There was a time when checking in on my own blog filled me with trepidation. I got a pit in my stomach. A small handful of Hamptoloonies checked in bi-weekly or more to pronounce me stupid, cruel, careless, evil, in need of the salvation of Jesus Christ, ugly, fat, a horrible mother, and destined to be left by my husband. Why was I the recipient of so much ire? Because I dared to say I don’t like Kelle Hampton’s blog. And I made fun of it on mine.
Now, Hamptoloonies and others might say, “Well, you were mean to her. You dish it out but you can’t take it?” I can see where you’re coming from there, but what I have NEVER done is write mean things about Ms. Hampton or her husband or her children on her blog. I have said in my blog that I do not like hers.
Many have written to me that they do not agree with my assessment of her blog. That they do NOT think she is wealthy. They assume that it is much more likely that she got her over two hundred-dollar high chair cheap on Craig’s List than that she paid full price for it because she can afford it. Or that all her kids’ fancy clothes are bought on consignment. Or that her house in Naples, Florida really isn’t THAT nice. But they don’t call me a bitch or a “fat, nasty piece of filth.” Those are not the loonies; they are just the people who like the Hampton blog, and we can agree to disagree.
Hamptoloonies are not just the people who write to me and tell me that I am a pathetic, sad, evil shrew and that they are praying awful things happen to me and my family so that I can open my heart to Hampton’s bliss. They also write things on her blog that make me shudder. They tell her how they can’t get through their days without looking at photographs of her and her children. They declare her the most brilliant writer they have ever read. One even said that she printed a picture of Hampton’s children, put it in a frame at work and told people they were hers. What other word can be used to describe this kind of fanaticism except “looney”?
Recently I discussed with Odie closing the comments option on my blog. Even though I have written over a hundred blog posts with less than ten mentioning Saint Kelle, the posts that do lampoon her fantasy world get read most often and commented on almost daily. There are things in my life right now that I have wanted to process in my writing. Grief and trials that we are going through. I have held back, though, because I have felt afraid of the deluge of gleeful, “Yay, you’re suffering! Our prayers have been answered, you bitch!” comments that would flow forth from the Hamptoloonies.
My biggest frustration is being misunderstood. It’s like the people who read what I have written are not understanding the words. My criticisms of the blog are easy to summarize: I don’t like her style of writing. It fluctuates between an eleventh grader’s text messages (dude) and the self-conscious, overly constructed prose of someone trying to sound like Emerson. Another of my criticisms is coincidentally one I’ve always had of Emerson as well. It sure is easy to talk about choosing an attitude of “Everything is beautiful and the world is my oyster!” when you lead a privileged life. I think she takes a lot of pictures of herself. She seems to need tons of approval. And I think she wears WAY too much make-up.
Finally, I think her blog is fake. It’s like an airbrushed magazine cover. No one really looks like those women on the covers, not even the women themselves! One flips through the glossy pages of magazines looking at the perfect poreless skin and the sleek, size zero bodies, reading articles about all the crafts these perfect women do and how much FUN they have with their children. One can end up feeling like, “If only I buy that hat for my daughter or visit that island or wear that shade of lipstick, maybe I can be happy like that too.” Which is exactly what they’re SELLING. It’s all an elaborate advertisement to make you feel “less than” so that you will buy stuff. I see right through it, and am amazed that other people don’t. They are so convinced that this fantasy world is real, they strike out in terrible anger at someone like me who points to the cracks in the facade. How dare I pull back that curtain!
One particularly persistent commenter wanted to know why I was “picking on” Hampton and why I didn’t “hate on” other mommy bloggers (can we please retire that expression and it’s antonym “love on”?). She wanted to know if it was because she had a baby with Down Syndrome. No. It isn’t. In fact, I am glad that Hamptom seems to have opened many people’s eyes to children with Down Syndrome. This is an issue that is close to my heart, and even before Nella was born, I had read some heart-breaking statistic about how 90% of women pregnant with this kind of child abort. I am pro-choice, but I do not like abortion. I certainly do not think that Down Syndrome is a condition that should render someone unworthy of life. I myself am a pregnant woman who will give birth at the age of 39. I have been given a 1:53 chance of having a child with this condition. I am having an amnio this week, and I am having a baby in July, regardless of the outcome of the test. So, no, I am not “picking on” this blogger because she has a daughter with Down Syndrome. Someone sent me a link to her blog. I became a reader. I, too, have a blog, so I wrote about what I thought. I decided I don’t like it, so I don’t read it anymore.
Several of my commenters as well as people on other blogs (it ain’t just me, folks) have criticised her for not being more of a spokesperson/advocate for Down Syndrome. Here, I have to disagree. I don’t think that having a baby with DS obligates anyone to pick up a flag and march in a parade, or raise awareness, or even money. It certainly puts her in a wonderful position to do so, and I hear that she has, and I don’t care either way. Clearly her passions are home decor, clothing, make-up, photographing her family, and throwing parties. I care about none of these things, and so I don’t like her blog. It’s as simple as that.
And to answer some of you, why haven’t I printed the comments so you can see them? I’ve thought about it. At times, I have wanted to show everyone just how hateful and vile these people can be. I am particularly haunted by the person who says she (or he) prays for bad things to happen to me. Doesn’t that go against everything prayer is supposed to be? Or the person who bullies me incessantly with his (or her) insistence that I am a bully. Oh, the irony of THAT. But I don’t post them because I don’t want to fan the flame. I don’t want my comments section to turn into a debate between my defenders and critics, nor do I want my blog to be about her! I stopped writing about her ages ago, until now. And finally, these angry people are really looking for attention, and I don’t want to reinforce the behavior. I learned that from raising a toddler.
I can bring home the (tofu) bacon…
If all of my days were like today, I think I would have a very different life. I don’t know if that would be good or bad, but it would definitely be different.
Last night, instead of watching TV while Odie and V went for a walk, I planned lessons for my first week back from winter break. I’d call it Christmas break, but clearly I hate America. Now, I always plan lessons, of course, but last night I actually wrote out my lesson plans like we had to do in grad school for our teaching courses. Usually, I outline what I’m going to do in my planning book, and then use my amazing gifts of improvisation supported by deep content knowledge to get through my classes. Today, when I taught, it was like a well-oiled machine (or a hackneyed simile). In fact, things were going so well that I even told the students I am fifteen weeks pregnant. My students are ESL kids, so there was a, ahem, pregnant pause after I said the words as their brains translated my news into their language, reacted, then translated their reactions back into English. There were mostly congratulations, a few snickers (heh, heh, heh, she had SEX), and one, “Good! Then we’ll have a sub!” I enjoyed bursting her bubble, telling her this baby is due in July, so she was out of luck in the sub department. You’ll be proud of me when I tell you I refrained from adding, “In your FACE!”
I have not been a good teacher this year. Morning sickness and fatigue kicked my ass for thirteen weeks straight. Additionally, I caught every virus V brought home from day care. Most days, I have been lucky to be adequate. Lucky to drag myself through my teaching day and make it to lunch. My schedule is a dream. I teach periods 1-4 (8:00-12:30), have lunch, then my prep period from 1-2, at which point I am free to leave. I have been useless after lunch. I stroll back to my classroom with every intention of grading papers, planning lessons, preparing the boards for the next day, only to sink into my desk chair in a waking coma, accomplishing nothing. Well, if you consider keeping lunch down “nothing.”
Today, I returned to my classroom, graded all of the papers I collected today, entered the grades into the gradebook, prepared a worksheet and set of notes for tomorrow and Wednesday, ordered copies for the rest of the week, cleaned my desk, and left right as the final bell of the day rang.
Oh, yes.
From work, I drove to the grocery store and bought only items we needed and carefully chose those with the best prices. I can be impulsive in a grocery store, and we are on a super tight budget after some holiday extravagance (worth it). I never leave the store for under a hundred dollars. Today? SEVENTY BUCKS! High five!
Next, I picked my daughter up from day care. By this time, my back had started aching in earnest and my hormone headache was picking up steam. Seeing my toddler gleefully running around with other toddlers, pretending to be a pack of dogs apparently, was a momentary salve. It ain’t Tylenol with Codeine, but it’ll do.
The hardest part was when we got home. V does this thing when I try to put her down where she has no bones in her legs. And if I set her down anyway, she will go into full-blown toddler tantrum, face-down, pounding the ground with her fists and feet. Not convenient when there are groceries to bring in the house. I tried to entice her by saying we were going to walk outside, but when I tried to put her shoes on, she told me, “No shoes, no shoes, NO SHOES!” building to a crescendo of child-fury that left my ears ringing. So I had to carry in the groceries one bag at a time with my 25 pound child on my hip. Back pain? What back pain?
After I put the groceries away, I was ready to do what I think all mothers do eventually: let her throw her damn tantrum on the floor until she was sick of it. I washed the dishes. When Odie arrived home from work and saw his daughter screaming impotently on the kitchen floor, his face said it all. “The perfect end to my day.” He needed to have more faith in me, as it turned out. I chopped and sautéed some vegetables, heated beans, grated cheese, warmed tortillas, and made fajita burritos for dinner. We sat down as a family at the table, and even my picky little tantrum thrower ate a bowl of refried beans and a few slices of avocado. Just when I thought I’d never get her to sample anything but yogurt until the end of time. Odie was so happy to see her eat, he volunteered to give her a bath.
Did I use this time to look at Facebook, catch up on celebrity gossip, or obsessively check my blog stats? I did NOT! I did the dishes, put away the leftover food and got my clothes ready for work tomorrow. We have two cats and one dog and those three animals shed more hair than Alec Baldwin in a tub of Nair. If I don’t take a pet roller to every item of clothing I wear, I end up looking like I’m modeling Cruella DeVille’s Fall Collection.
Not once did I turn the TV on today. I was too busy getting stuff done. It felt good. Better than good. I’d polish my nails on my lapel and declare myself Supermom and Superwife, except I was unable to squeeze in sexually gratifying my husband at any point. Whoopsie! He didn’t seem to notice. At seven, when I lay down with V and put her to sleep, Odie lay down beside us and he was out even faster. As I write this, I’m looking at both of them on the monitor, sleeping peacefully, and one cat staring at the camera with her green glowing devil eyes.
Part of me feels like this is the kind of life grown-ups are supposed to lead, and I shouldn’t pat myself on the back too hard. On the other hand, I missed my leisure today. I’m a person of extremes and always have been (see? “always”). But today was an extremely good day.
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