“Can you make a rabid baby for me?”

Posted by on March 2, 2010 26 Comments

On Saturday I fulfilled my destiny to travel to NYC and stay in a hotel with strangers who might murder me amazing women I’ve met on the interwebs (this one, this one and this one, to be precise) when I purchased my tickets to Blogher 2010. In August I will fly to the greatest city to ever smell like piss and hot nuts, and learn all about how to be a grown up blogger. I will be hobnobbing and bumping laptops with some of the greatest bloggers ever, so you can understand the pressure to make a good, lasting impression is sort of up there with the pressure to not fart the first time you sleep with someone.

I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to come up with a cool idea for business cards – something that will leave everyone knowing exactly what “Baby Rabies” really means, at least in the context of me. I figured I’d start with a little field research on Twitter, and asked everyone what they thought of when they heard the term “baby rabies”. As you might imagine, I got a lot of “well, honestly? a baby foaming at the mouth… a baby with red eyes… an evil, rabid baby.”

An idea struck me, and in my 1-glass-of-wine-down state of mind I quickly Facebook messaged my sister in law Gabbi. She just married my brother, and they are both attending the Art Institute in Seattle, he for Photography and she for Graphic (or maybe it’s Digital?) Design. They are both crazy talented. For real.

Title: Can you make a rabid baby for me?

Like, not a real one. Ha! That title is very misleading. I mean, a cartoon one. Just a chubby, cute cartoon baby with rabies. Maybe foaming at the mouth a bit, maybe red-ish eyes. Nothing too complicated, I don’t think. I’d like to use it on my blog business cards for an upcoming conference.

Of course, I can pay you for it. Just tell me how long you think it will take you and how much you charge. And please, please, PLEASE don’t feel pressured to say yes. I know you’ve got a ton of work with school, so if you can’t fit it in right now, that’s okay.

Hope you two are doing well, staying dry and not starving!

So then, for some weird reason, I went back and looked at my sent messages. I was thinking maybe I sent it to her before I finished writing it after I glanced over at my empty wine glass and realized how quickly I’d sucked it down.

As soon as I opened the page I was all :: confused, squinty eyes:: “Who is THAT?!” ::heart stops:: *GASP* ::desperately searching for some sort of UNSEND button:: “Oh SHIT.” ::still looking for unsend button, WHEN WILL SOMEONE INVENT THE UNSEND BUTTON??:: ::slow laughter…shrug…harder laughter..snort…face is red…commence new message::

Uhhmmm… clearly I sent this message to the wrong person!!! OMG. LOL. Sorry! Ignore, please.

That person? Uhh… yeah… not quite sure who he is. I mean, I’m fairly sure he went to high school with me. I recall friending him in a mass friending around our 10 year reunion, which I was in charge of planning. Nice guy, it seems, although I’m not sure that we’ve ever even had a formal interaction on Facebook. And now he’s probably totally confused/alarmed by my request. The title alone might make him unfriend me, which truthfully, would save us both a lot of embarrassment.

What’s even funnier is that another guy I went to high school with, who was actually quite a close friend of mine, saw the name of this blog linked on my Facebook page last year and was all worried, thinking I’m blogging about my poor child’s plight, battling rabies, and what a sad, courageous thing to write about… you know, until he clicked on it and was all, “Agh! OMG, my EYES! She’s talking about her shredded labia and chunks of flesh missing from her nipples and cloth diapers!”

You see the need, then, for me to really come up with a great business card concept so that others at Blogher do not mistake me for the girl with the rabid baby. You may also see the need for me to stop drinking and writing things… of course, that would make this blog a lot less fun.

OH! OH LOOK WHAT I FOUND?!  Facebook DOES have an “unsend” button! It’s called DELETE! Fancy that. I need to sober up. <Edit: No, no that is wrong. It does not “unsend” it. It merely deletes it from your sent messages list. Gah. I realized this when the guy messaged me back saying he didn’t think he could help me out.

Kendall will probably be 22 months old by the time I get around to spell checking this bitch and hitting publish.

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Filed Under: Headed to Toddlerhood |Tagged With: , , |26 Comments

Keep your mommy wars off of Facebook!

Posted by on February 3, 2010 45 Comments

Ahhh, Facebook. I love you, I do. And yet, I hate you, or… more like some of the other people who use you. Specifically, the other people who use you as a way to spout their ignorance and idiocy behind  the safety of a computer and far from my reach, making it impossible to throat punch them. You make it entirely too easy for people to make complete asses of themselves. I’m not even going to take this down the road of mixing politics and online friendships, or with real life friendships taken online, or talk about the absurdity of all those “Copy and paste this into your status if you believe in XYZ. 93% of people won’t. Will you?” status updates.

Many times you are a breeding ground for passive aggressive bull shit, and today I witnessed how you are an unfortunate medium for “mommy wars”.

Taken from a friend’s page. She’s a few months out from having to return to work after having her first baby.

Friend’s status update-

was asked to officially email when I am coming back to work….and now I am all weepy.

Here’s a few (relevant) excerpts from the discussion that followed:

T- Oh just quit.

Friend- When you are the breadwinner (I hate that term) you can’t stay home. Plus I love working…just need to make sure what I am doing is worth it.

T- Maybe (husband) can stay home!

Friend- ha! No…he just got a big promotion

M-Going back to work isnt that hard…just be thankful you have a job to go back to…

T- Oh M…that’s the saddest. One of the biggest parts of parenting is being able to empathize with your children and put yourself in their position. It’s not about us. They don’t care about money, they care about feeling safe and loved. There’s always a way.

Okay, “T”, it’s people, stay at home moms like you that give the rest of us a bad rap. Statements like those make others think we are a bunch of judgey bitches, sitting at home on our pretty little pedestals, looking down on all the moms who choose (or don’t, but do it out of necessity) to work. I believe many a kid with 2 working parents grew up to feel safe and loved. Weak.

So, on behalf of myself and every other SAHM who has an ounce of respect for the collective whole of motherhood and womanhood, kindly SHUT THE FUCK UP. You’re making me look bad.

Gah. Facebook makes me stabby sometimes.

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Filed Under: Headed to Toddlerhood |Tagged With: , , , |45 Comments

Back to the Future

Posted by on November 3, 2009 7 Comments

A couple weeks ago my friend Barb (one of the founders and owners of Metroplex Baby and Kids) called me with a proposition. She was helping a local news producer find someone to give up the internet, entirely, for a week, and she thought I’d be “perfect” for it.  I had to laugh a little. How bad am I that people think I’d be the perfect case study for what happens when you give up internet for a week?

I was a little nervous about it, but figured it might be good for me.  I was feeling stressed and over-extended when she called me with the idea, and thought stepping away from the internet and email for a week might help me focus a little.  The call actually came when I was in hotel hell with Kendall, and I told myself that I would use this week to really focus on how to tame this wild toddler of mine.

I had a long list of tasks I planned to accomplish during my week of no internet, and I wondered just how anxious and lost I’d feel without being able to check in, google and connect with my friends. I planned to read lots of books on toddler behavior, and hoped my studies would pay off with some new tricks up my sleeve that would help me calm the beast that had taken over Kendall.

However, the week really didn’t go how I had envisioned. It was better. Admittedly, I didn’t accomplish too much more that I normally do during the week (leaving me wondering if I’m just a super awesome multitasker or lazier than I’d like to admit). I didn’t read any books on toddler behavior, but I did watch a lot of Super Nanny. I actually watched more television than usual (but no news, I really wasn’t in the mood to get caught up in the news this week), I read more, I enjoyed my coffee more. In general, I just slowed down.

I felt my stress and anxiety levels decrease throughout the week, I went to bed by 10:30 most nights and I slept like a rock. At the end of the week I also felt physically more relaxed. My shoulders weren’t painfully knotted, my back didn’t hurt, I felt more rested, and most importantly, I felt more relaxed and calm.

A recurring lesson I saw play out in all the Super Nanny episodes is that kids really pick up on your stress and anxiety level, and wouldn’t you know, Kendall seemed a lot more calm by the end of the week, too. We had far fewer tantrums than the week before (although some of that may be attributed to being home and not living out of a hotel), and I wasn’t so quick to get frustrated when the lines of communication weren’t working.  Turns out I didn’t need to read a bunch of books. I just needed to slow down and listen. I needed to listen to him, and I needed to listen to me. I needed to get back in touch with my mommy instinct.

It turned out to be a great experience and something I’m really glad I did. Sure, I have a ton to catch up on now, but nothing so pressing that I can’t step away. I think that’s the most important lesson I learned.  Sometimes I get so caught up in researching and planning, with the best intentions to be the best mom I can be, that I think it gets in the way of me just being… just living… just listening.

Now, I can’t live without the internet forever. I’m just hoping to phase it back into my life in a more balanced way. Still not quite sure how to do that, but I’m hoping if I just be still and listen, I’ll figure it out.

I can’t really share too many more details about the project I was helping out with just yet, but I’ll let you guys know when I can. All I can say is I’m so glad Barb and Metroplex Baby and Kids thought of me for this experiment. It was wonderful to team up with them.

For those of you in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, make sure you check out MetroplexBaby.com. I love going to their events when I can (especially Best and Hottest!), and they always have the latest “Scoop” on what’s happening in the area. Also, head over to my Facebook Fan Page to enter to win tickets to an MBK event this weekend. I’ll be giving away three sets today (November 3rd).

Kendall is 18 months and one day old (holy crap, that is crazy)

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Filed Under: Headed to Toddlerhood |Tagged With: , , , , |7 Comments