Better Make It A Double

6 Thinking Bloggers

OK, so this has taken me a while, but I needed to think this over a bit. I’m just going to name 6 (out of a possible ten, mostly because I am very, very tired) Thinking Bloggers and not pay a whit of attention to whether they’ve been nominated before or not (except if they were the ones to nominate me). The reason is that it really doesn’t matter – if you were nominated before, I still want to introduce you to my readers.

Motherwords: Mothers Who Write

Kate is a fairly new blogger, but she is first and foremost a writer, and that’s what makes her blog so interesting, as her combination of literary references and conversational style open up new possibilities for what blogging can be. It also means that you should just go get yourself a nice cup of tea, tell everybody else to leave you alone for a while, and go read her whole damn blog. It’s that good. (Full disclosure – I’ve taken a class from Kate.)

Peters Cross Station*

Adoption politics. GLBT families. Transracial family dynamics. Alternative family arrangements. Caregiving dynamics. The public schools. I have learned a lot from this woman. She isn’t afraid to explore an issue without firm conclusion, all in an engaging, personal style, making her exactly what I love about some bloggers. She starts conversations.

Bub and Pie*

Where do I begin? She's a college professer and mother of two. Sometimes, I read her posts, and I can so identify with what she’s writing that I wonder if she’s been reading my secret inner diary. Oh, except she has smarter, more informed perspectives and conclusions and writes better, so not really, but the indentifying part is true. Bub and Pie is another one of those blogs that re-defines what blogging can be.

A Garden of Nna Mmoy*

Who can keep up with Andrea? I certainly can’t tell you to go read her whole blog, because it would take you a very, very long time. This prolific and brilliant blogger writes about everything from politics to dealing with difference to backyard ecology. This post (about attachment parenting as the One True Way to Parent) is one of the best and most helpful posts I’ve ever read about anything, ever.

A Letter To My Children*

Oh, where do I start? There is rarely a post that comes out of Lisa’s computer into mine that doesn’t leave me changed somehow. Her perspective on dis/ability, being partnered with a disabled person, on dealing with the system, on politics, oh, and she’s a mother of twins doing it mostly on her own.

Amalah

This may seem like an unlikely choice, not because Amy isn’t a Thinking Blogger, but because her blogging pursuits tend to be a bit more entertainment oriented or be about the specifics of her life with her adorable little boy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. However, she’s written a few posts that show a side of her I’d love to know better. I appreciate her raw honesty and her ability to shed light on her past without a bunch of neat conclusions.

So there. I hope I've done my job here. So and so, meet so and so, and so on.

* has most likely or definitely been nominated before, and is therefore under no obligation to re-do the meme.

Thanks to Stacie from the Twinkies and to Mardougrrl for the nomination.

*It was started here. The rules go like this:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to the original post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

Delurking Week and car seat recap

Thank you, thank you to all the lovely commenters for Delurking Week. It was so gratifying to get to know some of you (and your blogs!) a little bit better. I received 39 comments, and have decided to make a donation of $70 to the Nature Conservancy's climate change work.

___________________________

Also, more on the subject of car seats and safety here:

http://www.carseatsite.com/cr.htm

http://www.thecarseatlady.com/response_to_media/response_to_media.html

Delurking Week 2007, for a cause this time

In January 2005. Sheryl from Paper Napkin invented “De-Lurking Day”. This year, (this week in fact) we have Delurking Week, for the procrastinators among you.

I have 2 objectives this year:

• to get you to delurk* already, tell me a little bit about yourself, or at least just say hello. I know, I know, lurking is a perfectly respectable thing to do. That's why only one of the fifty-two weeks in the year is Delurking Week!
• in honor of my delurked readers (and in the spirit of my last post), I will donate $1 to support the Nature Conservancy's Climate Change work** for every comment made on this post this week (up to 200). It could just be the easiest buck you ever donated that didn't involve scrounging around in your couch cushions. You do not have to be a new commenter to participate. Thanks to Miss Zoot for the inspiration (and make sure to go delurk for a cause over there when you're done here).

*Delurk= stop lurking; introduce yourself by posting a comment.

**The Nature Conservancy is dedicated to finding creative solutions that reduce climate change's impacts on our lives, on our environment and on future generations. You can also go here to learn some fast facts about climate change, and what you can do, or go here to take a quiz and find out how much you know about this important issue.

more blogs than children...

I’m coming up on my blogging anniversary (bloggiversary?) next month, and I’m feeling like I’m trying to do too many things with one blog. Here are the problems, as I see them:

·         The majority of hits and comments come from twin moms, and other than breastfeeding, I don’t feel like I write enough about twin mom stuff. I’d like to do more of the updates, pictures, twin hacks, lists, etc. that people seem to like, but I don’t often do that because how does that fit with the more “writerly”, less blog-like posts that are also really important to me.

·         I really don’t like to write without any audience at all, but don’t necessarily need the whole Internet to have access to the stuff that isn’t really intended to fit the blog format (most of the “Ruminating Mama” category.) Also if I ever decide to query with any of it, it really shouldn’t be already published. Did I just say that?

·         I’m really happy about all the great responses to the Breastfeeding Multiples stories, and I think it deserves it’s own blog, with more of you and less of me at it’s center.

What I’m leaning toward doing is leaving this blog up and focusing more on the boys, connecting with other moms, and posts that are more unabashedly “bloglike”. I think that would also free me to post more random jottings and pictures, and not have to have every post be such a big effort.

I would also create another blog called Ruminating Mama and password-protect it. You could e-mail me for the link when I get that far, and I’ll be happy to give it out to anyone I “know” through comments, real life, or whatever. Now’s a great time to introduce yourself! I’d like feedback on the posts in this blog, and might query based on some of them someday. You didn’t hear me say that…

I would create a third blog just for stories/advice and questions about breastfeeding multiples, and move the existing content over there (how? Need help please!). I would probably make a big effort to make clear that this is not intended to be a medical site, and refer folks to the usual fine sources for that, but more as an information exchange and a source of multiple perspectives on the whys and hows of breastfeeding multiples, as well as the emotional side of it all. That’s what was missing for me, anyway. For the last (bfing) blog, I need your help, once again. I need (or rather, breastfeeding moms need):

• A good name for the breastfeeding-related blog.
• A person willing to do a design. Anyone?
• To know how best to move the existing content over there.

Feedback would really be appreciated. Thanks, as always, for reading and commenting. The last (almost) year has been an amazing, humbling experience, one I never expected or could have imagined.

            

            

To do list of blogetty goodness

I have so many posts rolling around in the back of my brain that I hardly know where to begin. The good news in that is that if I can find the time, I’ll be blogging merrily away over the next few weeks.

So I think I’ll start with a “blogging to do list”, sort of a blogetty form of TV Guide:

1. I am still (gasp!) breastfeeding my 11.5-month-olds. We have no plans to stop anytime soon. This is becoming a little bit of an “issue” for a few people in my life. Which REALLY pisses me off.
2. This time last year. Just thinking about that is very emotional.
3. My (and J’s) bookstore café dream: the 10 year plan. I just need to write it all down, in it’s most ideal form. Practical details can come later.
4. Managing work/child care, housework, and marriage OR How I have almost everything I ever wanted except I never see my husband.
5. Activism: How it used to be a bit part of my life and is now relegated to letting my boys rip up magazine pictures of Dick Cheney. What I hope to do about that.
6. The purpose of this blog. It may change a little. By now, I’m feeling less than 100% defined by in-the-trenches motherhood stuff, and I want to be able to write about other things, like faith, politics, and the politics of motherhood. How to combine that with sweet details about my wonderful boys? What do you get out of reading this blog, and what would you like more of?
7. How I want to write more about my family and other highly personal topics, but I’m scared someone I know will find my blog. Any tips?

No guarantees that I'll tackle these in any particular order, but there's plenty to keep me busy.

well, Google me silly!

I'm pretty obsessive about checking my Typepad referrals, mainly because I prize my anonymity. Most of my Google or MSN hits are for "breastfeeding twins", " fraternal twin boys" "raising twin boys", or similar.  Sometimes, however, the results are a little disturbing.

Like,

how to produce milk to breastfeed your spouse

I came up as #1. Won't J be glad. Whoever you are, I hope you find what you're looking for. Or at least, that it wasn't here...

Just to clear your head of that image, here's this:

2 big hunks of plastic down (bath seats), 6 to go (one exersaucer, two high chair seats, one playard, and two Jolly Jumpers)

-but I have a feeling I'll be accumulating some more along the way. Is there any polite way to say that we wouldn't mind some toys for their birthday, but please no batteries, electronic noise, vinyl/soft plastic, or tv themes? Are we the only not strictly AP parents who prefer simple kid's toys? I guess we'll just say "no gifts, please". I honestly don't want to be ungrateful, but as the parents, we get to decide what our kids are exposed to, at least at this age. That trumps the right of friends or relatives to go buy crap from Walmart. Though I do love those Walmart crap buying relatives, and I'm glad they're a part of our lives. Really.

Delurking Week or "Do I give good blog?"

According to Paper Napkin it is officially Delurking Week from today until the 13th.

Isn't the internet grand? If you come up with a good idea, you can just declare a holiday. Or even a religion. Or a cult. Or a scheme, or a sham, or a political party, or a word, or a new fetish. OK, so those aren't ALL good ideas, but Delurking Week is! So delurk, dammit! I won't bite, I promise. Who are you people? I don't know about you, but for me, hearing from you is half the fun of having a blog. Especially since I don't share my blogging life with any of my IRL friends. Even my DH doesn't read my blog, even though he knows I have one.