Blogging about blogging

Do you know that I think in blog? I mean, something happens, and immediately my mind "writes" it. If I could carry my computer, log on, and type at any time, you'd be amazed at what would come out. Sometimes I forget, sometimes something else happens and I don't write about one thing so I don't dull the other thing, or sometimes it just doesn't seem blog worthy anymore. It's really a strange dynamic.

The reason I started this blog was many-fold. It is, of course, a great way to keep friends and relatives up-to-date in our lives. Moreso, it's a way for the kids, as they get older, to see things they've done and said. It's my memory capturer, similar to a scrapbook. But now I'm not so sure. For one thing, Abby recently found the blog and started reading it. Yikes! I don't think I'm ready to share with her what I say about her to other people yet. And I'm also not sure how much I want them to remember their childhoods. I mean, the other day, when Nolan was whining and my mom was here, I said, "I never whined like that!" And my mom laughed. She said I was quite melodramatic at times. She always used to tell me "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms." That? I could have gone a lifetime not knowing. Oh well. Blogging is fun, and since I already think in blog, I might as well continue.

I like reading other people's blogs, too. It always feels like a little glimpse into someone's life... funny, dramatic, everything like you or nothing like you, blogs are a book in progress. Tonight I caught up with my reading from blogger/author Catherine Newman. She has a blog here and she also writes a recipe column for family.com. In this article, she was talking about a recipe for vegetable soup, and said:

It takes only the most momentary lapse in kindness, doesn't it? To snuff the glow from your children's eyes? It is devastating, the power we have as parents. I vow, again, kindness only, to let the grace of them illuminate me and dispel the shadows of pettiness.

I love the idea. I wish I could do it, be kind to my kids always. It's what I teach them to do to others. And yet still, at times, I find myself screaming at one or another--literally screaming while they cry. Don't get me wrong... fortunately it's not often. But Tuesday? When five minutes before we were supposed to leave for school, and I realized that Nolan didn't tell me about the books he was supposed to read, didn't know where his library book was, couldn't find his coat, gloves, hat? I screamed. And watched the glow leave his eyes. And I wonder if, each time I yell, if those eyes ever get the full brightness of the glow back, or if it diminishes each time, by just a little bit. Kindness only, I will try, if only so I never have to know the answer to that, and can always see the glow in his big brown eyes.