480th Friday Blog Roundup

So I got my Facebook movie via lookback, and I’m thrilled to say that the Facebook algorithm deemed that photo I took of turkey vultures picking clean the corpse of a dead deer as one of my most important photos that defined my last ten years.  Thank you, Facebook.  Computers really can do the hard curation work of human beings.  I’m considering hiring the Facebook algorithm to write a few blog posts per week for me.  I mean, it already knows my brain better than I know my brain.  I would think it could be taught to spit out a few coherent words on ovaries, Candy Crush, and blogging etiquette.

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Earlier in the week, the sliding doors on the car froze shut.  No amount of yanking could get them open, so the Wolvog suggested that we “clown car it.”

“What would that entail?” I asked.

“We’d climb in through the front seat.  Like clowns.”

So everyone piled into the car via my driver’s door (which is not a sliding door hence why it was able to be opened).  When we got to school, I pulled into the lot and prepared to walk them to the front door of the building.  But I had forgotten that I was wearing my yoga clothes.  This wouldn’t normally be an issue except I was wearing yoga pants that were about three sizes too large that dragged on the ground.  And since the ground was wet and icy, I had tucked the bottom of the pants into my thin socks.  All the kids stared at me as I approached the building, and the twins muttered that they were fine going the rest of the way on their own, thank you very much.

I don’t know when it happened, or how it happened.  The change came at night, like grey hairs or stretch marks.  I woke up this week, and I was that mortifying adult.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “These Moments” (Mrs. Spit)
• “Stuck” (Inconceivable)
• “Write for Me” (Outlandish Notions)
• “The Grief and the Trauma” (By the Brooke)
• “When Do You Know it’s Your Baby?” (The Chittister Family)
• “Surviving Baby Loss” (MissConception)
• “Addicted to IVF” (Laughter Through Tears)
• “Why She Got a Baby” (Waiting for Baby Bird)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I also had “These Moments” by Mrs. Spit since the post sits on the threshold of both weeks.  It’s an amazing post, where she decides to say what a stranger needs to hear vs. what she needs to say.  And in doing so, splits the universe.  It is gorgeous, heartbreaking… enormous.  About the love we give another human being sometimes.  Even when it guts us a little bit to give that kindness.  And it’s about the what should have beens.

A Woman My Age has a post about parenting after adoption, stating plainly, “I don’t know if anybody realizes this, but adoptive parents are always thinking about the future of their child while simultaneously trying to safeguard their histories and prepare them from a random stranger’s curiosity.”  It’s about the intrusive questions that get asked, and I love the way she phrases her response.

Life of the Barely Sane has a post about getting a tattoo as a way to honour becoming a mother.  As someone who has long thought of getting a tattoo, I always love posts like these.  She writes, “It says everything I wanted it to say and more without a single word on my body. MG is excited because she knows the bug is her and me? Well, I’m just glad to have the worst of the pain over with.”  Plus the post now has a picture!

Bio Girl has a moving post about her sister, counting down the anniversaries from the last year of her life especially as she approaches the big one in this upcoming week.  She writes, “Playing them over in my head, wishing I could focus on the good memories, but instead having my mind decide to relive the heartbreaking ones more often than I would ever choose.”  Sending a lot of love to her.

Lastly, Life and Love in the Petri Dish has a post about the work/home balance, admitting “The fact is that it seems ok to be in my role and be an academic and a mom as long as it appears that my mommying does not infringe on my professional life.”  But you should read this post for her kick-ass response to her question about being a mother and a professional.  Loved it.

The roundup to the Roundup: Thanks, Facebook, for the movie.  I embarrass people.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 31st and February 7th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.