Entering kindergarten in the fall

The birthday slipped past me unnoticed, but my Blog Muse reminded me. The Itty Bitty Blog is five years old now, and can zip it's own zipper, remember to flush and wash, and almost tie its shoes. It's on its second presidential election, for heaven's sake, and remembers Blogger way back before widgets, in the good old days of the blog frontier.

I thought maybe I should switch the blog archive dropdown menu to a year selection, rather than a month. That option doesn't even exist yet. Blog history doesn't have those ancient dragonflies with thirty-inch wingspans.

The Itty Bitty Blog now amounts to 1420 posts. Its sister blog, Anchorwoman, adds 206 posts, and its cousin, MamaCollages, adds another 56. That works out to about 336 posts per year. Guess CollageMama takes a month of vacation incommunicado each year. I don't have a clue where she goes, as she never mails picture postcards.

I just started a blog on Vermicomposters.com when my dad told me he didn't want to hear any further details about my worm bin adventures. Vermiphobic or not, I must thank Howie for housing the official paper repository of the CollageMama blog posts in all those boxes in the blue bedroom. I'll refrain from making any bad joke comparisons about a future presidential library down highway 75 from CollageMama's condo.

My sons have been tolerant of their occasional appearances in the blogs. In 2003 Speech-Debate was finding his future career by working summer freshman orientations at the University of Texas in Austin. Danger Baby had just finished high school, and was heading off to Texas Tech. The Woolly Mammoth and I still had two years of soccer games and Lunch Bunch Fridays to share. My mom, Fritzi, was fretting about Dad up on the ladder cleaning the maple seed twirlies out of the gutter. Yes, that would be the same gutter I was inspecting when I fell off the ladder last month.

My Blog Muse, Ms. Juliet, has provided a hummingbird's garden of technical expertise, pep talks, funny stories and esoteric insights. She has generously hung feeders full of pink artistic nectar for constant inspiration and nutrition. My life is richer for her hyper sugar-sweet friendship!

The Itty Bitty Blog wouldn't exist without the little people--my endlessly entertaining young students--and their daily challenges to my world view and vocabulary. Their average age is the same as this blog. They each have their rhythm, color, and voice. My writing would be better if I spelled it out with a movable alphabet on a rug the way they do.

Thanks to my walking buddy/soccer mom friends, Carole and Shawn, who became bloggers with me in 2003. Life has taken you both on paths that inspire me daily. You are the real deal.

To my Chumley's Rest condominium homeowner association, I thank you for being the fly in the ointment, the burr under the saddle, the tempest in the teapot, the air travelers who need wanding, the pea beneath the mattress, and the recycling eccentrics in close proximity. It's not just the buildings that need their foundations leveled! I only wish I could blog half the stories these walls could tell.

To my sons' father, I have to be grateful for the fantastic adventure of divorce, shared custody, and single parenthood. That experience underlies the creative and practical pursuits of CollageMama and your sons.

Much thanks to Woolly Mammoth's soccer coach who pointed the way to new hobbies in the empty nest transition. Opera has become a wonderful framework for exploring new territory.

And to Norton, the class rabbit, I thank you for helping me rediscover CollageMama's softer side.

Good grief! I'm writing like CollageMama will be climbing out of the limo soon, and walking the red carpet past Joan Rivers. And maybe she will.


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder