TOTALLY INACCURATE

My neighborhood has a skunk problem.

Let me rephrase that.

My neighborhood, which is well within city limits, where I can look into at least four other houses’ windows from my own because they are so close, where emergency sirens and roaring trucks are far more common than bunnies and birdies, has been taken hostage by skunks.

The week we bought the house, back in the good old days BK (before kids) when I still took my poor long suffering dog Brutus for real walks several times a day instead of just shoving him out the door and glaring at him to hurry up and pee, we ran across a skunk wandering down the sidewalk at 7 am. I managed to drag Brutus, howling and whining, two blocks home before the poor, dazed skunk even realized what was going on. I breathlessly called animal control to report a TOTALLY CRAZY skunk sighting but apparently they don’t work at 7 am so I got the front desk of the police station. I described in great detail exactly where I saw the skunk, the intersection he was waddling towards and (sigh)what he looked like, as thoroughly and completely as I would have described a robbery suspect.

I bet those cops laughed about me for DAYS.

The skunks are everywhere. They’re digging in my trash cans making a mess. They’re standing in my driveway in the middle of the afternoon. They’re wandering around my yard in the evenings making Brutus go apeshit. They’re squashed flat in the middle of the road, making me gag and my eyes water.

I am sick and tired of these motherbleeping skunks in my motherbleeping town.

Tuesday afternoon the baby, the groceries and I were trapped in the car for 10 minutes while a clearly dazed and unwell skunk wandered through the garden, so when Brutus started pacing and whining around 8 o’clock I figured the beast was back and terrorizing our street. I slammed the door and yelled at the dog to sit down muttering about moving back to the country, where my landlord took care of lost skunks the old fashioned way – with a .22 and a shovel. (True story.)

When the dog woke me up with MORE whining at 4 am I spent 20 minutes debating whether it was worse to ignore him and clean up dog poop in the morning or let him out and deal with a dog-skunk death match and the smelly horrible after effects before dawn.

You can see how that might be a hard decision.

Eventually I felt enough dog-mommy guilt that I decided to let him out – after turning on every exterior light and peering out the back door suspiciously looking for skunky signs like…I don’t know. Wilted flowers. Droppings. A squirrel holding it’s nose. When poor Brutus was eventually released to the yard he barely made it off the porch before he started peeing. And peeing. And peeing. I started counting mississippis when he was STILL peeing after what felt like 10 minutes and I made it to 45 before he stopped to poop. And then he peed some more.

I am a terrible dog owner. I blame the skunks.

But what can we do? It’s not like I’m going to set traps – I couldn’t bring myself to use any kind that killed the skunk (especially since there are a dozen or so outdoor cats in my neighborhood) and an angry, trapped LIVE skunk sounds even worse than skunk eating my trash. Animal control doesn’t seem to care. They’ve been staging this attack since early spring and it just gets worse every year. Advice appreciated.

As the weekend of August 7-8 quickly approaches, I know you must have a lot of questions about not attending BlogHer. What won’t it be like? What won’t I wear? Who won’t I see? What if no one likes me? Don’t worry! As an expert in not attending – I haven’t gone for the past 7 years straight – I can hold your hand through this sometimes stressful process. Here are 6 simple steps to ease your concerns:

1. Relax
Even though I know you feel like the only one, there are literally millions of people not attending BlogHer. Some of them will even manage to survive the weekend. Freaking out about living your life as you would on any other day of the year is unnecessary. Act as you normally would, including these possible activities: sleeping, eating, showering, changing into clean pajamas, taking artsy pictures of food, cleaning up poop, spending money on Etsy on stuff you don’t need, staring at your Google reader hoping someone updates, wondering why no one ever calls anyone on the phone anymore.

2. Consider your wardrobe
Staying home definitely has its advantages. You don’t have to try to understand the difference between semi-casual cocktail evening dress attire and semi-formal afternoon reception I’m judging you in that skirt attire. You may even want to buy a new pair of stretchy pants for the occasion, just to celebrate not having to spend two days hoping no one notices your Spanx.

3. Write posts your readers actually care about
Although the whole BLOGGING world cares about BlogHer, I can assure no one else does. Become an internet beacon of light and joy to everyone who will be hiding from their RSS feeds, avoiding eight zillion blurry group shots where everyone is looking in different directions and wearing lampshades on their heads. In comparison, your poop tweets and posts about your kid’s sleep habits seem FASCINATING.

4. Avoid swag drama
If you want free stuff, I suggest rummaging your neighbor’s trash cans at night or stalking yard sales at 3 pm. Besides, Crocs are wicked ugly and McDonald’s is bad for you. Bonus: You don’t have to somehow work “Doctor Bob’s Amazing Vanishing Wart Remover” into your next post just because you took that sample for, uh, a friend.

5. Don’t wonder if people are ignoring you on purpose
A major advantage of staying home is not finding out one of your blogging heroes is really a giant jerk. This may come as a shock, but did yo know a lot of people are different in real life than they are online? And just because you comment on every.single.post. a blogger writes they still might not know who you are. It’s much safer and less soul crushing to stick to believing you two are BIFFs (best internet friends forever) and think fondly about that time she sent you an email – even if it was just about that giveaway you won.

6. Stop complaining
Constantly blogging or tweeting about how you’re NOT at BlogHer is almost as annoying as constantly blogging and tweeting about how you ARE. If it means you have to close TweetDeck for 48 hours, it’s a small price to pay to avoid pissing off half your followers. If you’re so broken up about it you can’t think of anything else, I suggest seeking counciling from other non-attendees and large quantities of alcohol (bonus: you’ll almost feel like you’re there!)

Remember, this is just ONE conference in ONE city ONE year. The internet will not forget who you are if you don’t get to meet some of them face to face and there are no free 10-day dream vacations to Paris in the swag bags. BlogHer attendance does not qualify you for some sort of Best Blogger of The Whole Interwebs award delivered by the Old Spice guy vomiting rainbows while riding a unicorn even if those bitches who went say they totally got one. Just follow my handy guide and maybe you’ll be one of the lucky non-attendees who wakes up Monday August 9th still alive and allowed to write stuff on the internet.

Besides, there’s always next year.

Occasionally (rarely) I get email from a reader. It always makes my day, since just knowing someone took the time to type out my address and spend a few seconds telling me they liked my post or have a suggestion or agree with me makes all the time and energy I spend on this space worth it. What can I say, I’ve got an attention-seeking personality. Aaaaand everyone who new me in high school just said “DUH”.

Even better than “I like you” mail, sometimes people email me asking if I would consider writing about a specific subject. Take for example, this email I got from a lovely (and incredibly loyal) reader named Amanda:

While E was out of town for a couple nights, I decided it was time to make a few adjustments to the baby’s nighttime schedule. (Changes go a lot better when I implement them myself and declare a new Baby Law.) As much as I loved our cuddles and the ease of nursing the baby without getting out of bed, this 7 month old little monster child is NOT the sweet little baby who snuggles. This one kicks and squirms and thrashes and the other night he stuck his fingers up my nose, Three Stooges style. Let me tell you, that is at the top of the list of uncomfortable ways to wake up, right behind with a car on top of you.

So I sat Baby Evan down and explained it was time for him to sleep in his own room, he agreed, and we lived happily ever after. AHAHAHAHA if only babies were that easy, I’d have a dozen more. The first thing I did was move our entire bedtime routine upstairs – bath in the bathtub instead of the sink, nursing in the nursery instead of on the couch. I also decided it was time to do away with the swaddle, in the hopes that he wouldn’t wake up trying to break free. And the third thing I did was drag out the Baby Go To Sleep music cd I tried months ago but never really seemed to work. I’ve also been trying to convince Baby Evan that the blue blanket my mother-in-law knit for him is his lovie (or as I called mine, Favorite Blankie) so it can take over some of the comforting during the night.

Pretty much the only thing my The Baby Books agree on is that infant sleep cycles are only 90 minutes, and ever hour and a half babies wake, check their surroundings and resettle. The “resettle” part is the key word in that sentence, because according to The Books, I have created some Bad Habits with my baby and breaking those Bad Habits means anything from 4 nights of screaming to 8 weeks of sleep deprivation to three more years of getting kicked in the kidneys all night. I have not allowed my baby to learn to resettle – because of the swaddle and the rocking or nursing to sleep – and now I must pay the price. Luckily for me, my baby didn’t read The Books and has no idea he’s supposed to torture me for my poor planning. Letting him sleep unswaddled allows him to literally check his surroundings at night, rolling around to get comfortable or scratch his nose or get closer to his blanket. Playing the Baby Go To Sleep cd while we rock him to sleep and setting it to repeat all night is enough of a reminder that it’s bedtime (and as a bonus it drowns out a lot of the tossing and turning noises so I can sleep more). And now he’s nursing just when he’s hungry instead of using me as a pacifier all. night. long.

While he was sharing our room, I was getting about 4-5 total hours of sleep. That is definitely not enough for a functional human being, unless you are currently the parent of a baby who sleeps even less than that, in which case I am so, so sorry. With the baby in the nursery last night, I slept EIGHT HOURS, even including getting up to nurse at 2 am and getting up to bring the baby to bed at 5 am, where he slept happily until 8:30. I’m not banishing the baby from our bed permanently – I’m not even taking down the co-sleeper yet – because when he’s teething/having a growth spurt/reaching a developmental milestone our night schedule might could will change again. And I’m dealing with a little bit of attachment-parenting guilt for choosing my sleep over maintaining a family bed. But after 7 months of exhaustion, I think even the most ardent attachment parenting expert would agree it’s time for a change.