An open letter to the mothers in the news who have lately been making up kidnapping stories..

Hey assholes.  STOP IT.   For reals.

To clarify, I'm not talking about what actually happened to each of your kids.  That part is incredibly sad, but not why I'm here.    I'm here about this whole "Oh, someone took my kid" thing.   Yeah.  STOP IT.   

Do you have any idea how much you are freaking out mothers across the country?   At night, my house now gets a zombie lock-down equivalent to Will Smith's I Am Legend.   As I parent, I realize it is logical to be careful in securing the safety of your child, and that there is nothing wrong with a locked door.   But you guys KEEP REPORTING these scary fake stories about babies being stolen from cribs, which is giving us an irrational level of fear about zombies child thieves breaking into our houses.   And also?  We're going to be weird FOREVER about putting gas in our cars with our kids inside, even when we are right next to the car.    Jerks.

In addition, I must say that you are giving me a very, very weird internet browsing history at work.   The network guys are going to start wondering why I keep obsessively googling "missing 2 year old" over and over and OVER again.   You are making me be WEIRD about this.

And I have enough things to be weird about.   There is that awful business at Penn State, where there were real life monsters who were actually hurting people.   I am starting to attempt frantic "no one should be touching your penis unless they are changing your diaper... and you're poopy...and the poop is on your penis" conversations with my 2 year old, which totally does not accomplish anything other than causing him to say "This PENIS... THIS penis." 

On behalf of all mothers, I am begging you.    Stop making that awful stuff up.   I mean, stop doing the horrible stuff in the first place, obviously, but REALLY really, stop cooking up these horrible scenes with imaginary baby thieves coming in and taking your children away.   I'm just trying to give my kid a normal, happy childhood.   And it is really hard to have a normal, happy childhood when a kid's mother is afraid.

Back Atcha

Would you like to know one of my pet peeves?

Dormant blogs.

If I’ve invested the time and energy into becoming obsessed with your writing, the very least you can do is write something awesome. On every single day of your life. Preferably with picture and/or video accompaniment. And a cool background so I don’t get bored.

Can’t do it? Well, as it turns out, neither can I.

Here are some things I've wanted to write about in the past 10 months since I peed my pants in February. (Side note - you will be happy to know that has all stopped.)

Baby cows

Pancakes

Poopy pants (Levi’s, not mine.)

Skinny jeans

Consignment stores

Baby food

Levi crawling

Levi standing

Lots of mentioninings of Levi doing something cute

Amy Grant’s Home for Christmas album. (more of a thanks to all who remained friends with me in the early 90’s in spite of aforementioned album)

Hair removal creams

Scandalous toe polish color names

Post-nursing boobs

Superheroes

So. Let's just forget about these past 10 months of silence, and instead pretend that I wrote a killer set of blog entries on the above subjects, chock-full of witticisms and JUST the right amount of word plays. So you'll all be thinking stuff like...

"You're right, Linda! That WAS a cute story about Levi!"

"Pink Fornicarnation?! That IS a silly nail polish color! You so crazy."

"So does the cream remove ALL the hair from your belly button?"

And so on. Don't you feel refreshed? I know I do.

While we're here, I should note that another pet peeve of mine is when people put up their "I'M BACK!" blog post proclamation, and then proceed to immediately disappear again for another number of months.

I will do my best not to do this. I will do my best to say interesting things, and do so on a somewhat regular basis. Thanks for sticking with me.

Peer Editing

I skipped the peer editing days in my college Southern Lit class. Every single one of them. I had an allotment of absences that I could take and still pass the class. I used them all up. Every. Single. One. Why? Because I am terrified of people reading what I write. I hang out with the Englishheads. I am not one, myself.

And yet, here we are. A buh..... a buh..... a bluh..... a BLOG.

I think I will primarily write about the kid. Maybe put up cutsie pictures. Maybe I'll reserve this thing for really big cusses.

But I tell you what. I sure do like pancakes.