night. He was here, doing his homework.

Now, I didn’t have some lunkhead drive into my restaurant, forcing me to close through the holidays, so I know I’m lame if I can’t handle this. I can. I can, I can.

Oh, and this is my Mood Manikin. Daphne says she’s “kissing a man and her leg is flying up.”

I have a sink and disposal full of standing water, part of which is an entire bottle of Draino. The plumber is on the way and it’s time for The Annual Empty Your Pockets After the Rain ceremony.

The last time this happened, I had to put in two thousand dollars worth of new pipes, and was warned there several more needed doing for another seven or eight grand. I just love the holiday season.

Looking for a missing contact lens without the benefit of both lenses.