Babble Posts

I finished copying over all of my Babble posts into this blog.  (Well, everything except the slideshows--those you'll have to read over there if you want to track them down.)  I was tired of all that writing being buried and not searchable, and it's frustrating that most of the pictures were lost or that some of the posts were jumbled into other people's work.  The dates are gone, and the comments have been wiped out, which is a shame because there were some really interesting and entertaining discussions there.  It's disconcerting to have a heartfelt record of a stretch of your life mishandled in that way.  I feel better having copies of it all here.

I did a lot of writing at Babble!  More than I realized.  As of this date I am still about half a dozen posts shy on this blog of the total amount of posts I did for Holding Down the Fort, so I've doubled my archive.

It's been a tedious process doing that much cutting and pasting, and finding old photos again (any posts where the photos were merely nice but not necessary I just left photo-less), but it feels good to finally have all of it where people can read it.  There are many times I haven't bothered to write about certain topics here because I felt I'd already said what I wanted to say in an earlier post on Babble, but if nobody can find it it's the blogging equivalent of "If a tree falls in the forest..."

It's put my head in a strange place, reliving all that time during deployment again.  The same way you eventually forget the true toll of sleepless nights with a new baby, the deployment stress has faded to something I recall but don't usually feel.  It's good to remember and then appreciate where we are now.  It's amazing to go back to the earliest posts and see just how young my kids were, and see in what ways they've changed and in what ways they never do.

So here are some links to Babble posts (as transferred to this archive) I particularly like that maybe you haven't seen, or that may still be of interest.  I have yet to address any of links in them (I suspect most will take you to a picture of Micky Mouse saying "oops") and if there are any weird mistakes I missed while up late doing my copy and paste thing please feel free to let me know.  (Think of this as a rainy day list for the times I am lax about posting often enough!  Just come here and pick an old post or two.)

My original two Babble essays before I started my blog were about Ian being gone, and about adjusting to Ian coming home again.

I think my funniest post remains The Ultimate Game.  But Styrofoam, how I hate thee, let me count the ways....  still makes me laugh, too.  The world's most hilarious/awful Christmas card was made in Mommy's Sweatshop.

Posts that people contacted me about years later still wanting to reference them were:

Flagged
Rethinking Pink
Gender Expectations
A Memorial Day Note
Special 
In Defense of Handwriting 

The post I always thought I should have submitted somewhere was Life in a Case.

Posts about deployment issues and stress:
Care Package Pitfalls 
If it looks like failure and it quacks like failure... 
The Deployment Part of the Parenting Puzzle
Temporary
Breathing Room
Fears
Looking Back on Yesterday 

Posts about Ian leaving:
Do Children Understand Goodbye?
Goodbye Round Two
The Bright Side

Posts about Ian coming home:
Dear Ian,
Who Needs Words?
Homecoming

Posts about adjustment after deployment:
Feast or Famine
Pain Is Not a Competition
Welcome Rejection 

The deployment post I think about most often is Safe and Strong.

A random post I have always just liked a lot for no real reason is Rain Rain Rain and Basement Cards.  Another is Misunderstood.

Posts about family:
My Least Favorite Quote
Which Family Is Mine? 
Eulogy for Grandma
Memorials Are for the Living
The Cottage

Posts about my parents' gallery:
Goodnight Gallery
While it still exists, let me tell you about the gallery

My first attempt to write in the second person was Friendship Angles.

Posts about parenting that I think are still relevant:
The Other Work/Life Balance
It Gets Easier
Positively Frustrating
Accommodation vs Overindulgence
Random Parenting Things That May or May Not Have Helped
Yelling
Beyond the Baby Steps
Tough Enough 
Small Breakthroughs
What do your kids eat? 
Well-Rounded Education 

As I say, it feels good to have all that work (and more) someplace where I can find it again.  It was hard to find on Babble even when it was current, and I have no reason to think it won't all simply disappear from their archive again on any given day.  Now, back to the present!