I would have made the perfect Mommy Blogger. Truly. I fit the profile.
I graduated from college with a BA in English and gave birth to a son 4 days later:
About 15 months later, I gave birth to a second son, and 5 weeks after that we moved our little family across the country to Washington DC so my husband could attend graduate school. I was far away from my family and friends, and although my in-laws lived nearby in Virginia, we did not own a car so visits to them had to be planned in advance.
Thus, I spent about a year as a Stay-at-Home Mom in a small apartment in the city with these two beautiful baby boys:
Who wouldn't want to blog about them? I had the English degree, so I knew how to write. I had extended family in multiple states who would have loved to read about them. And I was trying out all of that new Mom stuff that Mommy Bloggers write about--living on a tight budget, grinding wheat and baking whole wheat bread, parenting growing boys, and discovering a new city.
Except that blogging hadn't been invented yet two decades ago when I was the Mom of two babies in Washington DC.
So instead of blogging I wasted a whole lot of time watching reruns of
Thirtysomething on cable TV. I did write in a journal, but it was sort of a therapy journal. I was self-centered and wrote ponderous about things that don't matter to me now. When I found that journal a few months ago and read it, I couldn't help screaming at the Me of two decades ago: "I don't want to hear about that! Tell me about my babies!!"
But I did find a few gems in that journal. And in various cardboard boxes here in my messy office I have found a stash of beautiful photos. Like this one:
And this:
And I my sons' uncle A scanned and emailed me some more treasured photos taken during our visits to their home in Virginia:
Finding my journal and viewing these photos got me thinking. Even though I have been a Mom for 20 years and my sons are now grown up, it is never too late to write about your babies. So I'm going to post some Mommy Blog entries on this site, along with other stuff I may feel like writing about. I have a lot of stories to tell, so if you love these babies and the men they have become, look for those stories to unfold--a few at a time in no particular order--over the coming years.
p.s. I currently have 2.75 grandbabies, children of my step-daughters, so I'm going to be doing some Granny Blogging too. So check back for those stories if you'd like to learn about and grow to love the next generation of babies.
2 comments:
I remember that apartment in DC and grinding wheat and making bread. That was when I learned to not be afraid to make bread. I went home after that visit and bought the cookbook (I can't remember the name right now). Then I practiced making bread once a week for at least a year. Now making bread is not scary except on Thanksgiving day when I forgot to by the backup rolls.
Cousin K: I don't remember making bread during your visit. What I do remember is that it snowed. It wasn't a lot of snow compared to what I was used to back home, but for DC it was a lot. I was grateful you were there because otherwise we wouldn't have been able to go to the grocery store without your help--there was too much snow to push the babies in the stroller, so we had to carry them.
So we probably went to the store and went back to the apartment and baked bread because there was too much snow to go out and do much else.
The recipe I used then--and often use now--is the Buttermilk Whole Wheat Bread recipe from the "Laurel's Kitchen Cookbook." Is that the cookbook you remember buying and using?
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