Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine

 

 

The jumbo shrimp of mommy bloggers
by Karrie McAllister

 

I have been reading the same book for approximately four months, and every time I finish a page or two I think, “Craaaaaap.  I could do better than this.” This mom’s stories are so disconnected and unrealistic.  Like she doesn’t know the first thing about being a mom, something I personally rock at. I know this because my kids tell me all the time how totally awesome I am.

 

“You’re the best mom in the whole, wide world.”

 

So I wake up the next morning pumped and ready to write. If Saturn and Mars align and the moon is in its third quarter, I might even wake up with my alarm clock that I have religiously set to exactly 90 minutes before the rest of the gang is scheduled to arise. I’ll try to get something written. Anything.  Especially that infamous blog that I have been neglecting.

 

I have thoughts. I have ideas. I have things to say. I have stories and trials and tribulations. I have recipes and photos and knowledge to share. I’ve got a spectacular typing rate and a laptop that is usually parked right next to the coffee maker. In a world all of my own, I would be perfectly prepared to produce a plethora of pages and posts.

 

But you know what?

 

Those moons didn’t align. I must have had too much coffee after dinner, and the baby took a late nap so the two of us tossed and turned until the wee hours of the morning. And then I pushed the snooze alarm 54 times and woke up late to realize I had lunches to pack and somehow had to whip together a Thumbelina costume for Fairy Tale day. Since the refrigerator is down to a jar of capers and the banana yogurt that no one eats, I have to go to the store before we all keel over from vitamin deficiency. The preschool has asked me to come in and host a sing-a-long for space camp, and at some point I have got to get some coffee before my tired face puffs up over my eyes and I drive into a tree.

 

Before you know it, Thumbelina comes home from elementary school and has homework to do and piano to practice, and if I don’t stand right behind her and pound my foot and loudly count “one, two, three, four” and “mi, do, re, fa” then she’ll end up in tears. There’s story hour and tumbling and oh my God, I hope I remembered to pack extra diapers in my purse because the baby ate about a gallon of applesauce yesterday.

 

A box of pasta, a jar of sauce, and a bag of salad for dinner before I scrub the dirt off of the children and I’ll have to get around to scrubbing the gunk off the plates later because it’s a nice night and we all really need to go out and get some fresh air.

 

Pro-Bowler is begging to take me on in a fierce game of Wii bowling (honestly, I’m terrible and any child who bowls a 200 and can’t write his last name is destined to be a pro), and I have to oblige because I spent the entire afternoon pushing “play” on his SpongeBob DVD so that I could get some work done…but I never did.

 

And when it’s all said and done there is not one ounce of muse left in me. I just want to go to sleep where I will be kicked and punched by a toddler who will inevitably end up in my bed. That doesn’t, however, stop me from setting that alarm again, because don’t forget, I have thoughts. I have stories.

 

But I also have children. 

 

And they have a mother.

 

And I only have 24 hours in one day, a small portion that I actually have to devote to sleeping, a larger portion that I have to devote to driving the children to and from school, and an even larger portion that I have to devote to changing diapers and scraping cooked carrots off of the floor. I have to color pictures, shake rattles, teach the Pro-Bowler to write his last name, and unpin the conglomeration that was Thumbelina.

 

At some point in my day I’ll get an e-mail from a fellow writing mama about this blog or that blog and I admit I click on them now and then, but not as much as I should. I simply do not have the time. 

 

And it all gets me thinking that “mommy blogger,” as popular of a term as it is, it’s an oxymoron. A jumbo shrimp. A long sleeved T-shirt. A civil war. I know it’s mostly me, but I can’t honestly be a blogger and a mommy at the same time, unless my blog entries were two words long.

 

“Forgot juicebox.”

 

“Brain turned to oatmeal.”

 

Or on a good day, “Did you see the news? Me neither.”

 

It’s all a realization that I can’t be everywhere all of the time. The world of blogging is huge. Gigantic.  There is so much out there sometimes it makes my head spin just thinking about it, and I sometimes wonder if the few posts I do squeeze in ever make a difference in anyone else’s world.

 

If they don’t, it’s no biggie. I know that the time I spend being a mommy and not a blogger are appreciated by the school’s best Thumbelina, Pro-Bowler, and Nighttime Kickboxer. Someday when they’re older I will have time to sit down and write that piece, to make that post, to be “the best blogger in the whole, wide world.”

 

But for now it will have to wait.

 

It’s a tough love, but someone like a stay-at-home mom has got to do it.  Same difference, right?

 

 

Karrie McAllister, Webmaster, Regular Columnist and wanna-be mommy blogger, has dabbled in everything from coal mining to music. She and her family live in Northeast Ohio where conversations in the grocery store and pierogis are as common as Amish buggies. Her local column, Small Town Soup, appears in local newspapers and her writing has appeared on numerous Web sites. Karrie published her first book, Small Town Soup: Good for what ails you in 2007. Learn more about Karrie and contact her at her Web site, www.KarrieMcAllister.com.  Then pop on over to her her wanna-be blogs, Karrie McAllister and Dirt Don't Hurt.