quizzical mama at BlogHer

You might imagine my excitement when I received an email yesterday from a BlogHer editor announcing that one of my posts had been selected to be featured in their Family topic section; especially when I tell you that BlogHer (founded in 2005) is the largest community of women who blog with 25+ million unique visitors per month (Nielsen/NetRatings).

So today my post titled "Children's Sex Education Book Too Graphic?!" has been featured on BlogHer's front page under "What's Hot on BlogHer:"

And even more prominently on the front page of the BlogHer Family section under "What's HOT:"

I've had a profile page since February at BlogHer where I feature posts from my three blogs, and recently my quizzical mama blog was approved for inclusion in the BlogHer directory too. Some of my posts have received really high reads, like my post on Lust Films. But today is the first time a post by me has been selected to be featured. Fun!

what I got for mother's day

This year for Mother's day, I got the gift of time, and this card. Inside it reads: "Do whatever it takes to get some peace and quiet today. Happy Mother's Day." My husband had added this:

Dear Anne-mor,
You have been a good mamma for almost 3 years running now. Go on, do what the card says; get out of here, and get some peace and quiet!! Take the magazine and go!     Love, Leighton

Dear mamma,
DON'T listen to pappa!! STAY with me, I love you so ... 
I love you for all the neat things that you do for me, helping me to grow and be a strong big girl - and someday hopefully into somebody like you. Here's a book to remind you of all that only you and I can give to each other; to say thanks for all that you've done already.     Love, Lilly

The said magazine was the latest issue of In Style for my occasional escape into fashion and gloss; the book a daybook organized by month and theme featuring poems and excerpts short enough for my brief amounts of devoted quiet quality reading time, all written in the voices of mothers and daughters capturing "the special connections and separations between mothers and daughters." Seeing that I have "paper memory," as my friend puts it, and therefore always carry a notebook in my pocket, I appreciate that the book also provides room for my own notes.

My post this past winter about glossy magazines spurred quite a bit of discussion on my Facebook wall. Most of the commenters bemoaned all the advertisements in these sorts of publications, advising me to shun them.

The thing is, I'm not too bothered by the ads; they're all part of the hyperbole gloss just as much as the catwalk shots. And more than once, the featured interview has inspired some thoughts in me, like Cameron Diaz' words on the challenges faced by women who want to pursue both kids and career, and more recently Julianne Moore's comments about pressing social issues and the need for reproductive rights ("If you don't have control of your own body, you have no control of your life." InStyle / March 2011).

True, mostly the magazine contains a lot of glamorous fluff, but on days when I can barely contain my frustration of motherhood, that's the sort of thing I crave.

Like yesterday.

lubricated parenting

On a particularly warm, sunny spring day earlier this week, at a mama meet-up in a park where kids played and us mamas shared bits and pieces from our daily lives, I mused to my friend that a margarita at that moment wouldn't hurt. This inspired further ideas about bringing tumblers with sinful concoctions to our group playdates in the Arboretum this summer, resurrecting, as my friend said, "the rock mamas," doing it together with lubrication on hand.

I'm a longtime fan of the cocktail hour, to help that witching hour pass. My current strategy for dealing with those terribly long last hours of the afternoon is to let Lilly watch one of her movies after she naps or has quiet time (on those days she refuses to nap). We sit next to each other on the couch, she watching her movie as I try to squeeze in a little more work and also cater to her needs (are all kids starving after nap?). When that's done, it's usually time to move on to dinner preparation; and hopefully Leighton's right around the corner.

When he gets home, I mix us both a cocktail (that is, if I haven't already been sipping on mine). Then he plays with Lilly in the living room, and I finally get some space to myself in the kitchen as I cook, lubricated.

When Leighton came home from work the other day before the above conversation took place, it was also a warm sunny day. He immediately asked for a gin & tonic in a tumbler, so he could take it to sip on while playing outside with Lilly before dinner. Lubricated parenting.

Lest you think we exclude Lilly from the fun, she's as big a fan of the cocktail hour ritual as we are, requesting her own special drink: yellow (apple juice and water) or red (raspberry juice and water). On those sunny days that just sing summer and margaritas, she gets to shake her own cocktail in a miniature shaker and pour her concoction (lemon juice, water and sugar) into a salt-rimmed glass with ice. Add a straw. And Cheers!

claim your mama body

Did you know that girls as young as ten are requesting labiaplasty? I feel the urgent responsibility to provide my toddler daughter with positive and accurate images and texts to empower her to take pride in her growing body.

This morning, I took her to see the art exhibit EveryBody! at Carleton College where we got to see realistic images of women examining their genitals and their cervices with the use of a speculum, a large red soft sculpture of the vulva, historic editions of Our Bodies, Ourselves, and much more.

Most empowering for Lilly and me was the interactive art station where we could each color our own vulva.

I will write a more comprehensive post about this exhibit at LOVE, SEX, AND FAMILY. In the meantime, I encourage you to visit the exhibit, which runs through May 8th.

EveryBody! presents work by artists and activists engaged with the women’s health movement, inaugurated by feminists in the later 1960s and 70s and continuing up to the present day. Featuring advocacy posters and self-education publications, polemical paintings, descriptive drawings, poetic artists’ books and a provocative performance sculpture, this exhibition provides visual evidence of the struggle to define health care as a human right, and every body as beautiful.