How Tweet It Is…

This is my fiftieth post and the one year anniversary of my blog. Wow! When we started this a year ago, I seriously was not certain that we would actually keep it up. And, given the crazy nature of the past year, I am surprised to note that we actually averaged about one post per week.

Over the last year I have memorialized my days, my thoughts, and the moments in our lives. I have been surprised how many people have actually bothered to take the time to read these accounts and left me notes of encouragement, sympathy, or even just laughed along with me at the state of my mind and life.

I have often congratulated myself at figuring out this forum, although I must admit to regularly being amazed at how much more advanced, regular, and technologically savvy my friends’ blogs are. I was even recently chastised for the loser of a recipe blog I started and have NOT kept up over the last year. So, I know I can do better in this sphere. But, just as I think about how to improve as a blogger, I must admit that technology is always about twenty paces ahead of me.

I have already devoted a blog to my inept attempts to utilize Facebook to improve my social life (those of you who follow my blog and are “FB Friends” with me will attest to the fact that my ability to regularly update, communicate, and post on FB still leaves much to be desired), but just last week I discovered that there is another realm of online networking that is even more illusive to my 1990’s perspective on technology: it is called Twitter.

The last time I think I regularly used the term “twitter” was in junior high. It was in the Bambi-sense referring to fluctuating heart palpitations caused by an entirely hormonal and irrational fascination with a member of the opposite sex. You know, “twitter-pated.”

Now, I discover that there is a whole language connected with a website called Twitter. On this site a person (called a “tweeter”) and leave notes (called “tweets”) about the daily happenings in their lives. Then, others can sign up to “track” you and read all about what you are doing: real time.

As I tried to sort out the point of this practice later in the evening with my husband, he informed me that there is an “app” (short for “application” in apple-speak) for the new i-phone (the latest addition and addiction to top my husband’s techno-wish list – which is an entirely different post for another day) that allows you to post and receive tweets from your phone.

So, as far as I can figure, twitter is the perfect marriage of two technologies that I cannot master or understand: texting and facebook. Hence, it is entirely incomprehensible to someone like me.

If I were a tweeter and used twitter on the i-phone I do not own, I could send out tweets about my various activities all day long to my friends and family who could receive them in real-time on their i-phones (if they had them, right now I think only my techno-loving father-in-law is so equipped). I could then also receive play-by-play updates about everything that they were doing throughout their days. I could also subscribe to the tweets of celebrities that I like, such as Diane Reem and President Obama, so I can keep up with everything that they are doing throughout the day.

Contemplating this constant exchange of information, leads me to ask just one question: WHY? Why in the world do I need that much information about all of your lives? Why in the world would anyone really want to know about what I was doing in my life on that regular of a basis? It strikes me as down-right obnoxious. How much is there that happens in a given day that is really worthy of tracking and sharing? Wouldn’t the sum of what I would have to write eventually boil down to: “just read so-and-so’s tweet about x” or “writing another tweet.”

I know I am an inherently verbose individual, so perhaps that is part of my hang-up. I just don’t think that meaningful exchanges occur in under 140 characters. Hence, the reason that I regularly advocate just picking up the phone and talking over texting. And, I still can’t think of anything witty enough to share as a post on my facebook site that doesn’t seem to necessitate a bit of a back-story. So, I just don’t post.

This mode of communication without context reminds me of telephone conversations with my three year old, Maggie. The important aspects of Maggie’s day are relatively mundane factoids. She loves to share them over the phone with her grandparents, aunties, or her dad but never provides any background for the random information. Hence a conversation with Maggie usually includes phrases about the happenings in her life, such as these:
-I wear my fancy, fancy shoes to the bus stop.
-Mommy making macaroni and cheese.
-I wear my blue dress.
-Mommy paint my room pink.

As far as I can tell, Twitter is a tool through which everyone in the world can share with everyone else all the Maggie-esque factoids of their lives. We can all drown in unanalyzed, unfiltered, non-reflective communication about the day-to-day activities which make up our lives.

Yet, Twitter is all the rage. Jeffrey (who I should point out still is not on Facebook himself) is regularly telling me that I will live a longer and happier life if I keep up with the technological changes of the times. “There is no virtue in remaining inept and ignorant as the world passes you by,” he says.

So, in honor of my one year mark of successfully maintaining a blog – which I think is truly keeping up with the times – and for my fiftieth post, I am going to try to push the envelope a bit further. Here is my life, today, in tweets.

7:35 am – Woke up. Elsie Jane is still asleep – hurray! Maggie is in bed with me, again. Wish I could figure out how to keep her out of my room at night.

8:29 am – Dang. There goes Mia’s bus up the street. Going to have to drive her to school today. How did that happen?

8:45 am – Nursing Elsie Jane. Eating a bagel. Talking to both Mia and Maggie at one time. Motherhood is multitasking.

9:00 am – Maggie: Mom, come wipe my bum!!! Me: Ew! Maggie did you just tinkle all over the floor? Maggie: Sorry. It an accident.

9:05 am – Mopped the half bath floor. Collected three pairs of discarded panties, one wet.

9:30 am – Turned on Barney for Maggie. Ran three miles and watched the YW General Broadcast. No space here to expound on the value of virtue.

10:30 am – Nursed Elsie; put her down for nap. Sorted laundry; forgot to start the load. Emptied garbage cans; need more bags from Costco.

11:00 am -- Took shower. Maggie opened the door half-way through so I could fasten her necklace and have a conversation. So much for privacy!

11:30 am – Important information if you are my three-year old: I am wearing blue jeans and a blue sweatshirt today. No shoes, yet.

12:00 noon – Started the load of laundry. Sat down to write on computer. Find myself wondering how long it will be before I am interrupted.

12:15 pm – Phone rings. Spend an hour talking with my sister in Utah and missing living close to family. Can’t wait for our visit in one week!

1:00 pm – Fix mac and cheese for Maggie and rice and beans for me for lunch. Notice Maggie is nude again – I think this is the fifth wardrobe change today.

1:15 pm – Call to Maggie to come eat lunch. She informs me: “Mom, I playing upstairs. It not nice you interrupt me when I am busy.” Oh, excuse me!

1:59 pm – Finished my blog post. Fold a load of laundry and start another. Goal for today: if I do nothing else I will put away the clean clothes I folded two weeks ago.

3:05 pm – Nursed and changed Elsie Jane. I don’t know what it is about her coos and smiles, but they melt my heart every time.

3:30 pm – Tried to work on the story I have been writing while Maggie climbed all over my lap. Having a hard time concentrating.

3:40 pm – Commiserated with Tamee Jones about today’s mail: our kids will NOT go to Pennington next year. Don’t know what I am going to do about Mia & school.

4:05 pm – Just picked Mia up at bus. Walked to the Taylor’s to watch Jonathan’s volcano erupt. Let the kids play in the yard for awhile.

4:35 pm – Got the girls a snack and turned on a show for them, put Elsie down for a nap, did another load of laundry. Called Jeffrey with the Pennington news.

5:30 pm – Just finished a pot of French onion soup for dinner. Cut up a cantaloupe to go with it. One more load of laundry down.

6:00 pm – Told Maggie I was going to try feeding Elsie Jane cereal, to which she replied, “Let’s give her some Lucky Charms!”

6:15 pm – Ate dinner and listened to Mia recite the pledge, including my favorite phrase: from witchinstan. Don’t have a clue where witchinstan is, do you?

6:45 pm – Jeffrey just left for a meeting. Elsie Jane is screaming. Dinner dishes are everywhere. Food is on the floor. The girls need to get ready for bed.

8:58 pm – The children have been bathed, read to, sung to, fed, changed, and tucked into bed. Half the laundry has been put away. I’m off to do the dishes.

10:00 pm - Finished the dishes and sweeping the floors. Talked with Jeffrey. Going to relax, mate about 150 socks & watch Chuck on TV.

10:45 pm - Time for bed. I still need to read my scriptures and pray, then to sleep: it is essential before I awake and repeat some variation on this day.

The Small Things

Small things. That is what makes up my life. I trust in the scripture that it is by "small and simple things" that great things are brought to pass, because -- quite frankly -- if I didn't I may lose my mind.

So, as I have not blogged in quite a while, here is my tribute to some of the small things that have been going on lately.

More pests
Pink eye for the whole family. Ear infection for Elsie Jane. Maggie burning her hand on the gas fireplace -- all adding up to 7 trips to the pediatrician in less than three weeks.

Two snow days off school / work. I have been working on embracing all the together-time. As my mom always says, "What you resist persists."

As you may note from my photos of the the girls convalescing, they may have been down, but not out. Even feeling her worst, Maggie still made certain to have her fancy, fancy shoes close by. Doesn't everyone wear heels to bed when trying to get over a cold and running a fever?




Ice Skating
Mia took ice skating lessons on Saturdays during February with her friends. Too bad we didn't have a warm Saturday in the mix! We did have a warmer evening at the end of the month when I took her out to use her free passes and practice. I don't get enough one-on-one time with Mia; it is one of my biggest priorities for this year to find more time to spend with her alone. She isn't bad on the ice; she just needs to work a bit on stopping, instead of skating towards me at full speed and using my body to slow herself down. After skating we went out for dinner together and just talked; I am amazed at how grown-up she is getting.


Impetuousness
On the topic of Mia, I have determined that one of her most challenging attributes, at least for me as her parent, is her impetuous nature. She gets an idea and then just moves ahead, often with no consultation from me. The other morning, I got out of the shower to find her outside, in her pajamas, with an assortment of plastic cups, half-full paint cans, wood pieces, nails and a hammer. She was working attentively in the driveway. "What are you doing," I asked. "Making you a china hutch," Mia replied. Of course. (I do need a china hutch, by the way.)

I do not want to stunt her creativity; the need to work on projects and pursue her ideas has only increased since she started school. However, I am trying to encourage her to just run her ideas past me before she commences putting them into action. It hasn't worked yet.

Like the other day when the weather was warm and she and Maggie were playing in the front yard, I came inside for ten minutes and returned to find them well-stocked for a trip. They had a croquet set, tent, several sleeping bags, lanterns, and large sticks loaded in the wagon. I helped them set up the tent, which may have only made matters worse. Within a few minutes they had run inside, packed enough clothes and other essentials for a week and toted them out to the front yard too.




Spring Fever
Mother Nature has been playing around with our tender emotions here in Virginia. We will get a warm, gorgeous day and then, bam, two days later it will be snowing. This is why that tent got set up, taken down after being rained on, snowed on during its tenure on the front porch "to dry," thawed out, and finally put away over a week later.

Unlike this weekend, last weekend was gorgeous. We ate dinner out on the deck for two nights, and Monday morning Elsie and I went for our first outdoor run since her birth. It was a wonderful three miles! If it hadn't gotten cold, and I hadn't come down with a cold the next day, maybe we would have even repeated the training. I am committed to getting back in shape this year, but I am off to quite a slow start.


Just Getting Bigger
I had to take a few pictures to memorialize the next milestone in Elsie Jane's life -- four months old! Not to belabor the point, but I just can't believe it.

And, while I was at it, here are a couple darling shots of Maggie. Despite the fact that they occurred to hide the bald spots from when she cut her own hair two days before Elsie Jane's blessing, I do think the bangs suit her.