Category: Blogging

Because apparently we have solved EVERYTHING else in the world, Time Magazine has seen fit to pit mother against mother with this inflammatory title. “Are you Mom Enough?”, indeed!

Happy Mother’s Day. You can MAKE people and successfully lead them to adulthood… but, by the way, you are all still inadequate unless you can breastfeed your preschooler (and look HAWT while doing it). Whoop-whoop. Don’t forget to patronize our advertisers. Kthaxbai. 

First of all, I would like to take a step back and applaud fellow blogger, Jamie Lynne Grumet of I Am Not The Babysitter for being so open with her choices and… um, Hello! for being on the cover of TIME MAGAZINE. Woot! But that title still makes me want to wretch.

I take absolutely no issue with Jamie Lynne, her choices, or attachment parenting. From what I understand, it’s quite a lovely article, but I wouldn’t know since I haven’t read Time Magazine since the 1980s when it was the only thing my parents subscribed to. I do however openly take issue with the follow things:

The Blatantly Cheap Title Meant to Incite… What? Another Fake Mommy War? Confusion about what the article is really about? 

Puh-lease! Mothers are smarter than this.

The cover story is about Attachment Parenting and the man who popularized it, Dr. William Sears. If you are interested in learning more about this topic, DON’T read Time Magazine. Read Dr. Sears’ book, The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two.

I have a well-worn, much-loved copy of it in my donate stack. I can even send it to you. Just ask.

The “Come Judge Me, Why Don’t You” Grimace Has Zero to do with Breastfeeding

My other problem is the composition of this photo– the stone-cold resistant look on the faces of mother and son, the aggressive pose, the foot stool…

It all becomes more apparent when you see the Behind the Cover images as provided by Time. There were other mom-child photos considered– softer, comforting, more natural, genuine images of a tender and beautiful bond.

Everything nursing presumes to be. And, yet the publisher chose the one above. Let’s stop to ask why.

I didn’t nurse either of my children for very long, but I enjoyed it while it lasted. I improved with experience, meaning I was better at it with my second child than with my first. New challenges aside.

Public nursing with a toddler in tow required that I take a variety of position. I nursed while standing in the middle of park, seated at the edge of play space at the mall, and even while getting a dental check up. I never once assumed an “I just dare you to judge me” look. Not once.

The only Mother Superiors I’ve Ever Known Were Nuns

A woman’s ability and/or willingness to breastfeed is completely separate from her quality as a mother. Can we please take that out of the equation once and for all?

The cover model actually wrote a brillant post for BlogHer on the 10 Things Breastfeeding Advocates Need To Stop Saying. 

The Internet is Forever

Jamie Lynne’s son is almost four and I would hazard to guess, approximately my height.  He looks more like a prop in this photo and surely he had no say whatsoever in it’s placement, composition, or messaging.  Perhaps the mom did not either.

That’s fine for now, but it won’t be long before he and his friends are on the Internet. A few Google searches for his name and this image will surely be the first to come up. I can only image the mocking and public ridicule to follow.

For as much noise as this photo sought to generate, it isn’t going anywhere. I’ve seen it 15 separate times this morning alone never having left my Facebook page. It’s already prompted hundreds of blog posts, Facebook updates, Tweets, memes, etc. It will not be forgotten anytime soon.

It’s not like he’s the Nirvana baby. There will never be anything cool about this photo in 10 years. He is the bored preschooler who appeared suckling his mom’s boob on a national magazine. The question that will always loom after is, “How messed up did that make him?”

He is now the poster child for whatever society decides to blame or attribute on attachment parenting in decades to come. “Look at this kid, he was nursed until he was the size of adult woman and he turned out… “ 

If you are using Blogger (Blogspot) as your blogging platform, who am I to judge. It’s simple to design, easy to maneuver, and integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics, Feedburner, Picasa, Google Reader…  Now that I think of it, it’s pretty gosh darn awesome if you ask me.

Google has even updated the Dashboard so that it’s very clean and cool. Unfortunately, what it has gained in style (so to speak), it has lost in functionality.

For instance, you can’t seem to remove the CAPTCHA (word verification) when people leave comments in the new Blogger interface. If you try looking in the Settings > Posts and Comments, there is no longer a section for word verification as there once was. It seems that the only way to make this adjustment is in the “old” Blogger interface. So how does one get around this?

Go to the “Options” icon. It’s looks like a little gear on the right side of the screen. Click on it and find the link to the Old Blogger Interface.

This will take you to the old interface. Click on the Settings and that will take you to Comments menu.

Scroll down, down, down…. even further down… to the options to turn OFF the word verification.

Now, embrace the SPAM!

It’s time again for the Annual Great Bloggy Holiday Card Exchange and here is ours.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Everything to all of my friends! I am so very happy to have all of your in my life (and in my laptop). I am, indeed, very blessed.

As I do every year, I made TWO versions of our holiday card– one to send to family and close friends, and another to send to the people who love us dearly, but probably don’t want a three-fold spread of  ”look how freakin’ cute my kids are. Look! Look!”

To see the other version on my holiday card, read my post on Why I Send Holiday Cards.

Last Sunday, Jennifer Perillo, a fellow blogger, lost her husband suddenly to a heart attack. Just like that. No warning. No signs.

I didn’t know Jennie prior to this week, but that’s not saying much. There are lot of bloggers I don’t know, in spite of being as well-know and much-loved as she is. Yet, grief and sympathy has rippled throughout the blogging community and I could not help but  feel a sense of loss and sadness for her and their two daughters.  My eyes welled with tears as read her blog posts about their final days together, and it took everything I had not to pull my children out of their camp/daycare right then and there and tell them that I love, love, love, love them.

When asked what we could do to help, Jennie simply asked that we make pie and share it with someone you love. So yesterday, bloggers from all around the country, perhaps even all over the world, came together to make a #pieformikey.  Food Network  has compiled all of the posts on their site in a lovely tribute to Jennie and Mikey.

Fresh from a conference attended by over 3600 people who share the same passion for blogging, it’s always so hard to then explain to outsiders how people “who exist in my computer” could matter so much to me that I would travel across the country just to bask in their glow. It unsettles me when people are quick to put down Facebook or Twitter with the insinuation that those relationships ought to matter less than the friendships I could be making in my city or neighborhood.

I don’t know what could be more real than sharing such a tremendous loss and receiving an overwhelming show of support in return. At the end of the day, there’s a person at the other end of that blog post/ Twitter handle/ Facebook “like” and when they grieve, so do you.

Creamy Peanut Butter Pie was her husband’s favorite, which she shared on her site, In Jennie’s Kitchen. Make one for someone you love today.

Creamy Peanut Butter Pie

Serves 10 to 12

8 ounces chocolate cookies

4 tablespoons butter, melted

4 ounces finely chopped chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup chopped peanuts

1 cup heavy cream

8 ounces cream cheese

1 cup creamy-style peanut butter

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

1 – 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Add the cookies to the bowl of a food processor and pulse into fine crumbs.  Combine melted butter and cookie crumbs in a small bowl, and stir with a fork to mix well.  Press mixture into the bottom and 1-inch up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave.  Pour over bottom of cookie crust and spread to the edges using an off-set spatula.  Sprinkle chopped peanuts over the melted chocolate. Place pan in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

Pour the heavy cream into a bowl and beat using a stand mixer or hand mixer until stiff peaks form.  Transfer to a small bowl and store in refrigerator until ready to use.  Place the cream cheese and peanut butter in a deep bowl.  Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy.  Reduce speed to low and gradually beat in the confectioner’s sugar.  Add the sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract and lemon juice. Increase speed to medium and beat until all the ingredients are combined and filling is smooth.

Stir in 1/3 of the whipped cream into the filling mixture (helps lighten the batter, making it easier to fold in the remaining whipped cream).  Fold in the remaining whipped cream.  Pour the filling into the prepared springform pan.  Drizzle the melted chocolate on top, if using, and refrigerate for three hours or overnight before serving.

The time to tell people that you love them is now.

{image credit: Bob.Fornal, Flickr}

My girl has been a “bink baby” since the day she was born, and I make no apologize for it.

Because, like me, she finds something she likes and sticks with it, she’s partial to the one type.  And because I am also lazy, I’ve never tried to break her of the habit.

The bink’s become a regular feature in our family photos and we make no apologize for that either.

Mike and I talked about maybe… when she’s two… perhaps we’ll try to get her to stop with the bink, but with her LOUD willful cries and its magical ability to soothe her instantly, it was easy to put it off. Then, sometimes opportunity presents itself and one simply cannot resist that either.

Earlier this week, I came home from BlogHer’11. Mike took the days off to stay home with the kids, so it was with an appreciative tone that I asked him, “Great googly-moogly! What the frying hash browns happened to the house while I was gone?” (expletives omitted). I had to get past the smell to which my family had scarily become accustomed in order to get to the mess.

Add to that several bags full of dirty laundry and swag.

It’s taken me three days to unpack my bags on to the living room… bedroom… hallway…  The house is very much still a disaster. Then, this afternoon, we lost the bink! 

So Lou went without her nap, and was completely undone by mid-afternoon. “Where bink, Mommy? Where bink?” she kept asking.

In desperation (or perhaps it was in madness), I crafted a fib so bold and so daring. In the most upbeat and effervescent tone that I could muster three-days post-conference, I casually suggested that, “The Bink Fairy must have taken it and given it to another baby.”

Lou paused. “A baby?”

“Yeah, because you’re a big girl! Not a baby anymore… oh, and she probably left you presents! Yeah, presents!”

“Is that really true, Mommy? Or you just making it up?” Scout asked.

My mouth said, “No, it’s very true. Just like the tooth fairy!” but my eyes in the rear view mirror were saying, “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.”

We were in the car and on our way home when I decided to fabricate my little deceit. It was nearing dinner time and there’s no way I could slip out before bedtime to find thoughtful and clever “presents from the bink fairy” that neither of them had seen before.  You would think with the amount of swag I brought home there would be something… but good little blogging fodder that they are, my children were ransacking my bags before we could step out of the airport terminal.

Thinking. Thinking. Thinking.

Just as I was pulling into our drive way, I noticed a box by our front door. Is it? Could it be? IT WAS! 

It was the box that I had shipped home from BlogHer, containing all of the swag that did not fit in my bags. Most of it was from the THIRTY pounds of toys, books, and games that I received from The Big Toy Book’s Sweet Suite party at BlogHer. Not all of it came home with me. Some items were shared with my roommates, the Nap Warden and the Five Dollar Shake, who also have adorable girls and one very charming boy waiting at home for them. From what I’ve heard, it’s made for some happy squeals!

As my kids ate dinner in another room, I tore open the box and found the PERFECT items.

Tonight, the “Bink Fairy” will be leaving my daughter the following items by her bedside:

Seen in photo: LadyBug Girl and the Bumble Bee Boy and LadyBug Girl doll and an I Spy Wonder Tube

She was also so kind as to provide a little hush present for Scout, too…

Seen in photo: (clock- wise) HexBugs Glow in the Dark Starter set, KRE-O Transformers Optimus Prime Construction Set, GrowUms “Taco Garden” kit, and Jungle Speed

 Thank you, The Big Toy Book and KidVuz, for the fantastic party at BlogHer 2011 and definitely for helping me save face.

Disclosure: I received an amazing collection of toys from  The Big Toy Book and KidVuz at the The Big Toy Book Sweet Suite party at BlogHer 2011. Not all of them made it home with me. The views and options expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of  the Bink Fairy or anyone else.