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Aug 4, 2007

Forget Pigs, We’ve Got Flying Rocks!

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I was sitting in my quiet living room this afternoon, with Cordy at preschool, Mira asleep, and only the tapping of my keyboard and click of my mouse echoing in the room. It was a peaceful moment, relaxing by myself. But then there was a loud *thump* against the front door.

Damn, I thought, a bird must have flown into the door. Or maybe a package was roughly dropped off by UPS.

I opened the door and looked out the glass of the storm door, hoping not to see a stunned robin on my front porch. But there was no robin. And there was no package. My glance shifted up, and I saw the neighbor boy and his friend standing at the end of my driveway, picking up a rock. The two boys noticed me and started nonchalantly walking back towards the neighbor’s yard, occasionally glancing at me from the corner of their eyes and mumbling something under their breath while occasionally giggling. The rock was casually tossed out into the street by the friend.

Opening the door, I still wondered what had happened. I walked out to check the mail, and then as I came back up the walk, I saw it sitting next to the doormat: a rock. A rock that I’m sure wasn’t there earlier in the day.

I picked up the rock, glancing back at the boys. They were still watching me carefully, acting like they had no idea where that rock came from, shrugged their shoulders, and then walked off down the street. As they turned to walk away, I loudly asked, “Gee, I wonder how this rock ended up flying into my door?” They gave no response as they walked away, whispering something to each other.

So apparently we now have flying rocks in our neighborhood. We can add that to the other fantastical items found in this small community, including fence boards that warp themselves, tree branches that break on their own, and a mystical stick that carves wavy, looping lines into the paint of our six month old, still not paid off SUV.

We have enough magic on our street to rival Hogwarts.

I wish some action could be taken, but so far we have no recourse because we did not witness any of these actions, so we can’t prove who did it. It amazes me that kids can be so destructive for fun, and parents can care so little. Without proof, though, the parents don’t want to hear about it.

There may be a light at the end of the tunnel, though. A sign has been placed in the yard next to ours much like this one:

(Not showing the real sign, since it would point right to where I live.)

Do you think burying a St. Joseph statue in their yard would help sell their house if I was the one who buried it instead of them? Maybe I’ll help them market the house: “Great neighborhood, quiet location, just watch out for the magic flying rocks.“

Filed Under: other people's kids, rant ·


Aug 3, 2007

But She Really Is Smart

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I was a bundle of nerves this morning, with Cordy’s evaluation looming in the distance of the afternoon. The house needed cleaning, so as to fool our visitor into thinking we’re actually a normal family who has time to keep the house clean and orderly. I spent way too much time picking out the right outfit for Cordy to wear – did I really think her outfit would make a difference?

However, little was accomplished in the morning, mostly because of a certain nine week old who has her second cold (two colds! nine weeks old!) and only wanted to be held by mommy all day long. I started to panic as I sat surrounded by heaps of clutter: DVDs haphazardly strewn around the TV, puzzle pieces perfectly lined up in a row, but blocking the hallway, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse figures stacked carefully in the back of a toy dump truck on some sort of construction sight-seeing tour. Whenever I’d scoop up a small handful of toys, Cordy would follow behind me, pulling out more. She’s good at that.

My mother showed up at lunchtime, convincing Cordy to join her for lunch in order to give me more time to clean. Finally, the house was at least decent, although still not presentable. Oh well, the evaluator would know we’re cluttered, but at least there’s no grime.

She appeared promptly at 2:30, folder and pen in hand. Cordy had been acting pretty good all day, making me worry that her act might fool the woman into thinking she was a perfectly normal child. Please be your normal self, I thought.

The evaluation ended up being mostly a paperwork session, with a little bit of observation. As soon as Cordy warmed up to the new visitor, she did act more like herself. Shrieking, climbing all over me, melting down because I wouldn’t give her more juice while answering the evaluator’s questions, galloping back and forth the length of the living room, etc. We went over what happened during her screening session, too.

Then the questions started. Of course they’re the standard questions, asked of everyone, but my paranoid mind read other meanings into them.

Does anyone in your family have vision or hearing problems? Can we blame her problems on lousy genetics?

What was her birth like? Did you drop her on her head?

What does she eat? Are you some kind of Britney Spears, stunting her development with soda in sippy cups and candy bars?

What’s your education background? Are you too dumb to raise your kid correctly?

Has she seen a dentist? Surely you can convince your child to sit still for a scary man with sharp instruments, right? No?

How much does she sleep? You really are giving her caffeine, aren’t you?

What does your pediatrician say about her physical development? You do have a doctor, right?

Can she name a friend? Or do you keep her locked up in a dark room by herself?

Has she had all of her vaccinations? Or are you one of those hippie no-vax types?

What does your family do for fun? Be honest – you really do drink soda and watch TV all day long, don’t you?

OK, so I know the evaluator wasn’t trying to say I was a bad parent in any way. They’re standard questions, necessary to get the entire picture of Cordy’s health. But I still worried that a “wrong” answer would hurt us somehow.

The result is she is being referred to the city school district for a full five-part evaluation. In our county, the Help Me Grow program ends at three years old, and the school district picks it up from there. Cordy will be three in September, and the evaluator believes that it would be wasting time to not get her into the school district evaluation as soon as possible.

While she isn’t committing to a diagnosis at this point, she does believe that Cordy has a sensory disorder of some sort, and she thinks it is likely the school district will put together an IEP for her, giving her access to the district’s preschool and free therapy. Hearing that was both crushing and a relief at the same time. No one wants to think that their child is anything but perfect, but at the same time, it’s good to know that there are people out there to help Cordy adjust to the world around her. Still, it’s hard to shake the blame game, wondering what I could have done differently to avoid this.

And all was not bad, either. Again I was told that she is very bright. (I keep coming back to that over and over again. It’s the one thing I can be proud of.) The evaluator made a point of telling me that many times gifted children show sensory integration problems. Since I’m unable to not brag about my child, we showed her pictures of Cordy putting Diet Coke cans in order when she was just over a year old, and she also watched the video of Cordy counting to six (although in that clip she misses the number four) at seventeen months old. She is also amazed at how Cordy sees the world in shapes, looking at normal objects and being excited about triangles, rectangles and circles.

Before she left, the evaluator again assured me that Cordy is bright (see? I keep holding onto those words!), she has a great vocabulary, and she seems happy. The problems lie in transitions, certain self-help skills, and a long list of possible sensory issues. All of these problems are treatable, and don’t involve turning her into someone she’s not. Which is good, because I’m not wanting a good little conformist, but I do want a child who can handle hearing a vacuum cleaner or touching applesauce without turning into a screaming, frenzied beast that I am unable to console. The evaluator asked what we would like to change about Cordy’s behavior. I said I want to be able to spend a day out together and have a truly good day – the type of good day any average parent and child can have – and not just a good day for her.

And in the meantime, we go on with life as normal – drinking watered down juice in sippy cups (not soda), sorting poker chips into piles and then lining them up (why do I bother buying her toys?), and watching TV. (If Yo Gabba Gabba doesn’t launch soon, she may take over my computer to watch the video clips online all day. PR reps, I’d gladly take a DVD of that!) And for now we try to avoid her meltdown triggers, and try to comfort her as best we can through each difficult transition, looking forward to a day when we won’t need to worry about such things.

Filed Under: big issues, Cordy ·


Jul 31, 2007

Make Money From Blogging – But How Much?

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No one likes to talk money. It’s impolite to imply you need or want money, right? Fortunately, I’ve never been a faithful follower of Emily Post, so let’s discuss it.

Clearly many of us want more money. (And if you don’t, that’s OK, too!) One of the hot topics of this year’s BlogHer was the monetization of blogs. Many wanted to learn how to make a little cash off of this massively time consuming hobby we have.

But the issue of money and blogging brought up several sub-topics of conversation:

  • Are ads OK on mommyblogs, and if not, why are they then considered more OK on blogs about politics, technology, or cats with bad spelling?
  • What about product reviews? Are we selling our souls in return for a free Swiffer? And how do we get PR reps to realize we do more than clean and bake when it comes to free stuff? (For the record, a few of the PR reps I know clearly understand us better. Just see the iPod review I did, and check out David’s blog. He’s one of the good guys.)
  • What about paid writing advertisements, like PayPerPost?
  • Are we selling ourselves and our blogs at too cheap a rate?

While each of these sub-topics could take up an entire post on their own (and I may get to them, someday – go ahead and write your own feelings on them if you don’t want to wait for me), the last question really got me thinking.

I’ll start by saying up front that I am all for blog ads. Newspapers, magazines, and other writing outlets have ads. It’s how the writers get paid, and how the price of subscriptions remains relatively low. Bloggers, who have no subscription fees, are an amazingly talented group of writers – why shouldn’t their words carry the same value? If the writing is good enough, and the traffic is there, and someone wants to pay a blogger for ad space or pay them for their writing, then good for them. Capitalism is alive and well.

However, there is also the temptation in the blog world to take any bone thrown in your general direction. (Sometimes it doesn’t even have your name on it.) Liz covered this beautifully in the Professional Blogging panel. She told the room that it is ridiculous to give up large areas of your blog’s real estate to advertisers and get pennies or nothing in return. “You’re worth more than that.”

Many of us have Adsense on our blogs. How much have you earned from your Adsense? Did you know you need at least $100 earned before they will give you a check? I can tell you that after two years of large Adsense ads on my blog, I’ve earned less than $100. Unless your blog gets really good traffic (1,000+ unique hits per day, and several good visitors who are kind enough to click on your ads), you’re not going to make enough to get a check anytime in the next year. Is it worth it to let them have their ads on your site while you make nothing? (For the record, I’m close enough that as soon as I hit that first check, I’m taking down Adsense ads.)

Aside from Adsense, many bloggers don’t know where to go next for ads. It’s tough to find which ad companies are legit, and it’s even tougher to figure out how much you can expect to make. I was excited to sign up with BlogHerAds last year because they gave us the pricing structure right up front. No hidden pricing that you have to already be signed up to find out, no sliding scale magical algorithm that makes it impossible to get a straight answer on what you’ll be paid. It’s simple, it’s laid out in the application materials, and it only relies on page views, not clicks.

Which is another thing: advertising that pays only if people click on the ad is not worth it! Companies pay thousands of dollars for newspaper ads and billboards on the highway. Do you think the newspaper is told, “We’ll pay you for the ad you print, but only after 100 of your readers sign up with us because they saw the ad.”? No way, the company would be laughed out the door! You should be paid for having the ad on your site and not based on click-thrus.

During the Professional Blogging panel, I thought about the fact that I don’t know what to charge for ads. What is the going rate? One reason so many bloggers sell themselves short is probably because they don’t know what a good rate is for their blog, worried that if they say something too high, no one will ever approach them again, and if they say something too low, they’ll never be able to make more than that low rate. It’s a topic that leaves many newbies in a panic attack.

It would be helpful if more bloggers shared what their advertising prices are. Of course the rate for a blogger with a high readership will be more than that of someone with a lower readership, but it would be a good place to start. Some now share how much they make from blogging, and I hope this trend will continue.

I learned a lot this weekend about monetizing my blog, and I’m glad I did. It’s looking pretty certain that I’ll be quitting my part time job at the end of maternity leave because the cost of a good daycare equals my monthly salary, and I can’t find any way around that. It may be impolite to say, but we need the money – we’re not poor at all, but continuing to pay all the bills is a Good Thing in the eyes of the credit bureaus. In place of my job, I’ll be focusing my work time on my writing here, on my reviews blog, at Family.com, and maybe a few new places as well. Hey, it’s better than selling everything we own on eBay.

I don’t plan to clutter up my blog with more advertising. Instead, I want to switch to smarter advertising. I want to support smaller companies, run ads that are relevant to my readers and tasteful in design (thank you, BlogHerAds!), and make sure I’m not whoring out my blog for $.05 per thousand views. Because I am worth more than that.

Filed Under: BlogHer, mom blogs, money ·


Jul 31, 2007

These Are The People In Your (Virtual) Neighborhood

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Filed Under: Uncategorized ·


Jul 31, 2007

BlogHer 07 Musings

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I still can’t quite put together fully coherent posts yet about BlogHer. It was a great trip, and I’m already missing everyone and wish it could have been a week long, although my liver would prefer to keep it at two days. So until a few longer, well-thought-out posts can find their way out of my head and through my fingers to the keyboard, let’s just go with bullets, OK?

  • This being my sophomore year of BlogHer, I attended fewer sessions than the year before. It wasn’t that I was disinterested in the topics – I was actually sorry to miss some of them. But there were so many fabulous women to see, and so little time to do it. Some of these women I saw last year, and really wanted to reconnect. Others were attending for the first time, and I could barely contain my excitement to meet them and put a face to the person I’ve been reading about for so long. I’d link them all here, but every word would be a link.
  • One of the best schwag items: the jump drive from AOL (and it’s a 128, not a 64!). Never turn down portable memory.
  • The momosphere panel had too much to cover in too little time. It was hard to be called on, and by the time they got back to someone, their question was no longer relevant because the discussion had already moved on. We needed either a lot more time, or several panels to discuss the subtopics of privacy, diversity, advertising, popularity, special needs kids, etc. Or maybe we need another conference to really get in-depth on these topics?
  • One of the worst schwag items: the Butterball potholder. Because nothing says, “after your little techie women’s conference, get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich, woman,” quite like a potholder. I tried offering it to a couple of food bloggers, thinking they probably cook more than me, but they weren’t interested either.
  • Bringing Mira to the conference was not the disaster I expected. Yes, I’ve complained she is a colicky baby, but for the duration of the conference she magically morphed into a happy baby. Turns out she may not be colicky – she’s just too cool for us. She was in her element amongst the crowds and ooohing admirers – our little social butterfly. Now that we’re back home, she’s crying more again. Can everyone from the conference please come to our house this weekend to give me a break from the crying?
  • Bringing Cordy to the conference was exactly the disaster I expected. She did OK in childcare the first day, even though they lost her sippy cup. Seriously, folks, the kids stayed in two rooms – how do you lose a sippy cup in two rooms? And after we picked her up, she seemed off. I can’t describe it, but she seemed very not-Cordy as she sulked in the stroller at the cocktail party. She woke up screaming and crying that night, begging to go home. I think she was scared to go back to childcare for day two. So on Saturday Aaron took her shopping on Michigan Ave. and to lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, enduring her meltdowns all over downtown Chicago and at the Children’s Museum. She had a tough time on the drive home, too. Next year, she stays with grandma.
  • I gave out well over half of the business cards I had printed off. Hopefully a few new people will stop by to visit my blog. I’m still sorting my ginormous stack of cards that I received, but I can already tell I will have several new-to-me blogs to add to Bloglines. There are so many amazingly talented female writers out there!
  • Even though I missed out on most of the wild parties, I think I flashed my breasts more than anyone else. Being the social creature she is, Mira learned how to pull off in the middle of nursing to check out the sights, giving everyone else a chance to check out the sight of my nipples.
  • The question I got asked the most by new bloggers (aside from “how old is your baby?”) was: how do you have time to keep up with writing and reading so many blogs without neglecting your kids? My answer was short and simple: become a lousy housekeeper. Also, a little time with Noggin or Playhouse Disney doesn’t hurt, either. I never said I was a perfect mother.
  • Best cocktail party: the second night. Even though it was crazy crowded, it felt so much like the parties from last year. Fun, organic, great music, etc. And special thanks to the Canadian ladies for making sure no tray of food got past me (and to Sandra for feeding me an ice cream sundae when my arms were busy holding a nursing baby!). A hungry breastfeeding woman never misses a chance at food.
  • All of the prep this month for BlogHer, the constant talk about blogging, and dragging him with me to Chicago convinced Aaron to restart his blog. So if you know anyone who likes comic books or superheroes, tell them to check out Underneath the Mask. (He’s my husband, therefore I’m practically obligated to throw in a shameless plug for his blog.)
  • If anyone out there has any pics of Mira or Cordy, could you please send them to me or send me the link? I’d like to see how others captured the girls on digital film.

More to come in the next few days, including my talk with a reporter and my thoughts about selling advertising on mommyblogs (just in case you weren’t sick of opinions on this topic).

And one non-BlogHer note: Cordy’s big evaluation is this Thursday afternoon. At our house. So for this week I must be a good housekeeper – don’t want them blaming our messy house for her problems.

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Filed Under: BlogHer07 ·