I have a request to all the working moms out there, a plea from the very depths of my soul:

Can we please, PLEASE stop saying that other people are raising our kids just because we work?

I get it. And I’ve been there, done that, felt those emotions. We feel bad about the time away from our kids. We hear about it from our family/friends/coworkers/random strangers in the super market. We mourn the hours spent earning a paycheck instead of spent teaching and crafting and playing and mothering. We often feel guilty for not being there every minute of every day.

But the idea that someone else is raising our kids is one that we should be fighting against, not perpetrating ourselves.

Parenting and raising a child aren’t just about 24 hours spent together. Parenting isn’t a job to clock in and out of, one that we only get credit for during certain times. No, raising a child is an ongoing endeavor, one that begins the minute we are handed our babies after birth to the day they leave home as “grown-ups” (and one could argue, beyond that as well).

Just because we put our kids in daycare or with another caregiver doesn’t mean we aren’t raising them.

This whole idea drives me batty. We don’t say that someone else is raising kids who go to kindergarten. We don’t say that someone else is raising kids who are in 3rd grade, or 7th, or 12th. Does that mean that raising your kids ends when public school starts?

“Here’s your backpack, and your glue stick, and good luck with the world kid, because my job’s done?”

No. No, we don’t. This argument only comes up with young kids, but the reality is that raising kids isn’t just about when they’re young. So if we’re still raising them when they’re in school—state mandated school, that is—why not when they’re little? If sending them to school isn’t considered outsourcing parenting, why is sending them to daycare considered abandoning our duties?

The reality is that we are still raising them. Yes, they may have extra hands to help them learn certain things, and they may get certain skills from a caregiver, but those are not the entirety of raising a child. Raising a child goes beyond the hours between 8am and 5pm in the years 0-5—heck, it goes beyond the idea of hours at all. Instead, it’s about a long-term role, where we instill values and teach everything from language and history to family and morals. Our children may have a lot of people helping them learn those things, but at the end of the day, we’re still the ones who get the ups and downs and joys and pains of what RAISING THEM means.

So ladies, please. Honor and acknowledge your feelings about being a working mom. By all means, be sad at what you miss, or frustrated by the system we’re stuck in, or envious of the caregivers who spend the working hours with your children. I know I do, often.

But please, PLEASE don’t ever forget that YOU are still raising your children. You are the one that they will look to for help. You are the one they will want to please. You are the one that they will thank when they’re old enough to look back on their childhood.

YOU are their mother. Period. Please stop saying otherwise.

Yesterday, I was in a bigger funk than I’ve felt in a while. There’s a lot that combined to get me there, but I was pretty much at a “what am I doing with my life” spiral of doom. I was on the edge of tears almost all day, and just felt very…lost.

But this isn’t a sad tale. Instead, it’s a tale of why social media has come to mean so much to me.

After Jackson went down to bed, I hoped online as I usually do. My original goal was to do a little bit of work, then go either read a book or watch a movie that would make me cry before going to bed. There may have been some cookies and wallowing involved too. But of course, Twitter was there while I was working. I put a whiny little tweet up about how funky I was feeling (what, you DON’T share every thought in your head on Twitter?), and went on about my work.

And here’s where the story picks up.

Within minutes, I had people commiserating with me. I had people dm’ing me to ask if I wanted to talk it out. I had people sending me links to things that might lift my spirits. Within about two hours, I had a new perspective and the beginnings of a happier heart, thanks to the people inside the glowy box.

This isn’t the first time that social media has come to my aid. I’ve had people all over the world reach out to help me with first aid, meal planning, kid sleep issues, nursing dilemmas, pumping questions, work needs, vacation planning, and blog advice–along with my favorites of just talking to me, keeping me company and being my friends.

Whenever someone scoffs that social media is just a waste of time, I have to roll my eyes. Because this? This support and companionship and help? Well, I wouldn’t call that a waste of time. You get out of it what you put into it, and for people who don’t see this…well, they’ll never have a group of people from around the world lifting their spirits at 10pm on a Tuesday, all thanks to social media.

Me though? I’ll continue to love the connections that social media brings me. It all—YOU ALL—have made such a positive difference in my life, that I’ll always be grateful.

Oh, Google Reader. My true (blogging) love.

Back when I first started reading blogs, 8 years ago or so, I never used a reader. For one, I didn’t know what RSS really was, or what a reader was. But once I figured it out, I still wasn’t a believer.

“I like to SEE the blogs! The design is half of the fun for me! You really get a sense of the personality of a blog by being ON the blog!”

But as time went on, my list of “must-read” blogs got longer, and longer, and longer. I’ve never been great at organizing, so I’d forget to add one to my bookmarks and then months later wonder why I hadn’t read anything from such-and-such blogger lately. I would run into corporate filters that made some blogs completely inaccessible at work. I was leaving a lot of great blogs, blogs I loved, behind.

Finally, one day, I caved in to RSS and the reader, and a love affair was born. Now, I have anywhere from 150-300 sites I follow, and anywhere from 200-500 posts (depending on how many times in one day some of them post) in my reader at a given time. Some of them are for work, some are for personal, some are for fun, but they all feed into my reader. The ONLY way for me to remotely consider having so many blogs I visit is through a reader.

But that doesn’t mean the system is perfect. Bloggers still can choose to have partial feeds (my nemesis!). And of course, if I want to comment, I have to leave the safety of my reader and traverse the wilds of the actual internet. My downfall is leaving Reader…once I leave, who KNOWS when I’ll be back!

Well, if you’re like me and you LOVE your reader, but you also want to be able to see partial feeds, or leave comments, well, I’ve got a couple of awesome little tips for you. I learned about the first one from a handful of different people in a great “partial feeds are my nemesis!” wave a while back, and have recently found the second and third as other options. I hope you find them as helpful as I have.

A few simple clicks and you’ll be on your way to viewing blogs RIGHT IN Google Reader–and yes, you can even comment!

How to Read in Google Reader For Firefox Users

So you use Firefox as your browser? Great! Two simple little downloads and you’ll be on your way.

1. Add the Greasemonkey plugin to Firefox. (You’ll need to restart Firefox when you’re done).
2. Install the Google Reader Preview Enhanced  v1.2 script.
3. When you go into Google Reader next time, you’ll see a little “Preview” button down at the bottom.
4. If you click on either that preview button OR the title of the blog post, the blog itself will load directly in Reader:

Voilà!

How to Read in Google Reader For Chrome Users

For Chrome users, it’s even simpler!

1. Install the Super Full Feeds for Google Reader
2. When you go into Reader, you’ll see each post shows up with three tabs at the top:
3. Click on Links, and you’ll be taken to the blog, again, right within Reader.

And voilà, you’re on your way to visiting all your favorite blogs, right within Google Reader! Although, this still won’t help with web filters or autoplay music. Sorry about that.

As a bonus, I thought I’d through this little guy in:

The Google Reader “Next” bookmarklet.

This one comes straight from Google themselves! Hidden away under the Goodies tab under Reader Settings, you’ll find the “next” bookmarklet.

Drag the little button to your toolbar, and it will allow you to go through each of the posts waiting in your Reader in order, directly on the website. Think of it kind of like StumbleUpon for your Reader. I personally don’t love this one on a normal day, because I tend to read in certain orders depending on how I’m feeling, but if you just want to go in and make sure you’re visiting everyone, this might be a great help!

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This week has been both awesome & horrible, so I’m glad to be leaving it behind to move forward. Add in a neighbor who’s watching the kid for a couple of hours tonight so that N.C. and I can have a little date, and I’m thinking this next week is already destined to be better than last. So let’s get some good reads in too, eh?

Over at DadWagon, Matt talks about what Marriage is Really Like. I think it’s interesting to think of the minutia of marriage the way he does–I totally related to what he was saying, though I don’t necessarily find it a negative. But I definitely think you have to balance the minutia with the big moments.

Over at Crazybananas, A tiny little rant about working mom guilt. I’ve said something similar before, and I know a lot of other people who have to, but I think it’s something that all working moms should hear more

Over at Wandering Scientist: Lego Friends Feminist Friend or Foe? Finally, someone actually writes about what’s actually in the new Lego Friends sets. If you’ve wondered about them, or gotten curious about the controversy surrounding them, it’s definitely worth a read.

Over at Minky {moo}: I am a mom blogger. I go back and forth on my thoughts on being a “mom blogger,” but I love the confidence and strength with which this is stated.

Over at Mom, Interuppted at The Stir, I Love My Boys–But Sometimes Dream of a Daughter. Yeah. This one.

And this week, a bonus post. As you may or may not know, Google has announced that they’re shuttering support for Google Friend Connect for non-Blogger blogs in March. That means that if you’ve got a community built up in Google Friend Connect, it’s going the way of the dodo. So, this one’s for you:

Over at Momcomm: How to Move Your Readers Away from Google Friend Connect. (P.S. If you follow me through Google Friend Connect, might I suggest either my RSS feed or subscribing by email, which will put Ramble Ramble right in your inbox every day?)

And finally, this week at Noodle Knobs: I talked about the Boy With the Pink Balloon, N.C. shared his…uh…fashion sense for the kid, and we both got a little schmoopy about the awesomeness of the kiddo.

Whew, that’s a lot! Hope you guys enjoy…and as always, let me know if you’ve found anything awesome in your trips around the web!

One of the earliest things I found on Pinterest  was this fun little makeup display:

I’ve been obsessed with it since then, because I think it would address some of my problems with my makeup (namely, that it either gets buried in my one little drawer to the point that I only every use the two things that are right up front or that it either spreads out all over my limited counter space driving my husband crazy and running the risk of being grabbed by two year old hands).

So, I put it on my 2012 To Do List and went merrily along my way, hoping I’d find some time to get to it during the year, despite my less than crafty tendencies.

THEN.

Last week, N.C. called me downstairs. It was the night before we were going to celebrate his birthday and he asked me if I could come help him with something. I sort of assumed he wanted my input on what he was going to wear, or a restaurant he had found that he wanted me to look at. Instead, as I came into the room, this is what I saw:

Sorry for the offcenter image, it was either that or lay down across my entire counter to get it straight on. I love y’all, but not that much.

That’s right. For HIS birthday, N.C. had made ME a gift. The thing I’ve been wanting for-evah. I was SO touched, and so excited to get it filled (this isn’t quite everything. He did an admirable job of picking out my makeup and applying magnets to them, but he missed a few. It’s fuller now).

I’ve been using it a little over a week now, and I LOVE it. It’s so easy to have all my makeup right there–it’s away from prying toddler hands, but out of the black hole of a drawer. I’m not scrounging for my brushes, or digging digging digging for that one little tiny eyeliner, because BOOM, they’re right there. And, as a bonus, because I can SEE all my makeup, I’m actually using more of my makeup–I’m pulling out the colors I forgot I had, or trying the sparkly stuff I never could find. It’s awesome.

So, yay to checking off a 2012 To-Do item, courtesy of an amazingly thoughtful husband. And even bigger yay to a husband who decided that for his birthday, he wanted to do something nice for me—you can’t win much more than that!

P.S. Logistics: it’s been varnished to try and help with any humidity, but we also have our sink/counter area separate from our shower area. I’m not sure if the paper would hold up great in a humid bathroom over the long term, but the varnish will probably help anything we might face.