On Monday evenings I try to take a few
hours out of the house to do something for myself. My original plan for Mondays was to attend my
friend’s Nia class. The class is amazing but I’m not that into
sweating for reasons other than stress and anxiety, and the purposeful sweating
thing was throwing me off. Also if I
didn’t attend the class, nothing happened.
Low motivation coupled with no actual consequences apparently doesn’t
work for me.
Now I use Mondays to write my weekly post
for Trey Anthony’s blog (Thank you Trey!).
If I don’t use this time to write, I won’t be living up to the
commitment that I made to Trey. I am
good at committing to others, less good at committing to myself. I know this is bad news; I know that I need
to care for myself; fill my tank, yada, yada, yada…. Not the point here.
Anyway, Mondays I write. This Monday I am sitting in a coffee shop trying
to write this week’s post. This is my
third attempt. First, I started writing
about being a lesbian housewife, then I started writing about exercising and
this spin class I went to (It was a party for family. I am good at committing to others.) Not feeling excited by my first two attempts
at this week’s post, I decided to google “Mommy blog post ideas”. Apparently in 2010 there were 3.9 Million
moms, so clearly there should be no shortage of ideas. *
Much to my surprise, I came across a Mommy
Blog idea generator.* I was hopeful because I’m a mother (Cannot
refer to myself as a mommy without gagging); I write stuff in a blogging format,
and sometimes I have good ideas. This
idea generator was possibly going to be a goldmine! I click through the generated ideas on the site
and gave each idea some thought.
I chose not to write about “the best baby
gadget”, “my children’s eating habits”, or “what’s in my diaper bag/purse”. Clearly the best baby gadget is whichever gadget
is in use while your baby is happy. I
know from experience that the best baby gadget may be the tissues from the
(once full) box on the coffee table. As
for my children’s eating habits, I don’t know anyone except my mother-in-law, who
cares at all about their eating habits.
Boring! What’s in my purse? Never the one thing I need but enough crap to
make it impossible for me to find my kid’s pacifier when he’s screaming in the
car.
I also spared you a detailed post about
mine and my daughters’ favourite hairstyles with a how-to video, as well as a
post about what’s for dinner, or what I am reading. Okay, okay, I know you’re super curious about
the last one. I’m reading articles that
my friends post on Facebook and newsletters from my kids’ school. That’s it.
While I’ve always liked to put things on
paper, I have never written for an audience, other than professors, teachers,
or employers, on a regular basis. This
little job I’ve taken on is both freeing and overwhelming. Overwhelming
because it’s a thing that I have to do and want to do well along with all the
other things I am trying to do well.
I’ve come to realize at this point in my life, even the good things on
the To Do list cause stress.
On the other hand, it’s so great to have
the space to share my disorganized thoughts about my disorganized life. From the feedback I get, I am confident that
at least one person every week reads my post and thinks these three overused
words: “I know, right?” And should my
writing be as un-relatable and uninteresting as the posts that may be inspired
by the mommy blog post generator, I am still grateful to have the external
motivation to record the stories about me and my family at this particular time
in our lives.
I know that I will forget how it really
feels to have five little kids and I’ll remember it as dreamy and perfect when
I have a house full of five teenagers. I
don’t even think it will take that long.
After all, I forgot what it was like to have twin infants and thought it
was totally reasonable, when O & G were 18 months, to return to the
fertility doctor and request that he place three embryos inside of me and
assumed we’d have only one baby - evidence that I am both forgetful and
unrealistic. This is not a good
combination.
Anyway, thank you for stopping by. Please come again. Invite your friends. Next week I’ll be writing about what I find
in my kids’ backpacks at the end of the week.
You can thank the post idea generator for that one!
XO Ajike
*www.digitalmomblog.com
*www.topmommyblogs.com
