October 1, 2007

Orange

“Would you like to wear red shoes or blue shoes?” I ask my two-year old, dangling the options in front of him.

“Orange!” he chirps with a smile.

“Orange wasn’t a choice. Red or blue?”

“Orange!”

The orange shoes: our family’s participation in the rampant Crocs trend. At some point during the summer, my son’s appreciation of them blossomed into a full-blown crush. No matter the weather, no matter the outfit, they are the only shoes he wants to wear.

On this particular morning, I make the choice for him, lacing on blue sneakers once he is trapped in his car seat. As soon as he comes home from daycare that evening, he makes a beeline to his true love. “Hi, orange shoes!” he coos. He’s thrilled to be reunited.

The next morning he issues a pre-emptive strike. Before I’ve even lifted him from the crib, he makes his wishes known.

“Orange!” he declares. “Shoes,” he carefully adds, making sure to close any possible loophole.
I appeal to the seasons. “Sweetie, the orange shoes are summer shoes. Summer is over. It is too cold to wear the orange shoes. Your feet will be cold.”

He considers that. “Socks,” he says firmly.

It’s not about the weather, of course. Autumn has only just begun, and he is right that socks with sandals (ack!) would keep him plenty warm. It’s about me—me and my vanity. In the summer sunshine the neon orange was cheerful and fun, the perfect finishing note to his brightly colored outfits. But with the sky turning grey and summer colors giving way to the drabness of fall, they’ve become a clear fashion liability. I worry what people will think of me. I want people to see my child in his affordable-yet-charming outfit and think I’m a good mom. A mom with taste and a touch of style. A mom whose child is always appropriately dressed. A mom who has her life (and her child) under control. A mom who doesn’t lose battles over a pair of shoes.

Before I became a parent, I said I would never quench my children’s creativity. I would encourage self-expression; I would never impose my own ideas. I would value them as individuals, not merely extensions of myself. I was also determined that they would always be impeccably dressed. I somehow never saw the obvious conflict headed my way.

I’m learning that becoming the parent I hope to be means not seeing every choice of his as a reflection on me. I want to be able to look at whatever weirdness and uniqueness and creativeness he comes up with in the coming years with an honest smile, saying, “That’s my son.” No matter what the rest of the world thinks. Letting him become whoever he wants to be means I must let go. And thanks to the inherent grace of parenting, I am allowed to start small. Tomorrow it may be going goth or bucking college to ‘find himself.’ Today it’s just a tiny pair of mismatched orange shoes.

So on this day I tell him, “Of course you can wear the orange shoes.” We head off to the library for story time. It’s a windy, rainy day—coats have been pulled out of closets and sweaters donned. My son’s scuffed sandals get a few curious looks as we enter. I check my resolve.

At the end of the songs and stories, the children crowd around the librarian to have their hands stamped. I lose track of my son, his generic shirt and jeans blending in with all the rest. Then I think to look down. In an instant I find his cheerful orange feet working their way though the jumble of look-alike brown and blue shoes. I watch the orange shoes’ tiny dance of joy when his hand is stamped, see them turn to run back to me and jump into my arms. “That’s my son,” I think with a smile.

Maybe standing out isn’t such a bad thing after all.

———-

Courtesy of the Blog Exchange, today’s post is from Heather—mom to one, wife to one, friend to dozens. She’s embarrassed to admit that she spends this much time thinking about her child’s shoes. You can usually find her blogging it out at Production, Not Reproduction. Be sure to click here for Dana’s post on this month’s theme: Orange or Black.

September 14, 2007

Who am I?

Hello, I am Dawn, and I will be your tour guide today here at The Dana Files.

In the last six months I started a blog because she made me, I have had one of these, was rocked by how I felt about it, and moved cross country with my husband to a place where we knew NO. ONE.

My blog started out private, and then I decided to throw caution to the wind and join the public world of blogging. I have been going through a bit of an identity crisis, so forgive me as I use y’all as the sounding board for my identity crisis cure.

(I so can’t believe Dana trusted me with actual responsibility. Joey Lawrence style “Whoa!”)

There are so. many. blogs. out there. I have hundreds in my reader. Hundreds. What I’ve learned is that most blend together into some kind of Queen of Suburban Wanna Lose Weight Soccer Mom-dom blur. We all have a lot in common. Which is A-Ok. We share common stories, and this motherhood thing is pretty universal.

Being the same can suck if there is a goal of creating a reader base, if the refresh button keeps getting hit on Feedburner to see what the reach is, if there are ads that only make money when they are viewed or clicked on. Then, blending in a big ole blur? … possibly not what we want.

From what I can tell, we are blogging for any or all of three reasons:

1) Community – because seriously, there’s a whole bunch of stuff we don’t want our MILs advice on … and we can always use more people to listen to our MIL stories…. which takes me to

2) Entertainment – we like to entertain people through our writing, and in return we get a charge out of people commenting and entertaining us back, cheap entertainment, which is good considering we need

3) Revenue – ads, or pay per post or reviews, if there is money to be made, then we want to be pocketing some of it ourselves.

Of all the blogs I read, I can think of one that stands out as unique from any other. Take a guess which one I’m thinking of and then click here to see if you read my mind.

Now, of course she’s living 20 miles from anywhere on a ranch with her hawt husband. So, she’s different from the start. Then there’s the photos, the contests, the cooking, the Ethel Merman, the 4 homeschooled ranch punks, the burps, and the totally self deprecating sense of humor. THEN, she’s even apparently really freaking NICE, AND shows a total interest in her readers. AND she answers email. (I sent her email one time b/c I realized I was looking at her cow photos while I was pumping for the baby, I thought that was really funny, so I wrote and told her so. She replied. I felt like I’d been noticed by a celebrity.) The three words I would use as a description of PW are: photos, ranch, punks. When I think of her site, I have a picture in my mind immediately of what that site is about (fortunately the calf nuts and preg testing don’t stay in my mind too long – effective mental floss I have.)

No pun intended, but what has happened with PW is called branding. You know what you are getting with her, and she rarely strays from the central theme of her blog. Lucky for her, it’s unique so it does make her more memorable. However, she’s just so damn cute and lovable that I think she could write out her grocery list and I would be entertained. I’m not alone.

Branding. This is what I’ve been mulling in my own mind. Mostly because I really want new banner swag for my site, and I think I should have a vision of just what my site is about before I spend any more money, and before I get a shiny new piece of bling that is supposed to represent my site. I also think that if I want people to read my site, that I should consistently give readers something of value. This is my lamest, most pointless post, ever. I mean, seriously, yawn. I might as well have listed how many diapers I changed that day.

I’d love it if when people saw kaiseralex.com, that there was an immediate connection to exactly which blog that was, which voice, which stories, which cast of crazy ass characters. My first step to this is to figure out just who I am. (Did I just channel Dr. Phil?)

I am:

The Mom (After all, the blog is titled Alex Year One. I can’t really ignore the Mom part of things. Unless he’s actually sleeping. Or the gypsies finally answer my phone calls.)

Retro-Progressive (This sounds way cooler than I actually am, but after I titled what I was doing Gen X Grandma Values, I found this term and figured I’d try it on for size.)

Appreciative (I love people total strangers taking time out of their life to read what I write. That’s a large Keanu Reeves style “whoa” for me. I also appreciate that people continually put themselves out there, busting their butts or their balls or their boobs to survive this parenthood thing. That people are trying to make something a little better than it was before. I’m trying to give props where deserved, and support where needed. We’re all looking for friendly faces, I’m trying to be that. Frankly, I also need the good karma points, because I keep flipping people off in traffic, and I’m pretty sure Alex’s first word will be f@ck.)

If I use this these three ideas to guide what I write about, it should save us all from me posting something that belongs in a diaper.

That’s me, who are you? I’d love to get to know you.

September 10, 2007

No Instruction Manual for SAHMs

All my life, I’ve thrived on planning and educating myself. I think it had something to do with being homeschooled for several years during grade school. I love doing research about things I’m planning on doing, making lists, making outlines, setting up binders, etc. This quality of mine was easy to nourish when I worked outside the home. I had a very organized binder with charts and spreadsheets I had created and tweaked monthly to help me manage my deadlines, style standards, and work records.

Last Friday around 4:30, I stopped working. I punched out for the last time. And now I’m a stay-at-home mom.

Now what? Really. Tell me. I don’t have a clue. So I went online, of course, to do some research. I typed in “what do stay at home moms do all day?” The first page of results was a bunch of blog diatribes exhorting the value of the SAHMs, vigorously defending their rights to people who work outside the home and think that SAHMs must just watch soap operas, eat bon bons and polish their toenails. I read a bunch of self-righteous, in-your-face, stick-it-up-your-poopy-hole essays, but no real information for someone like me. Someone who honestly doesn’t know and doesn’t have any preconceptions about it.

I think this is one situation where research won’t really help, and soul searching and heart seeking is the answer. I have to figure out what I want to do, not what I should do. I have to start using my instincts, and maybe I’ll be able to make a binder after all.

My mom was a SAHM from when I was three onward. I have lots of nice memories about that. I remember playing in the kitchen while she cooked. I remember spending hours filling my coloring books with lavish color. I remember spending a lot of time at the park. And I remember coming home from half-day kindergarten to eat pea soup and buttered bread while watching Mr. Rogers. My mom wasn’t a good housekeeper, but the laundry was usually clean and there weren’t any gross messes around.

How can I translate my experiences into a plan for my future? Well, I know that I probably don’t need to concentrate really hard on entertaining Ben. He can be my tag-a-long. We’ll be on a very restricted budget, and that means I get to practice my cooking skills. A lot. I get to finally have a clean, tidy house because I’ll hopefully have time to sweep and mop and pick up clutter. We’ll probably get to have clean sheets more than once every three weeks because I’ll have time to do the laundry more than the three loads we manage to run through on the weekends so we’ll have clothes for the week.

And the play. I intend to play a lot with my kids. I got a generous gift card from the folks at my former place of employment, and I’m spending that money on art supplies for Ben, along with other items I think I might find useful, like more freezer storage containers for all the meals I’ll be preparing.

Next spring, I want to plant a garden. I have fantasies of kneeling in the dirt with Ben, digging my fingers in to plant vegetables and flowers, chatting at Anna while she sits on a blanket nearby.

That’s what’s in my heart, and now I just have to incorporate that as my new lifestyle, my new purpose. As for binders, I can print off instructions for art projects and organize them nicely. I can make my own recipe binder with recipes I find online and try and enjoy. Hopefully, my anal-retentive, detail-oriented proofing skills will be useful in my new endeavor. I’m not worried, though. Making the choice to become a SAHM was one from the heart, just like some of the best decisions I’ve made in life.

Cheryl is a brand new stay-at-home mom who blogs at Red Pens and Diapers. She has a 20-month-old son and a daughter on the way.

September 1, 2007

Dear Mr. President

Dr. Mr. President:

I don’t have much opinion on the job you are doing politically.  I don’t think anyone could do your job without substantial criticism, so I don’t make judgements.  I do have opinions on weddings though and I have heard that your beautiful daughter Jenna is about to be featured in one.  I thought I would make some suggestions for that wondrous occasion.

I think a White House wedding would be cool, but sounds so over rated and maybe intimidating to the guests of the groom.  I on the other hand think that a wedding at Ranger Stadium in Texas would be so so cool. 

I envision the actual marriage occurring on the pitching mound with the guests in white chairs spread through the outfield.  The wedding party circling around the mound.  Oh, it would be so fun to and so memorable to be a guest at a wedding such as this.  There should be lilacs or cherry blossoms with there fragrant aroma’s everywhere like when your a kid playing in the park.

The wedding should occur with the bride and groom facing the audience instead of seeing the preacher, he should be standing back towards the crowd like a conductor.  He should have an acute understanding of what his profile looks like in portions of the wedding service. 

The take me out to the ball field music should play ever so softly in the background to remind the guest where they are and fill in those awkward moments that always happen during weddings.

The reception should be held in the more intimate VIP boxes with that spectacular view of the field with the remnants of the wedding just past.  The food should be simple, hot dogs, popcorn, funnel cakes…all those fattening foods that should never be served except on special occasions.

Well, that is my vision of the perfect wedding. 

The most important thing of course is love and acceptance.  The marriage can never last without your support.  Family is the most important thing in the whole world and we can never expect our kids to grow up and do like we did. 

I imagine the pressures on Jenna and Henry are even greater than the average person because of your position in politics.  You should remind them of and celebrate all the achievements of their lives no matter how small and never compare their accomplishments with your own in a negative light.

That is all of my thoughts and advise, taken or left.  I still wish you and your daughters the best of luck with your lives and marriages.

Sincerely;

Jennifer

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Jennifer writes about her life at her personal blog The Life of a School Bus Driver.  She resides in Pennsylvania with her 2 year old daughter (Kyra) and ex-father-in-law (Stan). You can find Dana over at Jennifer’s site today. If you’d like to read other Blog Exchange Posts which I highly recommend, click here.