I had planned to show a “one year later” picture from the pregnancy announcement I made a year ago this week. You know, a sappy collage showing “what a difference a year makes.” That’s when I saw Jill’s Slice Of Perfect In Our Messy Reality challenge. That’s a perfect excuse to dress up my kids and take the pictures I wanted to take anyway! Jill is fun. I love her blog and I enjoyed talking with her when I met her at BlogHer a couple of years ago.

Then my messy reality hit and I couldn’t find the originals of the photos I took of Charlotte when we announced that she would be a big sister.  This is likely due to my progesterone fueled brain in April 2013. So, for last year click here. I think it turned out pretty cute, but I’m all kinds of biased.

On with the challenge! It’s April, 2014.

Here are these beautiful slices of perfect I captured of Charlotte and Henry the other day. Ya’ll, I can’t even stand it when I see these shots of my babes. Gah!

Now for the messy reality. Sorry to break it to you, but they are not always this darling. I had to coax Charlotte into taking these pictures. Bribery in the form of Easter candy was involved. I did have to do a little editing with these. I cropped out some extra space, boosted the highlights and removed the wall socket. Now I will back up and show you the whole room. Charlotte is blocking the pesky socket in this shot.

We’ve lived in this house for a year now and this room remains pretty much empty. It will one day be a formal living room or dining room, I guess. Watch for the rogue coffee table we took out of the den because our kid kept banging into it. Beware the modem and WiFi extender on the floor. We still have mediocre WiFi at best. On the left is my nephew’s car seat since my sister and her family are in town for Easter.

I appreciate Jill doing this challenge. I have a bad habit of comparing myself to other’s perfectly edited DSLR photographs. Ya’ll, so many of us are duped into believing we aren’t good enough when we see other people’s lives through Instagram filters. Remember, no one shares shots of the messy reality on their Facebook wall.

Tina Fey has been my idol for some time now. Then Sheryl Sandberg came along and I’m all like, “Gah! You are amazing! Thank you for all you do!” So, I was pretty psyched this morning when I read about the start of the Ban Bossy campaign.

I hate the word “bossy.” Hate it. Maybe it was because I was the target of “bossy” a lot as a child. I’m the oldest child and grandchild. I’m a natural extrovert with enthusiastic tendencies. My ideas for games and activities, coupled with my excitement, meant I often rallied the troops on the playground or in the neighborhood for some fun adventure or another. Sometimes this rubbed other kids the wrong way and I was called “bossy.” The worst was other neighborhood kids’ mothers calling me a “hot shot” or telling their kids not to put up with me being bossy. I don’t remember the same of the boys in the neighborhood. The boys were never criticized for being bossy. They were praised for being leaders. I was “pushy.” They were “persuasive.” It was crap.

 Me at age 9 or 10, likely hoping not to be called “bossy” for being myself.

The scourge of puberty and and my bossy label meant I occasionally shied away from my natural leadership tendencies as a young adolescent for fear of not being liked. I think for a lot of girls it is more important to be well-liked than respected. This follows many of us into womanhood, myself included. As it was pointed out in numerous articles today, “bossy” leads to “the other b-word.”

Someone implied that my three-year-old daughter might follow my footsteps and become “bossy” like her mother. This implication made my blood boil. This quote from Sandberg is the best. “I want every little girl who’s told she’s bossy to be told she has leadership skills.”

image: Wikipedia

So, I’m all about the #banbossy campaign and I salute Sandberg’s Lean In and the Girl Scouts for starting it, but I think it needs to go even further. This quote from Sarah Silverman really struck a chord with me. “Stop telling girls they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. I think it’s a mistake. Not because they can’t, but because it never would have occurred to them they couldn’t.” 

image: upr.org

Someone with the best intentions pointed out to my daughter the other day that “Girls can do anything boys can!” Blerg! Shhh! Of course they can! Why wouldn’t they?! Don’t point it out to her. She probably never would have thought of it if someone hadn’t brought it up. Stop talking about how “girls can play sports too!” Blah! Blah! Blah! Just sign them up for sports, let them run for office in their classes and if the issue of sexism comes up, address it then, but don’t make it an issue before it is.

My daughter just finished learning all about the presidents in preschool. She even wrote a letter to President Obama. I did not point out to her that none of the presidents were women. I refuse to make a big deal about Hillary Clinton running for office in 2016. When she wins and becomes the first woman president, I refuse to make a big deal about her being a woman to my kids.

For daughter AND my son, I want the idea of a woman president to be an obvious part of life. I want the idea of a female boss to be typical, and the idea that she was bossy to get there, bogus.

Hey there!  I was a little quiet on the blog this week, but believe me when I say I had blogging on the brain.  I had been wanting a makeover for awhile.  Thanks to Sarah at One Starry Night, things are freshened up quite a bit.  She came up with this fabulous design that I hope all you darling readers like.

I’m working to stretch my writing and make my site even better.  I can’t do it without the help of people like Sarah.  Poor Kelly has the arduous task of being my blog host.  She is with the amazing Twenty 70 Hosting  and has to hear my Widget whines and HTML blunders.  Both Kelly and Sarah are so kind and patient with me and my Internet ineptitude.

Thank you with all my heart for reading my blog.  Please comment and email.  I always want to know what you’re thinking, good and bad.  It blows my mind sometimes that people read the words I write.  This blog has been an outlet, a community, a recorder and a soapbox.  Above all, it’s been a happy blessing.

I haven’t written since Christmas, and even then I didn’t really write.  I’ve just enjoyed my vacation.  It was a week of uninterrupted time with family and friends and exactly what our little family needed.  No work, no blogging.  It was really fantastic.  Do it if you can.

It could be the excitement of having Christmas with a 2-year-old that made this year special, but that’s not all of it.  I can’t put my finger on one thing that made it fantastic.  It was every little moment.  I think we have to go back before our actual vacation, to the week before Thanksgiving.

• That is when we took Charlotte to her first Christmas parade and the Santa mania began.  She didn’t even want to sit in her wagon.  Nope, only our shoulders would do.  She wanted to see everything.

• During Thanksgiving she watched her first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  She couldn’t wait for the Sesame Street float while she sat on her Sesame Street potty.  Greyson and I laughed and laughed at our little naked baby.

• Charlotte ran to Santa and gave him a hug.  She asked him for a baby doll.

• One night in December, Greyson and I had a date night to see Raleigh’s famous version of “A Christmas Carol.”  My former colleague and great friend, Mark played Nephew Fred.  I was so proud I teared up.  When the cast ran into the audience as part of the performance, he found us and hugged us.
• Another night I had a girls night at “The Nutcracker” I told all of you about.
• We got an extra special treat when Greyson’s parents surprised us and flew in from Colorado the weekend before Christmas.  They got to give Charlotte her new kitchen set.
• I got together with my friends from my old dance company growing up since everyone was in town for the holidays.  Some still dance.  For others like me, competitions, recitals, bleeding toes and tutus are all part of a past life.  It was exciting to catch up with them and plan dance days for our own daughters.  

• I also got to meet up with friends from high school.  It was like herding cats for Meagan, Megan and myself to keep track of our two-year-olds.  I love seeing old friends from the past and seeing their life successes.  It does my heart good.  For me, when I look at old friends I see the 17-year-old me, forever preserved in them.

• Santa came!  Her beloved baby doll was in her arms.

• We traveled to my Grandparents houses for a little extended-family time.  Charlotte has not stopped talking about her second cousins Lana, Emma, and Willow.

• New Years Eve we went downtown to Raleigh’s First Night celebration.  We drop an acorn because we’re the City of Oaks.  It’s silly, we know, but it’s our thing here in the Capital City.  We went to the 7:00pm Acorn Drop for children.  This was Charlotte’s first and she couldn’t have been more delightful.  If she kissed us once, it was a million times.  I teared up singing Auld Lang Syne at 7:01pm.  I was that ridiculously happy with my bundled-up little family.

 

Quick sidenote:  This holiday I realized how often I use my Instagram.  (Duh! See above post.  Half these pics are IG.) Seriously.  It’s as much as I use Twitter and Facebook.  I’ve had my account for about 1 1/2 years.  I was shocked at BlogHer ’12 how many bloggers I recognized from Instagram.  Therefore, I’m keeping my account even though many are jumping ship because of all the drama.  I’m considering watermarking my pics.  I dunno.  I just don’t want to worry about it.  Anyway, let me know what you decided.  Let me know if I’m not following you!  

Happy National Blog Posting Month! Better known as NaBloPoMo. Yep, I’m trying to write a post every day of November this year. Hmmm. We’ll see how it goes. I did about 25 of 30 days for NaBloPoMo ’11. I’m feeling even better for ’12.

Wish me luck. We have a big two days with Charlotte’s birthday tomorrow and party on Saturday. For today, just enjoy a glimpse of our Halloween.

Leave a comment with a link to shots of your costumed kiddos! There is nothing better than cute kids in costumes. Happy November!

(Sorry these didn’t post the first time.  Oh, and she was a cupcake.  Some people couldn’t tell.)