Category — Friday Blog Roundup

Thank you for the kind words about the Roundup yesterday.  I am very fond of this weekly ritual, happy that it’s still going five years later.  I never get bored reading blogs.  And while the same topics come around year after year, people always manage to write about them in a fresh way.  No two blog posts are alike, even when covering the same situation, the same emotions, the same wishes.

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On Wednesday, we had one of those sick days that wasn’t really a sick day.  We played in the house until mid-afternoon when we decided, after reading a few chapters in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, that we wanted to get a Harry Potter Lego toy.  We went to the toy store but they only had one set in stock, so we ended up wandering around the aisles.  That is where the twins found the magic set.

“This toy will help us do real magic like Harry Potter!” the ChickieNob exclaimed.  She’s the sort who likes to practice a lot, prepare herself for things.  She may have thought that she’d be a shoo-in for Hogwarts if she proved her ability to make a ball disappear well before that eleventh year threshold.

I explained to them the difference between real magic (right?  Can we all just agree that we’re going to believe that real magic exists?) and a magic trick.  You have never seen two children both more disappointed and more willing to still have a magic trick even if it was just an illusion.  And then, I heard myself telling them that I would drive them over to a magic store.

I had never been in the magic store; had only seen it from the road, and I have to admit that the exterior creeped me out a little bit.  And I can now tell you that it’s the sort of store that Ativan was made for.  You enter the store and you are in an empty room save for a fake tree and dozens of ripped up playing cards glued to the ground.  You then climb a concrete stairwell up two flights, encountering things like this along the way:

Finally, you enter the store and it is like being over at the Frankenstein place a la Rocky Horror.  I half expected Riff Raff and Magenta to come out from behind one of the red velvet curtains and do a song and dance before serving us Eddie.  The owner was incredibly kind and patient, immediately picking up on how important this trip was to the twins.  She took them to the side and showed them her wand.  She made flowers grow from an invisible seed in a pot.  She turned a penny into a dime.

Finally, the ChickieNob, unable to contain herself, sank down on the floor and said in the saddest voice, “please, can’t I have a real wand like you?  I want to be magical so badly and I can’t wait.”

And the owner just smiled at her and said, “you are breaking my heart because you’re so cute, but no, the Ministry of Magic will not let me sell you a real wand until you are eleven.  But until then, I can teach you how to appear to be magical with tricks.”

They both perked up with this and I wish I had filmed their faces as she did a series of tricks for them.  Delight.  That word perfectly captures the look on their faces.  We explained one last time that once she taught them how to do the trick, it would be ruined for them.  They’d be able to do magic for others, but it would no longer feel magical to them.  They took this chance and each bought a trick, and she taught them how to do it.  They drove home, practicing their trick in the car.  What they lacked in skill, they made up for in heart.  Then they woke up at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning to show Josh their magic trick (even though they normally sleep past eight) because they couldn’t wait.

Despite what others think, I don’t believe the twins are in for an enormous, life-shattering letdown when they find out that Hogwarts doesn’t exist.  Frankly, I think they already see the clear strings in life based on the questions they ask.  But they want to continue believing so badly that the Cinderella at the Magic Kingdom is a real princess, the tooth fairy is using their baby teeth to create laughter, that Befana rides to their house each year to drop off gifts.  I’m thirty-seven.  I want to believe in it all too; am willing to suspend disbelief.

Isn’t hope just another form of magic?

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Since the blogger writes somewhat anonymously, I’m not going to link to her blog here, but I will link to her children’s book, City Life, which rocks.  It’s a picture book (and I love the illustrations by Haytko) about a child going through the city with her two mums.  Great rhythm for reading it aloud.

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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:

• “A Life Still Worth Living” (Single Infertile Female)
• “Why Don’t Apologies Make the Moment Vanish?” (Creating Motherhood)
• “18 Signs You Might Be a Blogger” (It’s My Life)
• “Tiny Opinions” (Here We Go Again)
• “On Being a Mediocre Parent” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “Everyone Deserves” (Stink-Bomb)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Lissie’s Luck has a post asking if she is the only one who has the feeling sometimes that “everything is out of place and nothing I can do will fix it. I don’t know what brings on this feeling. I don’t know how to end it.”  It is the struggle between the “what if” side of the brain and the rational mind.  I hope writing it out helped her release it.

Better Full Than Empty has a post about hitting THAT point in your cycle, the one when you’re filled with dread that it didn’t work.  She explains, “I have come to that dreaded time of the cycle, where everything feels wrong and the doubt is pouring in like icy seawater into the holds of the Titanic. The alarm bells are ringing. So far one of our brave cyclesistas has already been dragged down by a BFN.”  It’s a familiar thought space, but one that she describes uniquely well.

Infertile Fantasies has a post about healing.  It begins with this thought-provoking assertion: “We carry our grief, our anger, and our resentment for further than is necessary when we haven’t yet decided what to do with it. We have, after all, paid dearly for our pain. It’s not reasonable to expect us to part with it easily, even though it is ugly and burdensome.”  It is about someone with primary infertility meeting up with someone with secondary infertility, and what we can give one another.  What actually strengthens us to give away.

Lastly, Baby Smiling in Back Seat has a post about kindness.  About those moments when you realize that you have baked more cakes for other people’s birthdays than they have ever baked back for you.  And just when you are about to sink into a hole of depression considering the lack of reciprocation for the kindness you have sent into the world, a hug comes around.

The roundup to the Roundup: Thank you for the kind thoughts about the Roundup.  Our trip to the magic store.  City Life.  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between July 15th and July 22nd) 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 more thoughts piggybacking off the social media post, but they’ll have to wait until I can write them.  On my mind now is something else.  This is the fifth anniversary of the Friday Blog Roundup.  It started five years ago on July 21st.

Five years ago I wrote:

Every time I read something I love, I want to send it out to everyone I know. Which is how I came to the idea to do the Friday Blog Roundup and comment publicly on a few things I read this week. There is plenty that I read that also moved me, but since space is limited, I must pick-and-choose.

On a side note, I am still trying to figure out how one posts links to other blogs on the side column. Once I get that figured out, I’d love to start a list–a clearinghouse of IF blogs–so if you’d like to be included, let me know.

I both love the fact that I had no idea how to construct a blog roll (which now has close to 3000 blogs on it) as well as the fact that this idea that I started five years ago still continues to this day.  My impulse then was to send out links to great stuff I read, and my impulse still is to eagerly ask each week — did you read this?

Thank you for reading it.  Thank you for supporting it.  Thank you, now, for adding in your own posts each week.  Tomorrow will be the 350th Friday Blog Roundup.  Doesn’t that blow your mind?

It all ends today.

Well, if you live in London, I believe that it has already ended.

And maybe some other places too.

But it’s ending here today.  (Actually, I think it technically ended at midnight.)

And yes, I’m talking about Harry Potter.  It is on every billboard between here and New York, enormous monstrosities blotting out the landscape and reminding me that all good things come to a close (instead of their usual advertisements for Gentleman’s Clubs that we loooooooooooooooooove passing because the kids have started to ask what they are and why these women are so fancy.  Philadelphia, you are too damn classy).

It has been almost ten years since the first film.  I know this because it was the last date that Josh and I had as an unmarried couple.  I took off for my wedding a day early, and we went to an 11 am showing on the first day (and stood in an insanely long line for many hours outside the Uptown and I couldn’t even drink coffee because then I’d need to pee and get out of line to do so and people were scarily intense that day and they wouldn’t even let urinaters back in line).

If you asked me ten years ago, I would have told you that we’d see the final one on the first day too, but currently, we don’t have plans in place.  I’d sort of like to wait a few weeks and see it with my sister since I saw part one with her, but I sort of don’t want this looming over my head for the next few weeks.  Because I am really really really sad to see this end and part of me needs to rip it off like a band-aid.

I was sad when the last book came out, and I was sad when I read the last page, especially because I read the book quickly so it wouldn’t be ruined for me by someone accidentally talking about the ending.  I feel like Harry marks a decade of my life.  He was with me through my wedding and through infertility and through raising the twins.  He’s my late twenties.  He’s most of my thirties.

I cannot even imagine how JK Rowling feels.

So part of me doesn’t want to see it yet and have it end.  Right now, I still have it in front of me.  And part of me is an enormous wuss and is terrified to see it.  I jumped and screamed through part one and this is going to be even more intense.  And I am dreading seeing the death of Fred.

So, that’s where I am right now.  Are you seeing Harry Potter this weekend?  Do you have plans to see it in the future?  Are you skipping it entirely?

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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:

• “Best! Mom! Ever! x3” (Write Mind Open Heart)
• “The High Road” (Searching for Serenity)
• “Sometimes Life Without Kids is Awesome” (Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed)
• “Who’s Out There?” (Aiden, Baby of Mine)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Adventures of Endo in the Arctic has a post about the sonohystogram where she brought along her husband.  I love this post because I want to put what he said on a t-shirt.  But I won’t.  Because I live in a small town.  And really, I want Josh to wear it and I know he won’t and he’ll tell me to grow up.

Dreaming of Quiet Places has a tiny post about her ex-husband, and I love the peace that falls over all of the words.   It is about staring something in the face and realizing how much you have healed.  And it’s just a lovely moment.

Project Progeny has a post about belonging and not belonging.  As part of her research, she is asking this question to all of the people she encounters in the area she is studying: talk about a time when you felt like you belonged and a time when you felt like you didn’t belong.  It’s a fascinating post to read but also to apply to your own life: when you belonged (or didn’t) in certain areas, in certain schools, in certain blogging arenas.  I love this thought towards the end: “How much of my fixation on this question of belonging comes from my own unsettledness, my own quest for belonging, my peripatetic life, my ability to “bond” with a place very quickly, at least on a superficial level, but in the long run not to be able to put down deep roots anywhere?”

Lastly, I love this story about Babyland General Hospital from The Hopeful Elephant.  Love isn’t strong enough a word.  Especially when Mother Cabbage is 10 leaves dilated.  And please do not skip the link to the video at the bottom if you want to see a cabbage “push” out a doll.  All I know is that I must get to Babyland General Hospital if it’s the last thing I do.

The roundup to the Roundup: Are you seeing the last Harry Potter movie?  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between July 8th and July 15th) 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.

Thank you for the free therapy this week.  I would love to see a therapist (I was about to say “real therapist,” but what is a therapist other than a human being who listens to your thoughts and helps you make sense of them.  And isn’t that EXACTLY what you do too, minus the training?) but since time and money are factors keeping me from that, I am quite grateful for the free therapy.  It is helpful to hear your words in a different way or to hear about another person’s similar experience.

Please know that I will be foisting more free therapy on you in the future.  You’re that good.  I’m still mulling over everything you said.

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 My friend, C, and I loaded up the kids in the car this week and shuttled them all to the beach for a holiday.  It was one of those things that sounded great in theory, then we both grew dubious as the day approached, then we actually got there and theory prevailed.  Yes, the car was packed within an inch of its life.  Yes, we got bitten up by mosquitoes.  But damn it, beach trip 2011 was so much fun that we made reservations to do it all over again in August before we left the hotel.

I knew I would have a good time with C and that being together would make all aspects of the trip easier.  I think what was amazing was how the kids rallied, especially one day when it rained on-and-off and we had to keep shifting our plans minute to minute.  At home, all three kids would have fallen apart.  At the beach, it was an adventure.  They created a circus in the hotel room.  They didn’t even blink an eye when we scooped them out of the pool, threw them soaking wet in the car, and drove out to the beach to give it another try.  They didn’t even comment when it started raining and we announced that we were indeed staying on the beach.

A long time ago, I took my eighth graders to Ireland for a little over a week.  While in Dublin, we lost track of our tour guide.  I had just been to Dublin the year before and knew it fairly well, so I left the group at a restaurant with the other teacher, jogged across town to a visitor’s center, booked time at two different churches for the afternoon, and led my own architectural tour.  At first we told the kids that this was totally planned; we meant to take a little break from Mike the non-helpful tour guide.  But on our way to the first church, the kids were acting up on the sidewalk so I took them into a courtyard and leveled with them.

“You guys, we’ve lost the tour guide.  I’m not worried because we all have to end up at the hotel tonight, and I have planned the most rockin’ afternoon for us.  But I need you to pull it together and act for the rest of the day exactly as one would act if they knew the adults in their group were in over their heads.  In other words, help us out.”

Without another word, the students organized themselves into two single file lines.  For the next six hours or so until we got back to the hotel, they were perfectly behaved and perfectly quiet.  They took pages of notes while I spoke.

That was exactly what our kids did, but they did it without the speech.  Without the missing tour guide.  They just somehow sensed that the adults were in over their heads and they pulled their shit together for the entire trip (with the exception of a few moments here and there.  They are, after all, kindergarteners).

I didn’t think it was possible, but it made me love them all even more.

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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:

• “We Share the Same Ominverse, Please Clean Your Room” (The Guild of Knitting Kninjas)
• “I Don’t Have a Title for This…” (The Bloggess)
• “Worth It” (Two Kayaks)
• “Bite Me” (Baby, Interrupted)
• “Enjoy the Ride” (Dear Stevie)
• “Sadness is My Boychick (or Girlchick)” (Raising My Boychick)
• “Understanding and Supporting Pregnancy Loss” (The R House)
• “Dos and Do Nots” (The R House)
• “The Grieving Process” (The R House)
• “The Other Side” (Bio Girl)
• There was another post, though the blog was password protected, so I couldn’t link to it.

Okay, now my choices this week.

I also thought Baby, Interrupted’s post “Bite Me” was amazing.  The post meanders a bit, and you read it wondering how everything ties together, and the ending packs a huge punch.  I was especially moved by her comparison to helping someone give birth and helping someone die.

Waiting in Sunshine has a post about what a gallon of milk means to her.  How it became a symbol through her infertility journey.  And how life has changed — from being able to go food shopping without feeling that pang of sadness in the dairy section to the joy she feels at purchasing her own gallon of milk.

Les Terres Fertiles has a post about starting a new cycle.  She admits: “I know what at least part of the problem is.  I’m one of those people who builds things up in my mind and heart so much.  I expect so much and I hang all my hopes on something doing what I want it to do when I want it to be done.  I know this just sets me up for let-down.”  And yet, how can you talk your heart out of feeling something?

Lastly, Slowmamma has a post about seeing into two worlds.  While she can give advice to others about having a second child, she can’t apply the same advice to herself.  She knows too damn much and the same rules don’t apply.  It’s about finding beauty and happiness in your own reality as well as finding beauty and happiness in another person’s reality.

The roundup to the Roundup: Thank you for the therapy.  Great beach trip.  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between July 1st and July 8th) 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 keep a pack of post-it notes on my bedside table where I jot down thoughts either so I can place them somewhere and get to sleep or because they seem so brilliant at 3 am that I know I will want to cogitate on them in the morning.  Half of the plotlines in the books are jotted down on those post-it notes.

And then there are the gems that are unearthed in the morning or whenever I page back through the chunk of sticky notes.  Such as this random one:

Creamy caramelized onion soup

He had spent equal amounts of time thinking about how to get out as he had trying to stay in.

Foer told me to rub the soap around the leg but children rub soap up and down.

I didn’t remember the dream until after I read about it again on the post-it note pad, but I had a dream where Joshua Foer (author of Moonwalking with Einstein and fellow Washingtonian) pointed out that children always rub soap in an up-and-down fashion over their bodies even though parents bathing them since birth circle the soap around each body part.  It was supposed to be a deep parenting discussion.  I’ve never met Joshua since he was so far behind me in school, and I’m not even sure he has children nor thinks about their soaping habits.  Nor do I think that my dream Joshua Foer was onto something even if I have enjoyed what I’ve read so far of Moonwalking with Einstein.  Nor do I think, if he does by chance read this, that he should begin analyzing children’s soaping habits.

It’s not the dream that is the point at all.

It’s the fact that I found it important enough to write that down on a note at 3 am.

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My Josh (the one of playwriting but not book or soap-analyzing fame) decided recently that he’s now a Nationals fan.  He has not left behind his love of the Yankees, but he’s ready to commit to a DC team and it’s going to be the Nats.

It’s been slowly building over time, but his love is now spilling over and he has become obsessed with watching the Nats.  I was (note the past tense) not a baseball fan at all — I’m not a fan of any sport — but I decided to become a Nats fan too in solidarity.  Except that I skipped over normal fandom and went straight to superfandom.

If Josh is willing to zinc oxide his skin red, white, and blue, I am willing to get a permanent tattoo on my face in the same colours. (He has promised me that I will still need sunscreen if I do this and it will be very expensive, so I’m holding off for the time being.)  He will wear a Nats t-shirt.  I will shave a W into my hair.  He will call encouraging things to the players on the television screen.  I will scream obscenities at the screen.

See?  Superfan.

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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:

• “Am I Delusional?” (Diaries by Lucy)
• “When a Tori Amos Song is Really What You Mean” (Creating Motherhood)
• “After Life” (Here We Go Again)
• “In Heaven” (Mrs. Spit… Still Spouting Off)
• “An Unusual Father’s Day Blessing” (Four of a Kind)
• “For Better or For Worse” (Once a Mother)
• “Growing Old(er) Gracefully” (What I Really Meant to Say)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed has a post called “At a Loss for Words” about the thought process she goes through before she posts something.  She explains that as much as she can be outspoken, there are plenty of topics she doesn’t write about; things she worries will offend someone reading her blog.  The side effects of this are far-reaching, but she deals with the inherent problems of censoring herself because of her fear of failure.  It’s a really interesting read, and I’m positive she’s not the only person who feels this way.

Bio Girl has a post about jealousy when she sees large families at the pool.  She explains: “Those babies are not MY baby. They have nothing to do with me. They are hopefully very wanted and loved, just like my baby would be. But somehow yesterday it felt different. It felt painful. Any maybe because leading up to this point, we had a plan. We were still working out OUR baby.”  It’s about trying to be happy with your current life while releasing the old dreams.

Not a Fertile Myrtle has a post about getting a tattoo with two other infertile women.  It’s a good story, but I also love the ending: “I can’t tell you how much I love these ladies.  That’s one thing I’m glad infertility gave me… their friendship.  Now I just need to tell my mom that I got a tattoo!  Any suggestions?”

Lastly, Small Bird Studios has a post about revisiting the emotions of losing her daughter.  She has been gone for two years, but she can still re-enter those feelings.  She writes, “More than two years later when I let myself FEEL again for her loss – even for a moment, the longing has not dulled one bit.  It’s a good place to be momentarily.  To remember.  To cry.  To feel.  To embrace the storm that visited my life.”  It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking post.

The roundup to the Roundup: My best writing takes place at 3 am.  I have become a Nationals Superfan.  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 24 and July 1) 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.