I've been thinking (bear with me now)... I've realized that it's very odd for the title of this blog to be "Ramblings of a SAHM (stay at home mom)" when I rarely talk about the mom'ing aspects of my life. It's not that I don't enjoy them, being a mom is the best thing in the world that has ever happened to me (yeah yeah, cheesy, I know). It's just that the internet has always been a little escape from my crazy real life. I'm a Mom 24/7, why would I want to talk about that during my brief respite online?
As a writer, I've never even written a fictional main character who was a parent. Obviously I'm not into "write what you know." Writing is another escape for me, my all-time favorite writing quote:
"I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It's greed plain and simple. When my characters join the circus, I'm joining the circus." -Anne TylerIf I had known what awesome mommy bloggers were out there (and daddy ones too) when I first created this blog, I never would have picked such an egotistical name. I don't think I do "mommy blogging" very well. First I'm crappy about remembering intricate parts of conversations (just ask Greg, he swears I can't remember what I said yesterday. And he's probably right, I don't even remember how I answered that). I'm sure the kids and I have lots of witty conversations that would make interesting reading here but unless I'm sitting at the computer typing as we talk, I can't remember them afterwards. Just call me Dory.
And second, I'm not one to brag about the kids. I adore reading other people's blogs when they gush about their child's beautiful artwork or Little League home run. But I can't make myself do it. And I should because I'm pretty quick to gripe about their bad habits (like Kyle's screaming when we shop at Target or Em & Ally's whining or Zach's "Rainman" tendencies or Kelly's need to be constantly held). See there, I'm doing it again. It's a bad lop-sided view of the kids' lives. Like I didn't mention Zach's kindergarten report card back in May. His teacher graphed the entire class's academic progress and Zach was perfect in every category all year long. Greg pointed out that she had to make the end of the year's reading level graph three times as tall to show Zach's score. Average kindergartener? 3 or 4. Next highest score before Zach? 8. Zach's reading level? 24. I should have come here immediately and blogged about it then but I couldn't do it. You're lucky to have read this part because my finger is itching to delete it all already.
So I'm trying to figure out what to do. The most drastic change would be to retitle the blog. I do ramble and I am a stay at home mom so the title does technically fit. Write more about the kids and lose a piece of my child-free internet? I shouldn't make it sound that dreadfully awful, huh? lol Cause I do have other child-free times like when I, um... There was that one time, oh wait, I was still nursing then... Hmm, I'll get back to you on that one. The kids even follow me out to the mailbox for goodness sake!
But since this is a makeshift journal about everyone here at the house, I do plan to write more about the kids. I think I used to, I've just fallen out of the habit lately. It's very hard to ever get a chance to talk about me and believe it or not, I'm not a self-centered person. I think it would be nearly impossible in my position. Besides there are many aspects of the kids that I would like to share with you all plus record moments of their lives somewhere other than their scrapbooks. Obviously my memory is pretty crappy so I better not rely on it too heavily. *winks*
I don't know why I feel the need to explain myself but there ya go, a truly fitting rambling from a slightly insane, never ever childless stay at home mom.
Anyone still out there?
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