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Dreaming of a Polar Family Vacation

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I learned early on as a new mom that vacation with kids typically isn’t a vacation — it’s a family trip. A family trip means travel, means family, means fun, means memories, but it’s not a vacation for mom. Suitcases need to be packed, children need to be entertained while traveling, and upon arrival? Oh my — there’s the sleeping away from home issue, the eating away from home issue and the pottying away from home issue. That’s a lot of issues for a 5day/6night adventure. My line of thinking is this — for it to be a real vacation at this point, it needs to be all-inclusive. And there needs to be on-site childcare so that at some point in the trip there is an actual vacation. I’ve concluded then, that our ultimate vacation would be an Alaskan Cruise.

Why Alaska? I don’t need to be paranoid about sunscreen, and I think seeing that part of the country would be amazing. I imagine it would be a National Geographic issue come to life — educational, breath-taking, interesting, and fun all in one swoop. The kids would swoon at the wildlife, I would swoon at the lack of housekeeping and cooking for which I’d be responsible, and I think it would be a win-win all around. The four of us would be able to have a lot of family time exploring what the ship had to offer, as well as swimming, sharing meals, and enjoying entertainment when we weren’t on excursions. I would make no beds. I would make no meals. I might even spring for the housekeeping staff to do our laundry. That, my friends, would be a real vacation! Where would you go??

Don’t forget to enter the “Do What You Love” Sweepstakes, for a chance to win your own ultimate family vacation. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

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A Mile a Minute

Junior’s been talking for awhile now, and suddenly he’s entered that phase where he just doesn’t stop talking. Driving down the road, he points out cement mixers and dump trucks, driving by the refinery near the quarry is his favorite road. He’s obsessive about following the Conner Prairie hot air balloon in the sky, and likes to say, “My Conner Prairie! I go there now!” When we drove by today, he said, “No Conner Prairie, it’s closed”, which impressed me (I’m his mom, of course he impresses me)

A few minutes later thought,  my boy made a real  leap — he commented on something his smelled, rather than saw. We were driving by the water treatment plant and he said, ” Smells like poop, Mommy!”

Why yes, yes it does, little boy. What an observation…..

Are your kids saying anything cute lately? MaM was whispering “Liar liar, touch your tire” tonight, which made me smile.

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What’s your Internet like these days?

Well that was a nice, unintended break from posting.

Something that’s hit home for me this week is just how vast the Internet really is, and, truly, how virtual it all is. That there can be stress, disagreement and even name-calling on a website or forum, and then you close your laptop, walk outside and it’s silenced. That’s kind of amazing. I’ve also realized how different people use the internets in different ways, and what may appear to mainstream/popular crowd sites to some, are virtually unknown to the rest of the world wide web users out there.

A college roommate of mine has started a new venture, Persephone Magazine, a daily, online destination for women. I’m contributing, and it’s fun because I think it will give me a chance to test some non-mom muscles every now and again. But here’s the thing– we are the same age, live in the same town and share many of the same interests. Her inspirations for the site, the sites from which modeled after, and who she thinks is a big deal on the web are completely different from my inspirations and aspirations world wide web wise. Which is exciting because we are already learning a lot from each other. And? She’s kind of a wordpress goddess, and who can’t use one of those in her life??

The other interesting thing from this past week is the internet explosion that happened on Grown In My Heart. The intentions were simple –plan on conference on a cruise ship that could be inspiring for anyone involved in adoption. The seven writers who attended BlogHer this past summer thought it could be done. We had such great conversations and brainstorming that weekend, we thought it would translate easily to the online community at large. We spent almost two months figuring out a locale, and had started to secure speakers, so we thought it’d be a good time to put out some information about an event we were so very excited about.

Then it all broke loose. Comments started flying around like rotten tomatoes. Attempts to reign it in flopped fantastically, and well, to be honest, we’re not quite sure where to go from here. I don’t really even recommend delving into the comments, because any voice of reason and any valid points are very hard to separate from people’s rants and personal agendas.

Again, what’s amazing though, is that unless you read the site, you have no idea that that little corner of the internet exploded on itself. Little earthquakes happen like that every single day, I’m sure, all over the Internet.

I’ve also been riveted by the coverage of teen bullying, and learning a lot about Google AdWords and keyword searches. My friend Jason has been talking a lot about bullying on his radio show, and I’ve never been prouder to call him my friend or my prom date.

As so that’s been my past week on the internet. What’s new with you?