Posts made in November 1st, 2008

Motherly Overkill

Posted by Michelle on Nov 1, 2008 in Family, Life, Parenting | 0 comments

This is a NaBloPoMo entry for November 2008

Today was a miserable cold and rainy day, the kind that makes you want to curl up on the sofa with a nice toasty blanket, DVD and hot chocolate. As for me, I had to “settle” for a nice, warm, toasty baby snuggled up to Mommy while she napped away the afternoon. Not bad, says I.

It is my Mom’s birthday today so we decided to meet at a nearby restaurant to celebrate. Taking note of the miserable weather before we left, I did what any mama with half a brain would do: bundled up my child in warm clothes, took an extra blanket and make sure we had a nice umbrella to keep the raindrops off of her.

Right as we were turning onto the freeway (The Hubster ™ was driving), I get a phone call from my mom, presumably to ask us our ETA.

Me: Hello?
Mom: Is she cold?
Me: Huh?
Mom: Is The Little Empress cold?
Me: … um, no. Actually, we’re in the car on our way to meet –
Mom: It’s raining.
Me: Um, yeah. It’s been raining all day –
Mom: You need to bundle her up.
Me: Yeah, I know. She’s dressed in her –
Mom: Blanket? Do you have a blanket?
Me: Of course I –
Dad *in background*: UMBRELLA! Tell her that they need an umbrella!
Mom: Umbrella? Do you have one?
Me: Of course we do –
Mom: I have an extra one! A big one.
Me: We have one and it’s not like we’re standing out…
Mom: *frantic* YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE SHE’S NOT COLD OR WET!! DON’T LET HER GET WET!!!

WHOA! By that point, Mom was truly frantic as if she truly thought that I’d leave the house with The Little Empress stripped bare to the diaper. Geezus, thanks for the vote of confidence!! I let her know that yes, TLE was bundled up, had an extra blankie and we had an umbrella for her. Thank god for cell phones — I could tell her all this whilst rolling my eyes. After hanging out,  I shared the conversation with my sister and The Hubster ™ who were also in the truck. We all agreed that Mom was being loopily overprotective and we had a good laugh about it.

We arrived at the restaurant a few moments before my parents arrived and the rain had gotten a bit worse. Just as we’re getting out of the truck, my parents’ SUV pulls up and my sister screeches, “Oh my god, what is she doing?!” My dad had stopped the car and Mom was running across the rain-drenched parking lot, wielding one of dad’s huge golf umbrellas for the 20 foot walk from the truck to the restaurant door.

WTF?! Totally unnecessary overkill. I couldn’t figure out whether to laugh or bang my head against the concrete.

I know my mom is just being a worried/doting grandmother and while it is kind of comical, it is also annoying. I mean, good grief, what did she think we were going to do? Take her out without warm clothes, let her get soaking wet in the freezing rain and then toss her into the creek to teach her to swim? I know she meant well but it felt like she thought I had no common sense. Yeesh — have some faith in the daughter you raised to not be a complete airhead! I mean, I know it’s hard to tell sometimes but COME ON NOW.

NaNoWriMo? No, NaBloPoMo!

Posted by Michelle on Nov 1, 2008 in Life, writing | 0 comments

November is the month that hosts the National Novel Writing Month contest or as it is also known NaNoWriMo in which participants attempt to pen a 175 page (50,000 word) novel in 30 days. Broken down, this averages approximately 1,666 words (give or take) a day.

I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo for three years, never once breaking the 10,000 word mark. Honestly, I think I can easily pound out 2,000 words a day if I were simply sh’tting words out of my fingers (kind of like I do here) but the challenge of NaNoWriMo is to write a novel which implies plot, structure, etc. My previous NaNoWriMo attempts were stories that took place in my own made up worlds near and dear to my heart and I realized that while it can be a great prolonged brainstorming, “I need words on paper NOW”, month, I was in general unsatisfied with the quality of my work. After all, NaNoWriMo is about quantity and not quality. It may work for some but it definitely did not work for me.

I’d heard about National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) last year. Since NaNoWriMo isn’t an option for me, I decided to get serious about my blogging in November and bang out one post per day from November 1st to November 30th. Follow me on my two blogs — Mommy Misadventures & Delishiono!