28 Comments

Boo-yah! I received 28 comments on my “Jobless and Addicted to Mothering“ article that was published this month on Mamapedia. My regular readers have already read this post as it went live right here on “Stinkerbean” in January. But, somehow I inspired 28 women to submit comments. I got everything from kudos to advice on starting my own business to people imploring me to seek professional help … seriously. Not bad I say. And, it led to the busiest day on my blog yet. That means people other than my mom, Mr. Banks and Keren were reading.

See all the comments at the bottom of the article here.

Not Exactly A Trendsetter

My friend Keren e-mailed me an article from the New York Times about the new frontier of mommy blogging complete with corporate sponsorships, tons of swag and cross-country speaking tours. (Ok, ok. Yes, the article was published two weeks ago, but I’ve got a lot going on and my reaction has been slowly brewing.) I read through it twice and was scared out of my britches. It’s haunted me ever since.

(I cannot reprint the actual article here without inviting cease and desist papers from the NYT lawyers. But, you can click here to read it for yourself.)

I just felt so dirty after reading it. Yes, I do aspire to become a famous blogger. Yes, I secretly wish that I earned a hefty income and was written up for my witty and inspiring anecdotes. But, really, the potential fame freaks me out. It’s the reason I have never revealed my real name or location on my blog. I love to share bits and pieces of my life and hopefully entertain people, but the majority of my life is intensely private. I just don’t want my daughter’s upbringing to be a business. It’s an outlet for me to feel like a functioning adult who can still put sentences together in the first person and not the third. “Mama will do it for you. I know you want to do it yourself, but Mama has to help.”

(Don’t be fooled. I am sure I could find a way to maintain my dignity and still pull in an extra 40k for the household.)

The part of the article that really caught my eye was the bit about how one mommy wished it could go back to where it used to be 5 years ago when blogging was just about connecting and writing. No sponsors, or money or affiliations. And, I realized I am right on target with a trend finally. I took forever to buy whitening toothpaste, lagged on the skinny jean tip, never tweeted in my life, was the last woman on earth to purchase Uggs and just bought leggings for the first time 2 weeks ago for our Montreal trip. By the by, leggings are just thick tights and frankly, I was underwhelmed. If you wouldn’t feel comfortable walking around in a tank top and tights, don’t wear a tank top and leggings.

Attention Subscribers

Anyone … Anyone?

I don’t know if I have any subscribers but I thought it to be good form to announce a change in my right sidebar. To the right (now way at the bottom), you will see my old signup link called “Feed It” which apparently is no longer working. Dargh! Soon I will be deleting it but I wanted to give everyone a goodl old “heads-up” before doing so.

Thanks to Alexandra at “Good Day Regular People”, I am updating that broken link and inserting a fancier subscription link that should actually work. Simply look over to the right under “Subscribe” and click the “Yes! Feed me!” button. You’ll get an e-mail every time I post my genius thoughts.

So readers, subscribe at will and tell all your friends at Time Warner Media to do so as well.

Should We Do This In English?

Pure luxury. We escaped to Montreal minus the bean for an extended weekend (courtesy of Grammy and Grampy’s babysitting and dog walking services) and all we have to prove our “international” travel are 4 pictures of the Notre Dame Cathedral, numerous “slightly-Euro” gifts and a ridiculous new tolerance for alcohol. But that was the point. It was all about activities that had nothing to do with nap time, snack bags of cheddar bunnies or waking up before 7am. Well, I had a hard time sleeping in the first morning but I blame that on my insistent body clock. I quickly fell into line.

We walked, we shopped, we drank, we ate, and then we drank some more. It was beyond lovely and just the right amount of time away from home. Stinkerbean herself did great back home and only had a few sad moments of missing us. It was clear she was too busy having fun to lament our absence.

Thank you Grammy and Grampy. We couldn’t have done it without you. And, thank you Montreal for our new catchphrase, “Perfect,” and for schooling your citizens in English as well as French!

Notre Dame Cathedral in Montreal, QC Canada.

Dance Party

Scene:

It’s 3pm and your toddler has decided to sleep for one, solitary hour. You’ve got two hours until “dinner” and there’s no way you’re trucking the whole kit-n-kaboodle to Target in the rain. That would require putting on real pants.

Solution:

It’s time for what Mama calls “Laptop Dance Party”. I’d forgotten about this band until one day when I was listening to my custom “Canandian Indie” station on Pandora. Instantly I sank into the time period 3 years ago when I was a working woman who lived on the computer. I abused fonts and Photoshop all day with my headphones burning my eardrums all the while, and I got paid to do it.

In any case, Lolo and I rocked it out to The Honorary Title’s “Bridge and Tunnel” and you should, too.

Finale

I realize I never updated the expanded Internet community on Lolo’s digestive system (which I talked about here and here). Last Friday it all came to an end and we were once again able to re-enter society. It was as if someone flipped the switch on her battery. One minute she was defeated and lethargic, and the next she was walking around wobbly-style requesting vast amounts of food. In fact she ate her way through the weekend and hasn’t stopped catching up on what she missed.

Update: Saltines

Update on our Saltines Situation.

1. Mr. Stinkerbean got it and slept for 18 hours straight. (I’ve got to come up with a better codename for him. How about Mr. Banks? Does that make me Mrs. Poppins?)

2. I just found out from a friend who’s kid has the same EXACT thing and our same doctor that once the virus hits the lower G.I. tract (and you know what I mean by that), it can take up to 5 or 6 days to clear the system. I’m having flashbacks of the “Rotavirus Christmas” but somehow feel more prepared to handle it mentally.

3. You may wonder how I have time to post during this madness. Well, during the daytime, she doesn’t want to sleep by herself in her room. She wants to sleep “dahn-stahrs” with Mama. So, I sit with her on the couch and try not to make too much noise by her side. What better quiet therapy is there besides Internet crawling? Have you searched for herb gardens lately? They’re hard to find in a modern all white format.

4. One of the saddest parts is that Friday night we went out as a family for her 5 p.m. dinner since we’d been stuck in the house from the 12-inches of new snow. She was so excited to be out and about. Something had clicked with her about how babies are different than big girls and that big girls put all of their pee pee and poo in the potty. She felt it coming twice during the day and we rushed to the potty with success. Then, she felt pee coming at the family pub (a glorified bar with enough highchairs to accommodate a toddler at every table in the joint). Mr. Banks and I looked at each other frozen, silently asking, “Do we really let her do it here?” I jumped off the cliff of germ paranoia and let her sit on an actual bar toilet. How could I explain to her that potty training doesn’t apply to public restrooms? I sat there and let her revel in her potty joy as I trembled at the sight of brown, splatter stains on the tile walls. (In my mind I was already giving her a bath and wondering how soon a toddler can learn to squat over a toilet.) Fast forward to her waking up in her own vomit. When I picked her up, she started crying because she felt pee coming and she wanted to sit on her potty and not go in her diaper. She insisted, so I let her sit on her little toilet with a towel wrapped around her as she was throwing up in a trashcan. At least it brought her a little mental comfort.

5. I am now using rubber gloves to change her diapers to cut down on the erosion of my hands.

Saltines

It’s always so casual the way people say it. “Oh, sorry. We can’t make it to the party. I have a stomach bug.”

A bug doesn’t really do justice to what my kid has had to endure this weekend. It sounds too nonchalant. Just a petty nuisance, if anything.

Lolo has been in a nihilistic gastrointestinal nightmare since Friday night when she woke up at 9:30 pm having brought up all of her dinner in her sleep. I’ll keep the details of the night to a minimum. Suffice it to say that it was more than miserable and pretty gory. But, she endured it with courage as her stomach turned against her.

Saturday morning, I called her doctor’s office and spoke to a nurse who broke it down for me in plain English. She said, “This is going to take all weekend. This virus is violent and brutal and extremely contagious. I’m an ER nurse as well and the emergency room has been rocked by this thing. You don’t want her there. So you’re entire job is to hydrate her around the clock ,every 15 minutes. You’re not going to cook or clean or take care of errands. Your job is to get more liquids in her than she’s bringing back up. If you have 2-3 pee diapers today, then you’re golden. As long as she has kidney function, you should stay at home. Wash your hands like a dickens because if you don’t, you’ll get it, too.”

She didn’t know she was preaching to the choir on the hand washing. Seriously, my skin is going to revolt against me. I think I may need a skin transplant for my hands. It’s disgusting, but I have to endure the burn. I can’t get this thing or the Stinkerbean ship is truly sunk.

So, we’ve ordered takeout all weekend, been washing hot water loads of laundry around the clock and used more disinfectant wipes than is probably healthy. But, that’s okay. It’s all for the bean. She’s so very brave and the only one around who would think about smiling for the camera at a time like this.

Right now, the virus is attacking her lower G.I. tract, so it’s hopefully on its way out. But, it will take a few more days for her poor body to recover.

This is the sick boat where Lolo has been for days.

The bravest trooper to ever live.

This is supply central. Rice cakes, flour tortilla, banana and Pedialyte via medicine dropper.

It's disgusting.