My most recent BlogHer Book Club review for What Happened To Goodbye is up today over on the book club site. This month was a nice summery young adult/teen fiction that would make a good beach read.

What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen isn’t so much about goodbyes as about choices. Mclean Sweet’s life is all about choices — who to live with after her parents get divorced, what to call herself, whether or not to forgive her mother for the betrayal that tore her family apart, and what to do about the fascinating boy next door who seems intent on being more than friends. How do we choose who we are and can you reallychoose to be someone you’re not?

Read more on BlogHer Book Club…

I totally forgot to tell you my friend (and future roommie) Molly asked me to be part of her guest series this week on some of our favorite Pinterest finds. So go check that out, and definitely look at what her other guest posters this week pinned too – there were some GREAT finds!

And before yet ANOTHER week goes by without my mentioning it, I have to tell you that the (now not so) new blog design is courtesy of the AMAZING Marjorie at Color by Letter Design. I mentioned on Twitter I was terrified to make the jump to Thesis (a blog design template all the cool kids use but that requires some technical skills) and she said “We should talk. I’ll email you” and then BAM! She had a concept and a color scheme and did a fantastic job (at an extremely reasonable price) and now I’ve got my grown up blog all set up. I THINK we’ve gotten all the kinks worked out now too, but if you click something and it takes you down the rabbit hole or are looking for something and can’t find it anywhere let me know and I’ll see if she can help.

p.s. I know I mentioned it once before, but Sarah from One Starry Night designed my social media buttons and I just love them so much I wanted to tell you again. She is also extremely affordable and does great custom work, so drop her a line!

This isn’t a post about going to BlogHer (although I AM leaving to GO to BlogHer so if you’re as annoyed at all the conference talk as I was last year you can skip it – or just go read that post). This is about whether or not leaving my kids – especially Caroline – with my husband for three days is something I can handle. I also apologize if this is the bazillionth time you’ve heard me talk about this, because I’ve been word-vomiting all over everyone for weeks anytime any subject even remotely related comes up.

I asked for similar last year and got lots of reassurance that going to a bridal shower without my 15 month old didn’t make me a terrible mother. Then a month later I left him again for The Creative Connection Conference…and again he survived. Since then, I’ve even managed to leave him in the care of other people who are not his father (although never for a weekend) and he’s a total champ about it.

But that first time I left? Little Evan was 15 months and done nursing. Caroline is going to be just short of 8 months old and still totally addicted to the boob. So addicted, in fact, that besides the one bottle she took at a few weeks old (when I foolishly declared “Yah! She takes a bottle!” and then stopped offering them. Idiot, party of one) she gets all her milk straight from the tap. I have tried every suggestion the internet has for bottle/cup/spoon/sippy feeding but I think the only thing that’s going to work is me being completely unavailable and her being extremely hungry. So I just have to…leave. And let E deal with it. Or find some poor sap and pay them a bucketload of money to do it for us.

I suspect there is going to be the kind of crazy inconsolable screaming that makes parents genuinely those their minds, and although E is a little less sensitive to it than I am I cannot help but feel like the world’s biggest jerk for (sort of) intentionally creating that situation. What if she screams the WHOLE TIME? What if she never does take a bottle? What if she gets so dehydrated she makes herself ill and E has to take her to the ER and the doctor says “Oh, did your wife die?” and E says “No she went to San Diego to talk about blogging and party” and I end up on Dateline as the Worst Mother In The World?

Part of me realizes there is nothing FAIR about being a parent. Someone is always going to feel like they are doing MORE, and in general we take turns being that person. But this isn’t about whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher. This is about – forgive me if this seems a little overdramatic, I am feeling VERY OVERDRAMATIC – intentionally making Caroline miserable, ruining a baby’s sense of security and happiness and leaving my responsibilities with someone else.

(And hundreds of working moms just decided to slap me right in my face if they see it at BlogHer. Please understand that is NOT what I mean. I’m worried because I am upsetting my own personal status quo for what is basically a girl’s weekend, not making a general sweeping statement about leaving babies for any reason.)

I suppose I could bring her. Lots of people bring their babies. It’s not unheard of. Since all of my roommates are moms -plus one of my roommates is pregnant and one is leaving her own nursing baby at home – I’m sure they would understand. She’s an incredibly easy going baby (BESIDES THE BOTTLE THING) and loves people and would probably have a great time distracting me from the sessions and making me whip my boob out in front of all my blogging idols.

So there it is. I don’t WANT to bring my baby to BlogHer. I’ve been looking forward to this mommy-gets-a-break time for more than 2 years and nothing would ruin that faster than 20 hours of travel time in 4 days with a baby in tow. I want to wear real bras that hold my chest up and dresses and high heels. I want to have TWO glasses of wine and not feel like I’m abusing my child. I want to be awake at 2 am because I WANT TO BE, not because a baby needs me.

That sounds SO SELFISH, right? What kind of mother thinks that? It’s not Caroline’s fault she loves me and needs me, she’s a freakin’ BABY. And like my husband keeps pointing out, BlogHer will be there next year. This is not my LAST CHANCE IN THE WORLD to go have fun with my interwebs friends. But at this point it’s too late to not go at all without being out a big chunk of change and letting down at least one person I was looking forward to meeting in person.

I would never have even bought a ticket if I knew Caroline was going to be just as stubborn about the bottles as her brother. But now it’s down to the wire and I’m so stressed about it I am literally making myself sick.

Seriously, what do I do?

I signed up for the BlogHer Book Club a few months ago (see my fancy little badge in the sidebar? I’m OFFICIAL) and I’m really enjoying it. What’s not to like about being sent free books and then talking about them? Today my most recent review for A Discovery of Witches is up on BlogHer:

A Discovery of Witches is just like The Da Vinci Code… if you replace symbolism with science and religion with magic. Oh and the main characters are a witch and a vampire. So, not exactly like The Da Vinci Code, but that is definitely what it reminded me of after the action started. And they even go to France for a while!

Check out the BlogHer Book Club page for the rest!

No, this isn’t actually a post about housekeeping, although I could write another one of those if you want. I got a LOT of real-life feedback from people who read my last housekeeping post, including people who are actually using my lists as their lists for staying on top of things. That’s a lot of pressure – especially since I never even printed them out for myself so I have to keep searching my own blog for today’s cleaning schedule. I’ve been keeping up with my “do one major chore a day” plan pretty well, except for Tuesday where I refused to clean my sink mostly on principle – I cooked for lunch AND dinner so doing the dishes twice in one day was more than I could handle. Is that really pathetic? I’m going to go with no, not pathetic, just the life of someone who is SO EXHAUSTED by 3 pm she can fall asleep on the couch while a toddler hits her in the head with things and yet still has 8 more hours before bed. So yeah, my sink can stay dirty and the FlyLady can suck it.

Wow, that was quite a tangent. Here’s the bloggy housekeeping stuff I was ACTUALLY talking about:

1. I entered BOTH kids in a local (suuuuuuper amazing) photographer’s contest to become her kid model for the year. She’s offering a free photo shoot for the family AND for the child who wins, and since she takes the kind of photos I can’t afford I’m hoping I can enlist your help. I think you have to like the My Four Hen’s Facebook Page first, but then if you could “like” the pictures of Caroline (in the Little Miss M4H album) and Evan (in the Little Mr M4H album) I would love you for eveeeeeeeeeer.

These are the pictures you’re voting for:

2. I swear this is the only time I will mention it, but if you could take a second to click on the Top Baby Blogs button over in my right sidebar it would keep me from getting super depressed over being, like, 546th on the list. I’m never going to be on the front page and I HATE the begging for clicks but I have found a ton of other awesome blogs to read from browsing that list so I’d like to stay on it. You can vote once a day, every day, so if you happen to remember without me bugging you I’d appreciate it. Oh and if you want you can like bebehblog on Facebook too – the link is over in the left sidebar. I like to make people click on things and am also very needy.

3. I have no idea how to go about this so I’m just putting it here: although I’m already committed to running the BlogHer ad banner, I would love to help promote handmade shops with ads here on bebehblog. If you have a shop (especially a newish shop you’d like to start advertising) please email me at bebehblog at gmail dot com. I have no idea what a 125×125 ad goes for on a smallish mommy blog but I can assure you I am willing to work with ANYONE’S budget.

4. Ditto everything in number 3 but instead of “blog” substitute “BlogHer conference in San Diego”. Can I wear your product? Can my baby wear your product? Would you like your name on the back of my business cards? Conferences are expensive y’all, and even if you’re thinking “I’m a tiny shop! I can’t afford to sponsor someone!” you should email me. I’m not looking for someone to cover the whole cost, just maybe a couple of frappuccinos.

5. Last year I participated in the March of Dimes and thanks to the generosity of my friends, family and blog readers I raised over $500 for our team. I didn’t get my act together early enough to do my own fundraising this year – although I’ll probably still walk with our Stroller Strides team as moral support – but many of my internet friends have formed their own teams and are trying to raise money for MoD. If it’s a cause you like to support, please consider donating to one of them – especially Jenny, who gave birth to TRIPLETS at 28 weeks and credits the work MoD does for preemies with having all three adorable babies home and healthy now.

6. If you don’t mind, can you leave a comment telling me what kind of post you like best? Do you like the ones with lots of pictures? The iPhone linky? Wordless Wednesday? The “what’s for dinner” posts? Everyday motherhood crap? Baby & toddler updates? Crafty stuff? I’m sort of an all-over-the-place blogger because, well, I’m not interesting enough to write about just one thing all the time but if there’s something you wish I’d write about more I can try to make that happen. Sigh. There I go, acting like someone besides my mother CARES what I write about. And even she hardly ever comments so I’m not even sure she read anymore.

Ok, I promise that is all the bloggy business I’m going to shove in your faces this month. Or next month. I may be annoying again in April but it’s my birthday month so you can’t be mad. It’s in the blog reader’s handbook. What, you didn’t get one of those? I’ll mail it right out.

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.