One year ago today I posted my first entry here. My expectation was that I would post 3-4 witty, pithy posts each week, develop a large readership, become a well-known Mommy Blogger, and receive invitations to guest post at other famous blogs and possibly get a regular writing gig at an online magazine.
As usual, my great expectations didn’t take into account little details like “doing the work” and “promoting my blog.” I guess I just thought Oprah would somehow stumble across my blog one day and the rest would take care of itself. After a couple of months of writing, though, I realized a few things:
One, it is hard to come up with something truly interesting to say several times a week, and I don’t have the motivation to make myself work that hard. I accepted that one post a week was all I really cared to write, and even then I would settle for “semi-interesting to my family,” or “mildly amusing to people who know me.” Two, I’m not that interested in reading other people’s blogs, getting to know other mommy bloggers, looking for opportunities to guest blog, or mastering the technology to drive more traffic to my blog. After researching other blogs and blogging in general for a few weeks, I realized there is a hell of a lot of noise out there and I didn’t want to put forth the effort to make my blog rise above the din. Three, I’m not as motivated to get my essays published as I thought I was. I have actually taken a few things I’ve written in this blog, developed them into full essays, and submitted them to print and online magazines for publication consideration, without success. A professional writer would say I haven’t put enough effort out because I’ve sent each piece to only 3 or 4 places and have done this with only 3 or 4 pieces. And that is true. But I’m not interested in using my time to mail or email my work to the (literally) hundreds of places that I could submit, and so I don’t.
I’ve come to recognize my surprising lack of motivation when it comes to writing (my supposed life-long passion) and I’ve made peace with it for the time being. I do feel like I actually have the time to do the things I’d need to do to develop a freelance writing career if I really, really wanted to, but I guess I don’t really want to. I find myself some nights, eating my second bowl of ice cream and watching old reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I think, “hmm, I could be writing right now if I really felt like it, couldn’t I?”
I plan to continue I See Two for the foreseeable future, plugging away at my weekly post, and continuing to use the rest of my spare time to read (usually at least one book per week, alternating between parenting books and fiction novels), keep house, exercise, and eat ice cream. Maybe someday in the future I’ll be able to point to five years of weekly posts to convince an editor that I could, in fact, be trusted with a weekly column. But for now, I’ll just keep waiting for Oprah to find me.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Being the grown-up
Real Simple Magazine is sponsoring an essay contest that asks you to answer the question, “When did you realize that you had become a grown-up?” I’m not motivated enough to produce a polished essay on the topic, but I’ve been thinking about that question for months now. It wasn’t when I first became a parent, which is one of the expected, cliché answers. I didn’t even feel like a parent in the beginning. I simply felt a fierce, evolutionary responsibility for the new pets in my care, and there were only a few surreal moments in the first weeks when I would realize that these pets were, in fact, two little girls – my daughters - and I was the mother. So no, it wasn’t an instantaneous, now-I’m-the-grownup feeling. As I gradually grew to know and love my babies, so did I gradually become the grown up.
When I first saw the question for the Real Simple contest back in June, I thought with a start, “Now. Now that you ask me, I realize that I do actually feel like a grown-up.” It is kind of a weird feeling, and still pretty new, having lived my first 37 years not feeling at all grown-up inside. Oh sure, I was ultra-responsible, professionally successful, married, owned a house, etc., but none of those external indicators really matured the child inside. I can’t even say exactly what it is about the kids that turned me into a grown-up. Truly putting their well-being ahead of my own? Realizing that my words, actions, and behavior would be their primary model of womanhood? Being able to step back into the mother/daughter cycle of life after being on the outside looking in for so long?
These are big questions, and perhaps if I would take the time to eloquently describe the earthquake-like shifts that have taken place in my psyche, I’d have an essay to submit to Real Simple. But I can only offer the following external behaviors as proof that I have, in fact, grown up.
Exhibit A: Cat Vomit. I adopted my cat, Kosmo, in 1999, while I was renting a house with my friend R.H. One day he vomited on the carpet in my bedroom. I did what any reasonable person would do: I covered it up with a paper bag and went about my business. My boyfriend (Twin Daddy) learned then that if the relationship was going to continue, he would have to accept that I would never, ever, ever clean up cat vomit, kill a giant cockroach (even if it was crawling across the kitchen counter), or in any way deal with the bodily functions or remains of any being that crossed my path. I would simply put up some markers to indicate the area of the mess and wait for him to clean it up. And I could wait forever.
Then one day, my daughters began to crawl. And the cat vomited on the floor. I hurried to clean it up, without a second thought. Giant roaches have been crawling into my house to die of thirst since April. I pick them up and throw them out, without so much as a gross-out face. I even discarded of the dead baby tarantula I found in the garage before Monkey could pick it up.
Exhibit B: Cooking. One of the things that attracted me to Twin Daddy as a long term partner was his gourmet cooking skills. It was a guarantee that I would never be expected to cook a holiday meal or bake a birthday cake. It’s not just that I couldn’t cook well. I really didn’t like anything about cooking and found it to be an undertaking utterly without merit. I didn’t care what food tasted like, as long as I was no longer hungry when I finished eating it. And since it could be purchased ready to eat, I didn't see what all the fuss over cooking was about.
So then I had these two kids, and I was overcome with desire to stay home with them, make their pureed baby food from scratch, and have a warm dinner waiting for my husband when he came home. I addressed the little matter of not knowing how to cook by just doing it, a lot. I also got a really good cookbook, some cute aprons, and other accoutrements to make me feel like I was playing 50s housewife. I still don’t like to cook. But I’ve discovered the merit: a sense of pride in providing my family a healthy, home cooked meal.
How do I know I’ve grown up? I take pride in performing all parts of my job, even the parts I don’t like. I cheerfully do things I scorned in the past, because those things benefit my family. I embrace the responsibility of knowing that my children look up to me, the grown-up.
When I first saw the question for the Real Simple contest back in June, I thought with a start, “Now. Now that you ask me, I realize that I do actually feel like a grown-up.” It is kind of a weird feeling, and still pretty new, having lived my first 37 years not feeling at all grown-up inside. Oh sure, I was ultra-responsible, professionally successful, married, owned a house, etc., but none of those external indicators really matured the child inside. I can’t even say exactly what it is about the kids that turned me into a grown-up. Truly putting their well-being ahead of my own? Realizing that my words, actions, and behavior would be their primary model of womanhood? Being able to step back into the mother/daughter cycle of life after being on the outside looking in for so long?
These are big questions, and perhaps if I would take the time to eloquently describe the earthquake-like shifts that have taken place in my psyche, I’d have an essay to submit to Real Simple. But I can only offer the following external behaviors as proof that I have, in fact, grown up.
Exhibit A: Cat Vomit. I adopted my cat, Kosmo, in 1999, while I was renting a house with my friend R.H. One day he vomited on the carpet in my bedroom. I did what any reasonable person would do: I covered it up with a paper bag and went about my business. My boyfriend (Twin Daddy) learned then that if the relationship was going to continue, he would have to accept that I would never, ever, ever clean up cat vomit, kill a giant cockroach (even if it was crawling across the kitchen counter), or in any way deal with the bodily functions or remains of any being that crossed my path. I would simply put up some markers to indicate the area of the mess and wait for him to clean it up. And I could wait forever.
Then one day, my daughters began to crawl. And the cat vomited on the floor. I hurried to clean it up, without a second thought. Giant roaches have been crawling into my house to die of thirst since April. I pick them up and throw them out, without so much as a gross-out face. I even discarded of the dead baby tarantula I found in the garage before Monkey could pick it up.
Exhibit B: Cooking. One of the things that attracted me to Twin Daddy as a long term partner was his gourmet cooking skills. It was a guarantee that I would never be expected to cook a holiday meal or bake a birthday cake. It’s not just that I couldn’t cook well. I really didn’t like anything about cooking and found it to be an undertaking utterly without merit. I didn’t care what food tasted like, as long as I was no longer hungry when I finished eating it. And since it could be purchased ready to eat, I didn't see what all the fuss over cooking was about.
So then I had these two kids, and I was overcome with desire to stay home with them, make their pureed baby food from scratch, and have a warm dinner waiting for my husband when he came home. I addressed the little matter of not knowing how to cook by just doing it, a lot. I also got a really good cookbook, some cute aprons, and other accoutrements to make me feel like I was playing 50s housewife. I still don’t like to cook. But I’ve discovered the merit: a sense of pride in providing my family a healthy, home cooked meal.
How do I know I’ve grown up? I take pride in performing all parts of my job, even the parts I don’t like. I cheerfully do things I scorned in the past, because those things benefit my family. I embrace the responsibility of knowing that my children look up to me, the grown-up.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Monkey pee-peed in the Potty!
After three days of watching sis get the applause, Monkey decided tonight was her night. She'd let a little dribble out, stand up to look into the potty, then say "mas," and sit back down, do a little more, get up to look into the potty, say "mas," sit again, and so on about 10 times. Turtle went on the potty, too. Very cute and exciting, but very messy and a lot of work to clean up. So I'm going to continue on this once a day routine for awhile because I'm not ready to spend all day doing this, even if they are.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Turtle pee-peed in the potty!!
The title tells you everything you need to know. But if you want every gory detail, read on.
About six weeks ago I read a potty training book to figure out what I should be doing to prepare for the daunting task of potty training. It’s not that I thought the girls were ready (they’re only 21 months old), I just thought I needed a really long lead time to get myself ready. I bought two potty chairs and a board book about a little girl getting a new potty. I put the chairs away and spent the last month reading “A Potty for Me” every now and then, and talking about the potty at every opportunity. The girls accompany me to the bathroom, and like to flush the toilet. They point to their correct body parts and say “pee pee” and “poo poo.” They come and tell me when they have “poo poo” in their diaper and essentially lead me to the changing table for a fresh diaper.
We’d gotten to the point where we’d talked potty talk to death, so I decided today was the day to introduce the potty chairs. The girls knew immediately what the chairs were. We let them play with the chairs for awhile in the living room, and then took them to the bathroom. The plan was and continues to be to let them sit on the chairs with or without their diaper once or twice a day until it seems like they’re ready for actual training, which I am assuming is still several months away, if not more.
I had planned for “sitting” time to be a casual and unproductive affair, with no expectation other than to practice sitting. We helped the girls sit and then started singing a couple of little songs, and then all of a sudden we heard the unmistakable sound of pee going into Turtle’s potty! Twin Daddy and I cheered and clapped wildly for our little Turtle, and she was quite pleased with herself. Monkey was not too sure what all the commotion was about, but we praised her for sitting, which is all we’re really trying to do at this point.
I am trying not to get too ahead of myself here, but I have to say I was thrilled and not completely surprised about Turtle’s performance. She always goes off and squats somewhere to go to the bathroom, so it seems like she understands what she is doing and was just waiting for me to get the darn chair out and get on with it. Despite this immediate success, though, I’m still going to take it very, very slow. Diapers are pretty convenient, and I’m in no hurry for our outings to turn into nothing more than multiple potty stops along Anderson Lane. Besides that, once my babies are out of diapers . . . . well, I can’t even go there.
About six weeks ago I read a potty training book to figure out what I should be doing to prepare for the daunting task of potty training. It’s not that I thought the girls were ready (they’re only 21 months old), I just thought I needed a really long lead time to get myself ready. I bought two potty chairs and a board book about a little girl getting a new potty. I put the chairs away and spent the last month reading “A Potty for Me” every now and then, and talking about the potty at every opportunity. The girls accompany me to the bathroom, and like to flush the toilet. They point to their correct body parts and say “pee pee” and “poo poo.” They come and tell me when they have “poo poo” in their diaper and essentially lead me to the changing table for a fresh diaper.
We’d gotten to the point where we’d talked potty talk to death, so I decided today was the day to introduce the potty chairs. The girls knew immediately what the chairs were. We let them play with the chairs for awhile in the living room, and then took them to the bathroom. The plan was and continues to be to let them sit on the chairs with or without their diaper once or twice a day until it seems like they’re ready for actual training, which I am assuming is still several months away, if not more.
I had planned for “sitting” time to be a casual and unproductive affair, with no expectation other than to practice sitting. We helped the girls sit and then started singing a couple of little songs, and then all of a sudden we heard the unmistakable sound of pee going into Turtle’s potty! Twin Daddy and I cheered and clapped wildly for our little Turtle, and she was quite pleased with herself. Monkey was not too sure what all the commotion was about, but we praised her for sitting, which is all we’re really trying to do at this point.
I am trying not to get too ahead of myself here, but I have to say I was thrilled and not completely surprised about Turtle’s performance. She always goes off and squats somewhere to go to the bathroom, so it seems like she understands what she is doing and was just waiting for me to get the darn chair out and get on with it. Despite this immediate success, though, I’m still going to take it very, very slow. Diapers are pretty convenient, and I’m in no hurry for our outings to turn into nothing more than multiple potty stops along Anderson Lane. Besides that, once my babies are out of diapers . . . . well, I can’t even go there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
