The One in Which I Tell You I Am Fat and Ugly . . .

. . . or at least I am when I'm in the same room as WTAE reporter Ashley Diparlo, heretoforth to be known as The Hawtness. Because she is.

And, let me back up a minute.

About a week ago, I received a suspicious looking email. It appeared to be some sort of prank claiming to want to interview me about this here blog for the local ABC affiliate, WTAE. I carefully considered the likely culprits of such a prank but quickly discovered that the IP address led credence to the fact that The Hawtness had emailed me.

And COMMENCE FREAKOUT.

Yeah, total freakout. Anyway, there was much discussion amongst the family back and forth to do it, not to do it. Relative anonymity, whatever. In the end, Mr. Husband said go for it and we all know I always do exactly what he tells me to do.

(That was really hard to type with a straight face, I admit.)

Anyhoo, the interview has happened. I mumbled, talked too fast, waved my arms around like an idiot, got teary for the most stupid of stupid reasons, and generally sucked ass while talking about the business of mommy blogging and why I do it. (If you want to see some much better bloggers than me do a phenomenal job of talking about the same topic, you can go here. Details regarding a meet-up to go punch Kathie Lee in the face are being worked out. Feel free to join the party.)

If I had been coherent and not completely in awe of the fact that The Hawtness (she is SO hawt in person) was sitting across from me, I would have replied that I blog about my daughter for my daughter.

It started out a wee bit differently in that I initially blogged for our family. We are spread literally all over the world and it was very impossible to keep everyone up to date as nine months of pregnancy turned into ten months turned into GET THE HELL OUT YOU HEATHEN CHILD. So, I wrote craptastic little blurbs explaining what was going on and posted them on a blog for a very restricted list of people. Then Alexis was born and I needed to get photos to that very restricted but very spread out group of people. So I posted them to the blog. Then I needed to keep them up-to-date on her shenanigans, so I posted them to the blog.

Yes, our family keeps in touch by reading blogs. It's a very one-sided sort of really good at keeping in touch that we do.

As time went on, I realized that Hey! This is better than a baby book! And, I can do this! So, I decided I was going to keep on posting to the blog. I had planned on keeping it all in the family, but then I started to read other mom blogs. Very quickly I learned a very valuable lesson.

I am not alone.

Lots of crazy moms think the same crazy things. Lots of crazy kids do the same crazy things. There's some sort of twisted comfort found in knowing that my kid is not the only kid who has pooped in the bathtub, for example.

So, I very quietly took the blog public. There was no fanfare, there was no party, I just unchecked a little box and that was that.

A few weeks later, I had another startling revelation. While I was indeed leaving Alexis this amazing legacy full of detailed information about what she was doing, I wasn't leaving much of me behind. For over a year, I wrote in a very stiff, uncomfortable prose. We're talking things like, "Alexis rolled over 5 times today all by herself!" Woohoo. Call the party wagon, right?

I was honestly doing the kid a disservice. To know her should be to know me. So, I slowly started to write the way I should have been writing all along. What you read these days is a pretty accurate representation of my personality. Sure, you don't get details about my life, but you do get a sense that I love my kid like crazy, I can find the funny just about anywhere, and I love my kid like crazy. When Alexis reads all this years from now, that's what I want her to know.

I love her like crazy.

So, me mumbling and saying things not nearly that well and doing so while looking fat and ugly next to The Hawtness will be airing locally on WTAE tomorrow morning around 5:15 am and 6:15 am. If you aren't in the area or are smart enough to still be asleep at those times, you'll be able to find it on WTAE's website. If I don't hate the piece too much, I might even post it here once it's available.

UPDATED: Here is the interview.

Oh, and Ashley DiParlo is The Hawtness, in case you didn't catch that.

Now continuing FREAKOUT in anticipation of seeing the final product . . .