Daily Archives: March 4, 2010

The Big Blog Swap – 20 Something Mum Takes Over

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Last week, Littlemummy.com thought up the idea to get everyone to swap blog posts. After nearly 80 other bloggers signed up, I got to swap with Claire from The Life of the 20 Something Mum. (I’m starting to realize how big parenting blogs are-wondering if I signed up to the wrong blogging community…never mind. We’re all bloggers, after all!)

We both agreed to swap posts about why we got into blogging in the first place. You can read my entry on Claire’s blog.

I’ll let the fantastic Claire take it away!

A Blog for Blogs Sake?

As part of the Great Blog Swap, I am writing this for the lovely Meagan.

For those of you who have never met me or my blog, I am better known as the Mouthy One(!), or Twenty Something Mum.

So why do I blog, what made me blog in the first place?

I have always written in some capacity, with varying success, mostly poetry, but for my school magazine as a teenager, or short stories for kids. I loved writing and was the kid most likely to be seen with a notebook and pen at the ready in case of inspiration springing itself on me!

I first started blogging though as a hobby, to stop my brain turning to mush when I was pregnant with my daughter, affectionately known as Mini, who is now nearly 3. I wrote this via My Space, but never really took it seriously, dipping in it and out when I could be bothered.

Then I had her, got completely sidetracked, with breastfeeding, moving from Kent to Berkshire, and being pregnant with another child 11 months after the first, and that was that.

Which brings us to Twitter.

When something pops up on TV, I have to try it- I read all the Harry Potters due to the hype, watched countless must see films and TV shows, and Twitter was no different. I loved the instant buzz of it, the noisiness of reading in on others conversations wherever they were talking from, so was immediately hooked.

I then saw that alot of the Mums who had added me had joined up to British Mummy Bloggers- I think the tweet which got me interested was one about a competition, so, off I went to that website. I saw that there were loads of Mum’s (and the odd Dad!), all of whom had no qualms blogging about the stuff that the “Proper” parenting guide books would never mention. I felt at ease there, and soon started looking in on Blogs regularly.

It got my writing juices flowing, and soon, I had decided to resurrect the blog, and so set up an account with Blogger, and so at the end of June last year, The Life of the Twenty Something Mum was born. It didnt take long to get followers, and comments, and even the odd blog award. At the same time, the curiosity of others blogs who had commented on mine meant I built up quite a good network.

So why Blog? Why not just read others?

A few reasons, but the biggest is the desire to be able to show Mini and her little brother Littlest (who is 18 months) to have a good record of what they got up to. That they will be able to see in years to come that people internationally used to read in on their sheninigans is even better. That they will probably cringe and shout “Mummmmmmm” at me is something I slyly can’t wait for!

An excellent example was Littler’s first birthday, when I blogged about his first 4 months being spent in a Neo Natal unit. I didn’t make it into a made for guide book fairy story- I told the truth, even the really awful bits. However, the comment’s we received as a family on that post brought me to tears, they were so kind.

Thats one thing I always do, I always tell the truth, elsewise what is the point? I am not Bree Van Der Kamp, nor am I Annabel Karmel (the fact I burn water will vouch for that small point) I am very much a slummy rather than yummy mummy, and proud! I can spot a blog which is written to sound like a Good House Keeping guide, and those go on the list of blogs I think are pap. I write about everything, from potty training my child and her reluctance to actually go along with sitting on the potty, to my partners nephew leaving his pants in my hallway (now thats made you want to read!), not very many topics are off topic for discussion, and I hope this honesty is why people read my blog regularly.

Yes honesty has sometimes got me and big gob in trouble, but again, unless I am proved wrong, which happens(!) and I apologise, I generally stand by what I write, and if I happen to upset people in the blogsphere by doing that, then thats unfortunate, but I shrug, keep calm and carry on. See told you I was the Mouthy One.

I love that others can come to me when they feel down, or left out, or that they can read my account of a not so perfect parent and think, “hmm, you know what, I’m glad I’m not the only one”.

As someone who suffered from Post Natal Depression, purely because I thought I had to be like the Mum’s in a parenting guide, so much so that I would plot weekly whether my first child was meeting the pre-set in stone milestones, and get depressed to the point of abjact misery if she didn’t, this makes my day.

I always say this-

“Rejoice that you have given the world a gift of a child, now stand tall, shoulders back, and watch them grow”.

That and the only good thing for (smug) Parenting Guides? Well, with heating bills going up, they make good kindling for an open fire…….

If you like this, and want to read more about Mini, Littlest, Elder and, well, me, you’re very welcome at the blog.

Ode to My Best Friend

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My best friend is coming to visit me from Baltimore tomorrow, and I am more excited than before Christmas morning! Before she arrives, I thought I would give you all a glimpse into the beginning of our friendship…

When Courtney and I met, we were six years old, waiting for the big yellow school bus to pick us up for our first day of first grade. I had my hair in a high ponytail fountain with my bangs curled under, and was wearing a white turtle neck with a red and black plaid dress that my grandmother had made my sister, Amanda, and I. Black patent leather shoes with white frilly socks completed the outfit.

My sister, being eight years old and in third grade, opted for something a bit different and more hip than the plaid dress. This being the late eighties, Amanda decided on stone washed jeans and a studded white and pink sweatshirt with the words Awesome and Totally Rad sprawled across the front in puffy paint. Courtney’s sister, Lindsey, was a grade above Amanda and a year older, but I don’t remember what she wore. Courtney’s hair hadn’t quite grown into the long curls that she had now, and was combed straight into a bob with two pieces pulled up perfectly. She was wearing a navy blue pleated skirt with a button down freshly pressed white collared shirt. She could have been straight out of a catalogue.

She was a good girl. In fact, the best girl I had ever met; doing everything her mother asked of her, never wanting to get her clothes messed up, and always working on her homework. I, on the other hand, was the opposite. I wasn’t a bad kid, but I had an opinion about everything, I tested my boundaries at every chance, and never did homework until the morning of. She was an extremely sensitive little girl, while I was thick skinned and a tomboy.

At our first meeting, we got along infamously, still worrying about the niceties that come with not knowing someone very well that somehow even children pick up on. We weren’t in any of the same classes, so our meetings were strictly at the morning bus, recess and briefly after school. That is, until my stay-at-home mother agreed to host the children of the working mothers at our house after school everyday. We had a large five bedroom house with an acre backyard, a jungle gym and an outdoor swimming pool. It had everything for kids our age, and Courtney arrived after school everyday from then on.

Courtney and I learned to hate each other the first year, at least as much as six year olds can hate each other. Everyday we would fight about something, whether it was who played Brad or Melody in Hey Dude or what dance routine we would practice. At one point, my mother told us “I have never seen two girls who butt heads as much as you two do.” Courtney ran home to her mother crying and said that my mother had called her a ‘butt head.’ We still laugh at that to this day.

The day it sunk in how close we had become was two years later when I got the devastating news we would be moving three hours north to New Jersey. The old saying “you don’t know what you have until it’s gone” was learnt at a very early age. No more dance routines, no more New Year’s Eve performances, no more running across the street to play with my best friend, no more sleep overs or early morning chinese jump rope, no more weekends spent baking cakes or riding bikes. Just a new cold school with new kids who didn’t particularly like new students coming in. And none of the other friends I met got me like Courtney finally did once we had broken through our stubborn facades.

The next time it sunk in how much she meant to me was when we moved back to Baltimore two years later, and her mom proceeded to move across the street from us again, on a different street – Willow Avenue. Both of our families had become broken since the last time we lived across from the other. My mom was a single woman again once she realized she needed love to make a marriage work, and her mom was single once she realized she couldn’t stay married to an alcoholic. Amanda and Lindsey became even closer as rebellious teens, and our mothers as single, hot, forty year old moms. We were a strong group of women who relied on the others for laughter and consolation.