Contraption

The above is a contraption called a Pigg-o-Stat. Baby B had the opportunity to experience it on Tuesday only she wasn't as complacent as the child in the photo. She managed to force her head forward between the plexiglass. We then had to come out from behind the radiation safe wall (Ha!) and reposition her. Awesome.

Turns out she's fine. Just croup related bronchial narrowing. I wish I had been keeping track of the number of times this kid has had croup. It's ridiculous.

Anyway, I'm a terrible blogger as usual. Facebook has been the ruination of this blog. Tell me please if I have any readers who are not also friends of mine on facebook. Not that a quick status update is in any way as awesome as a blog post but I find I keep thinking, aww I don't need to post people know what's up with me. Do you?

Exploration

So Beth had a great idea. She gives a theme and we can all write about it in whatever way it strikes us. This time around the theme is exploration. As I thought about that word what came to my mind was parenting.

I looked up the word explore. This is the definition Merriam-Webster gives

Explore :to investigate, study, or analyze :look into :to become familiar with by testing or experimenting

This pretty much explains my approach to parenting.

Having Miss A rocked my life. Now, I know that could be heard coming out of the mouth of any new mother. But I seemed to be utterly lost. I remember flipping through the book 'What to Expect - The First Year'. I thought, wow. None of this really applies to us. I mean the milestones sure, but as for any suggestions on what to do when your baby cries and cries and cries, for example - the best it had to offer was "If you need a break, take one." I thought my baby wasn't 'normal' and I didn't know what to do.

Then one night, I was up late again trying to calm my crying baby. I was exhausted, at my wits end. I typed into Google "baby won't stop crying" just to see what would come up. And guess what I found? A blog. The author was a mom of a girl roughly the same age as Miss A. I loved her writing because it was raw and brutally honest. She didn't candy coat motherhood, she admitted it was hard. Damn hard. Turns out she had a baby who wouldn't stop crying either. And she laid it all out there. The good, the bad and the ugly. (That particular blog no longer exists but you can find her writing here and here.)

I guess you could say that night changed my life, as dramatic as that sounds. Because if I hadn't been looking for answers, exploring, I would have never stumbled upon that blog and blogging in general. And in that case I likely wouldn't have started my own blog. Blogging has become a huge part of my life. A huge part of who I am today.

If you go back and read my earliest posts you can tell I'm searching. Trying to find the reasons why I was having such a hard time adjusting to being a mother. The whole reason I decided to start my own blog in the first place was because I was hoping to find other moms who might be having similar experiences. And I was hoping to find some answers.

Did I find the answers? Sometimes. More importantly I found some amazing mothers who I had lots in common with. People I could bounce things off of or just vent to. I found out I was not alone. But parenting is an adventure and I find most of the time as a parent I just go by instinct. You can't always find the answers in a book or on the internet. But I keep exploring. Looking for better ways or sometimes just a shoulder to cry on.

Exploration

So Beth had a great idea. She gives a theme and we can all write about it in whatever way it strikes us. This time around the theme is exploration. As I thought about that word what came to my mind was parenting.

I looked up the word explore. This is the definition Merriam-Webster gives

Explore :to investigate, study, or analyze :look into :to become familiar with by testing or experimenting

This pretty much explains my approach to parenting.

Having Miss A rocked my life. Now, I know that could be heard coming out of the mouth of any new mother. But I seemed to be utterly lost. I remember flipping through the book 'What to Expect - The First Year'. I thought, wow. None of this really applies to us. I mean the milestones sure, but as for any suggestions on what to do when your baby cries and cries and cries, for example - the best it had to offer was "If you need a break, take one." I thought my baby wasn't 'normal' and I didn't know what to do.

Then one night, I was up late again trying to calm my crying baby. I was exhausted, at my wits end. I typed into Google "baby won't stop crying" just to see what would come up. And guess what I found? A blog. The author was a mom of a girl roughly the same age as Miss A. I loved her writing because it was raw and brutally honest. She didn't candy coat motherhood, she admitted it was hard. Damn hard. Turns out she had a baby who wouldn't stop crying either. And she laid it all out there. The good, the bad and the ugly. (That particular blog no longer exists but you can find her writing here and here.)

I guess you could say that night changed my life, as dramatic as that sounds. Because if I hadn't been looking for answers, exploring, I would have never stumbled upon that blog and blogging in general. And in that case I likely wouldn't have started my own blog. Blogging has become a huge part of my life. A huge part of who I am today.

If you go back and read my earliest posts you can tell I'm searching. Trying to find the reasons why I was having such a hard time adjusting to being a mother. The whole reason I decided to start my own blog in the first place was because I was hoping to find other moms who might be having similar experiences. And I was hoping to find some answers.

Did I find the answers? Sometimes. More importantly I found some amazing mothers who I had lots in common with. People I could bounce things off of or just vent to. I found out I was not alone. But parenting is an adventure and I find most of the time as a parent I just go by instinct. You can't always find the answers in a book or on the internet. But I keep exploring. Looking for better ways or sometimes just a shoulder to cry on.

You Can't Win 'em All

For those of you who remembered I entered a short story writing contest, the results winner was posted in yesterdays paper. It wasn't me. Apparently stories about elderly women in personal care homes is more interesting than a good old fashioned love story. Not that I'm bitter. Well, maybe a little. But I honestly was expecting anything. Only hoping for the best. So many thanks to AM and Bon for helping me out so much.

There were two runners up stories in todays community newspaper. I have to say I liked them better than the winner. But sadly I didn't really enjoy any of them much. I was expecting to really have my socks knocked off by the winner(s). Not so. I'm not sure what I was expecting.

I guess when I think about it, there are a lot of books out there that wouldn't be my cup of tea. But they still got published. Just like not everyone would agree with me that this was one of the best books ever written.

The people who put together the contest have also planned a festival for next weekend. There will be some authors leading discussions, doing readings and lectures. There will even be a discussion on blogging! Unfortunately I will miss a great deal of it due to work but I think I will attend at least some of it. I'm glad something like this is happening in my community. Hopefully it will get more people excited about reading and writing.