Sunday, December 08, 2013

trying to find my way back

It's hard these days to know what to write here. It was easier when the girls were smaller, but now they're bigger and their stories are much more their own. Abby is now on facebook as are some of her friends have friended me, so I try to be mindful of what I'm writing about her. I take the time to ask if she's okay with it first. As someone who has enjoyed a very long love affair with blogging I find it really stifling. I know I have to change how/what I am writing, but I haven't manage to find my groove there yet, so this place sits neglected and that just eats at me which makes the writing even harder. It's a tremendously vicious circle.

When my girls were tiny it was so easy to take to the internet and poor out my frustrations about non-sleeping babies, temper tantrums and toilet training issues and the resounding chorus of "me too's", from my online Moms in the trenches crew was more than a  little gratifying, that feeling of we're all in the this together. There are still lots of parenting issues I'd like to write about. I am the Mom of a tween and that landscape changes vastly day to day it seems at times. And my baby, well she's no longer a baby in any way and that is an adjustment. They challenge me daily and I'm just white knuckling it (at times) and praying really hard that I'm doing right by them.

They are moving into new stages of their lives, some with great trepidation and some are just balls to the wall about it and those descriptors are interchangeable issue to issue, child to child. It's just a whole new world. Really I think my kids are amazing and awesome and this is way more about me than it is about them because I definitely bring my own baggage to this whole Mom gig and that is one of the issues I wish I could write about. I'm more than comfortable writing about myself, but the flipside is my issues are connected to theirs and telling half the story just doesn't seem beneficial, but I intend to keep working away at it trying to find the balance... hope you'll stick with me.

4 comments:

Julie said...

i'm not going anywhere. :) and hopefully you figure out the balance and can talk about some of the tween issues. i will need some inspiration for when i get there. ;)

Lynn said...

I totally hear you. I think a lot of bloggers get into it to share stories of their babies, then eventually reach this point where they need to share less about their kids. It's a transition time, and I hope you'll make it through - love your blog! I find these days I blog more about myself - what my own thoughts, dreams, hopes are; also, more about what it means to me to be a parent (good and bad!!) without putting in too much detail about my older kids' actually behaviour.

Do you read Swistle (swistle.com)? Her oldest is 14 or so and she's struggling through the teen years, and unlike a lot of other bloggers, she actually writes about it. She always writes with sensitivity and I've never felt like she has violated her son's privacy, and yet, SO informative and interesting and she gets the greatest conversations in the comments as we discuss various parenting approaches. It's a great model of how to write about *parenting* without revealing very much about your actual *kids*.

Betsy Hart said...

I am totally with you in the struggle. I would love to hear more about how your running is going!

Shan said...

Thanks for the suggestion Lynn, I'm going to check that one out. I really would like to find a way to write a little about this changing landscape.