Friday Take Over // Stephanie Totty from Froggy and the Mouse

You know what?  I’ve got some kick-ass blogging friends.  And lucky for you, they’ve agreed to take over Fridays here on the blog!  Each week, I’ll introduce you to my favorite bloggers from around the interwebs – women who write about their kids, their crafts, their work, their passions, their…WHATEVER.  Topics are wide open – so you’ve been warned!  //  First up is Stephanie Totty from Froggy and the Mouse.  She’s a Dallas BoyMom who might drop a f-bomb here and there.  I love her stand on post-partum vacations and I’m anxious to read your comments on this surprisingly controversial subject (who knew, right?)!

Ever since the internet was invented there have been judgmental jerks spouting off their mouths on it. Sometimes it’s in the form of a anonymous comment on a blog, sometimes it’s in the form of a snarky Post Secret postcard, and sometimes it’s in the form of a passive aggressive comment on your Facebook wall. There’s been a lot of this going around lately … it’s especially rampant on blog posts lately, but I’d like to talk about a Facebook conversation I witnessed the other day.

Honestly, I wish I could just copy and paste it on here and let you guys tear it apart … but since it wasn’t MY Facebook post, that would kind of be crappy of me. SO – I’ll just paraphrase instead.

A friend of mine from high school is expecting her first baby (a little boy, squeeee!). I’ve been reading her pregnancy statuses on Facebook about showers, and baby gear, and sweet new outfits she’s bought … and last night, she posted about something she’d bought for herself in anticipation of starting down this new life path that is parenthood: a 3 night vacation to Las Vegas for when baby is around 6 months old.

BAM. Effing genius. Because you know what? I completely and utterly believe parenting to be a job. A full-time, around the clock, crazy hard job with no employee handbook and no human resources department. Sure, you get paid in kisses and fingerpaints … and that’s awesome … but regardless, in order to be a good employee, one MUST have downtime as well. Just like any other job, if you do it 24/7 with zero time to yourself, you WILL get burnt out. And your coworker (ie: spouse, significant other)? That relationship has to be maintained as well. Otherwise, you forget why the hell you created this life-altering little person to begin with.

Can I get an amen?

As I was getting ready to type something along the lines of, ‘OMG I AM SO EFFING JEALOUS’ as a reply, I started reading some of the other comments. They were something along the lines of:

‘Oh sweetie, there is absolutely no way you’ll want to leave that sweet amazing little baby at only 6 months …’

‘I couldn’t leave my baby until he was 10 months old, and even then I couldn’t leave the city and called every 10 minutes to check on him …’

’6 months is SO young! You should just take him with you!’

‘I still haven’t been able to bring myself to leave my kiddo overnight yet, and he’s 23 years old!’

Okay, that last one I made up, but it wasn’t far from the general consensus of most of the comments. I had to reread everything a couple of times because I just couldn’t believe the ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude all of these so-called ‘friends’ had on her status (okay, I COULD … it’s FB after all, but it still pissed me off). I left a comment that went something like, ‘we left our first for an overnight trip when he was 4 months and it was BLISS. enjoy yourself!’.

Then I messaged her and told her she had a bunch of effing stupid-head mom friends.

Yes, I actually said this.

And before you all start berating me in the comments section of this post, I don’t mean that if you didn’t feel like you could leave your baby for the first time at that age that you’re a stupid-head … but judging a FRIEND on Facebook for something as ridiculous as leaving her baby for a weekend of mommy time 6 months in just pisses me off. The passive-aggressive ‘I’m a better mommy than you’ attitude that comes across in comments of this nature is just absolutely EXHAUSTING. New moms (and moms in general) should be getting every ounce of support that we can muster for each other … not being used as an example as why you’re doing things better than most of society because x,y, and z.

And yes, we left the Mouse alone with family overnight for the first time when he was around 4.5 months old. And guess what, we left the Froggy alone with family overnight at like six WEEKS old. So let’s leave my friend and her effing awesome Vegas trip at 6 months post partum alone, shall we? To my friend (and you know who you are), if you get any more crap from ‘friends’ please direct them to my blog. I’ll tell them how I quit breastfeeding at 4 weeks (with both kids) and blow their effing minds

Want more from Tottums?  Definitely check Froggy and the Mouse!  A couple of my fave posts from Stephanie are 1) a rant about boy’s clothing 2) a very personal post about becoming the breadwinner and 3) a post near and dear to my heart these days: blogging doldrums.

Stephanie also encourages stalking: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.