Mommybloggers dish with Mamacita
Mommybloggers: Okay, Mamacita…level with us. What got you started with blogging?
Mamacita: My first short-lived (about a month) blog was a disaster! I was talked into it by someone I used to know, and was immediately attacked by trolls and harassed till I took it down out of sheer self-preservation. Then, I was talked into trying again, by someone else, so I chose a different blogsite and started posting silly things that happened during the course of my school day. I didn't post anything personal because I was afraid of the trolls! (In other words, my blog-start was a scary one; it took a lot of courage to start again. The only people I'd met had turned out to be horrible, and I was frankly truly afraid of the internet.) When I resigned from that teaching job (I just couldn't deal with the moronic peripherals any more; I adored my students but enough was enough), I was full of self-doubt; I'd never done anything else but teach in that school, and I was panic-stricken about starting a new career at the college level. I began posting more personal 'sagas' and discovered that it was better than a shrink! Now, I'm addicted, and if I'm away from a computer for more than a few hours at a time, I actually tremble. I mean, STUFF could be happening and I wouldn't know it! Our budget is so tight now because of my career change that it's hard to make ends meet, but internet access is right up there at the top of the priority list.
Mommybloggers: You have two children, now in their 20s. Some of our favorite entries deal with your adventures as a young wife and mother. Critics often speculate that as our children grow up, they will undoubtedly be horrified by our stories of their childhood, and our audacity to share them online. How do your children feel about your blog?
Mamacita: My daughter reads it regularly, and is, herself, a blogger, although she doesn't update very frequently. She comments on mine sometimes, esp. when I've got a date or location wrong. My son knows I have a blog and has made it very clear that I am not to embarrass him in any way on it. Apparently he doesn't read it, because I have never taken orders from my kids and I don't intend to start now, and if I want to post about how he used to play with his own poop and smear it all over his bed and toys, I will. And I did.
Mommybloggers: You paint a portrait of yourself as a mother who continues to laugh and love her way through the trials and tribulations of parenting. Any advice for those of us who are still slogging our way through the toddler trenches?
Mamacita: Advice? Parents don't take advice from other parents! They only believe BOOKS, by CHILDLESS PSYCHOLOGISTS! Seriously, the best advice I could give a young parent is, 'This, too, shall pass.' And when it does pass, you'll miss it. As I told a sweet internet friend just today, the day will come when you will truly miss all the chaos. Your house will be clean and tidy and quiet as the tomb, and you'll find yourself borrowing other people's children every chance you get. The second best advice I have is: "Enjoy your children." Our kids are not perfect, but guess what? Neither are we. Trust your instincts. Let them be children, and play. Don't overschedule. Turn off the TV and play with them. And teach them to behave in public. A child with good manners is one of the most beautiful sights in the universe. Requiring your child to be well-behaved will bring much joy to your life, and to the lives of those who are near your child. Oh, and one more piece of advice: Don't wish their lives away. Even during the most difficult phases, there is beauty. Don't spend their childhood anticipating when they're older. It will happen soon enough, and you'll never be the same when it does. Oh yes: Pick your battles. This one gets more and more important as your kids get older. Hair? Not worth it, let it go. Curfew? Negotiable. Backtalk? Never.
Mommybloggers: You've been a teacher for many years, and you're known for not holding any punches when it comes to writing about life in the classroom. Have you ever gotten flamed for your views on slacker students and the parents that enable them?
Mamacita: Not concerning my blog, no, not really. People don't always agree with me, but then, why should they? I don't always agree with them, either. But over on the A to Z Teacher Forum, people take issue with my bluntness sometimes. There, I am the token Mean Teacher. And a few months ago, for about two days, I tried to participate on an AP forum and the asininity of it simply blew me away; those people are nuckin' futz. In other words, they definitely did not like what I had to say. So I left. No sense setting yourself up for it!
Oh, okay, this one man took offense when I posted about some horrible children at the Pizza Hut, and accused me of making fun of 'special' kids. I never did figure out the connection. He later apologized, and then took his apology back. I tried to make peace with him but he wasn't having any of it. So I gave up. And another time, a woman was offended because I described my experience at a Pentecostal revival meeting. But 'flamed?' No, not really. Especially since I put a Sitemeter on my blog.
Mommybloggers: How do you feel about mommybloggers? Do you consider yourself a mommyblogger?
Mamacita: I am a mommyblogger. I am also a teacherblogger, a criticblogger, a rantingblogger, a philosophicalblogger, a whinyblogger, a womanblogger, a fatchickblogger, and many other personas as well. I do not think any woman is a mommyblogger and nothing else; every woman has many aspects to her personality and life, and being a mother is only one. Some say it's a temporary one, but that is not true either. We never stop being mothers. We only stop raising our kids. Or should stop, once they're raised. I loved being a mommy so, so much; at the time I was too busy to realize it, I was always waiting for a difficult phase to be over. Now, I would know better. The problem is, after we learn all these things, it's too late for us and our own kids, and younger parents don't always want to hear about it. I didn't, when I was a young mother. What did these old people know about it anyway?
Mommybloggers: You've taken on a nest full of snakes to protect your children. You've baked (accidentally) pornographic bread, and given it as gifts. You can rescue the Super Mario Princess in under ten minutes…clearly you have special talents. What other super powers do you possess?
Mamacita: I am the only person in this house who can replace the toilet paper on the spindle. I am the only person in this house who can correctly gauge when the trash is full and should be removed and discarded. I am the only person in this house who knows how to buy trash bags of the proper size. I can take apart a toilet tank and put it back together so it works, and if I don't have replacement parts I can do it with a twist-tie. I have beaten Tetris. I am the only person in this house who can remove a dead mouse from a mousetrap and discard it. I know how to roof a house and have done several; it's not that much different than quilting. I am a pyromaniac of the first circle and can set a controlled fire that will remove any need for a rake. I know where the scissors are. I can kill any kind of houseplant merely by THINKING about buying it. It will die in the store within days if I look at it. I have a cocktail meatball recipe that people have actually HIRED ME TO MAKE FOR PARTIES! And it's the easiest thing imaginable!!! Oh, and I bake bread for people. My own kids don't like homemade bread; they prefer Kroger's 88 cent bread. I can not, however, figure out why my font keeps changing back and forth.
Mommybloggers: Blogging has created a whole new social venue for many of us. Where do you see the blogosphere headed?
The Blogosphere is the new meeting place for people. Online, as long as people tell the truth and we must assume that they do even though we know sometimes they don't, we learn to know a person even better than we might if we met them in real life right at the beginning. Online, we learn what a person IS like, even before we know what they LOOK like. Online, we can 'find' people with similar interests, etc. Online, we can peek through their windows and find out about their lives and their homes and their families and their likes and dislikes. . . . . The Blogosphere is a fantastic place to hang out in, a place of wonder and friends and interesting, lovely people. Of course, as with any large group of people, there will always be that tiny percent that take advantage and lie and are not what most of us would call 'decent' people. And sometimes, we happen onto a blog written by someone with different beliefs, lifestyle, etc, and discover that she/he is also a lovely person who just happens to be different. I think the Blogosphere has done a lot for getting rid of racism, homophobia, and other prejudices, simply by providing a safe, somewhat anonymous place for people to find out about each other. And I think it is only getting better!
Mommybloggers: Let's talk about your bathroom for a minute. We've seen the photos – is your entire home decorated this way?
Mamacita: Well. . . . maybe. My house is not exactly what anyone would call a candidate for 'Better Homes and Gardens." Most of my wall art was made by my children, or bought by/for them during a phase, or just caught someone's eye. We have gargoyles on the walls in the computer room (formerly my son's room) that he left here when he got his own apartment; there are huge Disney stick-ons in the guest room (formerly my daughter's room) that she left here when she moved out. My autographed Dr. Demento picture ("To Jane, the girl of my dreams!") is framed and on the guest room wall. My Adam Sandler clock is in there, too. The clock in the computer room is shaped like a Monopoly board. There is a huge Voltron robot in the living room, along with countless musical instruments hanging on the walls. The wall art in there is mostly family pictures. I read an article once, years ago, that said not to display family pictures because guests would not be interested in them. I think that is really stupid; I LOVE seeing other people's family pictures on their walls and on top of the tables, etc. My house is full of pictures of family and friends, and I love it. There's a huge print of Picasso's 'Don Quixote' on the living room wall which matches nothing, but I adore it. The bedroom is fairly normal, except for all those guns and the mismatched furniture. The dining room is normal too, except for all that stereo equipment in there. And my kitchen is my favorite room after the computer room; I really don't think there's anything too weird in there, unless you think a huge bookcase built in with the cabinets is weird. The kitchen has large French doors leading outside to the deck, which has no outside stairs. If we had stairs out there, the deer would climb them.
Mommybloggers: Parenting is an emotionally charged business. You worked outside the home while your children were small – did you ever feel judged? Is there a right way to parent?
Mamacita: I never felt judged, I just felt exhausted! Sometimes I would find myself sitting on the sofa at two a.m. and I couldn't even remember what I'd taught that day, or what I'd fed the children for dinner. When I try to remember the ROUTINE of those days, I mostly remember the exhaustion. It's only when I try to remember the children themselves, that I can remember the good stuff.
Mommybloggers: You're also a music fanatic. If we stopped by your house right now, what would we catch you listening to?
Mamacita: During this season, I listen to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra all the time. I have also been listening to mix cd's that I love to make at any time but especially at Christmas. I'm also sorta into "Death Cab for Cutie." Most of the time, I put my MP3's on 'random' and let it go wild. (I have over eight thousand mp3's on my hard drive.)
Mommybloggers: And here are the questions we subject all of our featured bloggers to (With apologies to Bernard Pivot and Inside the Actors Studio):
1. What is your favorite parent related word?"Creativity"
2. What is your least favorite parent related word?
"Attachment"
3. What is your favorite creative censored curse word used around children?
"Poopydiddle"
4. What is your favorite hiding place within your home when you need to get away from it all?
The bathroom. They could find me, but they couldn't get in.
5. What hiding place have you been found in too often and can no longer use?
The car.
6. If Oprah exists, what would you like to hear her say when you arrive at the Oprah Winfrey show when she features the Mommybloggers?
Do you know, I have NEVER seen Oprah's show, ever in my life. Does she exist? I couldn't tell you.
I did see the clip where she wheeled out the wagon of fat, years ago.
If she does exist, and if I'm there when the Mommybloggers are featured, I think it would be cool if she said "I read your blogs all the time, ladies." And then she would give us all new cars and vacations in Jamaica and a zillion dollars.
Read more from Mamacita at Scheiss Weekly.
Comments
Mamacita, your description of the exhaustion of working when children are small really took me back. There were days I was so tired that I couldn't even remember getting to work. It was as though my body knew that once my baby was up, fed, scraped, dressed, combed, diapered and at my friend's house, my brain should shut off for the commute. . .
Posted by: Lisa Stone | December 20, 2005 12:54 AM
Somehow I missed the photograph of mamacita's bathroom before over at her site, I'm so glad you all posted a link. I always knew Mamacita was pretty cool--now I know why!
Posted by: sleepingmommy | December 21, 2005 10:43 AM
Just in case anyone doubted that the bathroom is, in fact, a 'loobrary', consider this proof. I think every single B.C., Wizard of Id, Calvin and Hobbes, For Better or for Worse, Stone Soup, and old school Bloom County comic collection was in there in paperback form. There were also random paperback novels, old magazines,and every now and then a Trixie Belden mystery on the rotating book rack. Sometimes, when you sit on the 'throne', the motion causes the gargoyle head on the wall next to the toilet to open its eyes and begin to sing, "Wild Thing."
Posted by: The Daughter In Question | January 18, 2006 1:24 PM
Karlik4
Posted by: Karlik1 | March 6, 2006 12:24 AM
yes.this is my site http://www.9-11usg.org/zyban/wellbutrin_zyban_bupropion_side_effects.html Thanks.
Posted by: zyban comment fonctionne | March 10, 2006 2:24 AM