Catching up / Raising Empowered Daughters / Looking ahead

I’ve been absent. From the blog, anyway. And probably from lots of other stuff that I simply don’t make time for right now. But let’s catch up:

I’m pregnant with my third child, due in mid-November. We all are very excited, though frankly in my day-to-day with my five-year-old and my three-year-old, my pregnancy is an afterthought. I have lots of lower back pain, which really sucks. But I didn’t have any nausea, so there you have it.

I am still writing, though not as regularly as I’d like to be. I am working on a personal essay and have a piece of flash fiction submitted to my writing group for review. I’m trying to finish some piece of writing every month, so I hope to write something new (all the way to its ending) this month.

I’ve picked up a freelance writing gig wherein I write a reflection on some research I find (not a review, exactly, but hopefully a more digestible and accessible curation of ideas that emerge from the research I read).

I’m reading a lot lately, too. I’m in two book clubs that meet in person, and one that is online.

Dang it, I’m in love with the book Raising Empowered Daughters: A Dad-to-Dad Guide. Note that I am, in fact, not a dad, but a mom. I was introduced to the book via Cool Mom Picks (this is the online book club), and I think it’s really powerful. Written by a guy, Mike Adamick, he’s trying to reach other dads and guys out there who are raising girls. Every chapter lays out all the ways in which our culture is cheating our kids through the language we use and the products we buy. We are teaching our girls and our boys that girls are lesser than. And so we need to be intentional about how we speak to our kids (and how we don’t) about gender. I have a boy and a girl (and maybe another girl in November? I don’t know). It’s a maddening and lovely book.

Looking ahead, I’m planning to publish a podcast episode once every other week. I’m working on putting all of that together. I am truly addicted to podcasts, and simply want to have one of my own. Not that I expect listeners. I just want to do it.

Anybody out there?