I Am The Cheese
Sometimes, WonderBaby puts cheese on her forehead. Soy cheese slices, specifically, because they have good traction. Real cheddar just won't stay on there.
Today, I feel exactly like a limp piece of soy cheese product that has been pinched flat by a giant, shrieking toddler and then smushed onto the yogourt-smeared forehead of that same toddler and left to dangle pathetically for an eternity before collapsing with a grim slap onto the cold, hard plastic surface of a Fisher-Price booster seat tray.
And that, my friends, is why I should never, ever drink more than a thimbleful of any alcoholic beverage, and why I should never, ever chase three glasses of wine with three chocolate bars. BAD.
You'll have to wait for that particular story, and you may have to wait a very long time - that is, unless one of my fellow debauched Toronto mommy blogger friends spills the details - because it is a very silly story and not all that interesting and because I anticipate being unable to even spell the word alcohol for weeks to come.
In unrelated news, you'll also have to wait to find out what this picture has to do with you:
I know. I am killing you with the suspense.
While you're waiting, I have a favour to ask. Go check out these posts by Joy and Mad - spectacular examples of meta-blogging at its finest - and give them some thought and leave your comments and maybe - maybe - write your own post. (Leave a comment for me if you do so that I can link to you. ) I'll be weighing in later this weekend - once the Sauvignon Blanc has worked its way out of my system - and will be soliciting links to posts on the general topics of whence the mommyblogger? whither the mommyblogger? what, the mommyblogger? and WHY? in preparation for our conference panel in Kentucky (hell yeah!) later this month and other academibloggy projects. So, you're in, right? Share your thoughts?
To get you started (feel free to consider any or all of these questions; suggestions for questions are more than welcome):
1. Who are we? What is a mommyblogger? What kind of mommyblogger (parent blogger) are you?
2. Who are we writing to? Who is our audience?
3. Why are we writing? What is our purpose?
4. What is the context for our writing? What are we saying? What is our message?
5. How does the medium of blogging affect all of the above (that is, does, or how does, the communication of our messages through blogs, bear upon the message itself? Bonus points if you leave Mcluhan out of it.)
6. What kind of citizen are you in the parent blogosphere? How and why do you comment? Link? Give awards? How important is 'off-blog' (or inter-blog) activity to the parent blogging community?
7. What are some tried and true hangover remedies that you know?
There you go. Discuss amongst yourselve. Am going to go curl up in a dark corner now...
Labels: Academiblogger, Blahgging
posted by Her Bad Mother @ Saturday, March 10, 2007
45 Comments:
too much to think about this morning but I will revisit and try to string at least one coherent sentence together... maybe...
and no, I won't spill any details - but can some explain to me why I woke up with a purse full of chocolate this morning?
Wow, I've read their posts and my brain is churning (and hurting a little, too, because this kind of stimulating discussion is seriously lacking in my life).
I have to think about this a bit before I can share my thoughts. These are questions I've asked myself before but have never really focused on answering.
Glad you guys are being "acidemibloggy" about this - it's right up my alley and I'm fascinated by what you guys are doing!
My. head. hurts.
My. head. hurts.
I"m sorry but my eyes are burning right now. Also, last night was the fastest speed my car's ever gone 165km/hr on the 407...I felt like I was late for curfew.
my head is a bit funny this morning as well...it must have been the potato chips I scarfed down when i got home at 1 in the morning on top of the two chocolate bars and FOUR glasses of wine.
Hangover cure? Eggs and toast with gatorade. And banana for the potassium.
try snorting fresh squeezed lime juice in your nasal passages.and then tell me if it works.well as a mum interested in starting up my own blog,you've given me lots of ? to ask myself about why...oh and wonderbaby is adorable even with soy cheese stuck on her forehead. LAVENDULA
Hangover. Bad. Me. too.
Oh, the photos! Where can I get me one of those cute little girls? I'll even take one with cheese stuck on her forehead!
I've written a few comments over at blogrhet. I am thinking relatively clearly this morning. No debauchery for me last night, sad to say.
I have also discussed this with gingajoy a bit, but I have been thinking a lot about the purpose of comments. In an e-mail to her, I identified three: one I called promotional (link back to my blog and comment, won't you please?), the other emotional (you have moved me so much that I am compelled to comment), and hmm... what was the third? Joy? Help me out if you still have that e-mail! Was it about marking one's place in a community, identifying oneself as a member? Maybe. Gotta get more coffee, obviously.
Just wait til WonderBaby can hang a spoon off her nose.
And alcohol is no longer my friend either. Two drinks the other night and I could barely function the next day. Not sure what would've happened had I chased it all with chocolate. Mmmmm. . .
The second half of your post is very worthy of discussion, but I"m watching children roll meatballs around a table right now and can't think straight.
I love all the "this is fascinating. but my head hurts this morning" comments here. WHY CAN'T I LIVE IN TORONTO, DAMMIT???
(sulk)
(loveyoumeanit you guys)
Hangover??? Never had one, but everyone else in my immediate and extended family depends on this one: Buy a jar of dill/garlic pickles and drink the juice and lots of it.
When it comes to the rest of your questions... working on the answers, but must warn you, they will probably not be as intellectual and elaborate as Joy’s :-)
i believe that, post-baby, all alcoholic beverages should come with a morning-after babysitter included.
if i could market this, i'd be a zillionaire.
as for the academiblogging...hooked. fascinated. have a weakness for meta-talk. will weigh in.
wish i had a purse full of chocolate. i KNEW this community was fun.
if only i had stuck with a coffee and a ceasar.
(wonderbaby makes a positively delicious cheese tray.)
Can't. Drink. Enough. Water. So thirsty! (...says the crazy lady riding the subway with a mittful of chocolate bars). Now I'm concentrate enough to get some homework done. It's not going well.
Apparently I can't concentrate enough to write a coherent comment either. Sigh.
Apparently I can't concentrate enough to write a coherent comment either. Sigh.
Wassup with all the duplicate comments from the hungover folks! Shaky hands should stay away from keyboard.
I will do a post on these questions (but not today!) and send you the link.
I'll think about this after I sleep after work finishes and after Pumpkinpie goes to bed and maybe after a day or two of vacation and email you something. For now, it's all about the breakfast sandwich and coffee and trying not to let the raucous crowd in this joint get to me and being relieved that my storytime audience was small and undemanding. Need a pillow.
Oh, I'll have to think on the deep questions. Right now I'm recovering from a bad day and really can't think straight at the moment.
Hangover remedy? Gatorade, and lots of it. Plus ibuprofin.
And you're going to Kentucky? Where in Kentucky? Ohio is only one state over (an hour to the border here), and depending on when and where, I might make a trip down to see all of you!
I wish I were hung over. Whaaa...
That is a lot of questions and much to think about. My brain is spinning. Maybe if I wasn't popping Extra Strength Tylenol Flu capsules like candy I would be able to come up with some answers.
What demi-goddesses of the mommy blogosphere shot the 5 reasons I blog meme around just in time for me to be all introspective about my blog for the first time, like, ever?
If this is the meta-blog of the moment, I guess I'm on the train, cause it's a mystery to me how accidently I landed here, but how completely I love it.
so to be thorough:
1. I'm a new blogger, 30 something with 3 kids between 1 and 8, in some corners no one has kids as old as 8, but in others I'm not alone. I do blog about my kids specifically but also about parenting, society, and just about me.
2. I don't have a more specific audience in mind than mommies/parents who might stumble across my blog. I have some friends/ family who lurk but I am not writing to/for them at all.
3. Purpose? Connection and Perspective
4. most blogs it seems to me are debunking on some fundamental level the mythology of motherhood in our culture - or maybe these are just the ones I love. These blogs celebrate joyously the motherhood that is while upending in the garbage pail the motherhood that our society says ought to be.
5. I think the medium of blogging means more questions than answers, at least for a long time, all the points of connections between blogs are like pastors at church saying "can I get an amen?" In the mommy blog world, the answer is "yes, you can, Amen, mommying is _______ "(fill in your own explictive or rapture here)
Revolutions/transformations are like that, you don't really know what new thing you are forming til well after the fact, because you haven't experienced it yet.
6. yep, I comment (sometimes very long comment like today!) Awards I've only just maybe grasped. (thank you bub and pie)
7. sleep is the only thing that will help you for the next 36 hours, good luck!
I'm SO coming to Toronto for vacation soon. Alcohol and chocolate? And speeding down the 407? Amnesia?? Very exciting!! I'm there...one of these days.
I'll answer the questions...but my day made me tired...so maybe tomorrow. :)
LOL! Wow. What's it mean if I feel like that piece of cheese today and I haven't even had a drink?
Okay, I've read the posts. My mind is churning but I'm going to have to post my thoughts later because girl, I am exhausted.
Catching up on blogs is hard work. Especially when everyone spreads the linky love and I keep finding awesome new ones.
I haven't read the links yet so no comment on that stuff.
But, the surefire hangover cure ... McDonald's breakfast (bacon & egg mcmuffin and 2 hashbrowns). I hear that Grape Gatorade goes a long way to help.
Trust me on this one. It's gotten me through many a day.
Coincidentally Bossy drank too much this weekend too! And this is unique for Bossy because... nothing. There is nothing unique about Bossy drinking too much wine and eating too much chocolate.
You know, it's interesting I just realized that almost all the blogs I read are mommyblogs, even though I don't really fit into that category. Hmm.
Re: Slouching Mom's categories for comment-motives.
I think we can make a distinction between first-time comments and those that occur within an already existing relationship.
We might read a blog regularly without ever commenting if we feel intimidated (either by the "big"ness of the blogger or some other factor) or if we sense that we don't belong (if, for instance, we don't match the demographic of all the other commenters). We might be motivated to overcome that initial inhibition by some of the motives SM outlined: a desire to bring more traffic to our own blog, or the emotional impact of the post itself.
Once a commenting relationship has been established, different criteria might determine whether or not I comment on a particular post. There are "greeting" comments that have more to do with saying hello than with any particular response to the post; there are "anecdote-swapping" comments; there are "great post" comments.
Sometimes, I don't comment on a post that moved me because my response is either too simple or too complex. Too simple = adding another "great post" to the 60 similar comments already there (I'm more likely to leave a lame compliment at a smaller blog - if there are already lots of comments, I keep quiet until I have something to say). Too complex = a post that leaves me speechless because it gives me so much thinking to do. (Sometimes I say nothing at the time, and then a week later link back with my own post-length response.)
In that sense, comments are not always an indicator of the intrinsic merit of the post, though of course all of us feel they are (and tell ourselves they're not).
Bad,
Hangovers...it's rest and cold coke.
For the other - I wrote a post that touches on most of it a week or so ago - here it is http://droolstreet.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-behind-words.html#links
and finally, dammit. i wish i lived in toronto.
Note to self: soy cheese sticks. Finally, a reason to buy that stuff...
:-)
I'm just laughing at "I am the Cheese." Very funny.
Wow. Those posts made me glass over in a dangerously 'Bueller... bueller... bueller..' kind of way. I must own up to that.
Interesting stuff, though. Bon flagged this thread when she saw a post I wrote recently on the simultaneous ick-factor and gush-factor of life on the Internet (http://ingliseast.typepad.com/ingliseast/2007/03/i_forgive_it_ev.html). It's just a rant more than anything else, certainly not a thought-through position of any kind.
But as I read your questions, I took my grey matter out for a stroll (it complained) and here's what it gave me:
"What is a mommyblogger? What kind of mommyblogger (parent blogger) are you?"
The kind for whom the label 'mommyblogger' makes break out in hives. I wonder why? I'd rather think of myself as a writer exploring what's most intense for me this moment - which happens to be motherhood. I don't even like the word 'blogger'. It makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Again, I don't know why.
"Who are we writing to? Who is our audience?"
Honestly? From a long history of journal-writing, my audience is my future self, my future family. Posterity. Some narcissistic need to leave behind a testimony, an imprint. The fact that anyone else reads it is a magical, unexpected bonus.
"How does the medium of blogging affect all of the above (that is, does, or how does, the communication of our messages through blogs, bear upon the message itself? Bonus points if you leave Mcluhan out of it.)"
(eyes crossed) Uhhh... (drools a little) Mc-who? ;)
Hmmm. Knowing it's 'out there' lends discipline, pushes me to put clearer corners around whatever's in my head.
"What kind of citizen are you in the parent blogosphere? How and why do you comment?"
I speak up and respond in the same way I would in a group of people sharing a bottle of wine (or two, or three). If I'm sparked by something they said, touched somehow, want them to know they're not as small or as isolated as they sometimes feel. Or if they make me laugh. Or just to say, 'Hey there sweet thing, I'm out here, and I dig you!'... because I know how lovely that is to receive.
"What are some tried and true hangover remedies that you know?"
Miso soup, piping hot.
...There will be so many other people showing up in this dialog who are better-spoken, more informed from a medium-as-message stance. To them I must seem trite, I'm sure. But there you have it, the first, undiluted stuff that emits from a pregnancy-induced fog.
Undiluted.. that's the whole point, right? :)
Oh it sounds like I missed some good drunken fun on Friday :(
Some big questions you pose my friend ... will give some thought, not sure I'll post it but you always motivate me to get thinking in new directions.
Oh yes, this interests me very much. I'll finish my grant then come back to read the posts and comment (probably after everyone has already moved on, as I often do). Good stuff.
(Hangover: lots of bacon for breakfast, cheeseburger for lunch)
Here's my post:
http://riverdalemama.blogspot.com/2007/03/mega-meta.html
To decrease hangovers, you must practice often and consume lots of alcohol. This is obviously a problem when you have a small child, breast feed, and get little sleep.
When I've had lots to drink I always finish off by eating. Doesn't matter if it's 10 pm or 3 am. I must eat or my fast metabolism will kill me. And I also take some Advil before I go to bed.
Ok here's my take.
Click here --> Mothering Blogs.
These are great questions HBM. And should be posted.
I'd also like permission to link your answers to my blog as well (all of you moms who have the answers posted on your blogs). Perfect for letting other blogizens out there know who we really are and why we are here ;-)
Mommysays
-mother lurker coming out of her shell-
Thanks all, you're giving us great material here! And, Mommysays, I will link to everybody, and you, of course, are more than welcome to link, too!
Christina! It's in Louisville!
Here ya go, a perspective from a mamá blogger who's in the minority:
http://tere-tere.blogspot.com/2007/03/mommy-blogger-deconstructed.html
This is where my mind's at these days:
http://ittybit.blogspot.com/2007/03/big-5-for-posterity.html
Okay. I finally had time to respond to your questions. I don't think they are as intellectual or fabulous as others I've read, but hey they're mine.
See http://phonemom.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/mommyblogging/
i'm slow, but at least the hangover's probably over by now. :)
check out http://cribchronicles.com
the most recent post overtly addresses the surface of the questions about the medium of blogging...the two previous are some more meta-ish stuff you guys and a few others got me onto. thanks. i needed that.
Late to the party, as per usual.
I enjoyed this study/post, and many of the posts that resulted from it. Here's mine: http://homeintheworld.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/03/the_whys_and_wh.html
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