Submerging… and a Guest Post!

After playing Road-Trip Mommy for what seemed to be such an extended period, I’m gratefully diving head first into the deep and vast waters of mommyhood and this place I’m delighted to call home. And this weekend I was submerged, and happily so. I scrubbed tubs and cleaned toilets, laughing with my own little elf who was beyond excited to make everything “clean and shiny.” I smiled as I sorted and folded pink 4T sized leggings and Big Sister tees. I ran errands while listening to a solo Christmas performance in the backseat, driving with the other skilled Michigan drivers through a fresh coat of snow over the ice-slicked pavement. I plucked candy canes off of the tree, just so the eyes of my wee ones would light up as they hung them back on the branches with care. The little things, the mundane things, the beautiful ordinary of our lives had my heart humming a perfectly pitched, effervescent tune.

And today, I’m putting that track on repeat, with check-ups at the doctor and story-time in front of the lit up Christmas tree. With mountains of laundry and making forts out of the heaps sprinkled in between the rest of the mommy duties and business tasks I’m splish-splashing my way through.

So in the interim, I’m bringing you a guest post, written by my amazing friend, Jessica from It Rocks 2B Mom! (You may remember her from this post.)  I’m blessed enough to know her personally, but if you read her blog, you can get to know her too.

“I still remember the first time I logged into MySpace. I cancelled the account a week later thinking it was some sort of spam or big brother program to track me. Six months later, I tried it again and I remember getting my first 30 friends, feeling on top of the world. I’d log in every night to see if anyone wrote on my wall.


About a year later, the comments became few and far between, and I heard Facebook was the place to be. So I created my account, but I couldn’t pick a background, music, anything… how boring, how plain, who would use this? But it did have email notification. It wasn’t but a few weeks and I was over 100 friends. Say what? Everyone’s on here! And then I met Bejeweled, and I became an addict.


I was never out-of-touch. For the first time since I had my first son, I felt I was “in the loop.” It was awesome.


Then, I had my second child in February. And I decided to start one of these “blog things.” I thought it would be fun to write about the kids, post pictures, make a few new friends and sit back waiting for all the free stuff for me to try. I decided I was going to get rich by talking about my kids. Because I was just.that.entertaining.


It wasn’t until March I created a Twitter account and I couldn’t imagine how I could say anything insightful at 140 characters or less. Before I knew it, I had tweeted 1,250 uninsightful things. Go figure.


In August, the unthinkable happened. I bought an iPhone. And it all went downhill from there.


You don’t realize how badly you are attached to your phone or computer until your son says, “MOM, will you just stop with the computer and play with me for awhile?” You don’t realize just how bad it is until your laptop battery dies and you can’t blog for a week and you get the shakes…yeah, folks, I’m one of those. I need an internet detox.


I read an awesome article last week entitled, “It’s Time to Live Life Beyond a Laptop” by Eileen Button in which she’d like to re-introduce us to the “outernet”. She describes it as the “world that is experienced away from the screen… conversation, laughter, nature walks and wonder. It’s a place where lying on the grass late at night to consider the position of the moon is encouraged… a place where reaching out to touch someone requires taking another’s hand in your own. It’s an exposed place where we cannot hide behind our “lols” or “rofls.” There are no search engines, video games, sitcoms or YouTube videos, only imperfect people living their imperfect lives in real time.” She shares examples of how we’ve traded good family time together for activities revolved around some sort of screen, whether it be the tv, video games, phones or computers.


So am I saying we shouldn’t blog? Absolutely not. Am I saying we’re horrible people if we have smartphones? No. Am I saying the internet is evil? Not exactly. What I am trying to say is that I had a friend come over for almost 3 hours and while we didn’t have much new stuff to talk about thanks to blogs and Facebook, you can’t take away the emotion, the facial expressions, the sound of laughter.. all things you don’t get to experience online. And I’ve missed it. With my friends, with my family, and with myself.


This Holiday season, don’t get caught up in the giveaways, cyber-deals, sale emails, and contests. Send real Christmas cards. Make meals from scratch. Play board games. Sit around the fire and drink hot cocoa and talk to one another and close the laptops. Enjoy each other’s company in real life.


Let’s remind ourselves of what really matters. I know I’m putting the “outernet” on the top of my wish list this Christmas. What’s going to be at the top of yours?


(Thank-you, Fresh Mommy, for letting me guest post on your blog today. I am truly honored to be given the opportunity to share space with such a talented writer, photographer and mother! You inspired me to start my blog to journal my wonderful life as a busy mama. And for that, and so many other awesome tidbits, I will be forever grateful and a better person. I am blessed to call you a friend not only in the blogosphere but also in real life.)“

Thank you, Jessica, for blessing this space with your words! 

Enjoy some merriment today.