oooh…shiny! September 24, 2008

see shiny

I got my very first blog award from The Continuing Adventures of SuperPreemie.  SuperPreemie is Shoshanna, Zoe’s big blog sister, and the daughter of very dear friends, who have kept Zoe well-dressed in S’s clothes.  Shoshanna will be 4 in just 2 days and it’s been very wonderful to read her story and watch her grow.  She spent 89 long days in the NICU and has grown into a pretty stinkin’ cute and smart kid.

So I’m supposed to pass the award on to others.  Ummm, this feels kind of like I’m leaving lots of people out, but here’s my picks:

• At the foot of the bluff - a former co-worker and wonderful friend.  Her photos are amazing, as is her writing and her taste in certain sci-fi shows.
• Oranges and Peaches - a friend and fellow librarian.  I love how she turns posts about day to day occurrences into a chance to do more research.
• Fighting Windmills - more fantastic photos and thought-provoking posts.  Plus, she’s an Ani fan.
• Geeks in Rome - geeks.  and in Rome.  Her stories keep me laughing, and I love reading about life in Italy.

Ok, for those that I’ve passed this on to, they are supposed to:

1. Place the Logo on your blog
2. Link to the person who awarded you
3. You can nominate up to 5 blogs
4. Add their links to your blog
5. Leave a message in the comment section of their blog to notify the winners.

things I learned from Zoe’s surgery August 26, 2008

Zoe post-surgery. Her eyes are quite blood shot, but they are noticeably straighter.

• My little girl is a hard-core trooper.  If I had just gone through surgery, I would have been on the couch demading that Chris bring me grapes and bon-bons.  Zoe was up and running around and laughing and playing that afternoon.  And demanding grapes.  She is my daughter after all.
• People rock.  The internet facilitates the rocking.  Seriously, I was touched by all the warm wishes and thoughts from old friends, new friends, and friend I’d never met.  I had often wondered if it helped to leave notes on someone’s blog wishing them well, especially if I’d never met the person.  Well, it helped me.  I loved reading everyone’s messages, and even made one last check right before leaving for the hospital to steel myself for the upcoming events.
• I am so glad that Chris was my partner in this.  I would not have wanted to go this alone, and there’s no one I’d rather have gone through this with.  He went with Zoe to be put under because he knew how hard it would be for me to do it, and he knew that he would be a comfort to Zoe.
• Holding your screaming daughter as she is just starting to come out of anesthesia, while she cries bloody tears and tries to rip out her IV is definitely a low in my short time as a parent.  I am enormously thankful that it only lasted 20 minutes (though it felt like 20 times that long), and once she really woke up, she downed 3 glasses of juice and asked for crackers.

stuck August 19, 2008

I’m trying to write something.  Well, specifically, a guest post for another blog, they asked me to write about young kids and glasses, some of the difficulties they face, and why I started the little four eyes blog.  Nothing big, they said, just a quick post.  When I was asked, I was so excited and thought it would be a snap.  I mean, I’ve written about the topic a lot.  But when I put pen to paper (well, fingers to keys), I just get stuck.  I finally got something plunked out, but when I re-read it, it just felt flat.  I like to think I have a writing style - one with convoluted sentences and poor grammar, but also genuine and relatively light-hearted.  But this thing is just heavy, and uninteresting, and sounded mostly like I was whining (hmm, a bit like this post perhaps).  I know I just need to pull it back up and just work on it a bit more, but every time I try to do that, it’s like my mind slips past it, and I come up with all sorts of excuses for doing something else instead.  And no, I don’t wonder why my college years were spent staying up far too late trying desperately to finish papers that I kept putting off.

why do you blog? July 30, 2008

Thank you everyone for all your good thoughts about Z’s upcoming surgery.  I’m feeling much better about it.  Not saying that I’m looking forward to it, but I’m feeling like I’ll survive (her surviving has never been in much question).

Sometimes I have an idea for a blog post, and I think it to death and it never gets posted. Sometimes the idea just seems to not let me leave it be - it keeps showing up everywhere I look.

This past weekend, I got together with some local parenting bloggers when the local paper’s parenting blog had a get together. It was fun, I’d never gone to a blog-related get together, but everyone was very friendly and we all had a great time. At some point, we discussed why we blogged. Some blog as a creative outlet, some as a way to keep family and friends updated, some are hoping to get a book published, some want a way to talk about issues that are near and dear to them. It got me thinking about the reasons I blog.

Then Alicia posted yesterday about some of her favorite blogs and ended by asking everyone why they blogged.  And then today I got a survey about the “state of the blogosphere” which made me laugh.  It had questions about how much money I make on my blog and whether I have ever been fired or lost friends because of my blogging.  Huh.

So now I’m curious, why do you all blog?  Or if you don’t, why do you read blogs?  Are there certain types of blogs that you gravitate towards or shy away from?

For me, I really started updating this blog once I was pregnant.  I had been reading infertility blogs and a few blogs of friends for a while, but hadn’t quite gotten up the courage to start really writing my own.  I ended up using the blog mostly as a way to keep friends and family updated, but slowly, it also became a way to be a little more open about our fertility struggles and journey.  I wanted other people to know they shouldn’t feel alone if they were going through something similar.  It’s a little strange, since infertility is not the topic of most of my posts nowadays.

I also blog because I hate writing.  I know that sounds stupid, but writing is hard for me.  I put it off, procrastinate, find excuses not to do it and generally feel like I’m pulling teeth trying to get words out of my head and in to print.  So I started to write more frequently with the idea that writing would become easier the more I do it.  I suppose that might be the case, though writing  still is certainly not my favorite activity, and it still does not come easily.

What has been so surprising to me is how much I’ve gained from blogging in other ways.  I really love the feedback on my thoughts and my writing, and I love hearing that something I wrote might have helped someone.  I’ve also learned so very much from posting about topics that I hadn’t known a lot about before.  With my little four eyes blog, I keep learning a ton, both from my own research, but in large part from the other posters and commenters, about children’s vision and visual development.

an apology July 25, 2008

to my friends with blogs - I’m sorry I’ve been so bad at commenting recently. I’ve been reading. I’ve been thinking about your posts. I’ve even been composing comments, but it’s been hard getting them out for some reason. I have a ton of tabs open to posts that I’m still planning to respond to. I’m sorry.

Help make tomorrow a new day May 28, 2008

Good update: It looks like we’ve successfully knocked the bad date off of A.M.S’s blog dashboard for both of her blogs. Thank you so much to everyone who helped out with a click (or two).

(warning, this post talks about the death of a child in the NICU, just in case you’re not in a good place to read about that).

On Jan. 24, 2008, A.M.S. lost her daughter, Zoë who was 3 weeks old. Due to a “feature” of the WordPress blogging software, the day that the most people visit your blog is listed as your “best day ever.” Well, for A.M.S. the day that her blog was visited the most was that horrible day, and now it’s listed on her blogs’ dashboard as her “best day ever.” She’s asking that everyone who can, visit her blogs on May 29, 2008 (tomorrow) as many times as possible to remove that date from being listed. It’s a small thing, but it can make such a difference. So please, click on her blogs, or if you’re up for it, point other people there as well:

• Our Own Creation
• Sweet Zoë

WordPress starts the days at midnight UTM (essentially Greenwich Mean Time), which is 6:00 pm today my time (CST). So that means you should start clicking in just a couple of hours.

another blog March 15, 2008

I’ve realized recently that I’ve been searching online for other parents who have dealt with small toddlers and glasses. I haven’t found much beyond a few odd (and old) postings to parenting forums and pages that are geared towards parents with older children. I know that it’s not all that common for kids Zoe’s age to need glasses, but I also know it’s not unheard of, and I’d really like to be able to chat and brainstorm with other parents about some of the things we run into: how to deal with glasses and tantrums, how to teach her to put on her glasses, what to look for in glasses, etc.

If only there were some way of connecting with other parents in situations like ours - some way of reaching others regardless of where they’re located - some kind of big interconnected network of communication - maybe one made of tubes - an “internet” if you will. Wait…

So I’m starting a new blog specifically about dealing with toddlers and glasses. Why have it as a separate blog? In part because I’m not sure if everyone wants to read about the details of eye exams and glasses and other such things. Not to mention, when I’ve been looking for information online, what I want is one place specifically about glasses, so I’m going to play around with putting together what I’ve been wanting to find, and hope that other parents find it as well. Which doesn’t mean I won’t talk about Z and her glasses here, just not in super in-depth detail. But if you’re interested in reading about pediatric ophthalmologists, strabismus, and infant eyeglasses, please drop by Little Four Eyes. Or if you know of anyone who’s having to deal with any of that, feel free to point them that way.

Favorite Posts Meme February 4, 2008

Fighting Windmills tagged me with the Favorite Posts Meme, which might be the first meme I’ve ever been tagged with - thanks (and I mean that honestly, not sarcastically)!  The idea isto go back through your archives and post links to five favorite blog posts that match five categories.

• Link One must be about family - my thoughts on weddings and marriage.
• Link Two must be about friends - the uneasy friendship with the mama bunny in my yard (I really haven’t written much about friends, how awful)
• Link Three must be about yourself - remembering the day I got my positive pregnancy test
  
• Link Four must be about something you love - Chris and Zoe reading a book - that’s so much love all in one place.
• Link Five can be anything you choose - “Children of Men” book club discussion
  

It’s been kind of fun looking through the posts, but really intimidating, too.  As I’ve mentioned before, writing doesn’t come easily, and now I’m finding that re-reading my writing isn’t so easy, either.  Plus I’m realizing that I want to write more - well, post more, I have 11 posts started that I haven’t finished yet.
And tagging is may be the most difficult.  Anyone who wants to do the same should consider themselves tagged.

I rock teh Interwebs November 30, 2007

As I play around on the Internet while waiting for Zoe to wake up from her nap, I realized that pictures of Zoe are the first few results when you do a google image search for rock hammer for scale. This pleases me something fierce.

To the person who reached the blog searching for “pregnant on third iui” July 6, 2007

(just in case you check here again) if you searched for that phrase because you are pregnant after your third IUI, congratulations! That’s wonderful news, welcome to the club - sorry it took so much to get here. If it’s because you are hoping that it will happen for you, then I hope it works for you, too. And I’m sorry it’s taking so long.

It’s strange to feel such a kinship to search engine terms.