Facebook and Mommyhood

I spend WAY too much time on Facebook. I mean really. It’s sick. A sickness really. Sick. You get the picture.

I hope I am not the only one that does it but I find myself thinking in status updates. Frequently. Like, through the whole day. I friggin’ narrate my day to myself in status updates.

…is wondering how long after Easter she will be unclogging the vacuum from Easter grass.
…is wanting the sun to come out and play.
…needs a shower.
…has about two minutes of patience left. DADDY COME HOME!

Etc. etc. etc.

Only a mere, hmmm, 10% of these pithy thoughts make the cut. I try to update my status updates once a day. Or less. Although some days I can't help myself. I don’t want to give away my lack of life to my non-yoga-pant-wearing friends and/or acquaintances. The rest of you understand though, right? And you do it too, right?

Facebook is to the 21st century mommy like church socials were to mommies a generation or two back, like quilting bees, that kind of thing. Except its instantaneous. Gossip, on demand. ALWAYS there. ALWAYS new. ALWAYS changing.

Unlike my life, I suppose.

Undoubtedly tomorrow I will do the same as today. Find the missing Ironman action figure (behind the couch cushion, again) change several diapers, drink too much coffee, eat leftover peanut butter sandwich crusts for lunch, and so on. But Facebook. Ah, Facebook. An ever present source of entertainment and change. Living vicariously through former colleagues and classmates now in exotic places around the globe. Empathizing with other mommies as they mourn the loss of their two year olds naptime. I feel your pain my sister.

Oh God, naptime. I have posted an obscene amount of status updates about naptime. My status update topics range thus:
-Naptime (lack thereof)
-Sleep (lack thereof)
-Caffeine (the need for more)
-Funny things my kids did
-The weather
-My need for a drink (yes, THAT kind of drink)

Wow. That makes me look like a boring-ass person. The weather?! Really though it’s true. Minnesotans live and die by the current weather state.

And yes, I am one of those moms that posts the funny things their kids say on Facebook. Of course I do it because I think my kid is truly a genius and needs an audience to appreciate his wit and spunk (HA).

Come on though, this gem? “Mommy, do I have five fingers? Yes dear you do. I wish I had three fingers. Why? Because then I would be like a T-Rex” Or what about this one “Mommy, what are you doing? Scrubbing the marker you drew on the couch. Mom, its not gonna work. Its MARKER.” Or one of my all time favorites “mom, do you know the diffence between boys and girls? Boys have golf clubs!”

My kids are hilarious.

Everyone appreciates this, right?

Sometimes I wonder if I irritate people with my witty kid stories and I vow to control myself. But then my kid tells me that he is not shooting at his sister he is doing magic. What kind of magic? The kind to make people disappear. Come ON, that HAS to go up there!.

Its funny how Facebook really does create a community for mommies. Even if no one in my real life appreciates the number of times my child woke up last night (except daddy of course) SOMEONE on Facebook is bound to give me sympathy.

There is also the element of voyeurism that is undeniably interesting. You don’t have to have one on one communication, you simply inform each other of your doings. I can keep track on who got married, who is having a baby, if that pregnant person looks skinnier than I did (damn, look at how great her arms look!) who is traveling to foreign locales, who got to go out on a date night (LUCKY), etc.

Its always strange to run into someone you haven’t seen in a few years but yet you know all about their lives because of Facebook.

“Hi,” you say. “Uh. Sorry about your grandmother.”
“Thanks.” Awkward pause. “Your kids comments always make me laugh.”
“Yep, they are kinda funny. Oh and congrats on the job”
“Thanks… Have you seen XXX (person of common acquaintance)?
“No. Not in years.”
“Yea, neither have I. Well then, see you later.”
“Yep. Bye then.”

AWKWARD.

We are almost too intimate with people who would normally be by-gone acquaintances.

And yet, of course this is also the best part about Facebook. Many people with whom I was never that close in real life have been Facebook buddies on various topics (typically mommy related) like cloth diaper care, first foods for babies, and of course, appreciation for a good merlot at the end of a long day of mommying (yes that is a word).

I know exactly three mothers my age who are not on Facebook. How? Why? Do they let you even BE a mother in 2010 without showing the world pictures of your kid with spaghetti sauce on their face?

One of them does have a blog though.

So, FB addicts, come out of the closet. Let’s hear your confessions. (Make me feel better, ok?)



P.S. this is not a patriotic post, even being that it is the Fourth of July. This just happens to be the moment I have time to post this topic, something I wrote up a few days ago. Daddy is home for a long weekend. (YAY) So. Just wanted to acknowledge that yes, I know it is the Fourth. And yes, I am a fairly patriotic person, having a father who was in the Navy, a brother headed there, and a new Brother In Law in the reserves. I appreciate them. I get choked up at parades (we took the kids to one yesterday) Also at the WWII memorial in DC (which I went to recently). I feel lucky to live here and raise my kids here.
Happy Fourth of July my fellow mommies!


Next up: The Mommy Diet