Small Details

First, a word from our sponsor:

Okay, so you might have noticed that I changed up the look of the blog. I have gotten both positive and negative feedback informally - what say you? Should I revert back to the old layout? Weigh in.

And now, an AK story.

AK loves to eat toothpaste. Fortunately her favorite is the fluoride-free baby toothpaste. Seriously the kid would suck down an entire tube if she could. She knows this is not acceptable behaviour as she is pretty frequently reprimanded. Yesterday she asked me to remove the cap from her paste; as soon as I opened it she grabbed it out of my hand, pointed to the bathroom door and said, "Check [LP]! Check [LP]!" in an effort to distract me so she could chug in peace.

And some LP news.

On Sunday as I drove with the girls past Stew Leonard's LP shouted out, "Mommy! I saw the cow's balls!" Uhh...what? "The cow! It has two balls!" Umm..."One is red and one is rainbow." Turns out she could see the toys that Stew's provides to the animals for entertainment. But O.M.G. Why can't the Hoos ever be in the car for these awkward moments?

Just wanted to be able to bask in the glow for a second. I officially l have my most number of readers ever according to Feedburner.

59!

Not sure if that includes folks that just read my blog on the page and not through a feed, but I am psyched. I have to imagine that I can't be related to all of you. If you don't mind unmasking, drop a comment and let me know who you are or how you found me or what brings you here.

Book Him, Momm-o

It is once again that time of year when I need to collect the blog postings of yester-year and create the hard-copy version of Views to save for posterity. The first year I attempted this effort, it was a long and painful process of trial-and-error. Last year I had it down to a science, although it was certainly time-consuming to manually cut and paste each entry's text and accompanying photos in backwards chronological order. Alas, I still yearn for access to the Blogger database to make this an easier activity.

This year, I took the easy way out. I used the new service Blog2Print, which apparently does have access to the Blogger database.

They automate the process and in a few short minutes have a previewable book of your blog. You can customize the cover and some basic layout and text, as well as the postings the book will contain, but your options pretty much end there.

Unfortunately, it isn't cheap to actually get a hard or soft cover version of your blog. You pay by the page, and since their template automatically includes a non-deletable table of contents (mine ran 10 pages!) and some other auto-text it could cost a pretty penny for those bloggers that are more prolific. Also, if it matters to you, all books are 8.5x11 (I had been creating 8.5x5.5 which was more "book" and less "report" size).

I ended up paying around $7 (using a handy-dandy 15% off coupon code: bloggerb2p) to get a pdf of my book as opposed to a hard copy. Since I have access to Adobe Acrobat at work, I was able to pretty significantly edit my book - removing the ToC, adding in a background on every page (which were just a standard, boring white before), and moving some things around.

Alas, once I removed the ToC I had to go in and edit the text to remove the page numbers, which were now both inaccurate and useless. I also removed the annoying text at the end of each entry that said who posted the entry (cuz it was me every time!) and when. It took up space and was unnecessary for me.

I am pretty happy with how it came out and I was able to create my book in a couple of hours instead of over several weeks. I will take it to FedExOffice (formerly known as Kinkos) to get it spiral-bound, which should cost me under $10. It is not the ideal solution, but it was a time-saver. If you decide to go this route and have questions, let me know. I am not an expert, but I play one on the Internet.

Over the Line? And Silliness

The Hoos and I were discussing my last blog post. He thought it was too catty for me to post about a small child in such a snarky way. He is not a regular blog reader and didn't actually read the post, he just heard my description of it. "Delia" is a pseudonym and her mom does not read this blog. Knowing that, what do you think? Too catty? Should I take it down?

And now, the silliness, conversations from this morning.

Me: Did you have good dreams?
LP: I dreamed about a silly squirrel. His name was Zooza.

Me: Are you eating breakfast?
LP: No, Mommy. I am talking on the phone to you.

My FAQ

Since I think I have picked up a few new readers over the past couple of weeks (and I have nothing else interesting to write about) I figured I would put together a handy-dandy FAQ to help those new to View catch up.

1. Who (and why) is 'the Hoos'?
2. Who is LP? My first born. The one who talks a lot. And is silly. And is awesome (most of the time)
3. Are those really her initials? Nope, not her initials. A nickname she has had since birth. After we stopped calling her Bump, her gestational name.
4. Who is AK? Obviously, my second born. Gestationally she was referred to as Bun. For the first few months she was Dee on the blog, which became AK.
5. Do you like being a working mom? Yes.
6. Any potty training advice? Not, really. We totally sucked at it. LP won.
7. Are you going to have another kid? We have to get used to having two first.

I think those are the highlights - am I missing any of the big ones?

(After writing this I realized this is the second time I have done this. I am so lame.)

Had to Share

On occasion I check out the site stats for this blog. While I am pleased that I am getting slightly more popular - in high school I would still be a nerd, but perhaps a nerd with an equally nerdy boyfriend? - I find it hysterical that some people actually come to this blog looking for useful information.

Here are the some searches that brought folks to my blog over the past week:

• my 8 year old girl still wears pull-ups to bed [I can't help you here. But this sucks.]
• les zombies et les loup-garous [This brings people here at least 3 times a week! Look in the liner notes!]
• "potty party" [I have a cardboard cut out of a toilet if you want to borrow it!]
• spank her tush [hopefully referring to a child...]
• snotty kids [aren't they all this time of year?]
• "animated dancing bear" teletubbies [I'm sorry I am not the only parent subjected to this]
• cute little hoos [he is, isn't he?]

So Much Pressure

Now that I have more then two people reading my blog - thanks Mom and Dad! - I feel an obligation to attempt to post every day.

Therefore, because some of you love me so much that you check back at ctworkingmom.blogspot.com several times a day - again, thanks, Mom and Dad! - all of you have to suffer through not-so-interesting posts.

Here goes:

Food Bites. Yesterday I learned that AK loves peas and is an expert at picking them up in her little fists and squeezing them into her mouth. The day before I also determined that LP is not the only member of the family that absolutely loves Magic Pop rice cakes. If you haven't had them, they are awesome; larger, lighter, sweeter versions of those dense styrofoam hockey pucks that were all the rage in the 80s. They are great for infants because they literally melt in your mouth.

Potty Time. I spent part of last night free-handing a drawing of a toilet onto a large piece of cardboard. The Hoos will be cutting a hole in it and it will be a star attraction at our upcoming potty party to celebrate LP's potty-training success. She is still a superstar, wearing diapers only to sleep, and we are very proud of her. I love not having to carry around multiple sizes of diapers during the day so much that we will start training AK tomorrow.

Your Turn. Dudes, you all make me feel guilty for not posting daily, and yet when I offer up enticing prizes for posting a comment, only Di and Lori respond (love you girls! gifts will be forthcoming). I know that I have other readers lurking out there - and not just the ones that stumble here looking for the translation of Les Zombies Et Les Loup-Garous (the zombies and the werewolves if you must know). In fact, almost 30 of you actually have me on your feeds. I feel super cool, but would feel so much cooler if I knew WHO YOU WERE.

A Retrospective

Six weeks ago I finally finished compiling all of my blog entries for 2007 into a Blog Book, a project I thought I could start and finish during my maternity leave. I printed a couple of copies and had them cut and spiral bound at my local FedEx Office (the location formerly known as Kinkos). It ended up being a grand total of 218 5x7 pages. And it seemed to take damn near forever to put together. Mostly because on a blog you see the most current entry first, so I had to do a lot of copying and pasting to get them into the correct order. Regardless, I am quite happy with how it came out. If you want more info or want to me to email you a pdf of the final, let me know.

The most interesting thing about doing this was rereading postings from months ago. It was also weird to realize that my little AK wasn't mentioned at all last year - until about mid-November when I let on that I was pregnant. There is not one single picture of her cute little mug in the entire 2007 book - not even an ultrasound. Without the blog I wouldn't even have remembered life without her.

I am now working on my 2008 collection. And yesterday I realized that the first time LP peed on the potty was January 7, 2008. 11 months later and she still pretty much refuses to use the potty at home. Yesterday she peed in her underwear twice, or as she proudly tells people, "I peed on myself two times."

These Made Me Laugh

Linda at All & Sundry posted some poems about motherhood. I was cracking up at my desk. I highly recommend checking them out. A sampling:

If you stop that screaming
I will pay you
Eleventy jillion dollars.
Really I promise
Here is a check.
_ _ _ _ _ _

Stop! Stop! Stop!
I do not like this game.
Where you pretend to be a thrashing alligator
and you are naked. On the changing table.
And I am some lady trying to put a diaper on an alligator.
Alligators don’t wear diapers.
Or was that your point?

Wanna Be My Friend?

A few weeks ago I finally caught up to the 21st Century and joined Facebook. Having a blog and having signed on to Internet banking more than eight years ago, you would have thought I would have jumped on the bandwagon long ago. I think my reticence had to do with a description I had heard early on that it was "like MySpace for grown-ups." Isn't MySpace all about Internet pervs?

I am glad to say that so far I have not encountered any pervs on Facebook. At least not any that have been open about it. I have, instead, discovered friends from high school and college that I haven't talked to in years and years.

And, despite the fact that my own life has followed the "married with kids" path, I continue to be astonished that so many of my school chums are in the same boat. Lots of weddings, relocations and babies have occurred. Weren't we all so different in high school? How did we all end up the same? And oddly, why are such a large percentage of these folks speech pathologists? It is a great career, to be sure, I just didn't realize it was so popular.

Another strange thing about Facebook is that you are the recipient of friend requests from people that you weren't even friends with years ago. Even worse, you start doing the same thing! Maybe it is curiosity that forces you to ask for access to someone's profile and photos or maybe there is some popularity aspect to see how many friends you can rack up, but at the very least I try to limit my requests to folks that I remember.

Back up to the paragraph about everyone ending up in the same boat - I can't say that is exactly true. For instance, one woman that I went to camp with, that I was sure was going to be a trophy wife (she slept on satin sheets! At 10! At sleep away camp! In New Hampshire!) is or was Lindsay Lohan's assistant. And, no, I have not requested to be her friend. I accept that I am not that cool.

Do I Know You?

Most of the time when you are pregnant - especially toward the end of your pregnancy - people notice. For me, it was very obvious. Because you are pregnant you sort of expect people to be nicer to you (e.g., hold the door while you slowly waddle to it from 20 feet away) and to ask all sort of questions (e.g., are you planning on having a natural birth?).

Now that I am no longer pregnant I sort of forget that all of these people that see me every day knew that I was pregnant. I am always shocked when someone in my office that I don't know goes beyond a polite greeting and asks me about my baby. "How do they know I recently had a baby?" I wonder. "Can they see my skin pouch?" Or worse, "AM I LEAKING?!?!" Then I recall that 4 months ago I was large and waddling and since I no longer am these people correctly assume I gave birth.

Little do they know that just by asking they are opening themselves up to having to see pictures of my daughters. Like all of you folks.

Snippets

Here are some snippets from recent conversations in our house:

LP: Mommy, I had dreams last night.
Me: Really? What did you dream about?
LP: Animals.
Me: What kind of animals?
LP: Blue ones.
Me: Like what?
LP: Dinosaurs.
LP: Did you have good dreams last night too?
___________________________________________________

Me: LP, see these butterflies on your undies [pull-ups]?
LP: Ya! Butterflies!
Me: When you pee in your undies the butterflies go away. Did the butterflies go away?
LP: (looks) Ya!
Me: Did you pee in your undies?
LP: Maybe.

____________________________________________________
Not a snippet, but an announcement. I am changing Dee's blog name to AK. 1. LP can now say AK's name correctly, so Dee no longer fits and 2. Several people have taken to calling AK "Dee" and we don't call her that (we do call LP "LP" and AK "AK").

My Summer Project

A full seven weeks in to my maternity leave and yesterday I finally started my summer project. Yes, a project other than the adorable one that is starting to smile and is all cute and mooshy.

I am creating a book of my blog. No, not the kind of book I am going to sell for millions. Just a printed archive of my blog in a semi-snazzy layout. I am more than 400 posts into this blog; I would hate for Blogger to implode and lose the entire thing. I also think this book would be a nice memento for my girls when they grow up.

So far I worked on it for a few hours yesterday, cutting and pasting into a layout program starting with posting #1 from mid-January 2007. I got up to the beginning of March 2007. This is a tedious process, and I haven't even been adding pictures or jazzing up the layout. And it is already 30 5.5x8.5 pages.

This could go from being my Summer 2008 project to being my 2008 project.

On Parenting

Today I am the guest blogger on the Washington Post's parenting blog, On Parenting. Check it out and let me know what you think!

If you are navigating to me from that post, welcome! Be forewarned, I am not promising to be particularly insightful or interesting, but I do my best to give an honest perspective on parenthood.

A Blogger's Insight

Since posting about my potential guest blogging piece for the Washington Post (keep your fingers crossed for me!) I have gotten a few questions about if I am worried that people I work with would find my blog. I have given this some thought and in a word - no. I am not worried.

The purpose of my blog is not to complain about work, or the Hoos (although I occasionally do both). I really try to focus on my life with LP and my excitement about Bun and all of the good stuff. More importantly, I try to blog about things that I don't think would be embarrassing to me or make my readers uncomfortable.

In general, I am pretty tight-lipped about what I say about work. In fact, two of my colleagues and all-around favorite people, Wenderina and Kiki, already read my blog. And, a few months ago I gave my url to my direct supervisor. I don't think she ever actually came and looked at the blog, but it is out there if she wanted to.

I do realize that the thought of a blog makes some people very uncomfortable. Like I am sharing my innermost thoughts and feelings and things that should best be kept private. The Hoos is someone that really doesn't understand why I blog. He rarely, if ever, reads it.

True, modesty and privacy go out the window once one gives birth in a room full of strangers, but I am not quite that open out here in cyberspace. I have never mentioned LP's name (those aren't even her initials) and I am pretty sure that once Bun arrives I will just give the baby a nickname and go with that, never announcing his or her name in this space. I enjoy writing and I find that the very nature of a blog and posting my stories offers time to filter and more closely weigh what I am sharing. It forces me to think very carefully about what I say and how I say it.

For this and other reasons, I don't typically respond to memes or do the "100 things you didn't know about me", because, honestly, there are lots of things I don't want you to know about me. It is not that I am trying to create a picture of perfection (I often write about my imperfections and inadequacies, I think) or create an ideal me; rather my goal is to amuse, relate, and chronicle some of the high points (and some of the low).

Despite what some people think, in my experience blogging really is a personal thing and much more about the writer than the audience.

All at Once

I feel like my life has been whipped into a frenzy this week. Both with positive and negative impacts.

1. Work. I am having personnel challenges at work.
2. LP. Yesterday LP felt pretty warm when I picked her up at day care (at the regular time). She ended up having 103 which went up to 104 half an hour later. And very unlike her, she was crying and clingy and cranky. We went to the doctor who confirmed she had a fever virus. She slept through the night (although the Hoos gave her Motrin around 1am). She had 103 when she woke up and even though it comes down with medicine it goes back up. Ibuprofen is our friend.
3. Opportunity Knocks. A few weeks ago I blogged about a friend sending me a posting for a perfect job at her company. Yesterday I received a request to set up an interview. I am now 32.5 weeks pregnant. ACCCKKKKKKKK! And due to the aforementioned personnel-issue, I am feeling very loyal to my supportive manager. Double AAACCCKKKK!
4. More Knocking. Last month the Washington Post parenting blog, On Parenting, posted a request for guest bloggers. I responded figuring I would be one of dozens throwing my hat in the ring and the likelihood of getting asked to write something was close to nil. Yesterday I got a very nice email saying they accepted my offer and asking for ideas. It doesn't pay but it would definitely open this little ol' blog up to a wider audience.
5. Life. Did I mention that I am 32.5 weeks pregnant?! And the baby's room is still a mess of dresser parts and clothing stacks and spare furniture?

Did anyone notice the Virgo horoscope this week?

Who Are You People?

I have been blogging for about 15 months now and I am still curious as to who reads this blog and why. I have determined that there are about four categories of visitors.

1. Those that are related to me. Hi Mom and Dad! In not so shocking news, my family reads my blog everyday. While they would love to see a new post seven days a week (yes, I know that you check the blog several times a day looking for an update), they would be content with a new picture and story of LP. They don't care so much when I babble about non-LP issues.
2. People that know me personally. It seems as if my most popular entries for these folks tend to be when I do something stupid like put my pants on backwards or say something catty about mutual acquaintances.
   
3. Other working parents. I don't know how you all found me, but welcome! I take this to mean that you don't have to have met me to enjoy reading about my many misadventures and opinions; this makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I am probably more fabulous on the blog anyway. It is for you, general parent public, that I write about parent politics, being a working mom, and the joys of pregnancy.
   
4. The randoms. These are folks that I figure are looking for something else and up my little ole blog pops. The most common keywords used to find this site are Les Zombies Et Les Loup-Garous. Because a year ago I wrote about the translation. Some of these random folks come back and bless us with their presence, but most of them figure out that I am not for them and quickly scurry away.
   

Regardless of how you found me, or why you are here, I am certainly glad to have you. I do wish I had something smart and witty and appealing to say to everyone so I could post multiple times a day, but, alas, my life really isn't that exciting. I am guessing most of you have figured that out by now. Anyway, feel free to send me a comment or shoot me an email if there is something you really want to hear me wax poetic about. Otherwise, keep checking in (several times daily if you feel compelled) for updates.

Another Anniversary

I just realized that yesterday was the first anniversary of my blog! It is amazing how time flies.

As I was scrolling back to figure out the actual date of my first entry, I noted some of my favorites over the past year. Some highlights for those of you new to the party known as "View from the Passenger's Seat" nee "CT Working Mom":

• Why I started this blog in the first place
  
• My obsession with boogers
• Traveling sans baby while nursing (totally not recommended)
• The impact LP has had on our lives (from around her first birthday)
  
• Passing on the values my parents gave me
• Our first camping excursion with LP
  
• What exactly is a "Hoos"

I would go on and on, because I guess if I took the time to write them down in the first place they must be good, right? Uhh, not quite. But I am not going to take the time to give you links to my lamest posts.

Since I started tracking statistics it appears I have had almost 5000 unique visitors and more than 12,600 hits. Of course, RiteCounter crashes every once in a while, so it may have restarted or missed some of you, but regardless, not bad for my little milli-acre of cyberspace.

Thanks for sticking around!

I Got Nothing

As the sole author of this blog, I have certain ground rules for myself:

1. Nothing too personal. People I know and people I don't know read this.
2. Minimize the cutesy. LP is cute, that doesn't count. But I am not big on animation, or picking up silly things from around the web or chain letters. Sure, I go with it every once in a while, but looking back, my link to The Onion child care thing was just dopey (IMHO).
   
3. Keep it positive. I can be catty, but who wants to read a pissy rant about nothing? Besides, I will eventually get over whatever is bugging me.

Today I am breaking rule numero tres. For some reason, I am stuck in Negative-ville. Maybe it is because I had class last night and it seemed like an absolute waste. Or because I ate so much random crap yesterday that I went to bed with a belly ache and while there is no more physical ick, the mental ick is sticking around. Or maybe it is because it was pouring raining all night long and who wants to get out from under the covers on a dreary day? Whatever it is, today is a blah blah blog day.

I don't even have any super cute pictures of LP to post since I saved them all to our home computer and I am at work.

Every Day

I often remark on this blog how amazing it is to me that LP learns something new every day. For example, yesterday she was amazed by the fall leaves.

Today, it was my turn to learn something new. My a-ha moment has to do with my big brother.

I (re?)discovered that he is a great writer.

Growing up, he was the science and math expert and I was the more creative one. Or so I thought. A computer engineer by training and trade, I guess I forgot how much he used to enjoy creative writing when we were kids. My brother just started a new blog on one of his hobbies, collecting Israeli stamps. I know it doesn't sound like it would be interesting to the non-philatelists out there, but I found it compelling to read about his collecting strategies and habits. Maybe it is just because he is my brother, but I don't think so.