Brain Dump

This happens every year after BlogHer (and this year I didn't even go!). I find lots of fabulous new bloggers, get reacquainted with some old favorites, and instead of being inspired, I'm totally intimidated.

A long time ago I won a contest as Best Bay Area Parenting Blog, well, it was tie between me and someone else. That someone else just happened to put out a freakin' national best-seller within a year of the award. Last place I saw her was an article for O Magazine.

Then comes someone like Black Hockey Jesus, who closed his blog due to some privacy issues. He's a fabulous, interesting, unusual writer. I can't come close to wrapping my mind around stuff the way he does. Or my lovely friend the Bloggess, who is hilarious and true and honest, and manages to say all kinds of crap without being offensive (to me, anyway).

Then I start realizing that I really can't write. I mean, I can write, but I can't write well. I'm OK, don't get me wrong, I'm not trolling for compliments, but I'm not anything special, or unusual, or poetic. Every book I read is filled with amazing sentences that say in a few words what it takes me paragraphs to get out. My kids are funny and cute and we have a happy family.

Then I remember "Oh, wait, that's not why I started this blog. I started this blog because I like to journal, I wanted to learn how websites worked, and I wanted a record of my kids' lives that won't burn up in a house fire." I'd always written long letters to people, so this was my way of writing those letters to people but getting to keep them at the same time.

So. Fuck insecurity. Fuck the fact that I'm not a New and Exciting Voice! I still have my voice, and I still have space to speak.

Here's some things that have been going on:

1. I am regretting talking A. into watching Star Wars IV: A New Hope (formerly known as Star Wars, the original). He has embraced all things Star Wars and now speaks at length on the various Sith Lords and Battle Droids. When he embraces something, he really gets into it. Now I'm stuck planning a Star Wars birthday party for Labor Day Weekend.

So I'm all, Aw, c'mon, how 'bout Chuck E Cheese?? All the other kids let their parents do Chuck E Cheese parties!
And he's all, I'm not all the other kids, am I?

3 wrapping-paper-tube-and-duct-tape light sabers down, 17 to go.

2. We're moving forward on the Totally Confusing Our Children Religiously front. I've joined the UU church I've been attending for the past year. G. is looking into First Communion preparation at the Catholic churces (2 YEARS of classes to learn to eat the wafer?? That's a little extreme, don't you think?). And they've just finished Vacation Bible School at the Lutheran Church around the corner and will continue with Kids' Bible Camp on Wednesday evenings there this fall.

We alternate Sundays between the UU church and various Catholic churches around the area. I feel mixed about forcing the boys to sit through Catholic mass, even if it's only twice a month. Having attended 12 years of Catholic school, I sat through more than my share of masses and I hated every minute. I didn't even have ADHD, either. The boys aren't crazy about it either, and I hope it doesn't turn them against Catholic church, but frankly, I can understand their frustration. G. got to be an altar boy, so at least he had something to DO during the mass.

Last time, as we walked out, A. groused as we left, "I didn't understand any of that! All I understood was 'Please be seated'!"

I guess we'll see how it goes. As long as they're of the mind that we should be kind to others, even brothers, I guess we're doing OK. Whether or not they think that's a mandate from Jesus or God or ourselves is going to be their business, eventually.