With the passing of four months since the birth of P., as well as the one year anniversary of the retrieval/transfer of the embryo Enid/Betrand that evolved into P., I've been thinking a lot about the purpose of this blog. No, I will not be ruminating further on what sort of blog this is or whether I will continue blogging up to P.'s 40th birthday, as I know such posts have tested the devotion of even the most ardent BarrenAlbion reader. I'm such a drama queen.
Rather, I wonder where this blog stands in connection with my daughter. This blog will be two years old at the end of next month, and as I approach that landmark and that of the 200th post, I have been considering whether I will let P. read it when she's old enough. I am not speaking in the context of having the blog at that stage, but I would like to preserve my writing and the subsequent comments so she can see what my experience was like.
I remember rooting through my Mom's bedside table when I was 12 and stumbling across some of her childhood diaries. I took one at a time and retreated to my bedroom to devour the surely daring and adventurous tales of my Mom's youth. I was looking for "I made out furiously with Robert McNamara after stealing some Lucky Strikes from the General Store" (my Mom grew up in town with 10 people and a goat or some such). Instead, I got "I went to the fair today, rode the ferris wheel and won a stuffed rabbit. It was fun." Yawn.
This is not to say that P. would fare any better with my teenage diaries. I started a diary when I was 10, writing enticing entries about what I did on weekends and snow days (days off from school because of heavy snowfall for those who did not grow up in such climes). I occasionally got bitchy about people, going so far as to say about a friend of my best friend, "She's probably a child molester." I had no idea what it meant, but I guess I thought it sounded nasty. It's not exactly the most scathing insult you can give to an 11 year old. Hey, she bought my best friend a best friend necklace, which was essentially a declaration of war to this 10 year old. Additionally, all my entries at the time were signed, "Confidentially, Miranda", despite that not being my name.
At around 12 my musings mainly centred around being depressed, and my insistence the end of the world was nigh. The age of thirteen brought sunshine and light in the form of an obsession with a boy in my class, a crush which lasted the duration of my junior and high school years. Most of my diary entries were about him, and I'd rather like to forget the list I started in 10th grade which noted what said boy was wearing every day. Things got rather heated in the diary when Hot Boy started going out with Beak Girl, a tall, snobby blonde with a nose one could trip over. Unfortunately for my teenage self, Hot Boy was with Beak Girl for the rest of our time in school.
Post-high school ramblings were mainly about getting fat courtesy of your friendly neighbourhood endocrinological condition PCOS. I had to adapt to being no heavier than 110 lbs, to being considerably more. Once I met The Dude, my self-loathing extended to fertility issues as well. Five or six years of writing like that and I decided to share it with the world. A logical progression, no?
The parent-child dynamic leads most kids to only see their parents as the adults they know now. I know that prior to the covert reading of my Mom's diaries, she had no childhood or teenage years in my eyes. As far as I was concerned, she was born 42 years old with a bad perm. I want P. to have a strong sense of who I was before she knew me. Given all the naughty language and talk of sex and the onetime mention of The Dude as Ol' Wax Cock, she may have to wait a long while, but I do want her to read this eventually. Since I'll probably be playing Bingo and dusting off my Hummel figurines whilst watching my stories by the time she's old enough to read this, it will be refreshing for her to see that once upon a time her mother said things like "fuckwit".
On to a different subject entirely. Reading DD's post today gave me an idea. DD asked if anyone would like to exchange Holiday cards with her, and I thought it would be lovely if we could get a blogger card exchange thing going. A rather large scale, organised arrangement whereby bloggers can send and receive holiday cards from all over the place. I bounced this idea off The Dude, who thought it was hokey and cheesy as hell, but fuck him, he's a man and they are just like that.
So is this a feasible thing? My thoughts are that any interested parties can email me their name, postal address and blog address by a certain deadline and I will create a spreadsheet with all the info and email it back to all of those who emailed me. If a large number of people respond, I'll look to create groupings so that people don't feel obligated to send dozens of cards all over the world. My only suggestion would be that cards don't feature photos of kids or pregnant stomachs. All of us are at very different stages and I would hate for a fun and interesting gesture like this to turn into something negative.
Note that the operative word is "holiday", so this is certainly not centred around those who celebrate Christmas. If anyone thinks this is a good idea, please feel free to mention it on your own blogs, directing readers to my email address which can be found in my profile over there to your right.
Even if only 5 people are interested I will carry on because momma likes her some mail. I actually run downstairs every day to check the post, even if it only yields yet another offer for a loan with a low interest rate. A card from an actual real live person might push me over the edge of excitement, so watch out world.
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ETA: For those rightly concerned with privacy, I do plan on ensuring everything is legit. I am only including fellow bloggers (sorry to the non-bloggers out there), and if I have any doubts I'll be sure to give the relevant persons a very intense interrogation involving small bits of wood, the offender's fingernails, and a very bright light. I understand if some of you are a bit paranoid, but the ladies who have signed up so far do not have criminal records, though some of them might be slightly eccentric.
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ETA #2: I've set the deadline - Wednesday, 6 December. I plan on compiling the information as I go along, and I intend to send the spreadsheet out next Thursday. As the cards will be going to various points around the globe (so far Australia and of course UK), I want to ensure we allow enough time for them to get where they need to be.
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ETA #3 (aka not very good at remembering to include shit): It has been suggested to me that perhaps we allow the sending of kid/belly photos if the recipient so chooses. In the email that you send me with your address and blog address, please let me know if you would or would not want to receive such photos. Feel free to say no, it's fine!
13 comments:
"10 people IN a goat?" My, my, my!
Anyway, I think your card idea is a lovely one. Count me in.
The goat comment has now been changed to read "AND a goat", but I will say that the scenario put forth by Alexa is not too far outside the realm of possibility in that town.
COCK THIS Beta Blogger!
*ahem*
You didn't sell Ms. P off on the black market did you affording you all this ambition, did you? I thought about something like this, but I'm too fucking lazy.
I shall pop off an email now. I would love to participate in your endeavor, especially since you are doing all the work!
Holiday cards? No can do, it would totally blow my cover, MAAAAANNN.
All right, I'm to lazy to go to the post-office to get correct postage.
P. reading the blog? At what age where you thinking?
I luuuurve the holiday card idea. Count me in.
I've rhuminated for the last few years about the fesability of my children ever delving into the Aladdin's cave of neuroses, fears and heartpounding teenage drama that is my box of journals. I started in ernest my freshman year of high school and by the time I stopped journaling regularly (right before I got married) I had amassed 40+ notebooks of shame. I always felt to attached to them to throw them away, but the thought of my offspring finding out that I doinked a casual summer boyfriend on the front lawn after smoking a big doobie fills me with dread.
However, have had access to my grandmother's day book, I gained a remarkable insight into someone I'd always known as a rather fussy yet endearing old woman. Her entries included the mundane next to great world events. "May 21, 1932- Today, as I was kneeling down to pray, I got stung by a wasp. Then I shelled some peas on the porch with Mom. And Amelia Earheart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic." So I suppose I will leave my box of shame for my children, perhaps with the stipulation that it doesn't get opened until I'm safely underground.
Ummm . . . "Ol' Wax Cock?" Maybe I shouldn't ask.
I'll participate in your card-sharing shindig. If you don't know my address by now, you deserve to be smacked.
Holiday cards sound fun! I can't be arsed to send them to my own family but I rather like the idea of sending them across the world to people I don't even know.
Don't act like you never had a bad perm. P must know about the bad perm days.
I totally read my mom's diary when I was little. Kinda scary, actually. I don't know what to do with my diaries from my teen years. They're horrifying, obsessive about boys and being skinny (I never had a boyfriend and wasn't skinny). I think I might have to post parts of them on my blog...
Know whatcha mean about the kid reading the blog ... I actually started my blog with the idea that I'd print it out and save it for my kids (should they ever occur). When they were safely nonexistent, that seemed like a good idea. Now that they're actually on the way -- and a pair of boys at that -- I'm not so sure about this. I was thinking I'd give it to them when they were 21 ... but now I think I'll have to wait until they're at least 30. Or 70.
Would love to do this. Sent you an email.
Same as Millie. Pretty please?
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