Mommin' It Up!

March 22, 2012March 21, 2012

I love writing post titles.

Ok, so. One of my very things about blogging is writing post titles. Because, you know, I think I’m funny. And when I write a post with a title like, My Hairnet Brings All the Boys to the Yard, or A Little Inbreeding Never Hurt No One, I achieve the original goal Emily and I set for this blog, “to crack each other UP”, and it makes me happy. Hopefully, I crack up at least a couple of you as well. Because honestly, I love making others laugh too. Clearly not every post here on Mommin’ It Up is a humor post, but you know I like to think that when we’re trying to be funny we get a laugh out of more than just my mom.

All this to say, I like writing funny post titles!! But these days, to get lots of traffic from people who are google-searching various topics, you’re supposed to write blog titles that will quickly show up on search engines. This is called “Search Engine Optimization”. A couple weeks ago I noticed we had a surge in blog traffic. Like, you know 47 people a day were visiting our blog rather than the usual 14. After a little bit of fiddling with Google Analytics, I found that it was due to a post I had written about ideas on how to celebrate Leap Day – ideas that I was considering, that I had not yet attemped. I named the post Leap Day Celebration Ideas because I could not think of a more creative name. I drew a big ol’ blank on that one. Well my lack of creativity was apparently just what the old search engine was looking for. What I learned from that traffic surge was that if you write super-boring post titles, people will find the title on google and then look at your page for 2.2 seconds and never come back to your blog again WHEEEEEEEEE!! Yay Search Engine Optimization!

I think I’ll stick to trying to crack up my cousin. And hopefully a couple of you ladies and, of course, my Uncle Paul.

I started thinking about this topic when I saw the Facebook status of a great blogger, Beth Fletcher, of I should be folding laundry. Here’s what Beth’s status said:

“I remember the good ol’ days when people would throw cool birthday parties for their kids FOR their kids and not to just get on Pinterest.”

So, yeah apparently that’s a thing. Throw your kid a super-awesome creative party so you can take lots of pictures of it and hope that people will pin them and that you will become a Pinterest SUPASTAH! And subsequently a bloggy SUPASTAH!

Clearly we love Pinterest or we wouldn’t have started our Pin for the Wednesdays carnival. But I doubt that I’ll ever be hand-stitching a princess tent with which to adorn my front lawn for a birthday party just so I can become pinned by all the peoples! (Em probably would, though. She’s such a fame whore.)

It was just interesting to me that writing post titles for SEO (which is fine if you’re a niche, DIY, cooking, how-to-whatever blog, but NOT if you are just being a creative writer!) has a counterpart with Pinterest already.

Hey whatever works, people.

But what works for us is keepin’ it real. Real real. Real DUMB. Real dirty. Real sad sometimes. And, hopefully real funny a lot of the time! That’s what we can live with. And we hope you’ll live it with us!

March 20, 2012

Math is seriously fun at the Boonshoft!

Our family has a membership to our local children’s museum, the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, and whenever we go we always have a great time. My kids’ favorite thing to see first is whatever the featured exhibit is – they know it’s going to be special! We recently went to check out Math Midway, which will be the featured exhibit through April 29th. I was interested to see how fun math could be, and this exhibit made it fun in SO many ways! It was so fun that when I told Sophie she could choose one more activity before she left, she chose to go BACK to Math Midway. It was the first AND last thing we did on our visit.

Sophie making cool shapes with laser light on the "Ring of Fire"

The Math Midway is set up like a carnival midway, with lots of cool booths where you can do fun math games. Like using math to distort a photo of yourself in the Fun House:

This was the kids’ absolute favorite activity – using a wavelength to design your own roller coaster, then test it out and time it. Super fun! They did it over and over.

Building a rollercoaster like their heroes Phineas & Ferb

I liked this exhibit because there really were activities for kids of all ages. Even the youngest kiddos could romp around on this mat while the older kids built a giant puzzle:

Little kids could also great all kinds of fun shape and puzzle creations on this giant magnetic board:

This is really just a snippet of the many fun activities at the Math Midway. We had a great time, learned a lot, and highly encourage anyone in the Dayton area to take their kids for a stroll through all these great math games and activities at the Boonshoft. I know we’ll be going back to see Math Midway again before it leaves town April 29th.

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I am being compensated for this post. All opinions about the exhibit are my own.

March 19, 2012March 18, 2012

How to screw up your child: a primer

Many moons ago, when Emily and I were somewhere that required us to be in a hotel room together (what conference was that, Em?), I discovered a little show on the hotel cable called Toddlers and Tiaras. Now we don’t have cable here in the Rapson house, so even though I was trainwreck-enthralled with the one or two episodes that I saw, I wasn’t able to follow up on my fascination.

UNTIL NOW! Because ladies and gentleUPs, Toddler and Tiaras is now on Netflix!

And I am again transfixed.

But not by the toddlers or their tiaras.

BY THE MOMS. I don’t want to overgeneralize, but I would say about 80% of these ladies scare the living crap out of me. They are either a) delusional b) overwhelmingly controlling c) nucking futs crazy or d) all of the above

Here are some special quotes from some of the featured pageant moms that really drive the crazy home:

From a mom of two girls who do pageants, ages 2 and 5, talking about how each pageant dress can cost two to three thousand dollars, “I don’t know what I wouldn’t pay to have them do what they want to do.”

Lady, I hope your home foreclosure went real well.

Here’s another beauty (pun intended): “Some people might think that it’s crazy to shave a seven-year-old’s legs, but it helps her spray tan stay on better.”

My bad. When you put it that way, it’s perfectly reasonable.

From a mom of two boys, ages 23 months and 3 1/2 years (yes, boys can be in pageants!): “When I see little girls, I always think, ‘I can turn my little boys into little girls. They can be the little girls that I don’t have.'”

WHAT!?!?!? Please Jesus, let’s hope she saw herself on video and immediately checked into a counseling center. And the boys too.

From the mom of a seven-year-old: “I prefer her tanned.”

Well then maybe you should have married a darker man, lady. Because white + white = WHITE.

And here’s a couple they ALL say:

“HI my name is “_____” and my daughter “_________” knows how to stand out in a crowd.”

and

“When ______ gets up on stage her personality just shines!”

Barf barf barf. Her personality probably shines just about everywhere.

And here’s one of my favorite quotes from a 10-year-old pageant pro: “I like to do pageants because you get to be perfect. I LOVE being perfect.”

Oh, that’s not sad. Not sad at all.

Do your daughter a favor: don’t put fake hair, fake skin color, fake teeth, and adult makeup on her, don’t spend thousands of dollars on dresses and spray tans and fake nails and coaches, just don’t! No matter how much “she” wants you to.

Or, do. And let it be filmed for a reality show. Because I. will. watch!

I know TLC probably just chooses the craziest to showcase, and that most pageant parents are just nice, normal moms like me. (heh.) Oh wait, I KNOW NO SUCH THING. But if showcasing the craziest cases was your M.O., TLC, then well done!