Month: April 2007

Categories
Ryan/Married Life

Dear Ryan

Dear Ryan,

I know you won’t see this until tomorrow, but I just wanted to tell you a few things.

I wanted to tell you thank you again for getting out the crock pot yesterday while I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get the stoneware clean, vegetables sliced and pot roast on. It may not have been a huge deal, but it was one little thing that helped my day go more smoothly. Plus, I liked that I didn’t even have to ask you to do it. You anticipated a need and fulfilled it.

I especially liked it because I felt like we were a team. I like to feel like we’re working in perfect synchronization.

I also appreciate how you usually notice if I’ve cleared off the kitchen counters or done the dishes or mopped or vacuumed. I appreciate you taking notice, thanking me for doing my daily chores, and saying, “The house looks good, babe.”

Thank you for giving Hayden his bath almost every single night for nearly a year now. I like to take those few minutes sometimes and decompress a little. But usually, I like to sit with my boys.

Thank you for being a competent father. You have excellent judgment when it comes to our son’s safety and wellbeing. You’re even very good at diapers. I’m so glad to have someone whom I love and trust to be right there with me to share my concerns and hopes for our son.

No, there’s no special occasion that you’ve forgotten (though it is my grandma’s birthday tomorrow). It’s just Monday.

I love you.

Love,
Jordan

Categories
Random

Six of one, half a dozen of the other V

Yeah, I skipped last week. Whoops!

Six Motherly Chores That Really Bug Me

  • Diapers: but only when Ryan’s around.
  • Keeping Hayden out of stuff like the cat’s food and water, the trash, things I don’t want ruined, etc.
  • Laundry. Take a week off and BAM, you’re drowning in it. Oh, wait, that’s true of everything…
  • Feeding him solids used to bother me, but it’s not such a big deal anymore (now it takes more effort to feed myself!).
  • Taking out his trash or is that diapers again?
  • Going out: From gathering up everything we’ll need (though I’ve progressed to keeping his bag almost entirely ready) to struggling with him to get into the car seat (though that’s improved, too, since he switched to a big boy car seat). Despite those improvements, it seems like the smallest trip to the store or the gym is a major production.

Six Motherly Chores That (Surprisingly) I Don’t Mind

  • Diapers, especially when I’m the only one around to change them.
  • Still nursing at 14 months, though I am beginning to wonder when we’ll eliminate these last two feedings.
  • Feeding him solids once we really got into a rhythm with feedings, it’s not that hard.
  • Getting up with him at night now that he’s gotten much better about sleeping through the night.
  • Cleaning up his toys: he’s not that messy (yet).
  • Baths: they’re just so much part of our routine that they’re not a big deal anymore.

Don’t forget! If you’re an RSS subscriber, follow the directions at the end of this message to enter to win Parenting Magazine! The deadline to enter is tomorow.

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Sign of the times

Hayden has picked up a new trick this week: signing. He learned two signs on Sunday that he’s been using off and on this week. He’s not totally consistent, so I don’t have any video or pictures, but here’s what he’s learned:

  • All gone. Nana Diana was feeding him Easter candy for breakfast (I can’t really say anything, since that’s been my breakfast for two weeks now). She told him he couldn’t have any more until his mouth was empty—until it was all gone. He picked up the standard “all gone” sign (very similar to ASL’s “finished” sign)
  • More. That night I was eating candy and gave Hayden a little bit. I got him to sign more to ask for some more.

Of course, his technique isn’t perfect, but I’m just excited that he’s learning one language

I promise he doesn’t eat as much candy as this makes it sound like he does… really….

Categories
Fulfillment

Motherhood: Just like a glamorous career!

I’d Rather Be Writing has an interesting post on a recent episode of the NPR show, This American Life:

The point of the show is that glamorous jobs usually turn out to be boring. The cartographer’s story was one of the most interesting:

Charles Preuss … charted the Western Territories with two of American history’s legendary explorers—John Charles Fremont and Kit Carson. The maps Preuss made were best sellers and helped open the Western frontier to settlement. But, as he wrote in the diary he kept while in the wilderness, he hated pretty much every minute of the expedition.

Preuss had to rough the uncharted frontier so he could do what he really wanted to do: make maps. Isn’t life like that?

I’d have to agree. But I also have to say that the drudgery of every day life—whether you’re an astronaut (another person profiled in the story), a cartographer or a mother, you have to learn to find joy every day in the small things. The day-to-day, whether it be roughing the frontier, stultifying meetings or endlessly keeping your son from playing in the garbage, can seem to be more than you can bear.

If you haven’t learned this yet, let me tell you: you can bear a lot, and probably more than you know. But who wants to just bear his or her entire life? The big rewards (space walks, drawing maps, the perfect day with your kids) are incredible, but you have to get by between them—and they may be few and far between.

I invite you to find joy in the every day today.

Categories
Contests

Last chance for RSS contest

Gentle Reader,

This week marks the culmination of the RSS contest. Subscribe now for your chance to win one year of Parenting Magazine. Instructions follow on how to enter to win. (See also the details and rules.)

Most of all, I want to say THANK YOU for subscribing to MamaBlogga! I hope you’ll continue to subscribe to MamaBlogga. I appreciate your participation in the contest and the blog, as well as any feedback.

Good luck!
Jordan (MamaBlogga)

Categories
MetaBlogging

Your own domain

Table of contents for Mom Blogging Advice

Do mom bloggers need their own domains? I might not be the most impartial person to ask, since I just made the switch from a blogspot-hosted blog to a self-hosted WordPress blog on my own domain.

However, after compiling the list of the most popular parent bloggers, I have to say that some of my opinions on the subject were challenged. As an Internet marketer, I would have told you all the live long day to get your own domain—but then nearly half of the most popular parent bloggers don’t have their own domain.

Guess what? ME.blogspot.com (or ME.typepad.com) is working just fine for them. Better than fine—great!

So I’m beginning to think that in the parent substratum of the blogopshere, it’s a lot less important to have your own domain than it would be in, say, the business world.

That being said, it’s not a bad idea—but if your blog is popular enough to make it onto the Popular Parent Bloggers list, it may not be the best idea to change.

Why not? Well, you may have a lot of Technorati clout (ie links) at your old domain (Technorati is a blog search engine, if you didn’t know. Oh, of course you knew, I meant him over there.). Michelle has taught us that Technorati links expire after six months, so you might be able to begin to outpace your old blog URL (and no, you can’t move it on Technorati) after six months, but do you want to e-mail every person that has you on their personal blogroll to get them to fix it? I wouldn’t and I’m only on a couple (thank you, ladies!)

Also important, you may have a lot of search engine clout (ie links) at your old domain as well. On the plus side, it’s possible to channel that clout to a new domain if you use something like Blogger’s Custom Domain kind of thing. You have to make sure that your URL structure doesn’t change (like mine did… gonna have to learn Apache to fix that. You can avoid this fate by consulting my guide, but I went and made things complicated on myself by changing my URL structure and now I definitely don’t want to go back).

One possible solution for someone with a lot of clout at their .blogspot or .typepad domain: if the appropriate URL is available, buy it (I’ve had good experiences with www.GoDaddy.com ) and redirect it to your .blogspot or .typepad blog instead of the other way around. (if given an option, use a 301 redirect). You can also select the option of “masking” the domain so that even though someone is redirected to ME.blogspot.com, their address bar still reads “www.ME.com.” (With GoDaddy, both of these functions are accessible under Domain Forwarding.)

Of course, Technorati doesn’t understand redirects at all, so it may see www.ME.com as a second blog with the same content as your first one (which it actually does to me… it’s really annoying). But you know what? Technorati isn’t the be-all and end-all of your blog.

Disclosure: the GoDaddy link is an affiliate link.

Previous in series Next in series