Earth Hour 2009

My family participated in Earth Hour 2009 by turning our lights off for an hour and playing cards by candlelight.

We had so much fun we now want to make it a weekly event!

Did you participate? What did you do during the lights-out hour?

The most innovative or fun idea will win a year-long subscription to Gonzo Parenting zine, so be sure to include your Twitter username or another way to contact you! Winner will be announced on April 8th!

Beer: It’s What’s for Breakfast

Sympathetic physicians have, over the years, helped with my flight anxiety issues – and by sympathetic, I mean they have sympathy for my husband, who has to sit next to me on the plane – by prescribing me Happy Pills of various names, sizes, and colors for flights.

Early Happy Pill prototypes provided too much relaxation and led to embarrassing drooling incidents. My current Happy Pill, at first, provided too little, but I fixed the problem by stripping the warning label off the bottle (“Alcohol may intensify effects of this medication”) and taking the pill with exactly two Bloody Mary cocktails. [Important notes: Never remove warning labels from medication bottles. Never use alcohol in tandem with a medication without consulting your physician. Don’t ever use me as an example… I make most of this stuff up, anyway.]

Recently, we flew out of Spokane to Boise on a 6:00 a.m. flight. Since the actual flight time was under an hour, I didn’t want to take an entire Happy Pill, which might knock me out for a couple of hours, so I broke the tablet in two and swallowed half. Since we were running late, as we always are for events that occur at 6:00 a.m., there was no time to hit the airport lounge for a Bloody Mary.

Onboard, I was nervous and jumpy. The half Happy Pill wasn’t cutting it, and I’d put the other half in my suitcase, which ended up in the belly of the plane somewhere. By the time the flight attendant came around with the beverage cart, I was practically clawing my way out of the cabin. “Beverage?” she offered.

“Yes! A Bloody Mary, please.”

The attendant frowned, checking her cart. “I don’t think I have any Bloody Mary mix. I have tomato juice…” She pronounced it to-MAH-to.

“Fine,” I said, quickly. “I’ll have a vodka and to-MAH-to juice.”

“Oh,” she said. “We don’t have liquor onboard… We do have beer or wine, though.”

By this time, I was really, truly desperate for some anxiety relief. I weighed out the options of a crappy beer or a crappy wine, found the crappy beer option more palatable, and ordered. She poured the Pale Ale into a small plastic cup for me with her lips clamped tightly. Then, with that special smile reserved for devastatingly handsome men like my husband, she cheerfully took his diet cola order, and delivered it to him with a wink.

Halfway through my plastic cup I started to feel better and began cracking jokes to my husband that all started with “The last time I drank beer out of a plastic cup was at a kegger in high school and…” Mr. Wright smiled broadly, not at my fabulous wit, but at the fact that I had released my death grip on his forearm.

The flight attendant approached my seat, sans cart, holding a half-empty bottle of beer. “Do you want more beer?” she asked. Then, louder – much louder – she added, “Because you’re the ONLY one drinking beer on the WHOLE flight, and I’m going to have to dump this out.” Then, she actually glanced at her watch, as if to say, It’s 6:30 in the morning, and you’re downing a cold one, lady… Trying to quell the morning shakes, or what?

“No… I think I’m good for now. Thank you,” I managed. How could I possibly accept more beer, even if I’d wanted it, after her proclamation to the entire flight that I was, most probably, a professional drunk?

Mr. Wright can’t bear to see anything go to waste. “I’ll have some beer,” he said. Once the attendant was out of earshot, he whispered, “I really don’t want any. I just thought you might be embarrassed to order more, after what she said.” Despite my insistence that I really, truly didn’t want any more beer, he placed his plastic cup alongside mine on the pop-out tray. The next time our flight attendant walked by, she did a double-take at the two cups of beer in front of me, then shot my husband a look that said, ENABLER!

I downed the second glass in one long gulp.

Ultimate Blog Party '09!

So... like so many other events in my life, I arrived to the party late, but signed up for Ultimate Blog Party '09. The awesome moms over at 5minutesformom.com arranged this awesome party to promote cross-networking for bloggers and the readers who love them. They've compiled a huge list of some of the coolest people in the blogosphere, on Facebook, and Twitter!



Go on over and give 'em some love, lovelies!

Wife, Mother… Exhibitionist

To date, I have subjected three generations of Wright men to the horror of my naked body. My husband, the middle Wright, seems unharmed by the experience, but it’s unlikely that the eldest and youngest of the clan escaped permanent scarring. Neighbors, parcel deliverymen and some unsuspecting Jehovah’s Witnesses have also been victimized, but I don’t share a dinner table with any of them, so I can’t comment on their respective rehabilitations.

Three years ago, we adopted a Lab puppy. My husband had expressed a desire for “a good hunting dog,” and I’d found the perfect candidate. His name was Rufus, and he resided with a Slovakian foster family. There were problems, of course. First, Rufus was a rescue, and we didn’t know much about his history, except that he had been taken from a drug addict. Second, Rufus spoke Slovak fluently, but pretended not to understand English commands at all. Finally, Rufus’s mind operated on an intellectual level so high that we mere humans remained blind to his devious plots until it was too late.

Of course, it is entirely possible that Rufus simply had one too many hits off the crack pipe in his first home. He was anxious and high-strung, and when the prescribed “doggy downers” didn’t work, we resorted to gulping them down ourselves and hiding behind locked doors from his destruction. No good. Rufus laughed evilly at our feeble human brains and picked the locks. He could open any door in the house, at any time.

As I undressed for bed one night, The Dude approached my closed bedroom door and lifted his hand to knock. Before he completed the motion, Rufus appeared and offered (in dog Slovak, of course), “Hey, you want that door to open? Let me help you out!” Before The Dude could translate, Rufus opened the door and pushed it open. The relative quiet of the house was pierced by my startled scream, and The Dude shrieking, “My eyes! My eyes! Oh, please, make it stop!” as he ran into his room, slammed the door, and collapsed, sobbing, into the fetal position.

Being seen naked is a traumatic experience for nearly any woman over 30, but for a teenage boy, seeing his mother naked requires years of therapy. Spending the monetary equivalent of a college education on psychotherapy might help him survive, but it will never, ever erase the horrific image from his brain.

My least favorite feature in our house is our front door, which is actually just a huge pane of glass with a little metal frame around it. Any visitor is treated to an unobstructed view into not only my bedroom, but the downstairs bathroom, as well. For this reason alone, I am attempting to train everyone to keep both doors closed, lest anyone be treated to a peep show they didn’t count on. I, of course, always close both doors. I’m not some sort of exhibitionist!

It’s the high-speed streaking between the closed doors that I need to work on.

A few months ago, I stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around myself, and retreated to the bedroom to get dressed. As I dried off, I remembered that I’d set my clean clothes on the bathroom counter. To this day, I can’t think of one good reason that my clothes and my naked body ended up in different rooms. Furthermore, I can’t rationalize why I didn’t take that towel with me when I darted from my bedroom to the bathroom (though, to be honest, it happens pretty frequently). Mid-streak, I realized that my father-in-law was standing at the front door, finger poised to ring the doorbell.

I tried to pretend that maybe he didn’t actually see me, but The Dude confirmed it after a visit with his grandparents. “Grandpa mentioned that it was pretty embarrassing when he saw you running to the bathroom without a towel,” he reported. “I told him I know how he feels.”

Perfect… they’ve formed a support group.

Vote Gonzo!

TheGonzoMama.com is collecting votes in three different catergories at Blogger's Choice Awards.

We still have a long way to go! Sign up, then vote for TheGonzoMama.com here.

Want to stay tuned and help spread the word? Join our cause on Facebook!

Borrowed Boobies Boon for Bloggers

It’s sad when moms turn on each other. Motherhood is tough enough without having to keep one eye on the kids and the other over your shoulder to see who is waiting to judge or condemn you. However, that is exactly what has happened in the blogosphere in the last day or so. While the action continues in the center ring, Twitter’s capacity is overloaded, the sparring blogs in question are racking up hits, and everyone else (including me) has something to say about it.

Who needs UFC? We’ve got blogmamas to tune in to!

It is my opinion, redundantly enough, that an opinion is just that: an opinion. It is not a condemnation or judgment, and we are all entitled to one. Like the saying goes, “Opinions are like assholes – everybody’s got one.” The difference is, while I am willing to display my opinion to the world, I really hope someone would tell me if my asshole was showing.

The problem begins when opinions evolve people into assholes. It’s when an opinion is so vehemently stated and defended that it becomes a judgment.

I’ve got opinions. Strong ones. Some of my opinions don’t curry the favor of others, and that’s okay. As a vegan, for example, I really think that eating should be a celebration of life, and that my personal celebration needn’t involve another living creature’s suffering. I’m open to other opinions, and I respect them. For the record, I’m married to a hunter.

As a woman who has mourned the loss of a miscarried fetus, it is my opinion that life begins at conception. How else, then, could I grieve for my unborn child, if it was not truly a life to begin with?

The current “blogroversy” turns on the issue of breastfeeding. Not breastfeeding in public, not breastfeeding photos on Facebook, not breastfeeding as a concept, but, specifically, one woman breastfeeding another woman’s child.

I am not going to name names, since anyone genuinely invested in the battle already knows the players. I am not going to defend either party, since I see both sides and respect both of their opinions (Opinions, not judgments or back-biting behaviors – if you are a mama engaging in back-biting behavior, STOP. Motherhood should be a sisterhood, not a junior high clique war.). As a writer and publisher, I defend the rights of these women to speak their minds, even if their respective opinions do not prove to be popular.

I have deliberately intended to put a child that was not biologically mine to my breast. Before my husband and I took in our two youngest daughters, we had looked into private adoption. As a true believer in the slogan “Breast is Best,” I studied up on adoptive nursing. I fully intended to nurse the newborn child we thought we’d be adopting. Things didn’t work out that way, but I was prepared. The purpose of my intent was not just to nourish, but to soothe, comfort, and bond. All of these are gifts of motherhood.

That being said, I can’t definitively state how I would feel about another woman nursing “my” child. Nursing is, at its core, a very intimate act. However, does that preclude my husband from intimately bonding with our child as he feeds her a bottle? Certainly not. I’m still emotionally muddled about how I might react to another woman putting my child to her breast.

In the same vein (so to speak), I can’t imagine another woman handling my husband’s member. If he ended up in the emergency room with an injured member (I don’t know how; it’s for the sake of argument, okay?), and the ER doc was a woman, I’d tell her to handle with care and get to work. It’s all about circumstance, I suppose.

Enough about all that, though. What I’m really amazed at is how these sparring women, who previously enjoyed a respectable degree of noteriety, have literally overnight lit up the Internet, made it next to impossible for me to access my mobile Twitter account, and garnered a plethora of new commenters, subscribers and followers while conducting their girl-war online.

It seems that nursing someone else’s baby (or observing the borrowed boob spectacle) and blogging about it is a sure-fire way to increase blog traffic.

So… who’s got a hungry baby? My 34Ds are here and waiting!

Or, I just need one mommy blogger to virtually bitch-slap me so that I can Tweet about it and crash the Twitterverse!

Any takers?



P.S. – Unlike the popular girls, my comments are ALWAYS enabled. Have at it.
P.P.S. – Just don’t be a pansy and comment as “Anonymous.” That’s lame.

The Gonzo Mama Guest-Blogs at Mommy-Muse.com!

My awesomely talented, belly dancing, rockstar mommy friend, Christy Cuellar-Wentz, co-founder of Mommy-Muse.com, has honored me beyond description by including me on her site.

I mean, Christy's amazing... really amazing. She runs a successful e-therapy practice at Mommy-Muse.com, teaches belly dance, hosts a hot radio program, and - oh, by the way - writes books in her spare time.

Consider me humbled.

When Christy mentioned she'd like someone to blog about traveling with children, I said, "Sister, do I have stories for you!" Instead of sharing my most dismal experiences of traveling with seven children, I decided to offer a shred of hope for survival. You'll find my most useful, successful, and desperate tips for traveling with your household shoved into a space the size of your closet.

Don't worry, Gonzo Mama fans... It's not totally didactic, and you'll still get some giggles and chuckles out of it!

Get your bad self over to Mommy-Muse.com and read my post!

2009's Hottest Mommy Blogger... The Gonzo Mama?

That's right... I want to be Blogger's Choice Awards' Hottest Mommy Blogger of 2009... and I'm not afraid to use my boobs to do it!

Wanna help?

Go sign up at the Blogger's Choice Awards site. They will send you a confirmation email, you gotta click the link they send you... you know the drill.

Then, come on back to TheGonzoMama.com and click your vote in on the left.

Easy!

For added fun, join the Facebook cause, Make The Gonzo Mama Blogger's Choice for Hottest Mommy Blogger! Jump in on the discussion about what makes a mommy a MILF, and more!

The Gonzo Mama Guest-Blogs at LipstickDaily.com!

I am so honored to announce The Gonzo Mama's first guest-blogger gig...

It all went down at LipstickDaily.com. Kate and Elaine, the MIC (that's Mamas In Charge) at LipstickDaily are constantly making my days a little more enlightened, a little more enjoyable, and a lot more giggly with their posts on love, careers, motherhood and life.

Imagine how excited I was when my favorite bloggers asked me - ME - to do a guest post! I squealed. I actually, honestly, loudly squealed. And then... then, I developed a case of blogger's block. I couldn't think of anything to write about.

Fortunately, I got into a fight with my husband.

What? What's that you say? I know... since when is it a fortunate thing to get into a fight with one's husband? Well... it spelled the end of my blogger's block...

"Makeup sex!" It's not what you think! Read it here, and click around LipstickDaily after you check it out... Get to know and love Kate and Elaine like I do! Tell 'em I sent ya!

The Quality of Life Calculator and Why I Love Hemorrhoid Cream

When I was in high school, the quality of my life was easily calculated in accordance to the number of friends I had to hang out with. I was a bookish nerd, so it followed that my quality of life was pretty low. College provided a simplified calculator. A cute boy buying me a drink equaled good; not having a date on a Friday night equaled bad.

The birth of my son changed my calculation methods tremendously. Any day that provided time for a shower automatically qualified as a good day, and each baby milestone created a new holiday worthy of capital letters. My calendar boasted such celebrations as First Smile Day, New Tooth Day, and Baby Weaned Himself From the Breast Day. The last, in particular, rocketed my quality of life to its relative highest, due to the fact that I could finally imbibe a cocktail without fear of turning my baby into a drunkard before his first birthday.

The quality of life calculator has undergone many adjustments since then, including some versions that were strictly released for beta testing and immediately recalled, like when I resolved to make my bed every day in an attempt to incorporate a novice level of “feng shui” into my home. I didn’t understand the entire concept, but the back covers of feng shui books that I bought (but never read) promised to greatly improve my quality of life and align my chakras.

I’m no fool. Maybe I didn’t know what my chakras were, but I wasn’t going to let mine become misaligned simply because I couldn’t make my bed each morning. The first day, I spent twenty minutes trying to master the ancient art of hospital corners, and my quality of life plummeted with every curse I shouted.

I returned to college immediately after acquiring four more children. New quality of life indicators included whether I made enough tips waiting tables to pay for textbooks, how many hours I spent at the law library to complete my Legal Research final, how many days per week my kids ate macaroni and cheese and whether I was able to find clean underwear each morning. When I took my dream job at one of Seattle’s top law firms, my quality of life boiled down to how many hours per day I spent in gridlock on I-5.

In 2006, I managed to collect two more children. Two infants, actually. In real life, this blessing might trick a girl into believing that her quality of life has reached a pinnacle of greatness: two babies, no labor pains, no stretch marks. However, this wasn’t real life. It was my life, and there is a distinct difference. I achieved about three hours of sleep per night, which was actually a good thing, because never reaching full consciousness allowed me to pretend that being a mother to seven children at the ripe old age of 31 was actually just a terrible nightmare.

The past three years have streamlined my quality of life calculator. No longer do I obsess over whether my house is clean (it never is), whether my kids are healthy (they were breathing the last time I checked), or whether I have cellulite (of course, I do). Now, it’s all about the amount of hemorrhoid cream I have to spackle under my eyes to shrink the bulging bags that have taken up residence there.

Years ago, I read in a magazine that models sometimes dab a little Preparation-H® under their eyes to reduce puffiness. At the time, the thought of applying a substance meant for hemorrhoids to my face was, to tell the truth, a little disgusting. My opinion changed the day I woke up and realized that I could actually tattoo the Louis Vuitton logo on my bags, and go for a designer look. Today, my quality of life is accurately measured by the size of the application tool I use to slather butt cream under my eyes. My finger equals pretty good; a putty knife equals really bad.

Of course, my quality of life is actually quite satisfactory. It could be worse. After all, I’m still applying hemorrhoid cream above my waist, right?