One of my promises to myself when I created this blog was to not fall into the trap of starting each post by apologizing for the infrequency of my words. It is the blogging equivalent of pointing out the flaws in your cooking to a table full of dinner guests.
“I know it’s only 9am, but can I have a do over?”
We ask this when our days spin out of our control and we haven’t even managed to feed everyone breakfast. We beg for this on the days when we can’t understand how every side of the bed can be the wrong side, when our skin aches from the internal pressure that is simmering as we try to keep the lid on.
Everyone once in awhile I get a new influx of Facebook fans and I go hunt down the source because it always means that something has been shared somewhere important. Last week the culprit was my post over on the Today Parenting Team, which was shared by both the Kathie Lee and Hoda Facebook page, and also the Today Show Facebook page. Then it was on the front page of Today.com.
My particular brand of anxiety likes to zero on a fear of being misunderstood or saying things incorrectly with no way to amend. The OCD part of my brain will (un)happily explain, correct, and fix these mistakes repeatedly in my head while the more rational piece tries to let go. The inside of my skull is a big cartoon dust cloud with random arms and legs flying around as I fight with myself. It’s friends with the part of me that is terrified I’m not very good at things, and they both interact with the piece that sees complements as just climbing higher up the edge of a cliff.
Hi. I’m new here.
That’s the only explanation I can find for why I had no baby wipes in my car; okay, that’s an exaggeration, I had two wipes and they were both dry. I went to get Rowan out of his seat and he was sitting in a pile of poop. All over his seat, his legs, and his clothes. Did I mention I was standing in the street outside of Lorelei’s school? Because yeah.
So this happened.
Yeah. That would be my “In Defense of the Mom Group” essay translated for Huffpost Germany.
This week. Three repubs on Huffington Post. An original post on Scary Mommy. Scary Mommy also picked up one of the Huffington Post essays. I got a syndication offer. Thousands upon thousands of likes, comments, and shares.