Blogger of the Month
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Confession: I’ve never been an Employee of the Month. This may be because, with the exception of an 18-month stint working for an abusive boss at a health-policy research think tank, I’ve never really been an employee. This, of course, doesn’t count my stints in retail during high school and university: my very first job outside of babysitting was as a folder at Benetton. Remember Benetton? It still exists, although for me it’s forever locked in the 80s, those rugby shirts one of the status symbols I strove to attain. At Benetton, I was paid four dollars an hour to fold and re-fold sweaters in uniform rows. I would fold for hours, and then some customer would come along and unfold all my sweaters (and not buy a single one), and then I would grit my teeth and fold them all over again. Lather, rinse, repeat. In retrospect, this was great training for being a parent, except that at Benetton at least I got paid four dollars an hour for my efforts.
Yes, I have a point. The point is that, while I have never been an Employee of the Month, all that sweater folding and re-folding and musing about parenthood may have finally paid off. This month, I am Today’s Parent magazine’s Blogger of the Month — yes, that’s me right there on page 14 of the July issue, wonky hair and all.
I’ve been blogging for a few months now at Today’s Parent as “The Other Mother” — here's my latest, on one of big payoffs of having Rob in our lives. It’s a lovely gig, one that forces me to stretch my blogging and writing chops (is it possible to stretch one’s chops, or did I just mix a metaphor there? Don’t answer that.) and think more critically about parenting, and writing, and about writing about parenting.
But between writing here, there, and here, I sometimes feel pulled in different bloggerly directions, trying to remember which one of my very similar but slightly different blog hats I’m wearing that day. Not that I’m complaining. I love my job(s), or lack thereof, just like I love my kids. Even if there are days in both realms where, every so often, it would be lovely to simply fold sweaters all day long. Sweaters in nice neat rows, no one to mess them up at all.