Equilibrium

Parenting styles

A post over at the Chicago Moms Blog has got me thinking about parenting choices and the Internet. A few nights ago I got together with a new friend here in town and we talked a lot about early motherhood and how hard it can be to forge your identity as a person while also trying to figure out your identity as a mother. Am I the regimented-and-rigid type? The slacker mom? The crunchy-granola-earth-mother? etc.

I am none of those types, yet I have certain tendencies from each. I am a total slacker when it comes to doing crafts and organized activities with my kids. I'm a crunchy-granola type when it comes to my breastfeeding and birthing preferences. And I'm sure I must be regimented-and-rigid about something or other...(tries very hard to think of an example)

Anyway, I'm sure that mom-judgment has always existed, but when the other mom and I were chatting we both seemed to agree that the Internet has totally changed the landscape of how people learn about and compare their parenting styles. For example, where else but the Internet would you know only what other people chose to present about their parenting philosophy, while perhaps never actually witnessing them in action with their kids? And where else could you go from thinking about forgoing an epidural, to having a completely intervention-free birth, to seeing a midwife, to having a home birth, to having an unassisted home birth, to having an unassisted home birth in your closet, to having an unassisted homebirth in the middle of the woods, to having a lotus birth...all within ten minutes of clicking around? It's a little different from pre-Internet days when you might have found out about something very outside the mainstream only through tons of discussion or heavy-duty library research. Now, there's so much information--some good, some questionable, some totally bogus--and so few barriers to it. It makes it easy to second-guess yourself. 

So weigh in--how has the Internet changed or influenced the way you parent? Has this been a good thing, a bad thing, or a mixed bag?

My website is down...

in case you tried to access my professional site, I just found out it was down. Apparently the credit card they had on file expired, and their notices to me must have wound up in my spam box. I'm working on getting it back up, but am thinking of switching hosts anyway, so maybe this is as good a time as any. Anyway, stay tuned...I should be back up and running within a day or two.

So how is Chicago?

It's...great. And a bit intimidating. I am still trying to figure out parallel parking, and we finally saw one of the much-dreaded cicadas yesterday, perched on the dryer we are trying to unload on Craigslist that's now collecting...well, cicadas, on our back deck.

We've more or less settled on a school for the boys, pending going over our budget with a fine-toothed comb just to make sure we can actually afford it. And the other day, I got my official Chicago library card. So I'd say that so far Chicago is going very well...very well indeed.

The boys like it, too. It helps that our backyard is shared with a nine-year-old girl and a nine-year-old boy who live next door, and that they finally have the X-box back, after months of it being packed away. Simple pleasures.

Yes, it's been a while!

We have been in the middle of our move to Chicago, and I'm just crawling out from behind stacks of boxes and a few unfortunately-timed illnesses. But do check out my latest column, about why having pets is harder than having kids...

As it is, our pet ownership during the past 10-plus years has been limited to a gecko that's so lazy we sometimes wonder if he's alive, a few doomed goldfish, and a hamster that escaped into the heat ducts of one of our old apartments, where I assume he still lives, nibbling on crumbs dropped close to the vents and getting blasted by warm air October through April.

The truth is, when I saw how much work it was to have a baby, I just couldn't imagine mixing that with a pet. I still can't. People who have one or two kids are often awed by my four, but I'm awed by moms who manage to raise any number of children and still get up at night with a puppy or litter-train a kitten. At least babies don't have to go outside in the cold several times a night, and I don't - usually - have to clean up puddles or worry about stepping in stray feces or hair balls. read the whole column here.

As promised: pictures of me in a bathing suit

A few weeks ago I posted about the MotherTalk salon I attended in Chicago, with Kim of Hormone-Colored Days and fellow Chicago Mom Blogger as gracious hostess. At the end of the night Kim presented me with--okay, she kinda shoved it in my hands as I was leaving--a Land's End swimsuit she'd received as a gift.

Anyway, I promised pictures of me in the cute pink paisley tankini, and here they are:

Well, actually, this one is of Owen on my hip trying to wrench the camera from my hands...

We continue to struggle but he becomes momentarily mesmerized by the flash....

until finally I am able to overcome him enough to get an accurate shot of the print and color. And, his leg.

There you go! What--you didn't think I was going to post a full-body shot, did you?