the OTHER mother

Gone Fishin'

I'm taking a break from blogging for the month of April to focus on my poetry. While I'm away, feel free to follow me on:

• my NaPoWriMo poetry blog
• twitter
• facebook

I will still sponsor the 2nd annual Blog Reader Appreciation Day on April 16th. More on that event coming soon.

What About Love: Let's Celebrate Love

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. That's not exactly what I think, but absence certainly can help put into focus the fondness that you feel. I've been in Chicago this week for the AWP Conference, so I'm absent not only for Valentine's Day but for my valentine's birthday. 

Happy Birthday, Marcia. Happy Valentines Day. Thank you for twelve wonderful years, the best years of my life so far. Thank you for your love which is unconditional (I hope) and constant. Let me be your "forever dog."

I love you so much, Robin

888888

Note: This post is last of five entries, part of a blog carnival celebrating Freedom to Marry Week 2009. If you'd like to check out all the bloggers who participated, see this complete list.

Susan Naomi Bernstein on Facebook

The Birmingham-Luther Family Blog

Bloogs Blowing By

Don't Lick the Ferrets

Digmoonment

The Fine Art of Me

Geek Porn Girl

Grumpy Granny

Kimizone

Lesbian Dad

The Longest Road - Yet Untraveled

Mother Issues

Mombian

musings

Shrike & Whozat

Somewhere over the Rainbow

Stoney Moss

StidMama

Tales of a Female Husband

Tinacious.com

Up Popped a Fox

Whistling Leaf Blower

Happy Freedom to Marry Week 2009

It's Freedom to Marry week, and equality is what it's all about. The nonprofit group Freedom to Marry has organized activities throughout the week that encourage dialogue between all people.

“Conversations with the circles of people around us are the prerequisite to winning, the key to helping them push past their discomfort, complacency, or indifference to becoming supportive of our equality.”

--Evan Wolfson, Freedom to Marry Executive Director

In order to facilitate these conversations, Freedom to Marry is sponsoring a number of programs, including 7 Conversations in 7 Days. If you are a blogger, you can kick off the week by joining the blogswarm. Visit Mombian for more information on that.

As you may know, I am organizing a blog carnival this week, as part of the celebration, and YOU are invited.  This afternoon I'll post a list of everyone who is planning to participate, so if you haven't done so already, please let me know. Here's the schedule:

Tuesday, Feb. 10... Something Old

Wednesday, Feb. 11... Something New

Thursday, Feb. 12... Something Borrowed

Friday, Feb. 13... Something Blue

Saturday, Feb. 14... Valentine's Day: Celebrate Love

For more complete guidelines, click here.

Blog Action Day 2008: Understanding Poverty

Often my own response to poverty--my response to seeing a person who's homeless or begging or sleeping on cardboard--is to avert my eyes. This reaction is a complex one which involves judgment and respect and fear and shame. Rather than processing what I've witnessed, I often move mentally a.s.a.p. to an new idea. Pretty much any idea will do.

The exhibit currently showing at DiverseWorks in Houston is called Understanding Poverty.  With photography by Ben Tecumseh Desoto and text by Ann Walton Sieber, the exhibit provides us a way to examine our reactions to poverty in a safe space so that we do in fact understand better. Understanding poverty will not solve the problem but it's a smart place to start.

What:

Understanding Poverty
Photographs by Ben Tecumseh DeSoto
Words by Ann Walton Sieber
Curated by Clint Willour
Works by Sarah Whatley Ayers & Forrest Prince

Where:

DiverseWorks, Houston, TX

When:

September 19 - November 1, 2008

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Special Request:

If you blogged about poverty for Blog Action Day 2008, would you please leave the link so that we can read your post?  Thanks!

Meet the Blogger: Polly Pagenhart of Lesbian Dad

This is the second installment of Meet the Blogger, a series of interviews with some of the bloggers I  admire most.  Polly Pagenhart is the author of Lesbian Dad.

RR: Hi, Polly. Tell us a bit about yourself.

PP: My kids call me Baba, also Babi (I choose to mentally spell it that way, otherwise it's the youngest kid from the Brady Bunch, and I wasn't prepared for that). In our familial bunch we have living: me, my partner, a daughter, a son, a kitty named Mrs. Mooney. (Do you know the musical Sweeny Todd?  "Mrs. Mooney had a pie shop" goes the first half of the line. Then there's more ("popping pussies into pies" is another refrain. It's kind of about reclaiming one's power.)  In the ether, and always always in my heart: Maxi, the dog that helped me back from the coldest place I've known.

RR: In a good interview, readers find out things about you that they can't find out on your website. To that end, I must ask: what's best snack ever?

PP: Hmm.  I'll have to think about that.  A friend plops salsa in a bowl with cottage cheese, and then scoops it up w/ tortilla chips.  That works pretty nicely.  With more time, a quesadilla with just about anything in it (in the cheese and vegetable dept) is always a hit.  My mom made a dip with cream cheese and chutney, and so that, scooped with Wheat Thins, reminds me of her.  Making it a heavy duty contender for "best."

RR: Could you talk about a few favorite books or authors?  

PP: Gosh.  I've read so little since the kids came along that many of these will be people I came to love before becoming a parent. Joan Didion got me to fall in love with the sentence, the essay, the mind as it weaves itself around the task of conveying essential truths with the written word.  Thereafter also, authors I love, in no particular order: Virginia Woolf. Paule Marshall. Sarah Schulman. Audre Lorde. Adrienne Rich.  Pablo Neruda. Mary Oliver. David Gutterson.  If I started trying to name favorite books I'm afraid I'd get myself in trouble.  Though I do want to say that Adrienne Rich's "Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying" is an enormous gift.  As is most of her poetry.  Audre Lorde's essays account for most of my proper awareness of the world.  Sarah Schulman, in Rat Bohemia, accomplished something amazing.  I think if every family member of every LGBTQ person read it, lots would be different.  Or could be.  What can one say about Didion?  Except when poet Gary Soto asked me to read her Slouching Towards Bethlehem in a high school enrichment class, it changed my life. 

RR: That's a wide ranging list of writers! Tell us about your academic and/or writing background?

PP: Dear me. Too much of it, I fear.  Or maybe just enough.  In college (UC Berkeley) I majored in English (minored in Ethnic Studies) and tutored writing and led writing workshops.  In grad school (Minnesota), I taught composition as well as Women's Studies and American Studies.  The original idea was to get me a Ph.D. in American Studies (Feminist Studies minor) and become a professor somewhere, but plans kind of shifted (that's a whole interview in itself).  I did leave with an M.A. and a life partner, though.  Not too shabby.

 
RR: When you first started the blog Lesbian Dad what was your mission and how has it changed over time? What do you hope to deliver to your audience?  

PP: Great question!  Initially, I wanted to work out some ideas about what a "lesbian fatherhood" might be, if indeed there was one.  At the least, I wanted to find company in the fairly specific parental place I felt I existed: a lesbian co-parent who was socially & not biologically connected to her kids (where the partner was bio), and one who chafed at "mother," for a host of reasons, most of which gender identity-related.  A blog provided a venue in which to think out loud about these things and gather people around me who knew better and could school me (and anyone who listened).  I actually first thought it would be a kind of a discussion forum that I would merely moderate, but I soon discovered that -- news to me -- it's fairly easy to launch a solo blog, and people who wanted to talk a LOT about the subject of their parenthoods tend start their own blogs.  I didn't have the energy or the time at the outset to begin as a group project, and that might have made a difference, too.  Also, I discovered that many other people prefer to converse and comment in response to another's catalyst, and are happy with that degree of contribution.

RR: How does blogging compare to other types of writing you've done in the past? 

PP: Great question!  (I suspect I'll preface all my answers to these questions this way.)  It's like my epistolary voice (!), but public.  Which makes it some kind of cross between my most informal, breezy writing in letters to friends and a polished essay.  Probably both writerly voices appear (formal and informal), depending on the subject matter.  Blogging is unusual, for certain, in the degree to which it is public, instantaneously, and a dialog as well.  I've written in some public venues (academic essays for journals or anthologies, op-ed pieces, a personal essay in Confessions), but feedback on that stuff comes so slowly.  And it's not even really part of the form, that it anticipate dialog from readers.   At most, I'd bump into someone at an academic conference, say, and hear they were using an essay of mine in a class.  Or find, after the advent of the World Wide Internet, that someone was referring to an essay.  

But of course with blogs, the impact is instant.  Most exciting is that it is for the most part supposed to be a conversation!  A blog is a DIALOG, not a MONOLOG.  ALL CAPS, BABY.  That is a thrill, and what so much writing (tacitly) aspires to.  Or rather, I'll say that I would always want my own writing to spark some kind of dialog.  It's a privilege to be able to hear that dialog going on, and even be a part of it.

RR: What are your favorite children's books (yours and opposed to our kids')?

PP: Hmmm.  There's a crop of books that touched me as a kid, and then some that I like as a parent. From my own childhood, I'd still say Winnie the Pooh is a sentimental favorite.  The kids aren't old enough for Harriet the Spy yet, but I can't wait.  A number of more obscure ones just happen to touch cords of memory, like Tico and the Golden Wing, for example.

RR: What's the strangest thing that's happened to you since you became a parent?  

PP: Now that's an interesting one.  Mmmm.  Well I'm not sure this is as strange as it is interesting to me.  I've realized that I am connected to so very many very different people, by virtue of our common parenthood. The simple fact that we both are parents to children provides a point of contact that would never otherwise have been there. Experiencing that has been really a phenomenal, fairly unexpected part of becoming a parent.  Totally didn't anticipate that, and -- other than the incredible experience of witnessing the development/ self-realization of two different human beings -- it may well be the best thing about this gig.

RR: You've won a number of awards for Lesbian Dad.  What do you think the blog offers its readers?

PP: Well!  I would have had a harder time answering this question if I'd have responded before the results from my reader survey came rolling in, or before I went to BlogHer and got a wider sense of women's communities online.  But now I can do more than speculate. I would have initially thought that a blog like Lesbian Dad might keep people like me company -- offering the betwixt/between gals an example of someone else who was parenting from this  gendered standpoint (both/and) and doing just fine.  I might have hoped that it would also offer straight readers an opportunity to listen in on our thoughts/feelings/conversations, and develop more understanding and compassion.  And I think that both these things are true.  Or at least I aspire to contribute in these areas.

But I've been very pleasantly surprised that a lot of folks just like good writing for its own sake. Great news, eh?  For its own sake.  Gives us all something to strive for. 

RR: Would you like to add a question that I haven't asked? 

PP: What fun!  Gosh.  Well, the first thing that occurs to me is a question that I asked folks in the survey I did in a recent survey of readers, which was essentially: What do you get from the online communities of which you are a part?  To which I'd answer: so much, and so much more than I would have expected!  I feel like I've had the opportunity to learn how many commonalities there are across lesbian and lesbian parenting experiences in different countries (in the UK at least, and Australia).

 Also, I've come to consider that we really can help one another a great deal using this medium.  Being able to carry on a conversation across such distances and so many differences, all mediated not by publishing conglomerates, or limited by physical logistics (how long it takes to get a letter from here to there, much less gather multiple voices into it).  We're still limited by human emotion -- the ease with which we can misunderstand each other, peoples' tendencies to gather into clumps of like groups.  And online spaces are definitely communities, governed by etiquette and expectations and so on.  It's easy to only learn these things after inadvertently stepping on toes.  But what we can do with and for each other in this realm is so worth it.  I think the community building you do is probably the best example of that.

Bookmaking for Preschoolers

Storytelling is one of those primal experiences, and I think that by trying out both the telling and listening roles, children get an early introduction to literature that is powerful and memorable.  I mentioned Pearl's adventures in bookmaking last month, and my friend Doodaddy kindly asked for a peak at one of them. So I set up a photo album so that you can see a sample six-page tale. The writing is done by dictation, although Pearl did write her name and "The End." When we shared this book with Pearl's cousin Maya, she (Maya) immediately wrote and illustrated one herself.  It was really good too!

10 Things I've Been Meaning to Tell You

In no particular order...

1) Nana flew home Saturday after two weeks with us.  We have been campaigning to get Nana and Papa to move to Htown. No such luck, so far. Your strategy suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

2) We planted herbs, beans, and marigolds in pots on our back porch.

3) My friend Faith died three weeks ago, while battling cancer, chemo, etc. for the second time.  It seems unreal.  Death seems unreal, doesn't it?

4) I submitted a chapbook manuscript to a poetry contest. Although the poems are not new, I'd never combined them in a sequence together. I don't remember ever submitting a chapbook for publication before either.

5) Carrie is making major progress, both in her speech and in her potty training.  Hurray for Carrie!

6) I want a puppy.  Pearl wants a puppy.  But keeping in mind what happened with Jake, I think we're going to wait until Carrie is a little older.

7) Marcia and I got to hear the author of Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi speak. She is brave and funny and smart, a wonderful storyteller.

8) I may become addicted to lettuce wraps this summer.

9) Marcia knows a whole lot about ice cream trucks.

10) Let me know if you want to play Scrabulous on Facebook.  I'm very addicted to it.

But (more than) enough about me...what's new with you?

The Youth of America

As you may remember, I work for Writers in the Schools. This week we are hosting our annual Young Writers Reading Series.  Here is a video (48 seconds) of Raphael, age 6, from last year's reading. His poem is called "Explaining Colors."

click here to see the original post with text of the poem

How to Be a Poem

Last week Marcia and I led a poetry activity with Pearl's preschool class in celebration of National Poetry Month. 

We were a little hesitant about this venture because neither of us has experience in teaching this age group. Also the fact that the kids range in age from 3-7 years old made us a little anxious.

Our trepidations turned out to be unwarranted, however. The children had great fun coming up with their own line for the collaborative writing project we chose for them. 

We divided the class into two groups to do the writing (dictating, really) on long rolls of paper. Then each group presented what they had written to the other. We'd defined a poem as a gift made out of words, so this fit into the plan nicely. They laughed and cheered for every line.

When we were done, we combined the two banners filled with words, and the class poem was born:

Olivia is a butterfly flying to a leaf to lay her eggs.
Charlotte is a unicorn flying and playing with her friend.
Liliana is a horse eating hay on the farm.
Alex is an ant biting a kid.
Gillian is a dragonfly flying in the sky close to the roses.
Angela is a blue butterfly laying eggs on a rubber tree.
Zachary is a lion eating a zebra in the forest.
Lucia is a baby zebra playing with her mom and then sleeping.
Pearl is a cheetah running to a cave with hyenas.
Brandon is an elephant eating hay in Africa.
Charlie is a T-Rex laying eggs in the grass.
Jean Luc is a shark eating a fish in a secret hiding place.
Ana Sofia is a horse with a baby eating hay on the farm.
Thomas is a cat sleeping in a house.
Ryan is a silk worm hanging like a spider.
Jacob is a big horsey at the farm eating apples with raisins.
Sydney is a koala eating apples and bananas in a eucalyptus tree.
Ethan is a cheetah thundering after an antelope in the wild.
Anna is a happy baby unicorn stuck in a tree.
Jan is a monarch butterfly laying eggs on a man’s head!

After we finished, I rushed off to work.  Marcia decided to hang around because Pearl didn't want to miss recess, her "favorite subject."  Marcia said that as the kids played, they remained their animals, galloping and racing about.  As the excitement grew, some of the kids began declaring to the children in the other class: I am a poem, I am a poem, I am a poem!

Pen Pals

I mentioned a few weeks ago that Pearl's best friend was moving away.  Today we heard from him (with his mom's help, of course) for the first time.

Hello Pearl,

I love you, I miss you. I have a lightsaber already.

how is the school going? what are you playing in the playground?

I am still in the hotel. I am having fun with my mom. I am playing tennis.
dfrt (I am done)

It was night time when we got in the airplane, everybody had to sleep for a little big and when we got there it was morning time. That's all.

Hugs,
Alex

Pearl wanted to write back immediately.  Marcia dictated exactly what she said.

Alex,
I miss you so much. I'm playing lots of stuff with Liliana on the playground. We have played hyenas today.  And Alex, I have missed you so much that I haven't wanted to go to school for a long time. We still go to the same school. Carrie is going to go to my school next year. We haven't gone to the zoo. I already had my birthday. I'm sorry that I didn't invite you. I'm having fun with my two mommies and my sister. We've been telling stories for a really long time and filling up my 100-page book. Alex, I love you soooo much that I don't want to play with Liliana sometimes.  We wrote some things that I want to do when I'm mad, like have a fight with hyenas or get really intolerable or stomp around or do exercise or come up with ideas.  Goodbye, Alex.
From Pearl, I love you.

And they're barely four.

[photo by bishop72 via flickr]

Farewell, Cosmonauts

Sunday we went to a going-away brunch for our friends Cosmo and Cake.  If you will recall, Cosmo and Carrie are one day apart in age and were born in the same hospital.  They are, at times, accused of being twins.  We will miss these friends.

The party was hosted by Chuck and Hank.  We knew most of the people there.  One of the strange things, though, is how many of the people there have blogs.  Or is it strange?  Do most of your friends blog?

In the News

Here's a story about our gang that appears in the May issue of OutSmart.

Wedding Belles

I enjoyed reading Ariel Levy's essay about her lesbian wedding featured in the Sex and Love issue of New York magazine.  Levy does a nice job capturing the weirdness of gay weddings, both for the great aunt Mildreds of our lives and also for ourselves. Here's an excerpt:

"I am not a total idiot. I always had the sense to say no wedding cake, no officiant, no first dance, no here comes the bride, no Times announcement, and absolutely no white dress. Who are we kidding? And why? We just wanted a big, awesome party where everyone could meet and go bananas. It’s a special opportunity, you know: The only other time everyone you love will assemble in one place is at your funeral."

The humor of Levy's writing is uplifting. I came away from this essay thinking that if I had realized that "Here Comes the Bride" could be replaced with "Crimson and Clover," maybe I would have pushed Marcia a little harder in the direction of weddingville.  Read the whole essay here.

News of the Day

Do you remember in May when an essay I wrote was published in a book by Beacon Press?  It's called Confessions of the Other Mother: Nonbiological Lesbian Moms Tell All, edited by Harlyn Aizley.  Well, that book was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award.  But even better than that, it is a finalist.

The Awards Ceremony will be on May 31st in NYC.  You can see the complete list of finalists here.

Opening to a Book I Might Write Some Day

There is a Jewish proverb, "A mother understands what a child does not say."  I thought this was true until I had children of my own.
 

Just Ask

I'm having a head-achey time of it, and I'm not so sure what to write about this week.  Please ask me a question to give me some direction.

About Inspiration

As a blogger and as a writer, I have met face-first the empty slate that stays and stays that way.  Some folks call it writer's block.  Today, however, I am inspired by psychoanalyst Adam Phillip's essay on inspiration. Here's an excerpt:

....And yet inspiration is a word no one is shy of using now, even though they are not that keen to explain how it might work. It is the kind of magic that people like to believe in, perhaps especially now, in a culture where money can buy virtually everything else of value, and science and technology can create or invent the things we most need. Inspiration, in other words, is a kind of God-term; it refers to something we think of as essential but that we can't, or may not want to, understand. As Eliot suggests, it is like a visitation from something profound and incomprehensible. It reassures us, or at least reminds us, that some of the best things about us are beyond our control.

Whatever it is that feeds us our best lines - the gods or God, the unconscious or the genes, the class war - it is something we depend upon but cannot command. Like God's grace, inspiration doesn't respond to our need or our greed for it. It is not a resource we can exploit; and it doesn't look as if, at least as yet, science or technology can help us get more of it.

Source: Observer, March 12, 2006

Words, Come Here

Today I'm back to work after two weeks with the expansion family.  Once again I want to tip my proverbial hat to you stay-at-home-moms. Having a "real" job is a whole lot easier.

It was really hard for me to write anything about the famiy while I was home.  The words just weren't coming to me.  Maybe I need a little distance from the scene, in order to figure out what I want to say.

Here's a picture of Carrie taken this past weekend.  She's still wearing "preemie" pajamas, but she's filling them up more and looking healthier and happier.

Cooper on Mommy Blogging

I really like this editorial by Cooper Munroe so I've posted the entire piece from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  Cooper is one of the DotMoms (and so am I).  Especially after that irritating article published by the New York Times a few months ago, this essay is one that makes me cheer hurrah!

Mombloggers, unite!

Consumed by the minutiae of child-raising, young parents can suffer from isolation. Cooper Munroe, mother of four kids, prescribes frequent Web logging.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Every parent should have a blog.

Even though nine months ago I had to Google the word to learn what one was, I have since found that blogging adds an extra, valuable layer to not only how I parent my four young kids but also how I see myself in that role.

		Cooper Munroe is a writer living in Fox Chapel (coopermunroe@ comcast.net).

A friend, Emily McKhann, suggested last November that since we don't live in the same city, but both love to write and would like to be more in touch, we start a blog together. After the Google search, which turned up interesting writing on many topics, including parenting, I agreed.

It was a perfect fit. Writing a blog -- also known as a web log -- offers what is often out of reach for me, and I would guess, many other parents: a place to notice and make sense of the ins and outs of the day-to-day of raising kids, and, simultaneously, a way to find real, like-minded people, in similar, child-rearing situations, from all over, who, more often than not, provide not only insight, but a compassionate, listening ear.

	Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette Click illustration for larger version.

These days, how often do you see someone you know and the (quick) conversation starts off with, "I am so busy"? If you are like me, you have an interchange along those lines almost daily. Older women have remarked to me that they couldn't imagine raising kids at the pace we do.

There is a study I read recently that found one thing parents say they need to feel successful in child-rearing but rarely get (at least in satisfactory doses) is a support system that provides meaningful conversation and positive feedback.

So, if we work all day, or our friends, mothers, brothers or sisters work all day (or live in another time zone), then shuttle our children to activities all evening, and, for good measure throw in chores and community obligations, where do we find the time to have productive conversations on parenting, or any subject for that matter, with other adults, including our partners?

Julie Moos, managing editor at the Poynter Institute, a journalism education organization, and editor of DotMoms, a collective of "mom" writers, to which I contribute, points out that since we are a much more mobile society, we have less time to connect.

"We don't necessarily live where we grew up or where family is or friends are. There is a great deal of mobility in the workplace. It is our mobility that makes it increasingly difficult to find the company we need. Blogging is at our convenience, which is huge for people. You can create community in your own time," Moos said.

Twice a day the baby sleeps and, with the older kids in school, I am in nap lockdown with only our dog Otis for company. When I am finally out of the house talking with other parents, it usually goes this way: "What does Heidi want for her birthday? Did I RSVP?" So, when I get the chance, like nap time or nighttime, I post to our blog, Been There about subjects ranging from end-of-the-school-year craziness to Tom Cruise's rants, and within hours if not minutes, parents -- from around the world -- respond with funny and meaningful comments.

As Mindy Roberts, who writes the Mommy Blog and is also a DotMom, says, "In a blog, you not only get to compose your thoughts (hopefully with a glass of wine late at night), you get to do it in a stream without interruptions."

And, blogging is easy.

I am not new to the Internet and I have used it regularly for parenting information since our first child was born over eight years ago. But to me the parenting Web sites don't offer much "real" information. Chat rooms and message boards with their jargon and threads leave me confused. Blogging is not only accessible and something I can relate to, it is simple. It took less than an hour for Emily and me to set up our blog and, believe me, we are two ladies who don't know the first thing about HTML code.

Jay Allen, who writes The Zero Boss, said that although people tend to focus on blogging as a buzz word, it is just the latest technology people have found to connect. "I remember when I was growing up people mimeographing handwritten newsletters. Blogging is a tool that makes communication easy and you can ignore the technical stuff if you want to."

For me it is like visiting a big, fun, friendly neighborhood.

As my co-blogger, Emily, said the other day, "The most surprising thing to me when we started our blog is that participating in this community is so entertaining."

When Emily posted to our blog, "I'd love some help here. I'm feeling starved of initiative and want to interject more laughter and silliness into my day-to-day with the kids," Becki King, from the blog Adventures of a Nervous Girl, commented almost immediately. "First, please don't call Social Services on us. We're crazy, but harmless. My 5-year-old decided that our family members were all part of a spaghetti dinner: he is spaghetti, his 2-year-old sister is meatball, I (mom) am sauce, and dad is cheese. Periodically my daughter will look at one of us and say, 'Hey, Meatball!' and that person looks back and says, 'No, YOU Meatball!' I don't know why, it's not that funny, but it cracks us all up," she wrote.

I have also noticed that with the added, protective layer of the Internet, you can get into meaningful discussions without the typical small talk.

"Especially with some of the subjects we deal with on DotMoms, it can be easier to open up with the Internet as a kind of shield. It offers a way to express what is happening in your life and, if you can find a safe place to do that, it only helps. There is a free spirited-ness to blogging that allows people to connect on many levels," Moos said.

With that said, if all the people I communicate with through our blog and DotMoms lived in Pittsburgh, I would probably not cross paths with many of them. Blogging breaks down barriers and, in many ways, levels the field.

"There is something about communicating via the Internet that allows people to be more real, more raw, more truthful and hopefully more helpful and supportive. The person is offering you help and or advice without noticing your shoes, your stroller, your choice of diapers, what you feed the children, or how well you are minding them. I don't think it substitutes for human contact, but I do think it can cut closer to the bone in many ways that polite interactions cannot," Roberts said.

Blogging also gives parents usable information fast.

When Amy Milgrub Marshall, a DotMom, wrote a post asking for advice about how to get her toddler to sleep in his own bed, she received 18 long comments back. Soon thereafter, she told me, her son was sleeping on his own.

I had to laugh the other day when on her blog Sharbean, Sharlene McKinnon posted a photo of a shrub and asked for help identifying it and she not only got a quick answer (pontentilla) from several people, but also suggestions on how to best care for it.

My husband likes Greg Allen's blog, www.DaddyTypes.com, because, among other things, Allen frequently posts locations of men's rooms with and without changing tables in Manhattan and elsewhere. To Allen's dismay, there are more withouts than withs.

There are naysayers, and Moxie. a New York City-based blogger who prefers not to use her real name, finds silly any negative assertions that parent blogging is vanity or luxury. "Parenting is a defining experience. Writing about it is nothing new, and writing about it in a funny or bitter way is certainly not new. My mom used to sit down at her manual typewriter and plunk out her thoughts about mothering -- she'd absolutely have had a blog if it had been an option. We need the contact, the validation that what we're doing is hard and dirty and worth it."

Being the mother to my four kids is the single most important thing I will ever do and the most valuable thing, ultimately, about writing a blog for me is that I am much more aware of the moments I have with them, and, in turn, am more aware of who I am -- and who they are -- in those moments.

The added benefit is that by going through the exercise of thinking through what occurs in a day and writing it down, I am also creating a permanent record of what life is like while raising them. If I did not have a few hundred people stopping by every day to see what Emily and I are writing about, I likely would not be chronicling in a diary or a scrapbook about the maelstrom of Otis and a snake in a fight to the death (Otis won) or the time our 3-year-old asked the dentist if we could take home the laughing gas.

Someday, I hope, my blog will tell my kids much more about themselves, and about the woman who raised them, than any photo album ever will.

At DotMoms: Good Stories Have Wings

Today you can read something I wrote about storytelling at the DotMoms site.  By the way, DotMoms was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 50 Coolest Web Sites of 2005!

Counting Crows

Last week I posted a question about what you include and exclude in your blog, and several of you explained that you keep more than one blog. 

Actually, I maintain two blogs myself.  The Other Mother is about my experiences as a parent, and my other one, Big Window, is about literature, poetry, and art.  My sense is that most people read one or the other of them, not both.  [There are a few notable exceptions, however, such as my friend Shannon.]

So, here's the question for today. How many blogs do you keep?  How do you divide the content between them?

What Stays and What Goes

I started blogging nine months ago.  Like so many things, it has turned out to be different from what I originally expected. I thought I would be writing primarily for my family, and yet I have inadvertently discovered a new group of friends that includes moms, activists, and other mensches. Here is a question that is primarily for the bloggers but as usual, anyone is welcome to play. 

What topics do you write about on your blog and where do you "draw the line" in terms of your subject matter? 

Most recently the thing that brought this to my mind was a comment by Ange.  She was saying that one thing she enjoys about my blog is that it is very upbeat.  It was interesting to think about that because in our family we have been having some serious issues lately concerning our dog/baby relationship.  I've been extremely concerned about it, but I haven't mentioned it once.  But Ange is right.  In my blog I tend to present what's positive and funny.  Maybe I am a cheerleader for lesbian parenting?

Although theoretically a blog could be a place for all things, in truth it rarely is that.  We land on some idea of mission the blog will serve, partly based on our personal needs, partly based on the response of the audience. I would be interested in discussing how your blog serves you and others and how that has changed over time.   

O Taste & See

Today on the DotMoms blog, you can read something else I wrote about motherhood.