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!

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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.

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