Category — Friday Blog Roundup

I love hearing about how other people give and receive gifts, and I’m trying to sum up some thoughts I had reading the comments.  I’ll post that this weekend after I finish getting the 2012 Creme de la Creme is order.  Because yes, it’s almost done, and yes, it is fantastic.  I know I say that every year, but really, this one is fantastic.  There’s an analogy used to leaving treatments that I’ve never heard before, and a few posts that made me cry, and others that made me laugh hysterically.  I love it when posts pop up that I’ve already read and had thought at the time, “I hope they submit this to the Creme.”  So look for the list to go up on January 1st.

Speaking of which, we once again have no exciting New Years Eve plans.  This seems to be a running theme for us: not doing anything for New Years.  We’ll possibly watch Return of the King all night so the twins can know how the trilogy ends before we see the Hobbit.  Not that they really need to see one in order to appreciate the other.  We’ll drink bottles of butter beer.  We’ll tune in to Time Square coverage around 11:45 so we can see the ball drop.

What are you doing for New Years?

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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:

• “The Last Tube Stop” (Everyday Stranger)
• “His Name is Noah Pozner” (Dyke in the Heart of Texas)
• “An Act of Faith” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Tiara
• “Cooper Samuel” (Miss Conception)

Okay, now my choices this week.

An Unwanted Path has a post about an unexpected pregnancy announcement she heard over the holidays.  It’s a brief post, but it feels like a fist hitting the opposite palm, driving out the emotional pain in short beats.

Kate; Uncensored has a blue Christmas post.  I think it’s so easy to get sucked into this vision of Christmas based on past memories and future hopes and ideas fed from the media and commercials.  But sometimes life doesn’t line up that way just because it’s December.  Sometimes shit happens right over the holiday season.  And it’s a wonderful reminder that just because it hits a certain time of year doesn’t mean that people’s troubles go away.

Lastly, Stumbling Gracefully has a post about expectations.  I’ve often focused on getting rid of expectations, but she asks a very important question: “how do we conceive of our expectations? Where do they come from?”  She moves from expectations in family building to expectations in blogging, and how these thoughts that we carry shift and change as new information comes in, sometimes leaving us feeling unanchored.

The roundup to the Roundup: 2012 Creme de la Creme going up in a few days!  No big New Years plans but lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between December 21st and December 28th) 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.

If you are reading this, it would appear that the Mayan predictions of the world ending on December 21, 2012 haven’t come true. (And no, you don’t need to write a comment about what historians believe the Mayans truly meant or how there are still many more hours in the day for the world to end on cue.)  I wrote this paragraph on Thursday thinking, if the world doesn’t end, then I will be on target talking about how the world hasn’t ended.  And if the world does end, no one will be here to read how I got it all wrong.

It’s not the ending (or not ending) of the world that struck me.  It’s the fact that this date is finally here.  That we spoke about it as children on the playground, committing this date to memory.  I remember telling my friends that when the day came, I would be an adult but I wouldn’t go to work that day.  Instead, I would hide in my parent’s house with my family.  In this scenario, I wasn’t married with children of my own.  I just assumed that in the year 2012, my siblings and I would hunker down in my parent’s house so we could all be together when the world ended.

2012 sounded impossibly far away, like an eternity.  Hell, the year 2000 sounded like an eternity back in 1980.  And now we are 12 years into this millennium.  Isn’t that crazy?

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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:

• “Birth Stories” (R. Sativus)
• “Crossing the Line with ‘Why Don’t You Adopt?’” (Whitney & Erick)
• “Thoughtful Thursday: Off the List” (Baby Smiling in Back Seat)
• “It’s Okay” (Here We Go Again)
• “Newtown” (Stirrup Queens) – thank you, Kmina
• “Do Something” (Baby Interrupted)
• “Heartbroken” (Apple Pie and the Universe)
• “Push Me Pull You” (I Can’t Whistle)
• “Still Her” (Mrs. Spit)

Okay, now my choices this week.

As you would expect, the shooting at Sandy Hook was processed on a lot of blogs.  Weathering Storms has a post about wading through the unhelpful Facebook status updates people were snarling at each other after the shooting.  She writes, “I thought that tragedy was supposed to bring out the best in everyone? That we are supposed to come together and comfort each other…instead, people were tearing each other down.”  She posts a snippet of a poem by Rumi.  It’s a beautifully quiet post.

Here We Go Again has one of the most helpful posts I’ve ever read about processing a tragedy, whether it happens on a national or worldwide scale or a personal scale.  I think this was my favourite part: “I actually think that is one of the most wonderful things about our world. Life goes on. No matter what, someone is having the worst day of their life. But someone else is having the best day. And even when the worst is very, very bad- like today- normal life still has to happen around it.”  Go read (and bookmark and spread word) about this post.

Lastly, Still Life with Circles has a gorgeous post about the end of the world and mourning the death of a child, marking what would have been her child’s 4th birthday if she had lived.  I will give you a taste of the post: “I remember what that feels like. The end of the world. The rug is pulled out from under you. Tumbling, nauseated, insomniatic, fearful, like you can suddenly see all the poison, juts, knives, umbilical cord accidents, guns, cars as weapons of mass destruction, televisions untethered to walls.”  You will need to click over and read in order to feel the full power of the piece.

The roundup to the Roundup: The world didn’t end, though I can’t believe that 2012 is finally here.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between December 14th and December 21st) 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.

This is it, my friends.  The Creme de la Creme list closes to submissions TOMORROW.  As in, the 15th.  At 11 pm EST.  If you want your blog to appear on the 2012 Creme de la Creme list, read the post and fill out the form before tomorrow night.  Or forever hold your peace because there will be no submissions accepted after December 15th this year.

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I no longer seem to be getting Facebook message notifications.  Just a heads up.  A friend left a comment that she emailed me the recipe I requested.  I waited for a bit, checking email a few times, but the recipe never came.  I finally went back in Facebook to check there and saw that I had dozens of unread messages that I didn’t know had been sent.  I have notifications checked off for messages, but regardless, they’re not being forwarded to email.  So.

Apologies to everyone who has emailed me there, though to be fair, I have said countless times that if you want to reach me, email me directly rather than going through other social media platforms since I don’t always see those messages.

Is anyone else having trouble with Facebook notifications?  Is there a solution?

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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:

• “Moving Forward” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, A!
• “My Invisible Child” (The Empty Cookie)
• “Long Term Prognosis” (Life and Love in the Petri Dish)
• “The Other Mother” (ANDMom)
• “Scared” (Baby Smiling in Back Seat)
• “More to Come” (Yo-Yo-Mama)
• “Holidays After Loss” (My Life After Loss)
• “The Beginning of the End” (My Cheap Version of Therapy)
• “PANK” (Single Infertile Female)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Nuts in May has a Christmas post, and she brings clarity to something that it seems a lot of people feel in the winter; namely, that everything feels worse near the holidays.  Things that were bad in September feel terrible now.  Things that were bothering you are now eating away at you.  She describes her ghost child, her first child, but if nothing else, you should read it for lines such as this one: “And you don’t know the meaning of love or family until you’ve given birth, allegedly. Why not flay me and roll me in rimming salt while you’re at it?”

What They Never Tell You has a post about that age-old question: “How Are You?”  It’s an incredibly powerful post, and I think these lines should be required reading for everyone… I was going to say everyone who works in a medical field, but it’s probably better to just make them required reading for the entire world: “I was signing in for my D&C, the words ‘how are you?’ in a chipper voice and a smile didn’t have the effect that they should. I’d reached my limit with those words. I am not okay. I am not fine. I will not be okay today and I will not be okay tomorrow. 5 years from now or even 30 years from now, there will be a place in me that will never be okay.”

An Unwanted Path has a post about feeling off, mostly physically, but also emotionally too.  She explains, “Other than that, I’ve been feeling kind of nostalgic and my thoughts are running in circles. I’d write a post, but my thoughts keep slipping away from me.”  Isn’t that a perfect way to put it?

Lastly, Baby, Borneo, or Bust is also feeling a sense of unease; perhaps as Nuts in May points out above, it’s tied to the time of year.  It’s about looking at a life where you can count all your blessing and still feeling a sense of discomfort over something that you can’t quite name.  It is perhaps a familiar feeling to many parenting after IF: “I know what it means to struggle, to work hard, to try to overcome.  I don’t know how to exist in space where there is room to breathe, to live.  It’s making me antsy.”

The roundup to the Roundup: The 2012 Creme de la Creme list will close for submissions TOMORROW.  Facebook no longer seems to be notifying.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between December 7th and December 14th) 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.

Y’all realize we’ve reached the final week to submit to the 2012 Creme de la Creme.  On December 15th around 11 pm EST, I’ll close the list to submissions.  I put that in all red so you can’t miss it.  The entire list will go up on January 1st.  This is also your last chance to help spread word so no one feels left out of the list.

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My heart goes out to Princess Kate who has been hospitalized for severe vomiting during pregnancy.  Actually, my heart goes out to all the non-famous women who are also experiencing hyperemesis gravidarum. (Was the Princess diagnosed with this?  It seems a bit early for that diagnosis.)  With the twins, I began vomiting around week 8, and I didn’t stop vomiting until the day I delivered them.  In between, we were able to get the vomiting down to a few times per day with the help of Zofran and Nexium, though I lost my voice for a bit. (I liked to think of it as my sexy bedroom voice instead of a raspy, raw-throated, vomit-induced voice.)  While it was hellish in the moment, I have to admit that in retrospect, I am very pleased with myself for my ability to vomit and drive at the same time.  Thank you, Starbucks, for making two venti cups the perfect size to hold a car ride’s worth of vomit, and Saturn for providing two drink holders to hold said cups of vomit in each of their vehicles.

So yeah, no good advice beyond avoid spaghetti for the time being (truly, nothing is worse coming up than pasta).  But my heart goes out to you.

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Silas House had a brilliant piece in the New York Times called “The Art of Being Still.”  I read it to the ChickieNob, who immediately understood exactly what he meant.  It is literally one of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever read.  Not that you should be reading it.  Because you should be writing instead.

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While getting to the Hobbit is my top film-going concern this winter, Les Miserable is a close second.  Having forgotten chunks of the story (such as Javert’s death), I suggested that we bring the kids to see it since we know that Tolkien will be too intense.  “Uh, I don’t know, Mel,” Josh said to me.  “The war?  Lovely Ladies?”  Pish-posh!  How bloody can the war be?  And the lovely ladies are just really friendly girls who want the boys to take them dancing.

So to prep them for the movie, I sat the kids down and gave a 15 minute, very emotional explanation of the entire plotline of Les Miserables.  Every character, descriptions of relationships, bits of song.  I freakin’ sang “One Day More” for them with tears in my eyes.  And at the end, in a moment of stunned silence, the ChickieNob asked a perfectly reasonable question:

“Why didn’t Jean Valjean go to his sister’s house when he got out of jail?”

Uh… because then he wouldn’t have stolen from the bishop and changed the course of his life!  For the love, child.  Because it’s been 19 years.  His sister has starved to death.

“Wow.  That’s really sad.  But her kid must still be alive if it’s only been 19 years.  You know how he stole the bread to feed his sister’s child.  Where is that kid?  Why don’t you see that kid in the play?”

Uh… dead too?

“Didn’t they have any neighbours?  I mean, that seems a little unlikely that he’d get out of jail and his parents would be gone and his sister would be gone and her kid would be gone and all the people he went to school with as a kid were gone.  This play doesn’t seem very realistic at all.”

Thanks for ruining the story, kid.

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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:

• “The Wind in the Trees” (Tesseract)
• “Scars” (From IF to When)
• “Emotions of a Minute” (Will Carry On)
• “Two Years Ago Today” (Ksirahsirah)
• “PSA: Freeze Your Eggs” (Yo-Yo-Mama)
• “Leaven Through” (Mrs. Spit)
• “Our Invisible Travel Companion” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, dspence!
• “Sparkle and Fade” (By the Brooke)
• “Did Kate’s Happy News Make You Sad?  You’re Not Alone” (Mamamia)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Sunny in Seattle has a post about healing from infertility and the role her son’s birth played in that healing.  She admits, “And I remember sitting across from DH at the dinner table, silently berating my body for failing to give my beloved husband the baby that he so desperately wanted too.  I won’t ever forget those moments, and I don’t really want to.  On days when life is particularly stressful, when the kids are testing my limits for the umpteenth time, I do recall how terrifying it felt to face the real possibility that I would never become a mother.”  It’s about what comes after you get the family you want.  Wonderfully honest post.

Unexplained Rantings wins for best last line of a post. (Actually, best last two paragraphs of a post.)  Yes, I am making you click over to read them.

Lastly, My Lady of the Lantern has a brief post that packs a punch, relaying a conversation between two children that gets to the heart of child loss.  It’s about how the gratitude for what she has doesn’t erase the pain she feels when she thinks about her first child.

The roundup to the Roundup: The 2012 Creme de la Creme list will close for submissions soon.  My heart goes out to Princess Kate.  Great essay in the NYT on writing.  The ChickieNob questions the realism of Les Mis.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between November 30th and December 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.

I have become incredibly wimpy about the cold this winter, and it’s only November.  I really don’t know what I’m going to do come January when it’s actually freezing outside.

I would much rather spend time outside when it is unbearably hot than when it is even mildly cold.  I’m not saying that I enjoy sitting outside in 105-degree heat, but I can handle that better than having to hang around outside when it’s in the low forties.

I don’t know when it changed.  I used to walk around Madison, Wisconsin all winter without a coat.  WITHOUT A COAT.  (Don’t tell my mother.) And now I shiver at the thought of having to get in the car later and drive for three or four minutes without the heat on at full blast until the car warms up.

Obviously, we’d all rather have moderate temperatures, but are you better with high or low temperatures outside?

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The ChickieNob rolled, sat up, crawled, and walked, all in the span of one week.  One week very late in her development, but one week nonetheless.  She went from nothing to everything exactly when she felt like doing it.

The Wolvog has been online since… birth… but the ChickieNob requested and received her own email account this week.  She is an excellent conversationalist online and sends lengthy emails, full of questions and answers.  Mostly spelled correctly.  The day after setting up her email account, she announced that she was now ready for her own blog.  Her brother has had his own url since kindergarten, and she would like her own space.  I happened to have an unused url that the Wolvog and I sometimes use as a practice space, so I told her that I’d turn it over to her.  A few hours after that, she told me that she now needs to learn how to create an image map in order to build the type of site she wants to create.

The girl does things in her own time.

I obviously fall way on one end of the spectrum on the “should you let your kids go online” debate.  They’re online with a safety net; they know that I receive a receipt of every email they send and receive.  I have a record of all their passwords and the right to enter their accounts at any time.  They are only allowed on sites we’ve approved and bookmarked.  The majority of their online time is either communicative (email) or creative (programming) vs. game playing.  We talk a lot about Internet safety and privacy.  I do this because I want them to be Internet savvy when they’re older and feel comfortable online.  Because we’re going to hit a day when it won’t be appropriate for me to receive a receipt of every email, and I want to know that I can trust them (within reason) to comport themselves with circumspect online and get help from an adult when they encounter something that they don’t think (or want) to handle on their own.  I hope that if we start now that we’ll set good habits in place.  I don’t know if the decisions we’ve made are the best decisions until we hit that sweet spot of retrospect.

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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:

• “Whingy Fertiles” (Look No Tubes)
• “The 10th of December” (Mrs. Spit)
• “Bidding Adieu to Old Friends” (Family Building with a Twist)
• “And Time Goes By So Slowly” (Mummy Play Buttons)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Something Out of Nothing has a poem about the ever-present needle and the various ways it moves the cycle along.  It’s an absolutely brilliant movement from the clench to the release; the tension to the hope.

Family Building with a Twist cracked me up with her Mayan Apocalypse Bucket List, mostly because I have December 21st circled on the calendar and it’s my #1 excuse for why we haven’t started the home renovations on the kitchen (new kitchen counters won’t be able to save me when the zombies come).  #15 is probably my favourite.

Lastly, Mrs. Spit raises a thought-provoking, emotional question in her post about the ways in which her life still looks the same.  She writes, “And at the end of my life, will I be happy? Will I look back at my life and be pleased?  They tell me that no one looks back and wishes they worked more, but what else is there for me, a woman with no children? What are my options?”  I think the answer lies in the comment section, the point that A makes about the difference we make in the world.  And Mrs. Spit has made a difference.

The roundup to the Roundup: I really don’t do well with the cold.  G-d help us, the ChickieNob is now online.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between November 23rd and November 30th) 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.