Her Bad Mother

Saturday, May 20, 2006

The Weekly Squeeze

NOTE: WonderBaby's Second Royal Tour (BC Edition) commences May 22, so blogging activity will be somewhat reduced for a few days until we get settled into tour mode. Stay tuned for Royal Tour Blogging...


So, this Great Mommy Blogger Love-In/Group Hug/Rah Rah Love-Fest Jamboree has really taken off. You continue to post odes to Mommy or Mama or Mother or Drag Mom (dads that some of you think are unusually mom-like) Bloggers that you love and you continue to send the links. We're hovering around 75 posts (77, according my count, which is sloppy, because I am innumerate, so I rounded down.) 75!!!

You love each other, you really really love each other. The heart, she swells.

Keep posting and sending links, if you are so inclined. (If that list of posts were to hit 100... well, we'd have to bust out the Veuve Cliquot, wouldn't we? Virtual Veuve, maybe, but still. I'd be drunk, drunk I tell you, from the heady bubbles of all the loooove.)

(I'm drunk on the Virtual Veuve of Bloggy Love right now. That slurring you hear? That's me. OMG you guys I like totally love you, you know, like totally, for real, I'm not just sayin' this cuz I'm drunk I'm totally NOT I'm sayin' it cuz it's TRUE cuz it is I just totally love you cuz you are. SO. AWESOME. and I totally love you OMG.)

But enough about me. What you really came here for was the Great Group Hug Weekly Squeeze (which I still don't know how to properly name. Weekly Squeeze sounds a bit dirty, like this is the part of the group hug where I reach out and grab someone's ass, which is, maybe, exactly what is going on here, but still. I also thought about calling it Mrs. McFeely Friday, but, um, also sorta dirty. Anyone want to pony up some suggestions and help me get my mind out the gutter? Or, reassure me that the dirty talk is exactly what you are here for, and that I should just get over it and be all Mrs. McFeely squeezing virtual asses if that's what I feel like doing? Anyone?)

ANYWAY.

Starting from the almost-top of the list and proceeding alphabetically (because if I do it any other way I will totally get lost and forget who I have highlighted and who I have not, but I totally reserve the right to deviate from this plan and careen wildly and unpredictably through the list if the mood strikes), we find Amy of Binkytown's heartwarming ode to the bloggers who first made her feel welcome in the blogosphere and to the community that she's found here.

(OK, so you're saying to yourself, that is not the first post on the list. And you are right, clever reader: It is not. But Amalah's Daily Dose post about the Group Hug is not, technically, a Group Hug Post so much as it is a shout-out to the Group Hug - a very, very welcome shout-out because, um, Amalah. Down with the Group Hug, yo. How cool is that? - which is, as I just said, very cool but in a different vein. You should still go check it out, though - like you're not already, I KNOW - because that Daily Dose thing is an ongoing tribute to Mommy (Etc.) Bloggers in general and so is, in a way, the Ultimate Hug.

And, yes, Beanie Baby is the next blog on the list but I have a LOT to say about her post and I'm already taxing your patience with my rambling and I need you to stay focussed.)

So, Amy's post - which I could also ramble endlessly about - showers love sweet love on the two bloggers - Julia and Tertia - who took the time to reach out to Amy after she, as a newbie blogger, reached out to them (which is just so lovely.) Their encouragement and support, she says, made her realize that this, this whole blog thing, is so much more than just entertainment - it is community.

Yes.

She says this about that community:

I care about so many of these interesting women I've never actually met - I sincerely do. I am inspired by their talent, generosity, heart, ability to tell a kick ass ghost story, creativity, questions, suggestions, choices, humor, struggles and triumphs. You give me more than words. I learn from you, the world feels a little smaller and much warm and fuzzier. Any of the strangers I pass in a day could be one of you. I had no idea so many of you were thinking or feeling the same things or totally different things that made me see things in a new light.

Yes, yes, yes. So much more than words. Making motherhood - making everything - so much less strange by casting new light on our experience of motherhood, and on our experience of other people. Revealing strangers as fellow travellers on the journey of parenthood. Opening the horizon, and filling it with friends.

Thanks, Amy, for reminding us of that.



A special WonderBaby shout-out to Amy! Whoot whoot!


*********
POSTSCRIPT:

So, the Husband reads this and goes, 'It's really warm and fuzzy.'

I give him a LOOK.

'But that's a good thing.'

I hope so. I have - had - a horror of all things saccharine and syrupy and unnecessarily mushy (see intro to this post). But motherhood has wussied me up beyond all recognition and now I fear that I may get out of control with the mush.

Please. Somebody tell me if I turn into Little Mary Sunshine or Stewart Smalley or Deepak Chopra and become completely unbearable. Friends don't let friends go total wuss.
********

18 Comments:

Blogger Bea said...

I'm a bit too new to this whole bloggy world to have a Group Hug post (give me time!), but I want to say that your post about your job issues (of Kool-Ade war fame) has singlehandedly addicted me to the mommy blogs. I, too, labour in the dark underworld of sessional teaching, with all kinds of intangible setbacks due to not one but two maternity leaves in a three-year-period, and I was feeling particularly discouraged about my less-than-exciting course assignment/non-course assignment for next hear when I found your post and had that electric-shock-tingling-in-my-toes sensation that someone else knows what this feels like. So consider this my little footnote to the big Group Hug - and thanks.

9:09 PM  
Blogger Amy said...

I just love this whole thing. It's better than chocolate.
That pic of Wonderbaby is sooooo adorable! I'm not just sayin' that.

9:49 PM  
Blogger Granny said...

Me too. I was crossing my fingers for a good response but this blows me away.

Nice going!

10:09 PM  
Blogger Cristina said...

You're not a wuss. You're a faciliator of positive communication among women and men who appreciate parenthood and love to write about it. And that's a good thing :)

12:45 AM  
Blogger Mom101 said...

I say, alternate the wussiness with a good dose of cynicism or diatribe. I love a complex woman.

1:18 AM  
Blogger ms blue said...

I love when my friends get all drunk mushy. Bring it on. And you should be!

Happy Birthday Her Bad Mother - Leader of the Love. Have a Franfrickintastic day! May your baby always have more hats to dazzle us with, right alongside your spectacular words.

2:21 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Happy Birthday! It's my 25th today (May 21st)...so we share a birthday! How cool. Oh, and I'm really feeling "Mrs. McFeely." For all the perverted reasons, which I guess are the wrong reasons?

12:30 PM  
Blogger Redneck Mommy said...

It's all good to me.

But I was wondering, do you just hover around Wonderbaby with your camera all day long, in order to catch such great shots? Because, it's always one beaut after another over here!

1:05 PM  
Blogger kittenpie said...

Happy B-Day, Mrs. McFeely - long may you live to grope others inappropriately and continue on your blogger-carressing mission. It IS good. and we understand that while you are generally not so goopy, mamas all have their moments. How you don't have more with the cute thing around, I'm not sure, frankly.

1:53 PM  
Blogger Sandra said...

Happy Birthday HBM.

Drunk mushy friends are the best.

And no, someone with your vocabulary and sarcasm could never be too much of a wuss...

2:56 PM  
Blogger bunmaster said...

Happy Birthday HBM (a little treat for you - sorry no cake)

Have a great time on your royal tour. Please take in some of those fine Kelowna wineries while you are there. I highly recommend going to Quail's Gate & paying for the ice wine in the dark chocolate cups. Worth every freaking penny!

9:09 PM  
Blogger Miguelita said...

Happy Birthday! Belated but genuine.

The weekly squeeze is great. i love all of the bloggers I am being directed to. Thanks for the continuous love-in.

May I vote for this as the cutest WonderBaby shot yet?

10:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday!!!

A little mush and gush never hurt anyone. Keep it up.

11:23 AM  
Blogger Suburban Turmoil said...

I am feeling totally warm and fuzzy now. Which makes me think I might need to shave, but that's okay. Because I'm sure my blogfriends understand! ;)

3:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

LOL, I love the comments about being mushy! I too have succumbed to the Attack of the Killer Mind-Controlling Cuteness inherent in babies and have started embarassing myself with the rediculously mushy nicknames I come up with for my Little Button.

I've even started dressing her in the occasional PINK (the thought of which would have had my left eye twitching a year ago).

What is it about motherhood that carries the same symptoms as, say, a frontal lobotomy?

4:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am so enjoying how dedicated you are to the Momfest! You so could have announced the idea and left it at that. Instead you are sharing the love over and over again. It is so awesome. Thanks!

4:15 PM  
Blogger Chicky Chicky Baby said...

WooHoo! Happy birthday! Enjoy the royal tour with all that mommy love swirling around in your head.

9:13 PM  
Blogger Jezer said...

A nod from Amalah! NOW you are a bonafide supah-star!!

And I hope you realize that it will be months--MONTHS, I say!--before I will write another decent post because all my surplus time is now devoted to reading the mother-goodness that you have collected.

That's definitely not a bad thing!

7:44 AM  

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