426th Friday Blog Roundup

Learned the greatest word this week from the @mental_floss Twitter feed: “Kummerspeck (German): Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, grief bacon.”

Grief bacon.

Mental Floss recently had a list of 21 emotions to which there is no English word but which exists in another language.  One example is “koev halev” (they have it as koev li halev) which in Hebrew means to internalize the other person’s news so deeply that your heart hurts.  Sort of a fitting term since I have often experienced koev halev while reading someone else’s blog, since we all come to know each other’s hopes and dreams so intensely that it’s hard to read the words on the screen when they’re dashed.

*******

The ChickieNob and her friend started their own magazine.  They take it very seriously and write their articles at my kitchen table.  My job for the magazine currently is chief speller (though I have been informed that this is an unpaid position).  And fixer.  And can-you-do-this-for-us-er.  And they just decided they wanted a website for their magazine, so I’m now the webmaster.  It’s really cool to watch two kick-ass girls kicking ass on the page.  Being creative and smart and funny and thoughtful.

I was washing dishes this week while they worked, and they were discussing the opening of an article.  The ChickieNob was trying to explain to her friend that a person needs to grab the reader with “a great first sentence.”  They were trying to come up with something that would grab the reader, and her friend was becoming doubtful whether this was necessary.  The ChickieNob assured her that she often listens into our conversations, and her parents have discussed how most readers will not give an article more than a sentence or two of attention if it doesn’t grab them and make them feel something in their stomach.  The other girl finally agreed to try this since it sounded serious, and they went back to working on their first paragraph of the article.

Being reminded that little ears are listening in at all times and retaining, I must remember not to say things to Josh such as “that story totally grabbed me by the balls” anymore.

*******

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:

• “For What It’s Worth” (A Single Journey)
• “The Key to Failure” (Enjoying the Small Things)
• “Altruism: the Hard Truth about Helping” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “Moving On” (Mommy Odyssey)
• “Cycle 21, CD 23(ish)” (Submerged)
• “Holy Shit, I’m a Mom” (Waiting for Little Feet)
• “Post Partum” (MissConception)
• “Gaining” (Queen of the Slipstream)

Okay, now my choices this week.

It was nominated above, but it fell right on the line on a Friday, so I am claiming Submerged’s post about her blog title as well for this week.  The image is haunting, the story behind it is emotional, and the telling in and of itself is powerful.  A gorgeous read.  The story will stay with you for many hours.

In Search of Motherhood has a post about kicking off the year; looking forward and looking backward at the same time.  She writes about a New Years party: “I love my family more than life itself, but at the metaphorical dinner party, I have outgrown the kids’ table and haven’t quite made it to the grown-up table.”  But it was her thoughts about her baby cousin, about this child aging out of the ability to fill a void that really got to me.

Ladyblogalot has a post about anxiety that comes with the best title.  It begins: “Hello, anxiety.  Back again, I see.  I let him in so he doesn’t just smash through my glass front doors to get to me.”  Because isn’t that exactly it?  Doesn’t anxiety just come in if he pleases with or without your permission?  And this time he has brought with him a lemon-throwing Hope.  It’s a great read.

Me… Plus One has a very honest post about parenting worries.  I highlight it because each stage is either easy or hard, a delight or a struggle, and when we’re in the valley, we forget that it’s not the only landscape.  And because I think that other people will be able to relate.

Life As I Know It also has a post about parenting worries, admitting that what she thought years ago is not what she is feeling now that she has reached a milestone.  It’s sort of the flip side, in a way, of the post above it.  What we think we know before we get there, and what we can’t remember once we reach a space.  I loved this post because it brought me back to a moment in time.

Lastly, Getting There has a post about an adoption support group meeting that conflicts with another meeting.  One could help her family directly.  One could help her community and her family indirectly.  She writes of discussing this with a friend, “Parenting is hard, parenting is relentless, but adoptive parenting has an additional layer that not everyone always sees. Today she saw.”

The roundup to the Roundup: Wake up and smell the grief bacon, or words that lack an equivalent in English.  The ChickieNob listens to my conversations and has started a magazine.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 4th and January 11th) 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.