Worst Parent Ever

Inspired by one of my favorite websites Best Parent Ever I got to thinking "what about worst parent ever?" Surely not all of us went in for the Bugaboo stroller; for some of us, the good ole umbrella stroller--available at any Kids R' Us or Walmart for about $20--was just fine. Light, easy to manuver, foldable with one hand, washable--what's not to like?

A few other Worst Parent Ever qualities:

1) Letting your baby sleep on its stomach

How many parents, desperate to get baby to sleep for more than 2 hours at a clip listened to our mothers, who pointed out that back in the day tummy sleeping was today's back sleeping? There probably aren't any studies out proving that babies sleep better on their stomachs; all I can say is that, from my unscientific study based on a sample of at least 5 moms who were willing to furtively admit that yes, they let their babies sleep on their stomachs, the consensus was that the babies did sleep better.

2) Formula Feeding

We all know my feelings about the whole "breast is best" thing; suffice it to say that, while I did breastfeed each of my kids for 6 weeks, I blissfully gave in to formula after that and enjoyed every convenient, no-guessing-required about how much my babies drank minute. Apparently my kids survived despite my Worst Parent Ever behavior because they have lived to the ripe old ages of 10 and 12 with no apparent ill effects.

Worst Parents Ever make no apologies for not breastfeeding--whether it's just not their cup of tea or whatever, they proudly stock up on those great big cans of formula and enjoy the beauty of being able to handle nighttime feedings by chucking a bottle into the crib and going immediately back to sleep.

Oh, and bonus Worst Parent Ever points if you scoff at the doctor's warnings that babies stomachs can't handle milk until they're 12 months old and decide that you're tired of shelling out $25 a can and switch to regular milk when your baby is only 10 months old.

3) Extended pacifier use

Yeah, I admit it--my son had a pacifier until he was 7. Not like out on the street or anything, but yes, in a little box in his room, he had one and had no shame about using it. At home, that is. I didn't qualify for the uber Worst Parent Ever: the kind who lets a kid--not a toddler or even a pre-schooler--appear in public with a pacifier. You know, the kind of parent who gives their baby Coke in a bottle or...


lets it play with cigarettes.

Happy Blogoversary to Me

Ok, that's not actually true--this is not the anniversary of my first post. It is, however, almost the anniversary of the date I started tracking visitor stats. I started using Sitemeter in August 2007; during that month I had 14 visitors. As of today--with two more days to go until the actual end of the month--I have had 327 visitors during July 2008.

Granted 327 is nothing compared to "real" bloggers; with an average of about 15 visitors a day I doubt I could ever make a dime with this blog. But such is life--and I did score a free book and (still have yet to receive it so maybe shouldn't count it) a free CherryPal computer as a result of my blogging prowess.

I can't feel too badly, though--I was heartened to read this post by the author of one of my favorite blogs, Best Parent Ever. His wife's blog--even after about 50,000 page impressions in a 3-week period--brought in only $1.87. I could probably find more than that in between the cushions of my sofa.

So why do I keep blogging? Because I don't have the discipline (I was going to say time but if J.K. Rowling can write Harry Potter on napkins at 5 am I can't really claim to have no time) to write much of anything else, I guess. A friend of mine, after hearing from her husband about my guest post in The Washington Post, asked me, incredulously "So, what--you just sit there and write? Why?"

Who knows. God knows it's not for the recognition--not that I don't appreciate my loyal readership of 15 or so a day. Not for the props either--one valuable thing I've learned through blogging is that people are 100 times meaner when commenting anonymously on blogs then they are in real life. I guess the internet gives everyone a chance to release their inner demon-like personalities--read any blog and at least 50% of the comments are usually not only negative, but scathingly so. So blogging does force you to grow a thicker skin, which is generally useful in life.

I read this post today about what defines success as a blogger. It sums it up nicely: If you enjoy it, then do it. This is another good post about not getting too wrapped up in how "successful" your blog is.

So Not PC but So Funny

I know, I know--offensive, insensitive, crude...etc.

But hirarious! Um, I mean hilarious.

I'm BAAACK!!

Did you miss me? I am so impressed with myself for (almost) going without internet for a full week. I did check email (ok--and Twitter) from my phone and I did have to go to Bethany Bytes once--but only to print and send my CherryPal Brand Angel agreement back so they can send me my free computer.

Yes, that's right, folks--granted, it's not a book deal but I have managed to secure not one but two products of actual monetary value as a result of blogging. The first was a book--Groundswell by Forrester Research--they invited bloggers to email them and the first however many would get a free copy of the book to read and blog about. Which I did.

Remember the "gigs" section of Craigslist? Ok--not those gigs--I'm talking about the writing gigs section now. Anyway, a month or so ago I answered an ad looking for bloggers who wanted to serve as "brand angels" for this new "green" computer. Get to try a cool new computer before anyone else gets it? For free? And blog about it? Hells yeah.

So I applied and got selected. Hopefully in a few days I'll have my "cloud computer" in my hands and will be able to tell all you eager readers about it.

So what did I do for 7 days without internet? Read. A lot:

A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel--I loved this book and think she's awesome...if you like Lynda Barry you'll love her. In fact, I wonder if she's not actually Lynda Barry. Oh, and she's friends with Augusten...lucky dog.

The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve (didn't she used to be called Anita Richards Shreve?)--I loved this book--finished it in one day, so I guess that qualifies it as a page-turner.

The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg. Augusten recommended this book and I loved it as much as he did. At first I was like "huh?" but the stories are incredible--especially Ove the Hill and into the Woods. Very Raymond Carver/John Cheever.

Shock by Robin Cook--Ok--this was an audiobook that we all listened to throughout the week. Fun and interesting but lots of stupid/ridiculous stuff...as there always is in Robin Cook's books. The kids liked it, or at least Matthew did.

Then topped off the week with two movies--The Dark Knight and, finally, Sex and the City. I can't even begin to tell you how incredible Heath Ledger was in The Dark Knight--I'm not kidding. He was as good as Jack Nicholson in The Shining or Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. Sad. I would be shocked if he doesn't at least get nominated for an Oscar, and not at all shocked if he wins.

Sex and the City was good but sort of "eh?" The best girl in the movie was Carrie's assistant, Louise from St. Louis. Every time Carrie was on screen she looked thinner and thinner--I swear, if she turned sideways all you could see was her hair. Ok, and her nose...but that's not nice of me to say. Especially considering that many more than one person has told me I look like her. Maybe the "long" face (as Patrick so lovingly put it) but hopefully not the nose--and sadly not the hair or the arms or the abs. Actually, I can't even covet anything about her body--she just looked scrawny. As much as I hate to admit it, maybe Maxim Magazine was on to something when they named her the unsexiest woman in the world. Angelina can barely carry being that skinny while remaining sexy; SJP just looks gaunt.

The Power of Negative Blogging

Yesterday I blogged about Penelope Trunk's post about shared parenting, which featured Marc and Amy, who are self-professed "shining pillars of excellence" (An "English as a second language" kid in Mimi's 5th grade class coined this term and I love it.) in the realm of shared parenting.

Who would have thought the object of my ridicule--Amy--would ever see the post, but she paid my blog a visit and left a scathing comment. In case you can't figure out how to get to the comment section of that post, here is her comment, followed by my response:

Maggie,
It seems important to you to find ways to ridicule our passion to share the benefits and challenges of equally shared parenting with others via our website, the article, and yes, someday, a book. No one is forcing you to adopt or even agree with anything we say, although you do sound like you are doing so in your own way anyway - both in your new marriage (if I read that right) and in your relationship with your ex-husband.

Why did Penelope give us advice on preparing to write a book? Well, because she makes a career of advising people, because she linked to US originally and we wrote to thank her, and because the few emails we exchanged over a year ago were free and encouraging. Tell me you wouldn't appreciate the same mentorship from someone for something YOU believed in. And by the way, the book we hope to write isn't about us - it is about equal parenting. A book about us would be, well, freaky to use your words! Have to agree with you there. We are far from perfect, but we're one of only a handful of people (until now) actually speaking up about the practical good and bad about equally shared parenting.

Anyway, I have no interest in engaging in your spit-fest, but wanted to reach out to suggest that you needn't give us so much power.

Take care,
Amy
Amy | Homepage | 07.08.08 - 10:20 am | #

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What's important to me is thinking of things to blog about on a semi-regular basis and, sorry, but things I find funny are easy fodder.

The thing is that I 100% agree with the concept--it's the "look at us--we're perfect!" way you present yourselves that I find funny. It's not just you guys, and it's not just me who finds stuff like your site funny--that's why sites like http://bestparentever.com/ exist.

I'm sure I, too, possess many annoying and self-promoting qualities; however, I can't see myself ever presenting myself as a shining example of anything--I figure anything I'm doing, someone else is also doing and probably doing better than I am.

But who knows--maybe I'm wrong...after all, you and your husband are living proof that nobody's going to promote you if you don't promote yourselves. After all, even though I, too, practice shared parenting, you're the ones with the book deal and I'm the one with 15 people reading my blog. And I'm not saying this facetiously--I'm serious.

And hell yes I would appreciate the same mentorship, especially from someone like Penelope. Not only is she a mentor, she has the power to make your book a success by spreading the word and promoting it. More power to you—but part of putting yourselves out there is, of course, having people who see things the way I do ridicule you. Then again, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that any press is good press and negative reactions will sell just as many books as positive ones will.

And now naturally I have to ridicule her comment, especially because she used the word "spit-fest."

A Banner Day in the Blogosphere

It's been slow going for me lately, creatively-speaking. I haven't felt like blogging but was alarmed to see my already minimal audience dwindle by the day so I've really been trying to squeeze some posts out. Not like you could tell or anything.

But I just finished reading Penelope Trunk's blog and don't even know where to begin my rant. Not about Penelope--she is my idol--did you know she makes $15,000 for one speaking engagement? Granted, she is, I'm sure--as one woman in my book group once described herself and the term became one of my favorites--a "gunner"--e.g. total type A, super competetive woman. But hey--she's a good writer and makes enough money to afford a $50k "house manager" in addition to a nanny and a housekeeper. I bow to her....but wouldn't want to be her.

Anyway, her post focused on this NY Times article about shared parenting and I couldn't help but think that the Stuff White People Like people would have a field-day with it.

Where do I even begin? Well, as Penelope did, with the "insipid photo," of course. Are there honestly people out there who see a photo like this and take it at face value, rather than laugh it off as a parody of yuppie parents? Are there really people out there so humorless that a photo like this serves only to get their competetive "best parent in universe" juices flowing?

I confess I didn't read beyond the first page of the article; I figure the title of the article, together with the term "breast milk" juxtaposed with the spooky photo, probably says it all anyway. What's up with a story that spans 10 web pages? Ten pages should be the sum total of an entire SITE--never one article.

But I digress...because after I did my three-point glance at the page and returned to Penelope's post, my eyes lit on this sentence:

A second disclaimer is that Amy and Marc, featured there as the poster children for shared care, are also people I’ve helped—about how to pitch themselves to the media so they could get some articles written about themselves and get a book deal. And they, too, were nice.

Did someone say book deal?

Seriously, though--there are people out there who think they are fascinating enough that they seek advice on how to pitch themselves to the media? I mean, regular people, fascinating--in their own eyes, at least--for just being regular people? While there are many fascinating things about me that would undoubtedly make A+ book fodder, I would be forever banished from polite company if I ever wrote it--not to mention it would probably send my mother into heart failure. My blogging in general already has her half there.

Back to Amy and Marc though--the picture on their website is even freakier than the one in the NYT article. Aren't sites that look like this usually reserved for engaged couples? At first glance I thought Amy and Marc were caterers or something--what with the chef hats and all--and figured that accounted for the desire for media coverage. But no--as you can see for yourselves, Amy and Marc are merely trying to pitch their perfectness to the media.

This post is already long enough and I still have one more thing to cover so I'll leave it at that...suffice it to say that I'm sure an upcoming topic on Stuff White People Like will be Shared Parenting.

Which brings me to the final--and probably best--link of all. ThirdPath--a favorite resource of Amy and Marc's--ranks right up there with Le Petite Paradis in terms of its "you've got to be kidding me" quotient. I'll have to write about ThirdPath another time, as it deserves its own post, but I'll just say that if my career as a Bottle Whisperer doesn't pan out I'm going to try offering "coaching calls" for $150 an hour.

Stuff White People Like (yes, again)

Yesterday our friends Jen and Chris were visiting and somehow the conversation turned to Stuff White People Like. I am so obsessed with it I had to pull out the laptop and share one of my all-time favorite things white people like: Having Black Friends.

"Since we are on the verge of electing a black president, it seems important to explain why white people want black friends. Every white person wants a black friend like Barack: good-looking, well-spoken, and non-violent. Obviously, whites want black friends so as not to appear racist (see earlier Obama post). However, if we dig deeper what we notice about white people is not if they have black friends but in fact, how many black friends they have. White people like numbers. They like to count things like stars in the sky and the death toll at Mt. Everest and the number of times they’ve seen Tori Amos and/or Phish in concert. Counting the number of black friends is then clearly a divine imperative. The number of black friends white people possess also illustrates their comfort with black culture. Here’s a handy guide to the number system:

1—The white novice. This black friend is the gateway to helping white people understand gang signs and Vietnamese beauty supply stores. This black friend is probably the only black friend for many white people and when they all hang out (because white people hang out) they bring their “mutual” black friend with them.

2—The white black club-goer. Two black friends serve as bodyguards when white people go to black clubs to see how exactly one “pops, drops and locks” it.

3 -4—The white BET-er. See Justin Timberlake/ Robin Thicke/ Jon B for more information. For old school reference, see Michael McDonald.

5 and up—Impossible."

LMAO!

Happy 4th!

July 4th just doesn't seem as fun as it used to. I don't know if it's because I'm old now or what but it's just not exciting at all. I remember it used to be my favorite holiday and I LOVED fireworks. Now I'm just too lazy to give it enough forethought to even find where they're having them.

I wish I had this thing that Mimi made when she was about 5--it was my favorite piece of kid work ever. It was a piece of paper that said:

It is omos 4 ov july.

It was awesome just as it was, but then, a year and apparently some learnin' later, she unpinned it from the bulletin board I kept it on and, imitating a teacher, she took a red pen to it and corrected it to read:

It is omosT 4 ov July.

P.S. to Summer Sucks

Ok--check out that link and tell me--how is a Smiling Malfi mimobot named Buddy Chub not actualy a vibrator? USB drive my ass; why would anyone need a dildo-shaped flash drive named Buddy Chub?



Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I do have to purchase Fairybit Fairybot--I think Cassie will agree that it's the cutest thing I've ever seen!!


Oh no--it keeps getting worse--I just saw that they have Tokidoki mimobots!



Must...stop...looking...

Summer Sucks

Damn, I'm tired. Summer is just not fun for grown-ups; or, I should say, parents of young kids. Sure it's fun--for a while--if you're not working during the summer (or at all) and have not a care in the world about packing lunches for camp or worrying about sending your kid to camp with a bee sting because you don't have any sick time to use.

I used to be a stay home mom so I know the carefree feeling of summer with kids when job worries aren't even on your radar. You get to sleep in every day (except when there's swim practice, but of course you know I'm the kind of mom who would send her kid to inferior afternoon practice to avoid having to get up at 7 am) and the world is basically stress-free.

For about two weeks; three if you're lucky. Then the kids start to get bored and you get bored and then someone gets sick then you all get sick of the pool and start hating being around each other and by the end of July you're pretty much wanting to hang yourself. Maybe that's not the case for the lucky moms who get to go away for weeks at a time to a beach house or something; but then again, it's probably twice as bad for them because there's no dad in the picture--it's all mom, all the time.

Anyway, I forget my point, because I'm so exhausted from just the second day of the work/camp/swim team routine. It's 10:20 pm and I still have yet to go down and make the lunches for tomorrow. I would gladly give each kid $20 to buy a lunch at this point--hell, $50-- but of course they want one made by me. Sigh.

I digress...guess I have to go make the lunches. But now I can't, because the 4 houseguests I've had since Sunday--my inlaws, who I love and hate to speak badly of, as well as two distant cousins of Patrick's--who, incidentally, speak only French--just got home from Patrick's baseball game. Which means the 2 hours of non-socializing or working or driving or mothering time I've had since Sunday have come to an end and I'm too tired to have to go drag out the high-school French and piece together a conversation while I make lunches.

I shouldn't complain because they're all very nice and, under less hectic circumstances it would be fun to hang out and dust off the French some more; however, right now all I want to do is turn off the lights, insert my trusty Flents, down an Ambien and wake up when everyone is gone.

Anyone want to drive by and leave some Lunchables in my driveway by 7 am tomorrow? Mimi likes pizza and Matthew likes turkey and cheddar.

Lest my rant has put you in a funk, let's take a page from my sister Cassie's blog: I defy you to look at this page and not smile. Or at least wonder "WTF?"