Erika Gebhardt

First I want to address Sinkos. Do you all read the Momastery blog? If not, you really should.

Now a confession: I am a bad blogger, in the sense that I don’t spend a lot of time reading other peoples’ blogs**. I read Dooce, of course, because that’s DE RIGUERE for mommy bloggers. I read The Bloggess because Jenny cracks me up, and she’s very honest about her struggles with depression. I sometimes catch Mommy Wants Vodka and I always think, “I should read that more often!” I read the Pioneer Woman — I recently read her BOOK which is just a huge collection of her blogs. And I’ve been following RANTS FROM MOMMYLAND since it was a little fetus of a blog — I’ve even guest-posted for them. But the point is that those are all really well-known blogs in the blogosphere, nothing totally new or fresh. 

**I also read the blogs of moms I know personally, because I’m kind of a stalker like that.**

Anyway, Momastery’s readers/followers are called Monkees. And I thought, my followers need a name! And it just came to me: SINKOS. Because I’m Cinco de Mommy. Sometimes I feel like this blog could be called sinking de mommy. Sinkos. Sinkos! Perfect!

This segues totally nonsensically to Twilight. I used to be a Twi-hard. A Twi-Mom. Team Edward (books), Team Jacob (movies). I have seen every Twilight movie at midnight on opening day. Even when the original Twilight opened a mere two weeks after my weight-loss surgery and it hurt to walk, I was there at midnight. However, as the years pass and I get older and my daughters get older, I become less enamored with Twilight. I love the way Stephenie Meyer really seems to capture the intoxication of first love… and then after that, I kind of hate it.

Bella is wimpy and sucks. Edward is controlling and sucks. Jacob is manipulative and sucks.

I read a critical essay about Twilight (because yes, I do that in my spare time) and now I can’t find the link, but it was about Bella’s initial reactions to Edward. When Edward acts like he hates Bella, she thinks there’s something wrong with her. And then later, when Edward can’t read her mind, again she thinks there’s something wrong with her.

Oh, Bella. Other than being kind of a bland wishy-washy lip masher, there’s nothing WRONG with you, girl. 

She totally lost me there, because I’m the opposite: when I meet someone and they don’t like me, I assume (1) they just haven’t gotten to know me enough yet or (2) they’re an idiot. It could also be (3) they don’t have time in their life for someone like me, but back to (1), I think they would want me in their life. (When I lived in Charlotte, there were several women I met who I wanted to get to know better, but my life was really full from Jugs. So I can understand that point of view — to an extent.)

Just recently I was talking to a mom who hadn’t YET extended an olive branch of friendship toward me, when I realized that I really didn’t WANT her to extend an olive branch of friendship to me. That was a moment. It’s taken me a while to feel like I’ve cracked the code of mommies here in Raleigh. But once I get discerning, I feel like I’m in.

And besides, I know the right people. Case in point: after dropping off Mineral at speech therapy on Monday, I realized I had a flat tire. Speech therapy is 1/2 mile away — if I were more organized/enthusiastic and it was warmer than 20* out, we could walk  – so I just drove home and called My Chemical Romance. Once home I noticed the tire was completely busted open and I didn’t think I’d make it back to pick him up. So I called Kat. Kat is my around-the-block neighbor’s daughter who is a little younger than me, and works in a doctor’s office that’s one floor below Mineral’s speech therapist’s office. Voila — a ride home from speech therapy for Mineral. I do not know that many people in Raleigh yet. But I know the RIGHT people.

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