406th Friday Blog Roundup

I told the ChickieNob that I had forgotten to ask but I was writing a post where I mentioned her.

“Then I’m angry with you,” she said, pushing her eyebrows together to convey her extreme anger.

“It’s not about you.  It’s about something you said.”

“Oh, then I’m not angry with you.  What was it?  Was it when I said that saliva is the heaviest thing in the body?”

“No, I’m not going to write a post about that because it’s not true.”

“It might be true.  You don’t know.  You don’t know how much saliva weighs, and it might surprise you,” she told me.  “Was it how I want to be in the Olympics, but I don’t want anyone to watch me?  So I want to be an Olympic athlete that no one sees?”

“No, I’m not going to bother to write about that because it’s really not a possibility.  Part of being in the Olympics is agreeing that people can watch your event.  It was what you said about blogs.”

“Oh, about how deleting a blog is like breaking a promise?”

“Yes — I’m writing a post about that.”

“Did everyone enjoy it?”

“I haven’t finished the post yet.  No one has read it yet,” I said.

“But are they anticipating it?  Are they getting excited thinking about it?”

“Well, they don’t know it exists yet, so they’re not really feeling much of anything.”

“I think they’re probably getting very excited thinking about how there is going to be a post about blogs some time in the future.  They’re thinking about what they might say back in the comment section.  People can just sense that it’s coming!”

“That’s not really the way blogging works.”

“Well, that’s how I’d make it work if I were in charge,” the ChickieNob said, and went back to daydreaming while eating her ersatz chicken patty at the slowest rate you can possibly imagine.

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BlogHer has this new series going, and it’s giving advice to new parents keeping in mind the multitude of ways families form.  The first “crib sheet” is for parenting after infertility or loss, giving new parenting tips specifically to those who have been through treatments or are parenting after a loss.  There is another crib sheet for parenting after adoption, one for surrogacy, one for being a single parent by choice.  There are ones on raising your child with your heritage while being part of another culture.  One of parenting a child with Down syndrome.

So it’s a really cool project because it gives real life tips that sort of fall through the cracks with parenting books.

And the first one was written by me, and the response in the community came from our very own Jen.

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And now the blogs…

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

• “On Having it All” (FireWife)
• “August 9th Redux” (It Is What It Is)
• “You Can’t Have it All” (Stumbling Gracefully)
• “August Break 6” (Outlandish Notions)
• “What You Wanted” (Project Progeny)
• “Unexpected Grief” (An Unwanted Path)
• “I Say We’re Adopting, and You Say…” (The Ranunculus Adventures)
• “Negative Comments” (A Smaller Version of Me)
• “Searching for a New Lightness” (A Thousand Oceans)
• “Narrative Bias and Why Context Matters” (Silent Sorority)
• “If I Could Turn Back Time with Jamie” (The Kir Corner)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Project Progeny has a gorgeous post about asking herself what she wants.  When asked what she wants, she answers: “I just want everybody to be happy.  This is what I say when pressed, more often than not. I want everybody to be happy and content. But does this just mean everybody else? Or am I included in ‘everybody’ too?”  Not only does she tell the exercise that has been getting her unstuck, but the poem at the end is gorgeous.  A must-read post that you’ll want to bookmark and return to again and again.

Slice of Pie has a sweet post about how her daughter’s obsession with checking out her mother’s bellybutton led her to discover her mother’s estrogen patch.  She writes, “And she looooves it. She loves to poke at it, pick at the edges, kiss it (air kisses only) and otherwise entertain herself with it. She asked what it was (“That?”) and I told her it was my patch.”  The hazards of doing treatments with a toddler around.

Too Many Fish to Fry is taking charge of her blog’s direction and leading the way in a post called “Bye, Bye Balloon!”  It is about having her eyes opened to what is in front of her instead of thinking about what she doesn’t have, and how she needs to have this release in order to move forward.

Musings of a Hormonal Egg Basket has a post I related to a lot about the fears that grip her late at night.  She explains: “I’m stressed that I am not living my life to the fullest that I possibly can because there is no way to know how long we get to be here.  That feeling gives me a pit in my stomach. I don’t want to miss anything and at the same time I’m tired and need a break from the worry and normal life drama.  I need a break from my own thoughts.”  I have to believe that we’re not the only two kept awake by thoughts like this.

Lastly, Creating Motherhood has a post that cracked me up about how she’s going to be someone’s third wife someday.  She will definitely be the best wife, the one that will make her partner laugh.

The roundup to the Roundup: If the ChickieNob ruled the universe…  A new series that kicks off with parenting after infertility.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between August 10th and August 17th) 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.