TheMommyBlog

Friday, August 08, 2008 Children's Health, Women's Health, Fellow Parenting Authors

Remember when a bunch of mom bloggers went to Cincinnati to visit with Pampers? Remember? No? The runs through O’Hare, the broken eyeglasses, the falls out of the limo? Still nothing?

Well, you’ll remember this, by golly. I designed a new widget for donations to the “Support UNICEF’s Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus” effort, to be displayed on our sites.

Not one of us walked away from our visit with UNICEF USA’s CEO Caryl Stern unaffected by her descriptions of the thousands of preventable neonatal and maternal deaths from Tetanus, a totally preventable disease. The cost of a single vaccine? Five cents. There was no question we weren’t going to do something about it.

Lifesaving Immunization for Children

Every since its first tuberculosis campaign in 1947, UNICEF has been a leader in global immunization. Today we provide vaccine to 40 percent of the world’s children and help save two million lives a year. But thousands of children still die needlessly every day from diseases like measles, polio, or tuberculosis. UNICEF is committed to vaccinating every single child against preventable childhood diseases.

When war or natural disaster strikes, we do whatever it takes to get children immunized. We help broker ceasefires so that we can enter a war-torn region and vaccinate its children. After a disaster, we go door-to-door in the remotest areas to distribute lifesaving vaccines.

Here is the widget, which also has a home in the sidebar. Our hosts have really gone the extra mile and created a page just for us where you can make a donation and receive a tax reciept on the spot. Pampers will track the donations that come through this widget, so we can see how well we’re doing to support the cause.

To get an idea of how important that is to us, have a look at the video of Mr. McCleary’s (of Pampers) visit to Angola to see UNICEF’s progress with tetanus vaccines.

Dig around and see how many nickels you have laying around, and then think about each one of those saving a mom’s or baby’s life. And pass our links around so we can get this thing to go viral. If we can’t pull it off, who can? Who care more about moms and babies than other moms and babies? You can make a difference, and save twenty lives for each dollar. I just donated fifty dollars, and you know what a commitment that is for me right now.

Let’s take Tetanus out of the equation - having children is hard enough without knowing just how slim the chances or survival are without proper care and vaccination.

Thursday, August 07, 2008 Me, Me, Me, Bad Mood Dude, Familybits

Honestly. I want someone to fess up. Did we or did we not as a family commit some kind of atrocities in a former life? Because Karma is kicking our ass, and handily. Somebody get on it, stat. I want a report on my desk in the morning.

I just heard from someone who shall remain nameless to respect privacy (but we used to be married), that the company that had changed hands more often this year than a blood diamond, just issued him, FOR THE SECOND TIME IN A ROW, a paycheck for $0. I kid you not. It wasn’t enough that they slashed salaries and are tying up commissions, but this guy’s poor ex-wife is out of work. They can’t get their kittens together, and two families are suffering the trickle-down.

How are we supposed to keep ourselves in Cheerios? How? In the name of God and all His backup singers, HOW??

P.S. I was one of the lucky ones that was halfway through the process of registering for a Clear Verified Identity Pass (so we wouldn’t have to wait in security lines while traveling through every airport on the West Coast), but then they thought they had a security breach and have shut down the applications. So, I’ve paid, but I can’t hop the lines. A Swiss fucking watch.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008 Familybits

The kids and I caught the tail end of Finding Nemo on TV a couple of times this week, and I’d forgotten how funny it was. A lot of the humor is for the grownups; the kids know Marlin’s annoyed with Dory, but don’t always know why. For instance, when they are in the whale’s belly and Marlin starts to panic when the water level goes down.

Marlin: The water’s going down. It’s-it’s-it’s going down!
Dory: Hmm. Are you sure about that?
Marlin: Look! Already it’s half-empty.
Dory: Hmm… I’d say it’s half-full.
Marlin: Stop that! It’s half-empty!

And then someone wrote to me this morning from Smile Therapy, a profoundly cheery site, asking for my feedback. Anyone wanna go get popcorn for this? No, no, I was very nice, but in my present mood I was also totally candid:

Hi,

I know there are a lot of bloggers who would love this and be better at promoting it than I would.  Unfortunately, I’m an incorrigible cynic who manages to put on a sunny face. It just wouldn’t be sincere coming from me, esp considering my present circumstances.

As soon as I hovered over send I felt guilty, so I gave him the URLs of a few blogs that seem to be aligned with his vision. I didn’t expect to hear back. I was wrong.

Mindy,

Got to LOVE your 100% honesty. How Refreshing!!!!!  What’s wrong at present, if I may ask?? Anything I can help out with?? I appreciate the contacts. Will follow up with them.

I should have walked away, I really should have. But I’m feeling entitled to self-pity these days, so I laid it out:

Oh, just unemployed, single mom of three grade schoolers, huge mortgage, like that. I always come through, looking ten years older, but I come through!

And then, I felt a little irritated with myself. Bitch, bitch, bitch. It’s not so bad, I’ve been in worse shape, like when I wasn’t sure if I had breast cancer and had surgery to check it out, or when Dylan was on life support and in an induced coma for ten days when he was only a week old, or when I was in the depths of postpartum depression, the likes of which no one could possibly understand who hasn’t been there herself, or… let’s face it: if you’ve been reading here for any length of time you could finish the list for me.

So, I thought that I’d review the day with OPTIMISM and ENTHUSIASM for a change. Shut up, you in the back.

All the children went obediently to camp this morning after giving me fierce and lovely bear hugs and kisses! I told them that we had been given this week of bible camp free, and that we weren’t going to insult them by not going no matter how agonizing it was to do crafts like painting and wood-burning and only being allowed to use decorations like crosses or “Jesus,” and I couldn’t afford any place else, and I needed to find a job so we could keep our house, eat, sleep in beds, etc. By the way, Logan came home so pleased with himself because he managed to slip a comet into his wood burning craft, and it was allowed because it was close enough to the star over the manger. Took a loooong time to get my face back under control.

I applied for unemployment benefits and will most likely get them! Also, a reader (God, I love you guys) wrote and said she had a friend in the EDD, and asked her about my situation and what I should do to maximize the odds. She went completely out of her way to find out the processes so I would know what to do if denied. I almost cried.

I finally get to try out my grout pen! Daphne dropped a bottle of Bus Stop Red nail polish on the white tiles in the bathroom tonight, after I told her to put it back, stat, because if it got on the floor it would destroy the hardwood. She was terrified to tell me, but I was unbelievably happy it happened on the tile and that she learned her lesson without costing me thousands in refinishing costs.

I’m looking forward to cleaning out the garage! It’s the only way I’ll find that grout pen. I’ve been tripping over it for a year, and now it’s vanished. Poof. Oh! And I’m cleaning out the linen closet! Bus Stop Red is not very kind to white towels or bathmats. However, it did make the glass shards easier to find. Follow the sparkly red trail!

I get to see an old friend tomorrow! He does my life insurance and I have to get my tush in there before I turn forty in order to keep the premium from skyrocketing.

My sheets smell like sunshine! They aren’t quite dry yet, as today wasn’t particularly sunny and the dryer is still broken. The repair man has been here twice, and STILL keeps finding broken pieces. Thank goodness (well, thank Phil) we got a home warranty insurance policy, and it’s only costing sixty dollars. Otherwise, I’d have to wheel that $800 LG to the curb.

I have tons of books to read! But I’m supposed to review them, and my retention isn’t up to par these days. Instead, I found a couple of Danielle Steele paperbacks while cleaning the garage and decided they will be perfect for the twenty-four hour flights to and from Beijing next week.

Speaking of travel, we get to visit four world-class cities between Sunday and Friday! The trip I won to the Olympics had a few non-negotiable stipulations, most notably flights that originate in LA or NY. So, we get to fly from San Jose to LA on Sunday night, spend the night at the airport, and hop an early flight back up to San Francisco for our connection to Beijing. Coming back will be almost as fun, possibly more. Beijing to San Francisco, San Francisco to LA, LA to San Francisco, San Francisco to San Jose. Whee! We could not get around the “Originate in and return to LA” rule, and skipping one or more of the legs will only create security issues I don’t think the good people who are hosting us deserve to have.

How was your day??? Sunshine and kittens? Yay!

Monday, August 04, 2008 Bad Mood Dude, Familybits

I had a funny, sunny post all lined up for today, and then I found out that I will not be collecting any back pay once my org receives more funding. So that means I’ve missed out on collecting three months of unemployment. Excuse me while I crawl back into bed.

Oh, I remember: Dylan got a Shuffle for his birthday, and asked this morning if I would download “Highway to Hell” for him. I said, “WHAT?” He replied, “I already have “Stairway to Heaven” so why shouldn’t I have “Highway to Hell?”

Sunday, August 03, 2008 Me, Me, Me, Other people who write

I just logged on to Facebook and caught a glimpse of one of those ads in the sidebar that are cleverly tailored to you based on your account information. Mine usually say something like “39 Year Old Female? Work at Home!” One actually said 40. Look, that will be true soon enough, Bunky, so let’s not go jumping the gun.

Just before the sidebar switched to an ad aimed at aging moms, there was one for Obama. Why? I have no idea, just as I have no idea why it was so swiftly swapped out. But I was listening to Radio Free Mitch by Mitch McDad talking about his daughter sticking her hands in a restaurant urinal because it was SO ICKY, so perhaps Obama was served up to Mitch’s demographic at first. I don’t know. I’m an aging mom.

Anywho, it said, “One Million Obama Buttons Free! Even the Shipping’s Included!” Which is actually kind of funny, because I’d love to see how they’d collect the forty-one cents for a stamp, and how much it would piss people off to get to PaypPal and forget to put the decimal before the 4. Obama might wind up with a bunch of donations for 41 dollars instead, which is a tidy profit for a campaign button. Come to think of it, my respect for his campaign managers just went up a notch. That’s brilliant! Anyone want to buy a button from The Mommy Blog?

It reminds me of a story about David Packard, for whom I had the pleasure of working while at The Packard Foundation. He was a great citizen and patriot, and gave generously when he saw a cause to support. In one case, he received a thank you note from a politician for a donation along with—you guessed it—a campaign button.

As the story goes, he fired off a letter to the politician, warning him that if he sent him one more stupid campaign button, he’d never get another cent of support. It was a terrible waste of the money donated and he wanted to see it put to better use. I loved that about him. He was a firecracker toward the end; I can’t even imagine tangling with him as a younger man.

So that got me thinking about Obama’s million campaign buttons. And what even that kind of bulk order might have cost. Plus the shipping. Not to mention the advertising to get people to call or write in and request a button, and the cost of the postage/phone call to do even that. And I started to get irritated.

People, I have barely enough to feed my family, let alone the time, inclination, or fervor to write to Obama asking for a free campaign button so I can advertise my wise political choices. I can make my own button, for free, right here on my computer. I’ll Photoshop that puppy and put it on my wallpaper.

I don’t need to wear it on my shirt in public so people can admire my canny self.

Now that’s a 39 year old woman working at home!