I hear this question at least once a day now that Sloan has his own blog. He’s written all of two posts in the two weeks since he started it, and he’s learning how to manage his expectations.
Welcome to blogging, son.
Yesterday after breakfast, he asked if he could check his blog. In general, our rule is no technology in the mornings before school, but I caved because we were out of coffee, and I can’t be expected to uphold any semblance of order in my home without some sort of stimulant.
He sat in front of the computer and stared at the screen, shaking his head in clear consternation. I peeked over his shoulder and fought off a grin. He had 15 comments on the last post, but most of them were back and forth between him and a friend.
“You have to put more content up on the blog,” I informed him. “After about 24 hours, people generally quit coming to your blog. It’s not supposed to be a chat board. You just need to put up a new post and bring people to it.”
That’s when Lee stepped in.
“Son,” he said, his voice getting a little deeper as though he had a great nugget of knowledge to offer. “I’m going to give you a bit of wisdom from the great philosopher of the ’80’s and ’90’s. He was a man who gave the world much. His name…was Michael Jackson.”
This is when I stopped making school lunches and turned, eyebrow raised, to listen where this conversation was going.
Lee leaned down, putting his elbows on the table so he was eye level with Sloan.
“Mr. Jackson said something important. He said, ‘I’m starting with the man in the mirror. I’m asking him to make a change.’ If you want to make a change in this world, start with yourself,” he put his hand over Sloan’s heart.
“If you want to make the world a better place, just look at yourself and make the change, son,” he said. His voice emphatic. Meanwhile I’m about to wet my pants laughing.
“Don’t worry about how people respond to your blog posts, or what they say. You just make the change and tell the stories. Let that be what your blog is about.”
Sloan nodded, his face laced with both awe and amusement. He was trying to discern whether or not his dad was serious. For the record, Lee was (mostly) serious.
Lee stood up and turned to me, his eyes wide. “Man, that was good stuff right there. Did you see what I did? I was on fire. That was awesome! Wiggety Wack!”
This is my life. My crazy, hilarious, at times baffling, life.
I am giving myself permission to do something that I haven’t allowed myself to do in the six and a half years I’ve been blogging.
I am going to take a break.
Funny story: Last week, Lee and I decided to take a spontaneous family trip to Gatlinberg, Tennessee. We rarely take vacations just the five of us – in fact, I honestly am not sure we’ve ever taken a vacation just the five of us. Most of our trips consist of traveling with people, or traveling to see people.
The problem is, I got my dates wrong. I was certain that I made our hotel reservation for Wednesday to Sunday, with the plan being we would leave Tuesday, drive half way, and arrive Wednesday. So I’ve been frantically trying to get us packed and ready to leave tomorrow for three weeks away, because after Gatlinberg, we’re sending Tia to camp in Crossville, TN, while the rest of us go to Nashville. And from there, we’re all headed to Arkansas for a week.
Are you exhausted, yet?
I realized just this morning that our hotel reservations are actually Thursday to Sunday, which means we’re leaving a day later than planned, which kind of disappoints me, honestly. But I’m also a bit relieved because trying to pack for three weeks in three different locations was giving me palpitations.
My brain is on serious summer overload, which normally wouldn’t be too much of a problem; however, I happen to be 64 27 weeks pregnant, which means sleep is already elusive. Add to that a little stress, and this mama ends up tired and emotional.
In an effort to not throw myself into an early labor, I’m unloading a few things from my plate. I simply don’t have the mental capacity to generate decent blog content right now. As it is, I already have a few deadlines pressing down on me for other sites (the ones that actually pay me to write), and I’m in the final stages of editing my e-book, which I will hopefully get to the designer in the next few days.
So I’m going to take a couple of weeks off in this space. I’m going to breathe a little, enjoy my family, read a few books, unplug, and take in a little fresh, mountain air.
I’ll be updating on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter on occasion if you want to keep up with our family and see whether or not it really was a good idea to take a trip to the mountains at 28 weeks pregnant.
Also, Lee and I are attending a celebrity charity dinner in Nashville on Sunday night. Tune in to see what my gigantic belly looks like in a nice dress, and to see if I get to rub elbows with Carrie Underwood, or if I simply stalk her from across the room.
I’ll come back here in a couple of weeks when the dust of family fun time has settled, and I can string together a coherent sentence outside of, “Did you pack your toothbrush? What about underwear?”
In the meantime, I hope all of you are enjoying some fun in the sun this summer break. Sit back with a good book, a tall glass of iced tea (sweetened, of course), and take some time to breathe.
