So I want to write about BlogHer 2010 — because it was wonderful and amazing and somehow not at all what I expected — but first, let me apologize a thousand times for being the worst blogger ever.  I’ve had so many people comment on the fact that I haven’t written my monthly letters to Maia that it honestly makes me feel sick to my stomach to think of how I’ve let her down.

At some point during the past two months, I don’t recall exactly when, I suffered an allergic reaction to something (the cause remains unknown) that left me with hugely swollen, Angelina-esque lips and a tight throat.  I ended up in the ER.  Nothing too serious — I drove myself in and drove myself home — but it was terrifying.  I kept thinking if I died… would Maia wonder why I didn’t write about her before I went? The guilt… I dunno.  The guilt left me feeling pretty strung out and, being who I am, I kept convincing myself there was no reason to write when I had missed saying so much anyhow.

I have had, in the past, a horrible habit:  as soon as I become part of a group, I start to withdraw myself from it.  I’m trying to fix this.  I’m trying, as Maria said, to re-write my story.  That is: when you tell yourself something is true, it becomes true, it becomes a part of your story — but we all have the ability to tell ourselves something else, the power to rewrite our story.  And I want to rewrite mine.

Pursuant to that, I’m hoping to return to blogging more often.  If not daily, then at least several times a week.  I’m going to try and take a more personal slant on the writing I do here, rather than focusing so much on parenting, although that’s obviously a huge huge part of who I am and my parenting journey is the reason I began this blog.  I’ve felt really weird any time I’ve written something here that wasn’t directly related to parenting but to me as a human being outside of that, and I’m no longer going to let myself feel that way.  This is MY space.  I’m going to fill it with MY stuff.

Fortunately, I’m pretty sure people who come here like me for me, and not just because I write about parenting.

Colleen, my BlogHer roommate and soulsister (seriously — I’ve never clicked with someone the way I clicked with her and ohmigosh if I ever found a genie in a bottle I would make wishes that resulted in us living close to one another and raising our children together), is going to be helping me with redesigning the site.  It’s going to be  super sexy and pink and black and Art Deco-esque (thank you Maria!)

In the meantime, before I write about BlogHer — which I will, sometime in the next week — let me write about the reason you all started reading me in the first place:  Maia.

Maia.  She’s a year and a half old now.  She’s amazing and interactive and playful and one of the most joyful creatures on the planet.  This is how she amused herself in the car once we crossed the border into Canada again on the way home.  I heard her giggling, and turned around to see her with her substitute blankie (we left her real one at home… serious parenting fail moment) like this on her head.

And she’s so grown-up… she’s decided not to breastfeed anymore.  I was ready for it, though, and had been hoping it would happen.  We’ve not nursed for about a week and the only real pain I’ve suffered is not from engorgement, which has been surprisingly absent, but a plugged duct that sent me into a tailspin of panic when I found a LUMP IN MY BREAST WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS.  Don’t worry, said lump changes shape and goes away when massaged with a hot washcloth, so it’s nothing to fear.  It’s just painful and requires constant massaging but hey, there are way worse things than having to rub your own boob.

I’m back, babydolls.