Uppercase Woman

Tori, the Terror

Right now, Tori is locked in her room raging out of control. She wanted to curl up on the couch but the dog was there first, so she PUNCHED THE DOG IN THE HEAD. Hard.

I instituted an immediate time-out. This resulted in Tori flinging herself down and throwing a tantrum. When I picked her up to put her in time-out, she hit me. Three times. I sat her down in the time-out spot and she refused to sit, alternating between thrashing, standing, yelling at me, and screaming with frustration.

Finally, we carried her up to her room. She has screamed and howled in rage and frustration like I've never heard before.

.....

We've been coasting with Tori. Since about a month before her birthday, she's been mostly divine. Funny, sweet, charming -- an easy child, fun to be around. But the last couple of weeks -- except while we were camping -- she's been angry. So, so, so angry.

Then there is the arguing. Literally, she argues about the color of the sky. She says it's raining when it's not, and then gets utterly furious if you try to point out that, well, actually, it's not raining and we can actually go to the playground.

So we've got anger, lies, and hitting. It's awesome.

.....

This time, unlike nearly every horrible phase Tori has gone through, I remembered that this sort of thing IS in fact a phase. And the worst of it will last, usually, for just under a month. We are going through week three or so now, which means I'm just at the point where it feels like it's always been this way, it will always be this way, and I will never survive.

It doesn't help that we are also on week three without any help (other than my mom, a bit) with childcare, meaning that we've had to do most of our work in short stretches or at night. Which makes us all stressed. She doesn't go back to preschool until September 9th.

In addition, I am at the end of my rope when it comes to money stress, and I know Tori feels it. So while I feel stressed, brittle, and frustrated, I also have a big ol' dose of guilt too.

.....

After Tori was done raging, finished crying, and had finally gotten quiet in her room, I went upstairs to sit with her and talk. It took a bit; she didn't WANT TO TALK. SHE WANTED HER TOY. SHE WANTED TO WATCH TV. I had to leave and close the door behind me three more times before she finally agreed to talk.

We talked about what she did. When she tried to justify her hitting of the dog (because the dog "stole" her seat), I asked her how she'd feel if I hit her every time she did that to me (which is every time I stand up). She thought about it, and admitted in a tiny voice, "Not good."

Then we talked about different ways she could express her anger. Maybe by going outside and yelling really loud, or taking her baseball bat to a pillow for a minute or two. She agreed to try those ideas.

Then we cuddled for a long time, and I kissed her a whole bunch, and she sighed and settled against me. And I forgave her every single rotten moment of this last two weeks, just like that.

Parenting is hard, y'all. But it also rocks.

That Which Shall Not Be Blogged. Well, by me. Except now, of course.

I've been talking a great deal about the things I don't talk about on this blog.

I know, weird, right?

Because I've been involved with panels at blogging conferences that focus on the depth of sharing some of us bloggers do, the topic of what we DON'T share comes up. Most bloggers I know don't share about fights with their spouses, for instance, or share about their sex lives in detail because family members or friends they know in real life read their blogs.

For me, I've decided to not talk about our financial situation. Not because I want it to be private, but because I can't really handle the responses. From those folks that roll their eyes at our little family and assume lots of nasty things about us regarding our lifestyles, to those that offer helpful budgeting suggestions -- I can't hack it. I'm too sensitive about the subject.

Why am I so sensitive? Maybe because nothing causes more speculation and judgement than money. Maybe it's because our nation has become so polarized on this issue. Maybe it's because when times were the worst this year, even our own blood relatives refused to help us.

Much of it, though, can be traced to my poor childhood. To the sense of shame my mother had about us needing food stamps; to this day I have trouble using coupons because handing small pieces of paper to the clerk at the store feels like something I should do slyly, and apologize for at the same time (God bless the person that switched the food stamp system to debit cards).

So, for the last few months, I've kept quiet. Things are getting better; the periods of time when we aren't counting out change for purchases are getting longer, and the times when we are counting out change are getting shorter. But, like many other people in America, our financial life is a delicate juggling act, full of careful choices. Mortgage or health insurance? Prescription co-pays or groceries? New contact lenses or a new bra?

Then there are the things that simply don't get done. The cracked, rotted tooth I have on my upper jaw that has been infected three times; the co-pay for the antibiotics is cheaper than even pulling the tooth (this is with dental insurance, of course). I haven't had an eye exam in years. Charlie got a tick bite recently and he's been putting off seeing a doctor about the worrisome swelling because of the cost of the co-pay. Or the hole in our porch roof from that horrible storm.

Still, it isn't all awful. We've gotten much better at protecting Tori from the worst of it, and sometimes she even gets a treat. I bought her one of these at the mall the other day, simply because I happened to have the money that day, and I knew how much she has been wanting one, and perhaps because I suffer from a big dose of not wanting her childhood to be like mine was.

But right now we are in one of those tight places, with many bills looming over us (the yearly renewal of our car insurance, the return of Tori's school year at a higher price than last year, that sort of thing). Plus it's a frustrating time of year to be a freelancer; everyone at our client's offices is on vacation and it takes even longer than usual to get invoices processed.

So I find myself wanting to blog, wanting to dump on this site the muck that is in my head, but worrying about the response. I know how easy it is to look at my life from the outside -- with all my trips, especially (two more coming up in September) -- and think I'm simply doing it wrong. I feel a need to highlight in detail the fact that my trips have all been paid for by someone else, and sometimes I've even been paid to go. I even want to apologize for my continued pursuit of selling ads on this blog.

But I won't. Because I am working hard at making my life work for my family. It is what it is. However, I'm scared. Sometimes I lie awake at night with a gnawing fear in my gut that Tori will know, as I did as a child, what it's like to go hungry sometimes.

It is not a fun way to live.

I've actually considered closing comments on this post. But that wouldn't be me. So I'll simply say, no advice or judgement, please. If you want to share about your situation as well, I promise to offer no advice or judgement either.

_____________________________________________________

In related news, if you have any cash to spare, please visit In Due Time and contribute a dollar or two to her custody battle for her niece. As much as In Due Time loves her sister, she is not currently able to parent her daughter appropriately. Help if you can. I wish I could have helped more.

Unwound

So, Charlie and I went camping this weekend with Jo-Ann and her family.

It was divine.

It wasn't completely idyllic; on Sunday we were plagued by rain showers that chased us off the beach (we made it through one rain shower; we were in our bathing suites, after all, but the second storm had thunder and lightening so away we went). It was very hot the first night, very damp the second, plus we had three kids with us who were determined to resist sleep. But mostly? Mostly it was everything I wished for in a camping trip.

If you don't know, Charlie and I used to spend nearly every weekend camping, and we often went on extended ten day trips. We loved everything about it, even the rain. We loved to hike, canoe, and do everything outdoorsey when we could. But once we started infertility treatments, we started spending less time in the woods because my activity level was very restricted. Since then we've barely hiked, much less camped. We've taken Tori camping three times; basically once a summer after she was a year old. Each trip convinced us that she was not quite ready to be a camper.

But now? Now Tori is ready. In fact, she's an excellent camper.

We were staying at Cape Henlopen State Park, which is located near Rehobeth, Delaware. It's a beautiful park. The campgrounds are about a half mile from the beach, which is a nice walk, or if you are us, a brief drive so you can haul chairs and three kids worth of beach toys. We spent most of Sunday and Monday on the beach which was lovely, and I swam in the ocean with great joy and abandon for the first time since I got caught in a riptide a few years back. Best of all, the dolphins were out in force swimming not far off the shore, and I got within about twenty feet of a pair.

Yes. It was, indeed, totally fucking awesome.

It helped, of course, to be camping with another family. Tori and her BFF spent a lot of time digging in the sand and dirt at the campsite.

Of course Tori loves swimming in the ocean, tackling the waves with the same fearlessness she faces everything else.

I spent most of the weekend offline. Mostly.

For some reason everyone kept staring at us on the beach. We decided they thought we were bikers or something. It was weird. That never happens on the beach in New Jersey. Huh. We managed to avoid sunburn, mostly, by applying non-stop sunscreen. Tori didn't care.

We enjoyed campfires, which of course included marshmallows.

Cannie Belle (the dog) turned out to be an excellent camper, and she also loved the beach (you should have seen her swimming in the waves!) although she preferred it when I didn't walk away from her.

Charlie and Tori had a good time too.

Tori built sandcastles.

And me? I unwound in a way I haven't in years. It felt damned good.  Really damned good.

I'm home now, happy to be back on the laptop, but feeling that typical re-entry resistance. I wish we had time to go camping again this year (and a tent to do it in; our tent had a major issue on the last day and we had to go ahead and say goodbye to it). But it's good to know that this part of our life can be ours again. Now, excuse me while I go cough out a lung from the campfire smoke...

All photos were taken by Charlie. Have you checked out his new site? No? You should.

Brothers

As we drove down the road, Tori said from her car seat, "Mommy? Do I have a sister?" I thought a minute and said, "Well, you have Sarah's daughter; she's your Godsister." She thought for a moment more and said, "Do I have brothers?"

It didn't hurt that much, because we've had this conversation before. This time, though, I said their names.

"Yes, Tori. You had two big brothers, Nicholas and Zachary, but they are in heaven with our dog Bubba."

She thought for a moment, then said, "Why are they in dog heaven? Shouldn't they be in boy heaven?"

.....

Today, our friend's seven-year-old daughter is hanging out with us. Her dog Cisco was Bubba the dog's best friend for many years before Cisco was hit by a car and killed when P. was not much younger than Tori is now.

In one of those weird ironies of life, our new dog Cannie Belle looks like a giant version of Cisco. So when P. is visiting, as much as she loves Cannie, it makes her miss Cisco. So we decided to look at some old photos we had of Cisco, which of course included photos of Bubba.

Tori said, "There's my Bubba. He's in dog heaven."

At the same age, when I'd said to P. that Cisco was in dog heaven, she looked at me funny and said, "No he's not. He's buried in the backyard!"

.....

While we were looking at photos online, they clamoured to see baby pictures of themselves. Then they wanted to see my baby pictures, some of which include my father, who is also now in heaven with Bubba and Cisco and Nicholas and Zachary. The pang upon seeing his face has been there throughout my life, but is fading now a bit since his death: I know, now, that our father/daughter issues will never be healed.

I was reading Karen's list of hopes and dreams and saw that she wants to drive a semi truck. I found myself smiling at the thought, and remembered the day I took Charlie to meet my father for the first time in 1995. My father was still hale and hearty back then, not yet plagued by the emphysema that played a large role in his rather violent death, although he was still suffering from the effects of the Agent Orange that he was exposed to in Vietnam.

He was the local fire chief in Sweet Water Hills, New Mexico -- an area of New Mexico east of Albuquerque on the other side of the Sandia Mountains, an area completely flat, devoid of water, and utterly lacking in sweetness.

We met my father that day at the fire house. He was showing us around, and we noticed a massive 5,000 gallon water tanker sitting in the bay of the fire house. Charlie asked about it, and my dad gave Charlie an odd look and said, "Well, we don't exactly have fire hydrants around here. We have to take the water TO the fire."

Charlie looked a bit startled (being an East Coast boy through and through, where fire hydrants are on every corner). He said, "What do you do when you run out of water, John?"

My father lit a cigarette and said, "We watch it burn, Charlie. We watch it burn."

Then my father asked Charlie if he wanted to drive the truck. Charlie hadn't yet learned to drive back in 1995 (like I said, City Boy through and through), so he passed, but I said, "I'll drive it."

I climbed into the massive thing and started the engine. I slipped it into first gear, eased off the very deep clutch, and the truck rumbled into movement. I drove it about thirty feet before hitting the brakes, and I realized suddenly that the brakes were not like brakes in cars or the U-Haul trucks I'd driven before; these brakes were loose, unresponsive, and suddenly I was terrified. Terrified in a totally different way from seeing my father for only the second time in my life that I remembered. Terrified I was going to crash this little town's only protection from fire.

So I stood up, both feet on the brakes, using my full body weight (which was not insubstantial) to get the brakes to respond. Slowly, slowly, the truck began to stop. I stopped it before I hit anything else. I got out of the truck, shaky and loose-limbed, feeling both relieved and intensely angry that my father, the one I knew barely at all, challenged me like that without any preparation. He hopped in the truck, backed in into its spot, and we all climbed into our separate cars to go to the truck stop for dinner (the town's only restaurant was the truck stop).

I didn't stop shaking until we got back to the hotel and I got drunk.

.....

When Tori asked about her brothers, I felt an urge to stand on the brakes and stop the conversation before the pain seared my bruised heart once again. But instead, I just took a deep breath and let the pain run through me and then back out into the universe, trusting instead in the infallibility of Tori's belief in a heaven, both for dogs and little boys and absentee fathers. And it felt good to put names to Tori's invisible siblings, boys who's feet never danced on this earth, not even for a day.

My grief for all of those I've lost -- fathers, sons, beloved dogs and all -- no longer feels like an unstoppable water tanker. I can easily slip through the gears of grief, and not lose days or even hours to the pain. It turns out that it DOES get easier, we do heal, we move on to a sad fondness rather than an agonizing pain.

Joy, hope, and happiness are growing in my heart and shining in the dark corners. This doesn't eliminate the darkness -- not at all -- but it does soften the edges, brighten the blackest bits to more of a charcoal gray. This is what growing up is, this is what continuing to live after the horrors and grief and terror have passed; the bad things simply fold into our lives, become part of our great tapestry, adding depth of color. But the brightness is greater than the darkness, now. This might change; life is like that. But for now, I'm basking in the light.

Melancholy: My Post BlogHer Sadness & The State of Blogging Now

It happens every year. I look forward to BlogHer all year, then the week before the conference I'm nearly giddy with excitement, then the day finally arrives -- hurrah! -- and I'm off, soon to be standing in the hotel lobby already greeting friends before I even get checked in. Then the days of the actual conference speed by in a blur of love and community, and I come home buoyed by the fellowship of my fellow bloggers.

Then, the sadness creeps in. I'm chronically infected with what I like to call "post event syndrome" where I feel sad and a bit empty after the event is over. This year it was worsened by getting my period during the conference and coming home to my migraine week, and having four days with bad migraines in a row.

But now that it's all settled down, I can begin to actually sort out my feelings. It turns out they are more complex than I realized.

Blogging has changed, drastically, since I started. For instance, in 2004 there was no Twitter. And no Facebook. Web 2.0, and social media, was mostly focused on blogs, message boards, and list serves. Being at heart a geek -- particularly a social media geek -- I embraced each of these technologies as they came up (okay, so Sarah joined Twitter six months before I did, whatEVER) and it has changed, well, everything about how I operate online.

I am a full-on citizen of real time internet -- meaning the instant gratification that comes from communicating on Twitter and Facebook. Blogging, oddly, has become the "slow" social media medium. It takes days to get responses to a post, lots of time emailing the folks that comment back. Frankly, it's clear to me now that I have forsaken responding to comments here because my other forms of community and communication have overtaken my blog communications. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It's not just the real-time internet that has changed my online community. It's what blogging is about that is changing too. For instance, over here is my friend Mindi's blog. Mindi is a lovely person, someone I get to see a few times a year, and someone that has a very smart business sense. If you look at her blog, you will see that it is jam-packed with useful information, particularly if you are a coupon person (I am not, but that's a whole other post too). But other than both having a page on the internet that uses the blog format, we could not have less in common as writers and as producers of online content. In general, as time marches on in the blogosphere (at a slightly higher speed than anywhere else), there are far more new bloggers like Mindi than there are like me. And by me, I mean "old school" memoir-in-progress style bloggers, bloggers that bare their souls in a highly detailed and personal way. Generally (and I'm being very, very broad in my generalizations), most of the newer bloggers keep the details about their lives very close to the vest, usually for a multitude of reasons: a different expectation of privacy than I personally have, the desire to keep many of their opinions (such as political ones) off their blog so as to make themselves attractive to large brands, and because, simply, their blogs are NOT about them as much as they are about business.

For me, my blog is my business, and my blog is about my life. Which, when you think about it, is pretty fucking weird, actually.

In general, I (hopefully) have been welcoming to newer bloggers, particularly on Twitter. I have relationships with most of them, and I think what they are doing is very smart, business-wise, whereas my personal path to success has been more accidental than, you know, an actual plan. I mean, I didn't PLAN to lose the boys, or get attacked for it -- and both of those events are what made this blog as popular as it is. I do believe, however, that my content is what as made people KEEP coming back, long after those tragedies have passed.

At BlogHer this year, the increased popularity of the new bloggers was evident in a million ways -- the way the Expo Hall vendors approached bloggers, to the off-site brand events, and to the low attendance at the BlogHer sessions themselves. This year, in fact, some large brands were so sure of the lack of interest in actual BlogHer events that they scheduled their events during BlogHer sessions (which pisses me off, frankly). What was less obvious at the time, but is now -- is that bloggers like me don't really have a hand in this poker game.

The reasons I'm approached by brands now -- and get opportunities like the party I worked on Thursday night before the conference -- is more about my large presence on Twitter, and less about the content that I sweat blood and bullets to put up here. For me, writing -- and yes, I do consider blogging WRITING -- is the professional love of my life. I don't mean to sound as if the new bloggers DON'T sweat blood and bullets to get their posts up -- I'm sure they do, and I know that they face an issue of competitiveness I've never had to deal with. What I mean, though, is that for me? It's all about the words and the emotions and the heart.

I think -- deep breath here -- that I've forgotten that fact.

I've written here recently, over and over, about how difficult it is for me to "transition" into being this new kind of blogger, how challenging it is to balance the brand-related work with the content-work of this blog. I realize, now, that the problem is this: I don't actually WANT TO DO THAT. What I want to focus on, first and foremost, is my words.

...

The Wednesday night before BlogHer started, when I was at the Broadway show of West Side Story, they had a young boy come out to sing "Somewhere, a place for us..." I was sitting next to Ellie, two rows back from Deb and Lora, and I felt my heart expand as I contemplated BlogHer and how, here, in New York City, I was at my "place" as a blogger. We were all there, a full community of women that blog. I actually cried a little bit thinking about it. No, really.

But this year, as awesome as it was, BlogHer was not quite the place for me. Even though everyone greeted me with love and joy, I realized as time passed that the style of blogging I do and the bloggers that I have come to love and respect so much over these six years are now kind of the minority as bloggers. I don't feel bitter about that, or like it is bad or wrong: it just is.

I was lucky enough to get to share a small bus home from New York City with a bunch of local Philadelphia bloggers, and we talked a bit about this on the way home. One blogger, Shannon, hard at work the whole way home with her portable internet connection, said, "I think of you as more of a personality, like Oprah." Which, of course, is incredibly flattering -- who doesn't want to be compared to the most successful woman in history?

But, of course, I'm not just a personality. I'm, well, me. The way I am online is the way I am. What I really want to be known for -- and what I was mostly known for at my first BlogHer convention two years ago -- is being a WRITER.

Yes, I am a writer. It's time for me to remember that: I AM A WRITER.

Oh! Joy and rapture! To remember my purpose, and to once again feel that charge of energy when I know where I want to expend my energies. I'm going to find my book proposal -- the one I was supposed to finish up before BlogHer this year -- and start polishing it up. I'm going to start replying to comments again, because you are all my very first community online, whether or not we see each other at blogger conferences.

So: this long-drawn-out-hot-mess-of-a-post is old school Cecily: working out my thoughts. That's what I do. I think on the page. So here is me thinking maybe I've finally figured this shit out, this weird feeling I've had for the last nine months or so when I contemplated what I want this blog to be. I want it to be a place I explore my writing, even if it does become an obsolete form of blogging. Hell, who cares? Nothing stays cool for long, after all.

The post-BlogHer sadness and haze is lifting, and once again, BlogHer has done for me what I needed it to do: made me think, cleared my head, and changed my perspective.

Thank God. I feel so much... cleaner now. And thanks for reading all the way to the bottom of this post. Holy crap it's long, y'all. Much love to all of you that got to the end here.

Keeping It Simply Smooth? Not Likely.

This is a video post about trying to keep my life in balance. Mostly unsuccessfully. This post is part of the project I did in New York City at BlogHer with the folks from Schick Intuition razors. :)

Beginnings: Jewels of Elul

Sometimes when I look back on my life, I feel like I've actually lived multiple lifetimes. The first breakdown is always geographic: there is the New Mexico Cecily, then the Michigan Cecily, and now of course the Philadelphia Cecily.

Then there is Drunk Cecily, then Drug Addict Cecily, then of course Sober Cecily. Poet Cecily and Blogging Cecily.

Lastly, there is Mom Cecily, and everything else.

I do feel like I'm constantly beginning again. It's not a bad feeling, necessarily. I used to love starting a new job, getting excited about all the new challenges a new job presented. I love going someplace new now. When camping, I love the clean space of an empty campsite, and I love the campsite when it's been freshly set up. I love a freshly cleaned house.

But in some ways, new beginnings can be... okay, I don't want to say addictive, but I get bored. I usually have about a three-year love affair with a job, and then I start to wind down, in a manner of speaking. I begin caring less, and feeling stymied. Right now I'm struggling because I don't really enjoy doing the writing work I've been doing since 2007 that much anymore. I want to do something new.

In the first years that Charlie and I were together, I was constantly challenged by my instinct to run. I didn't trust men; I thought that they left eventually anyway so I would push at Charlie constantly, trying to speed the leaving process along. He was flummoxed by this, and cured me by simply stating over and over again (for nearly three years), "Cecily, I'm NOT LEAVING."

The only thing I haven't wanted to begin fresh is parenting. I love being Tori's mother, even on the bad days, and I don't want to quit. Ever. Of course with Tori, each day is a new beginning, in a manner of speaking, because you simply never know what she'll do next. Maybe this is God's way of keeping us parents excited about parenting.

Then, of course, there is the love. The love is what really keeps me here

________________________________________

Right now, in Los Angeles and every other corner of the globe, there is an addict or alcoholic trying to set down the needle or the bottle and begin their lives again, without the cushion that mind altering substances provide.

I've been that girl. Even though it was nearly 15 years ago now, I remember the years of sitting at the bar, surrounded by people, feeling utterly and completely alone, willing to go home with any man that asked just to beat back that loneliness. I remember each moment of my awful withdrawal from heroin. I remember the feel of cocaine rushing into my veins when I shot up, and I remember the beginning of the overdose and seizure that led to my sobriety. I remember the days of early sobriety where I would count off the time by fifteen minute segments, trying to get through until my next recovery meeting.

The beginning of sobriety is fucking awful. There is no way around that. It sucks. It hurts. Your emotions feel raw and dangerous and sharp, as if they are twice as large as they need to be because you've supressed them so long with chemicals. The craving can be nightmarish, literally, creeping into your dreams trying to trick you into believing you slipped.

But here is the good news: if you stay sober, you only have to do it once. In time, your emotions will shrink down to normal size. The cravings will drift away. The dreams will become less frequent, and you will know that they are tricks, and you will no longer afraid.

You will no longer be afraid.

I still remember, vividly, the day the craving left me. I was not quite 60 days sober, and the obsession was so intense I felt possessed. I kept calling my drug dealer's beeper and hanging up before punching in my number. I called every person I'd meet at my meetings, leaving messages, and then calling the entire list again.

I suddenly remembered someone at a meeting saying that you simply needed to get on your knees and ask, and the obsession would be removed. I was desperate, and even though I didn't believe a word of it -- not at all -- I did it. Right there in the front display area of the balloon store I was working in. I kneeled down, and I asked God to remove the craving.

I swear to you, when I stood up, it was gone. It has never come back again. I've had occasional drifting thoughts of using, but I've never felt anything like that obsession again. I don't know what happened that day, and I frankly don't care.

I've got nearly fifteen years sober. That is one beginning I never intend to have to go through again.

_____________________________________________________________

I was not compensated in any way to write this post.

This post is part of Jewels of Elul, which celebrates the Jewish tradition to dedicate the 29 days of the month of Elul to growth and discovery in preparation for the coming high holy days. This year the program is benefiting Beit T'shuvah, a residential addiction treatment center in Los Angeles. You can subscribe on Jewels of Elul to receive inspirational reflections from public figures each day of the month. You don’t have to be on the blog tour to write a blog post on “The Art of Beginning... Again”. We invite everyone to post this month August 11th - September 8th) with Jewels of Elul to grow and learn.

49 & 50 Months: So Far, Four Rocks

My darling Tori Anne,

Oh, my beautiful little girl. Hanging out with you these days is so... much better. Three sucked. I love you beyond reason, obviously, but seriously? Living with you when you were three was a challenge for Mommy. But these last couple of months since you turned four have been heaven compared to six months ago.

Don't get me wrong -- it's not all perfect. You still have an uncanny ability to drag your feet at the most inopportune moments -- it's a unique talent that makes Mommy want to tear her hair out. You also talk. LOTS. Kinda incessantly. About nothing, usually. You also have a tendency to be a bit on the greedy side, as in "Buy me a toy!" at every single store we stop in. Luckily, we're poor, so that should be beaten out of you by circumstance.

But overall, you are a dream. I can walk in public with you and know that you are staying nearby. You -- generally -- listen and do what you are told. Your tantrums are more habit than heartfelt now and are usually easily cured. It's made taking you places and being with you feel nearly as joyful and carefree and when you were a tiny baby. Nearly.

This summer has been fun. Somehow we've managed to eek out pool time even though we couldn't afford a pool club membership this year. We've been going to lots of free public events whenever we get the chance, and you've gotten to dance to music, play with butterflies, pet large birds, and hit every playground we can find without it costing a dime.

I know you've felt the stress going on in the house about money. We're having a difficult time, even though Mommy is doing well as far as her "brand" and business go, it's still paycheck to paycheck and Mommy and Daddy have done their best to shelter you from that drama. It hasn't always been possible; we've slipped and argued in front of you, we've gotten that face of dread after getting bad news in the mail, and I know you see it. I'm so sorry, honey. I wish we could keep that from you. We are continuing to work very hard to turn it around and God willing, it's going to get better soon. Even though sometimes it feels like it won't.

Mommy has also been traveling a lot this last few weeks, and she has one more trip coming up in a month or so without you, and then another trip where you and Daddy get to come along. We plan to make that trip our vacation, and even though Mommy will have to work, you will get to have a great time hanging out with other kids doing lots of activities. The drive should be fun, too, and we'll get to stop at that cool zoo in Virginia we love.

Tori Anne, you continue to delight and enthrall your Mommy. I love you more and more each day, and when I'm away I miss you more than anything. When you get home today from camp (last week of camp!), I plan to smother you in kisses, just like I do every day, even though you squirm and yell and claim to hate it. Because that's the kind of mother I am. One that loves you no matter what.

Love,

Mommy

BlogHer 10: Community & Love

I got home from BlogHer 10 Sunday afternoon. A small limo-style bus delivered a group of us Philly area bloggers to a nearby mall, where our husbands and children awaited. It was funny, watching us all stagger off the bus to be surrounded by hugs and kisses from our smallest fans. Tori overwhelmed me with hugs so much that I totally forgot to kiss Charlie hello. It was adorable (not so much for Charlie).

It was nice, having the bus ride from New York City to Philly to decompress and chat with women I know fairly well, although my voice was so hoarse from talking all weekend that I was hard to hear. There was a lot to discuss; it was such a big thing, this BlogHer.

That's the first word that comes to mind: BIG. This year it was 2,400 people; that makes it twice as big as the first year I went in 2008. There were people I knew were there that I never got to see. There were people I only got to see in passing. It was massive.

The second thing that comes to mind is... well, people. This year was different for me. Thanks largely to Twitter, I knew a lot more of the faces this year. So much of my weekend was spent standing still while I hugged and smiled and shook hands with people I knew but hadn't met yet. Walking anywhere was a long and slow process; I basically would walk three feet, say hello to ten people, then walk three feet and repeat the process. Sarah and Jo-Ann walked along with me most of the time (poor Jo; her father died on Thursday, and she missed the funeral Monday because her son had a seizure; give her support, would you?), so we were like a crazy Three Musketeers version of tattooed Philly bloggers. There were so many faces that when I tried to fall asleep on Friday night, all I could see was smiling women's faces reaching out to me to say hello and give me a hug; every time I started to fall asleep I would wake myself up to greet them only to realize I was in my hotel bed.

This was also my first year of getting to do some fun events, like visit the Today Show (if you were watching VERY carefully on Thursday morning you might have seen my face in some group shots of bloggers for 1.2 seconds). What I learned at the Today Show: Al Roker is short, Matt Lauer is not as short as I expected, the security guard/driver for Matt & Meredith is very interesting and made my cry telling me about his experiences as an NYPD officer during 9/11, and holy shit everything Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman) cooks is so delicious it makes you swoon. Here's some photos. Including one of me and Ree (I call her Ree now, ya know) while I drink a nasty ass energy drink cause it was VERY EARLY in the morning.

Oh! And on Wednesday night, thanks to the awesome Kristen of Rage Against the Minivan, I got to see my first Broadway Show: West Side Story. Oh my God. It was amazing. The dancing! The singing! Loved it. We had great seats too. Amazing. After the show, I also got to stand in the middle of the street on Broadway with all the lights and crazy action and just soak it up. Wow. (Leaving the theater at 10:30pm it was so bright on the street from the lights it looked like daylight, really.)

Thursday night I was one of five hostesses for the Schick Intuition party at a hip bar on Columbus Circle, and I was a "VIP" at the SocialLuxe party (which meant I got to do that thing I've always dreamed of -- walking up to a New York City nightclub with a huge line and be quickly escorted inside, heh. Yes, I know, I sound like an arrogant bitch but it was kinda fun. Sorry.). The Schick Intuition party (click on that link and you'll find a great coupon, btw) was one of those gorgeous New York City parties I've only seen before on Sex & The City, and it included these poor women pretending to shave their legs all night in front of a fake waterfall:

Friday was the first day of the conference and I mostly just remember the hugging and saying hello to everyone, and the community keynote which was amazing as always.

The highlight of the weekend: Saturday was the panel I was moderating. Our panel was a cheery one, titled "Grief, Loss, Tragedy and Community on the Internet." Featured on the panel was the awesome Kim, the incomparable Loralee, and the indomitable Anissa and Peter Mayhew. I've never been so honored in my life as I was to be the moderator for this panel. We cried, we laughed, and we blew everyone away. It was cathartic and awesome.

Saturday night? First, a great dinner with Liza, Deb, Polly, and Sarah and Jo-Ann (and this Sarah stopped by for a bit too!). Then, dancing. Crazy, crazy dancing to 80's music with 1000 women. I cannot describe that experience, other than to say that a dance floor full of women is a beautiful thing to see. I thought I was tired when I walked into that room, but the energy filled me up and Sarah and I danced our asses off for hours.

Wow.

This weekend came down to two words for me: community and love. I have never felt so loved, or so at home with so many people. While this weekend was full of energy and power, there were a few quiet moments, like in the Serenity Suite (thanks, Sugar and the rest of you ladies for that). It was simply lovely.*

Now, back to work. Sigh. Until Type-A Mom, at least. :D

*The only bad thing? My period started while I was there. Luckily, I had a Diva Cup with me (I'd actually given it to Carmen, but she gave it back -- not yet used -- when my period started, heh). Special thanks to the lovely ladies of Diva Cup for helping me pay my way this weekend. You guys rock.

Guest Post: Charming Bitch

I debated on how in-depth to make this post not because Cecily put any limits on length but because I unsure how much I should reveal. Oooooh ''reveal'', sounds so intriguing. Ok, maybe it only sounds intriguing in my mind. I know Cecily and I share some readers but for those who don't know me, my name is Shannon and I blogged for five years as Charming Bitch. I closed and deleted my blog last month. That's right, bloggers. That thing we have all considered doing at least once, I did it. No backup, no saved archives. I deleted it and closed my account with Typepad and Twitter all within about an hour.

This post is less an explanation of why and more of a goodbye to the people who offered an incredible amount of love, support and encouragement over the last five years. I never intended to just walk away from the community that gave so much of itself to me and my family. I owe you more than that and while again I don't want to belabor the point of why I cannot emphasize enough how much I have appreciated all of you.

I started my blog a few months prior to Katrina, more to talk about trucking than anything else. I was divorced with no kids and living a pretty carefree life at the time, well as carefree as trucking would allow. But everything changed very abruptly with Katrina. I lost my house, my car, everything that wasn't in my over the road bag. Several months later I was unexpectedly pregnant and even more unexpectedly married. We lost our son when he was just over five weeks old, all of his life being spent in the NICUs of various hospitals. We never got to bring him home. Part of my soul was broken intrinsically when we lost Jackson. And I am not saying that is unique to me, most parents who outlive their children feel some derivation of the same. We had shifted our entire lives with the news of his imminent arrival, two people who had never honestly given much thought to having kids were suddenly family planning and anticipating siblings before our firstborn arrived. I would laugh now at the hubris but it isn't funny. There will never be enough distance between current life and his death to make light of what even the idea of him meant to us and represented to us as a new family.

Wow, sorry. It's impossible to not get lost in time when I talk about Jackson. My point was that through some very serious shit-storms, the internet held our hands. Jackson's death, three cross country moves, discovering my sister (and her husband) has a paralyzing addiction to crack (which resulted in our gaining custody of their three kids plus a teenage niece of mine from my first marriage whose parents are also mired in addiction). A diagnosis of cancer for me which began as ''simple'' ovarian cancer and became ovarian, uterine and cervical and ended with months in the hospital, countless surgeries and a ridiculous year and half of treatments. The sudden, unexpected death of my father shortly after the cancer diagnosis. You people were there for me, for us. Not just myself and my husband but all of children. Our lovely, awesome beautiful forever resilient children.

We thought our family was complete with four kids (ages 8, almost 7, 4 and 16) but like so many other unanticipated situations we found ourselves in, we basically walked blindly into adopting our fifth, a gorgeous perfect babygirl. The circumstances were completely random (a woman from the church my sister's kids attend approached me literally out of the blue about a crisis pregnancy in her circle of friends and family, doesn't get much more random than that now does it) but also completely right. Because of what was at stake and not to mention the potential for heartbreak, we said nothing about it until literally the day our Davinnia Grace was born. We insisted on an open adoption and we hope at some point her other mother (sorry, that is not meant to be offensive and I still am unsure what language is least offensive to those in the adoption community that although we're now a ''part'' of we still feel removed from because our experience was so different than most that pursue adoption) will become a part of her life and our family. We are so blessed to have this little girl and we wonder everyday how we thought our family was complete without her.

Around this same time we were preparing to move (yes, again, we're nuts) to California. And inside of a week my husband was accused of sexual harassment at work (not going to spend too much time on that other than to say it was not sustained and he is back at work; the totality of the complaint was that he touched someone's arm). Yes, touched her arm. Not that I would ever say the two are related but this same person had also only recently discovered D (who is black) is married to a white woman (hi) and raising white children. To say her reaction was vocal (of course not to D) and less than positive is the understatement of the year. So that sucked and managed to muck up our plans temporarily but the reason we essentially disappeared from the internet is that within that same week, someone anonymously reported that our kids, all of them, even the baby, were being physically and sexually abused.

I will give you a minute to think about that and how that accusation would make you feel.

Yeah, like a gut punch? Like someone ripped the skin off your face and lit your skull on fire? Something like that, yes.

And I believe it was someone from the internet who made the report. For two reasons, one being that we just simply do not know many people here and two being that as much as I can tell you honestly and with sincerity that I love the internet, I also know it happens to be the address of some truly awful people. And I don't mean awful like they're totally into self-promotion or they do skeevy things for traffic, behaviors that are generally thought to be awful but not necessarily engaged in by awful people. Most of the bullshit, petty drama on the internet can be downsized to generally nice people engaging in unreasonable behavior for misguided reasons. Note to those people: There will never be a ''next'' Dooce. With a frillion dollar budget, a gold star marketing campaign and flawless PR, the actual Dooce couldn't have predicted or planned her success. Enjoy the community, pursue opportunities and by no means hide your talents but honestly, don't take the internet so seriously that it effects the rest of your life or resets your moral compass.

Which brings me back to why I deleted everything and said ciao. As I told Cecily, I have no intention of using this forum to call this person out. If ''winning'' the internet means that much to them (and it clearly does), that's fine. I have an incredible family and even given all the trauma of the last several years, I have a good life. We're still moving to California, our kids are crazy happy and well adjusted and after the shock of the accusation wore off, we have even been able to see something positive come from it. Our four year old was referred for Early Intervention after being interviewed several times for delays we weren't aware of (or more specifically were aware of but genuinely thought would shake off with age) we suspect are due to his mother using drugs while breastfeeding him (Note to all lactivists: I have been accosted several times already for bottle feeding Davinnia and let me be clear that her heritage and/or my medical history and reasons for not breastfeeding are none of your concern and I will tell you quick, fast and in a hurry to eat shit and bark at the moon for assuming I need your input. My crack addled sister continued to breastfeed because she feared being judged for stopping before he was a year old. Do you get it now? Do you understand that all the statistics in the world about how ''rare'' supply problems are and how everyone should ''at least try'' don't always apply? Next time you feel like judging how someone is feeding their kid or even worse giving unsolicited advice, think about myself and my sister. We are certainly both exceptions to the rule but I hope it's enough to encourage even one person to slow their roll when evangelizing about breast is best. Not that it isn't in most cases but....you see what I'm saying. /end rant).

So. There it is. Not as much of a mushy goodbye as I intended (sorry, just got really worked up all over again thinking about the days and time wasted with CPS) but please know, I thank you, D thanks you, our kids thank you for letting us be part of your lives for the last five years. There were honest to God days when Jackson was slowly dying that the only thing that got us through the days were your e-mails and comments and too many days to count after he died that so many of you kept our heads and hearts above water enough to keep us from joining him. We are sure as shit glad we stuck around because while I will always be raw and burned in my soul from the loss of Jax, if we had given up then we wouldn't have this incredible life now. There aren't enough thanks in all the lands for helping us get here and for that, we love you guys.

Just for clarification: The person we suspect caused this drama wasn't just some random troll. She is someone who at one time I sincerely believed to be a friend who is unfortunately deeply disturbed and clearly obsessed. I clarify that only to say random trolls are usually just that, random. People who intend to harm and create chaos unfortunately can appear to be charming and allow you to let your guard down. Enjoy the internet with caution, kids and be very careful about who you let in your cyber door and into your real life.

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I (Cecily!) will be back tonight or tomorrow with a post, promise. Also, I think I lost the post by Sunday's guest poster. Shit. Email me if that was you (I think I deleted the email by accident and my brain is mush from no sleep, so forgive me) and we'll schedule it soon.