Sunday, March 14, 2010

Mama Bean had a can't-win-for-trying kind of week

It's been a mixture of challenge and blessing this week. My reaction to the challenges has amply demonstrated I use the internet to avoid Bad Feelings. Heck, I use it to avoid Real Life, including Bean. That is a tough realization, and it's tough to put in words on "paper." Kids don't take up less time, or require fewer resources, as they get bigger and older. The first weeks were Delirious, but he still spent most of his time sleeping. His naps now are getting shorter, and further apart. When he's awake, he doesn't want to be in the swing or the command centre, he wants to be with us, interacting and playing. And he's pretty impossible to resist, being cuter than stink. So this less-time-on-the-internet thing will continue after Lent. It has to, and I will be a better person and mother for it. Let this blog be my witness!

As I wrote about yesterday, the new RSS reader brings blessings and challenges. I love the efficiency. I love knowing I'm not missing anything. I love not wasting time clicking through piles of non-updated sites. I do not love the way it makes me feel obsessive-compulsive about seeing eachandeverysitebeforeIdieOMG. But I think I can get over that, or Bean will force me to, and ultimately the blessing will overrule.

This blog has become a HUGE blessing, in both personal and interpersonal ways. I love to write, it makes my mental process solid and tangible, instead of fragmented and tangled in my head. Processing means that mamahood isn't something that's happening to me. I would have found my way around to writing about parenting, even if I didn't choose the public route of having a blog, but my personality responds well to the relational aspect of blogging. As with all social media, it creates another plane of relationships, and deepens real life relationships, and generally enriches my sense of community. In particular, this new community of mamahood, which felt nebulous and complicated, seems much friendlier, now that I've started to participate on here and on facebook, and share my stories and Process. And processing things on here helps me interact with the real life mothering community more authentically. I think before, I would have felt confused and defensive in a group of moms, which is why I abstained from breastfeeding clinics and the like. But somehow blogging brings me confidence, and I can just be the mama that I am, in real life and online.

There are a few unique challenges of blogging, which I will address in separate posts. The main challenge right now is having too many ideas to write about, and not enough time, especially with the internet limitations, but more broadly just from Living a Life and Being a Mama. And I really can't call being the most inspired I've felt in years truly a bad thing. It's one of those blessings to complain about, y'know?

The ultimate blessing this week, which makes the other challenges fade away, was having Papa Bean's parents visiting. It's been a wonderful weekend, with lots of family and cuddles and faspa (!) The kind of weekend that makes you forget about anything but love and smiles. So I guess we did win this week, after all. And not by trying, just by the grace of God. Phew! Ready for the next one...

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