News

I’m sorry for the prolonged absence, what was supposed to be a routine tenting turned into a routine tenting with two pretty sick kids. Emotionally exhausted, I took the rest of the week off. Everyone is fine, now, of course, but I had to fill three separate prescriptions (after more than a year of none). Geesh!

Anyway, I promise to come here and do some catching up later this afternoon even if today is Harry Potter day.

Have a great day, everyone! And happy Harry Potter to those who celebrate. ;)

I’ve been busy the last few days preparing and now for the next few days I will be stuck in a dank hotel room with no access to the internet while my home is tented. Should be back Wednesday or Thursday. I might be able to check in at the library to approve comment or check e-mail, but not even sure about that. Just so you know why there’s lack of activity here!

Have a great week!

I will not accept any new submissions for the birthday celebrations regarding your lists after Friday night, June 29,2007 (I still need time to put it all together!). No clue what I’m talking about? Click here!

I received this e-mail the other day (clearly the one which turned me onto the aforementioned Kate Winslet movie) and I thought the project is an awesome one so I am posting this here along with her e-mail address for anyone to contact her if you are interested.

A couple of years ago, there was a movie out called Little Children starring Kate Winslet. I was reading a review of the movie and the writer mentioned “how brave” Kate was to show her stretch marks.

That one sentence really knocked me for a loop. It never occurred to me that people, men and women, might feel this way. Why was such a move brave? Ms. Winslet is quite lovely and I cannot imagine her feeling ashamed about anything.

So I started talking to women I knew and they started telling me their stretch mark stories. I learned from them that men of just about every age have no idea that women have them. They think that women look like the cover of the bathing suit issue of Sports Illustrated or the layouts in Playboy.

Well, yes, some women do look like that. But most don’t and that creates a problem. The real look of the vast majority of women is swept under the rug. I guess there’s nothing inherently wrong with being under a rug….if you’re a piece of dust! so, is that what we are? dust?

My vision of the project is to have all black and white photos. The subjects would wear black pants and white shirts. Each photo would have the woman’s feelings about her body/marks in text next to the photo.

I feel that presenting such a thing to a gallery would create a buzz and this topic would be out in the mainstream, even if just for a few days, where it belongs. I would present this idea to galleries in Provincetown, Cambridge and Northhamptom Massachusetts for starters. There may be locations in California that would be interested, too.

To participate, contact Jen at goldsmithphoto@comcast.net

(For those who need it) is shapeofamother @pacbell .net (just take out the spaces!)

I liked a lot of the ideas I got for our birthday coming up, but I decided that I will put them on hold for now. Since there isn’t much time left, I don’t want to begin a big project (hello, procrastination!). So while I was lying in bed tonight nursing my little one to sleep, I got to thinking about labor, and more specifically: poop. I was newly pregnant with my first when I first heard of such a thing and, well, there was no going back then! (Not that I would have declined motherhood if I had known, but full disclosure would have been nice.)

So what I want from you is to e-mail me (subject line: “MY LIST”) your list of what you wish you had known before becoming pregnant and I will compile the lists and post them here on our birthday along with a review of some of the most stunning entries of the year. Your list can include absolutely anything from body shape changes to emotional changes, from humor to seriousness, from negatives to positives. Let’s prepare the next generation of moms for motherhood!

NOTE: I will not accept any new submissions for the birthday celebrations regarding your lists after Friday night, June 29,2007 (I still need time to put it all together!).

Well, almost. :)

July 5, 2007 will mark one year since this website was up and running and I would like to celebrate with something special, but I’m not sure what. I mentioned this to some friends and they thought we might like to do an art “assignment” of some sort wherein everyone is invited to share their photographs, paintings, sculptures, poetry, etc of what motherhood means to them. And I like this idea a lot, but I’m not sure how to implement it. A new Flickr group? Where would the writing go? In entries here?

So I’m opening this up to all of you for some ideas. And I’m also open to totally different ideas as well. How would YOU celebrate the birthday of SOAM?

First I wanted to say, I’m sorry about the downtime earlier. This website is growing (which ROCKS!) and my bandwidth was exceeded. I had my host up it for me so we’re back now.

Anyway, I wanted to add this link which I’d actually discovered awhile back. HollaBack NYC is a site which “empowers New Yorkers to Holla Back at street harassers. Whether you’re commuting, lunching, partying, dancing, walking, chilling, drinking, or sunning, you have the right to feel safe, confident, and sexy, without being the object of some turd’s fantasy.”

Good stuff!

Thanks to Karrie, this blog has been nominated for a Best Parenting Blog award! Check it out and vote for us! Thanks, Karrie!

I’ve got a very busy few days ahead of me, so I won’t be updating the site, and probably won’t respond to e-mails, either. Things should settle down around Wednesday and I’ll be back then.

Have a great few days!