Honorable Mention

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Esmé's Mommy again . . .

I won a writing contest! Well, actually, I got a “Most” Honorable Mention for my Clean Underwear post. But it was fun – thanks, Scribbit! And if you’re visiting from Scribbit’s page, welcome! Visit often!

Since I got more hits from the link on Scribbit’s page than I usually get in a month, I thought I’d share with any new readers who I am and why I blog.

I’m a thirty-something mom of a one-year-old with an American passport living in Mozambique. My claim to fame is having the youngest skateboarder in the world as my daughter. Serious! If you’ve missed my previous posts on this, here are links to some skateboard videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSugV3byMSc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjHL66Kw3A4

My husband and I work with Maranatha Volunteers International on their project of building churches and schools here in Mozambique. We’ve been here since May of last year. With an accounting and IT background, I work with the money over here.

Combine working full-time with taking care of baby full-time, and there must be a good reason for spending valuable time blogging. Let me say that this idea that being a mother makes you more efficient is totally false advertising. Where do I start? Oh, yes, bullet points! I love bullet points! They make me feel so organized – what disillusionment! So, here’s why I blog:

• I wanted to journal my daughter’s childhood; to keep track of all the milestones and have things documented for my increasingly failing memory. I know someday my baby’s gonna ask me when her first teeth arrived, when she was potty trained, and what her favorite books were. Right?
• By the time Esmé was four months, I was having a hard time keeping up the journal. I figured an online journal would make me a little more accountable.
• Being so far from much of my family, I figured this would let them see how Esmé was growing and make me feel less guilty for not writing personal letters.
• It’s just plain addicting! I don’t have time to keep up with all the blogging jargon and strategies, and I know just enough about statistics to know mine are pathetic, but there’s something oddly rewarding about knowing the entire world can see what I wrote if they so chose.
• “Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do it all for God’s glory” (1 Corinthians 10:31). My posts don’t focus on Christianity necessarily, but at the end of the day, if it doesn’t glorify God somehow, I shouldn’t be doing it.

If you’ve read very far back, you’ll see most of my blogs are written from Esmé’s perspective. Here’s why: (Oh goody, more bullet points.)

• This actually started out as a MySpace blog; one of my friends recruited me to sign up with them, but I just couldn’t make myself devote a whole webpage to me. (Yes, I have hookups, as my husband can attest.) It seemed much more reflective of my “humble spirit” to highlight my daughter instead.
• I DON’T have time to proofread my writing and make sure things sound good. People will be much more forgiving of a one-year-old’s writing than a thirty-something’s, won’t they? This allows me to just post, rather than try to be perfect and never get the posting done.
• It actually helps me as a parent to try to see things from my kid’s perspective. Sometimes the things I do just don’t make sense, or aren’t any fun, or have no value from that perspective, so when I see this, I can change and become a better mom.
• Some people actually think it’s cute . . .