Spreadable Love - Now with Canola Oil

I am a voracious reader. In addition to the stack of books next my bed I also have piles of them next to my couch (on both sides), on the ledge around my bathtub, and in the kitchen. There used to be heaps of them on ottomans, up the stairs and on the floor all over my house but then Chicky Baby learned that the more important the book the more satisfying the noise it made when you ripped the pages and I had to put the kibosh to that sorting method.

Who me?

At any one time I will have at least 5 books that I am in the middle of reading. That number was higher a couple of years ago, but then I got pregnant and lost the ability to concentrate on the Picks and Pans section of a People magazine never mind the latest David Sedaris tome. It was devastating to lose the ability to curl up with a good book and a cup of coffee and while away the time before my baby came. And after I became a mother... Well, most of you are parents so you understand the, ahem, time limitations involved when caring for an infant. Its not like I could pick up a book for two minutes, put it down and come back to it later when the baby was asleep (Ha! Asleep!). Oh, but I tried. In those first horrific months of breastfeeding when my ass was parked firmly on my couch because the badger I had given birth to refused to unlatch herself from my beaten and battered nipples I read a few books. Perused was more like it. I would take my trips to Target or Barnes and Noble and buy books with the hopes of being able to find the time to read between feeding, changing, rocking, crying, rinse, lather, repeat. I had all but given up on ever being able to lose myself in the latest New York Times best seller and had resigned myself to a life of Dr. Seuss and Sandra Boynton.

And then I found blogs.

What better medium to do some reading in five minute intervals? Screw those damn message boards and baby how-to books (uh Dr. Sears? Buh-Bye.), I had found myself knee deep in real mother's and father's accounts of their parenting ups and downs. People like me who willingly admitted they had no idea what they were doing but were willing to share what had worked and didn't work for them. I had found Mommy Blogs! And with that the chorus of angels sang a glorious "hallelujah" and I was hopelessly hooked.

The first blog I found was so amazing to me that I spent a week or two going back to the writer's very first post and read from beginning to the most current entry in chronological order. So candid! So witty! I laughed, I cried, I went off in search of others.

While I was ferreting through sites like the Mom Salon and Crazy Hip Blog Mamas I started my own blog. Poorly written as it was in its early conception I quickly found that the more I read of other's writing the better I became as a blog writer, and I want to thank each and every one of you who inspired me to continue on this long and often tumultuous road of Mom Blogging.*

Bear with me, I kinda suck at this.

First and foremost, I want to thank Christina for being the first person to include me on her blogroll in the days when I was all "What in the Sam Hell is a blogroll and why is my blog on it? Is it anything like a jelly roll? Because if it is then I'm all over it." You probably don't realize it, Christina, but because you included me I continued to blog even though I was about to throw in the towel.

Then I found more women whose writing made me awe-struck. Women who I had so many things in common with, or were just so damn likeable, that I just had to know more about them. Women who I could always count on for a kind word or sympathetic ear. Women who made my head spin from reading their posts, but in a good champagne-buzz kind of way. And all my new blog friends whom I am just starting to get to know and look forward to sharing more stories with. And if you're a doggie mama, then you count too!

Oh God, please tell me I didn't miss anyone.

My blogroll (now that I know what one is) is long and distinguished...

Wow, that sounds like something one of my old boyfriends would have said. But its true. At the risk of sounding all mushy and gushy you're the best internet friends a girl could ask for. I wish you all a Happy Mothers Day and many more to come. May your husbands buy you diamonds and all your children be on their best behavior. Or, at the very least, may you find an hour to yourself to write another blog entry. Because I'm hooked, man, and I gotta have my fix.



*Thanks to HBM for coming up with this wonderful idea. We all need a virtual pat on the back from time to time. I hope you don't mind me borrowing your photo caption idea!