Sensitive Rosie

Ever since we met that July day in the hospital, I tend to get emotional thinking about my daughter's future. I frequently imagine her as a little girl, then as a preteen, as an older teenager, and finally a young woman. My eyes mist the most when I imagine her as a mother. This is all ridiculous, I realize, because she may never be a mom - either by choice or by circumstance. But she will grow up, and that will happen faster than I am willing to admit.

Truth be told, Miss Rosie is a sensitive one - she cries hysterically when I turn on the garbage disposal and screeches when we run the blender. I try so hard to prepare her for the noises, but no amount of preparation will take the edge off of being startled into tears.  It's hard, watching and hearing her cry so hard.

And I know that this sensitivity isn't going anywhere. That's okay; I lean to the sensitive side myself. I can relate to those see-saw feelings when life is out of balance. It almost as if I can see my baby girl as a someday-teenager, struggling to develop her identity and understand her changing body. I can feel her teetering on the see-saw of balance, desperately trying to understand all the pieces that beautifully make up her whole essence. And I know that I have to prepare myself now to be open to her questions, her curiosities, and her tears. She deserves that from her mother.

*I was motivated to write this post by The Body Scoop for Girls: A Straight Talk Guide to a Healthy, Beautiful You, by Jennifer Ashton, MD, OB/Gyn. I received a complimentary copy of the book as part of the Silicon Valley Moms Group bookclub.

Playtime!

So, The Talker and Miss Rosie are playing together.  It. Is. Awesome.

The Talker calls out to her and tries to get her to crawl his way.  She obliges him because she thinks he is the absolute-coolest-person-she-knows.  And he is, I might add.  Her daddy is a close second.  They giggle and squeal, and the Talker scootches away - just out of reach.  She does her lopsided crawl to catch up, and the giggling begins again.  By the end of it all they are pretty much wrestling. 

I have to hold back a little bit.  My protective tendancies are tempting me to repeat endlessly, "Be gentle!  Oh!  Careful, don't hurt her!"  But I really (for the most part) need to keep my mouth shut.  The Talker is a wonderful brother - and the only time he ever goes after Miss Rosie is when he is ticked at me.  (How sophisticated!)

So, here they are.  The siblings that wrestle together, stay together. :)

Chicago Moms Blog - Navigating Social Media

Last weekend I had the pleasure to join other mommy bloggers at an event sponsored by SVMoms Group, the organization behind Chicago Moms Blog, and Chevy. We enjoyed an afternoon and evening at the Hard Rock Hotel (complimentary valet, too!), discussing the intersection of blogging and branding - and then enjoyed some good food, wine, great conversation, and yes, some swag.

I'm still new to this blogging thing - and I felt like I was a bit out of my element at our roundtable discussion.  Our lovely organizers and moderators, Jill Asher and Linsey Krolik, guided the conversation to flesh out ways that brands and bloggers can work together using social media outlets.  I guess I was surprised/amazed at the role social media is playing in marketing and branding these days.  I mean, I am a fan of our local park district on Facebook and everything, but it somehow never occurred to me that a company might want to use a mommy blogger to connect with the "real world."

Call me naive, I guess.

But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.  It makes sense the way teaching your kids makes sense - moms are the first point of contact between their children (future customers!) and life outside the nest.  From the beginning, parents are the ones to choose what to expose their children to and what to withhold.   And besides, moms talk.  Seriously, when I was a kid I couldn't figure out why moms did that all the time. Talk, talk, talk.  At the time, playing seemed waaaay better (sometimes it still does!), but still, my mom and her mom friends would just, well, talk.  The truth?  I'm one of them now.

And I'm picky.  For example, I don't have time for companies that shamelessly use inappropriate images to sell clothing to teenagers. (I'm looking at YOU, Abercrombie & Fitch.)  Well, truthfully, I don't have time to shop at all. It takes a ton of effort to shop (successfully) with two kids, and I only go places with them when I really need to get something.  And I've learned that the power that crouches in my wallet is possibly the most vocal of all.  We're trying to put our money where our beliefs are - or at least consciously keep our money out of places that we don't agree with.  That's a big reason why we joined a CSA for our meat.  And you know what?  I'm proud of those decisions.  I feel like I'm standing up for something valuable.

But back to last Sunday - the companies that took the time to come talk with us were terrific.  A big thank you to all of them, especially Chevy - our main sponsor - for spending the evening with us!  I'd like to share a few of my faves, but this post is getting a bit long.  A separate post with more info to come!