Fear and Parenting in Las Vegas

“WAHL!!”

Yes Doodle. Wall.

“EEEN-DOH!!”

Yes Doodle. Window.

“GAAGGIE!!”

Yes Doodle. That’s Maggie. The cat.

“KEEETTTTEEE!”

Yes Doodle. Kitty.

And so on…

Days with a two-year old in the middle of a language burst have been filled with exchanges like this. From dawn to dusk, various nouns, verbs, and adjectives are screamed at ear-bleeding volumes. He won’t stop until his attempt at the word has been confirmed.

This is my kid. For sure.

He wants to communicate. He needs to feel heard. He will stop at nothing until he does.

I figured this language bubble, which has resulted in 10-20 new words a day in this little-big-mouth’s vocabulary was the reason for his recent sleep disturbances. (BTW, screw you Ferber. You never heard my son yell “BEWY BUTTON!” as he insists that I rub his tummy as he drifts to sleep. That’s an order that any red-blooded mom couldn’t resist to fulfill.)

I was wrong.

He pooped in the potty tonight.

It was his idea. No pressure from me.

He plopped his little fanny on the seat and a few squeezes later, his sister and I were agape and agog at his little logs. I think our excitement scared him a little, but he got that he’d done something really cool.

Yep. That’s my boy. He’s the…

(Don’t worry. I’ll spare you the pictures. Trust me, though. There ARE pictures.)

Unbeknownst to me, I was a single woman at BlogHer ’09. In the sessions, at the parties, and in the hallways, there was lots of talk about blog spouses – men and women who have built great friendships through the pages of blogs, tweet to tweet and so forth. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting some of the testosterone that braved the estrogen-filled shores of the Chicago Sheraton. Here are some of my faves.

Whit from Honea Express

Hmmm. I do like tall guys,

Karl from Secondhandkarl

It's the shirt that got me.

Neil from Citizen of the Month

A great storyteller who can pull off a bag hat like none other.

Avitable

I love him, but I think Britt would cut me.

I also met Shawn of Backpacking Dad, Jim from Busy Dad, and Matthew from ChildsPlayx2, but the photographic evidence of those exchanges is in a sealed vault.

Leave me a comment and let me know you you think I should start stalking.

Yes. I said this out loud.

I was sitting on the floor in a crowded room of fellow bloggers debating whether bloggers could and/or should write anonymously.

I know I got a few looks. Some supportive. Some “WTF?”. I didn’t care. It needed to be said.

Does writing behind the veil give you an amazing sense of freedom? Are you empowered to say online all the things that you wish you could say to the faces of the people you love and hate? Certainly. I can speak from experience. I spent the first nine months on this blog with the FandPinLV pseudonym. It was great. We all had funny names and I could really push the limits and be balls to the wall.

Then came fame. Uh, well, sort of. Ok, not really.

It was a lame assed holiday crafting segment on a local TV station that the nice PR folks for a site I was writing for at the time set up.

I was gonna be on TV. I’m no Vegas celebrity, mind you, but this is a really frickin’ small town. People know me.

I had to own up.

So I did.

Since then, I have had to pull the reins back a bit. I’ve learned that some things I wrote to be funny, thoughtful, and introspective really hurt other people. That sucked.

I’ve learned that owning my stories, opinions, and perspectives is more empowering than throwing them about like drive-by water balloons. They are mine. I polish and protect them like precious jewels. That rocks.

I’ve learned that I need to think not only about how my words are taken now, but how they are taken years from now by my children, my parents, and my colleagues.

I’ve learned that this blog is not the appropriate venue for all things Nancy. Some times I just have to pick up the phone and call my mom, go grab a glass of wine with a friend, or keep it on my own hard drive in a locked file.

I am free to speak, but I am as accountable for what I say on this blog as I am for the actions I take.

These are my truths.

And these truths make me sad today.

I am sad that a brilliant writer who deserves to be read and loved is locking down his blog today. He has been “found out” after a video of him reading an amazing, tear-flood inducing love letter to his five-year-old-daughter at last weekend’s BlogHer conference was posted. (This dude totally has a future with Hallmark.)

He commented here shortly after he started his blog, The Wind in Your Vagina. I must admit, I was more than a little freaked out by what I thought some porno-dude’s words on the same screen as pictures of my kids. But, I clicked his link, and followed the breadcrumbs back to his site.

I laughed. Sometimes till I cried. Sometimes I just cried. Sometimes I had to read his posts over and over to figure out who the hell this dude “Skip” was  and why his daughter had a boyfriend named after an appetizer.

It was easy to see how in less than a year, he drew amazing traffic to his site. The dude can write. If there was ever an example of how all the self-promotion in the world (at which he was amazingly adept) is only worthwhile when you have great storytelling, he is it.

I met him briefly at the conference this weekend.  He was taller than I imagined, but as nice as can be for a crazy dude with imaginary friends. He is not black, but I cannot attest to his skills with a puck, and I am sure his lovely wife screams a diety’s name or two in the heat of pah-shun. He is Black Hockey Jesus, but you can call him BHJ for short, because any time a guy can have a name close to a sexual act, he’s all over it like white on rice.

You’ll have to go through an FBI screening and sign an oath to surrender your left testicle or right bewb to get the password to his now private blog. For his sake, I hope that he can keep things under control and keep fueling his creative genius. I hope that he can keep his energy focused on writing and not be distracted by the fear of being betrayed.

There is no such thing as privacy on the Internet.

But, for his sake, I hope I am wrong.