342nd Friday Blog Roundup

My birthday has sort of sneaked up on me this year.  I had to look at the calendar yesterday and noticed that my birthday is next week.  Which freaks the crap out of me as it always does.

The kids have returned to watching Free to Be You And Me at night.  Josh got home early last night as we were watching the song “I’d Rather Be the Sun” and commented that the creators of all the child-like drawings are now paunchy middle-agers like ourselves.  And I suddenly got this sick feeling of how there would be a day that we would no longer be here, but kids in the future would be watching this video and seeing drawings created by people who are now dead.

Which isn’t that unique — many things we look at are created by people who are no longer around — but it was mind-blowing.  This idea of no longer being here.  Of how art can trap time.

Please don’t wish me happy birthday yet.  Give me my last few days ignoring the fact that I’m aging another year.

Josh and I are getting a date this weekend in honour of my birthday.  I’ve chosen to go to the aquarium because nothing says romance like breathing in the stench of the stingray pool.  We’ll see if we can work in a quick make-out session in the shark tank area.  Growl!

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Kir asked me to contribute a Proudest Mum Moment to her blog and I agreed simply because she is Kir.  I think she thought I’d tell the Ste.ve Jo.bs story, but this is truly my proudest moment as a parent, and it is a story that everyone who knows me in the face-to-face world would list as my proudest moment because it has been told so many times.

The twins were born prematurely, and as a result, had a compromised immune system.  They were constantly sick in their first year of life, especially — it seemed — when Josh was out of town.  Another important fact to know is that prior to their birth, we had new carpet laid in the living room as well as the entire upstairs (sans bathrooms since that would be a bit strange).  I love this carpet, and we ask that people take off their shoes when they’re in the house in an attempt to keep it clean.

At the time this story begins, the carpet is a year old.  It is still in mint condition.

In February, Josh went to the Berlin Film Festival.  The twins were a little over 6 months old (yes, my proudest parenting moment came early in their life, casting a shadow over all that could possibly come in the future).  I was sitting on the sofa, holding the ChickieNob, who was sick (yet again) while my mother held the Wolvog (who was also sick).

The ChickieNob made a body shudder as if she was about to throw up, something she had done numerous times that day — all luckily over tiled floor or on herself (please don’t judge me on how much I love this carpet).  This time, we were on the sofa, with no time to sweep her out of the room.  In that split second, I said goodbye to the carpet, certain that it would be stained with vomit just as my friend’s carpet was stained by medication-laced vomit.

My ChickieNob, a girl who loves things of beauty, who appreciates room aesthetics, projectile vomited across the room.  The vomit sailed through the air to a chair 4 feet away — 4 FEET AWAY — that had a towel discarded on the seat.  The throw up landed on the towel, and the towel only.  It soared through the air as if all the droplets were magnetically drawn to one another.  There was literally not a single drop on the floor.

Like most moments of parenting pride, it was all left to chance: out of my hands.  I had nothing to do with the wonder that was that projectile vomiting moment, just as I have little to do with the Wolvog’s gift for computers or the ChickieNob’s talent with dance.  But damn, with all they accomplish, there are few things that can hold a candle to vomiting halfway across the room and having it all land on a towel for easy clean-up.

I am only half-kidding with this.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Hard Questions” (Here We Go Again)
• “Saying Crappy Things on the Internet” (Stirrup Queens)
• “Temperature” (XKCD)

Okay, now my choices this week.

As Good as it Gets has a post about happiness this week; namely, how you feel when you get everything you ever wanted.  She asks: “There cannot be any other reason for our existence but to be happy. All we do, every action of ours is in pursuance of happiness.  So why are we never truly and completely happy? Why is there something missing in life, no matter what we achieve or possess?”  I was smiling as I read the last line of the post — everyone should write that way every once in a while.

Bio Girl has a post about the beginning of the end of her infertility journey.  About how there is a peacefulness in knowing that whatever happens, this current cycle will be your last.  How even having a stopping point doesn’t affect the level of hope she feels.  She states: “I hope this peace I have found stays with me. But what I really hope is that I don’t need that peace to calm my breaking heart a month from now. I hope that we just get to be happy.”  It’s beautiful; it’s bittersweet — and I’m sending only good thoughts for the last cycle.

Mommy Odyssey has a post about the void that blogging fills, and I think a lot of people will have her self-realization resonate with them as well.  She explains: “This uncensored, open book. I love Mo. I love her dearly. She is the real me. The essence of who I truly am. And yet, I’m not her in real life. I don’t live up to her. Mo isn’t a persona. She’s not a construction. Mo is the person I aspire to be in real life, but never really get there. I’m more real here than I am with my own freaking mother.”  The post is an astute look at why she loves her blog; why she needs her blog, and why her blog also may be holding her back.  It is about finding that balance — between the thing she needs, but not letting the thing she needs take over her life.  A great post.

Lastly, A Woman My Age has a post about the fantasy life she constructed for herself as a child.  The “real” family who would come fetch her.  The changing colour of her skin and how that would create a cascade effect through the rest of life.  But what twisted my heart was the story that comes in the middle about the little boy’s mother.  About what that woman meant to her as a child and how she never got to tell her.  And how that experience informed her fantasy life.

The roundup to the Roundup: I’m getting old and I’m going on a date.  This is truly my proudest moment.  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 20 and May 27) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.