Dear Crabtot: a birthday newsletter
Dear Crabtot,
It's your third birthday today. And in keeping with the traditions of parent-blogging, I'm meant to write you this very sincere and sentimental newsletter. I'm meant to lay down, for once, my mantle of maternal cynicism and show you (well, actually, since you can't read—show everyone but you) that I really am grateful to be a mom and that I live, love, and have learned so deeply and so much more because of you.
My newsletter should read something like this:
Dear Crabtot,
I can't believe you're turning 3! It's amazing how time flies...[yadda yadda]... You're such a complex little being now. And sometimes you challenge me! [Here's where I could get a smidge risqué and hint at dark moments in the past year.] But no matter how tough those moments are, you always inspire your dad and me to be the best people we can be. [That sentence must follow the dark risky stuff, a redemptive line just to show that while it's been a bloody hard year, I want everyone you to know that I know parenting is essentially a positive experience.] Then I throw in some humor about the tricky times and the cute things you've said and then I write this bit about how even though I'm Crabmommy, nothing melts the crabby shell around my crustaceous heart like a Crabtot birthday.
The problem, Crabtot, is that Mom doesn't like to do what she thinks others think she should. So if your blogmommy is rude and complainy and whiny, and everyone thinks maybe for one day in the year she should post about the indescribable new capacity for love that has come about because of you, she doesn't want to! She's a naughty mommy!
The other problem is that your mom thinks it's gimmicky and therefore insincere and contrived to copy things that have been pioneered by this blogger who is called Dooce. Dooce is funny and clever and all. But Crabmommy wants to think of you on your third birthday, and to try not to think of Mommy or her blog or Dooce or anyone else. So I'm not writing you this newsletter, okay?
Love, Mom.
Dear Crabtot,
You are very lucky to have such a clever, witty and loving-in-her-own-way CrabMommy. And we, her readers, are very lucky to have her crabblog to enjoy. Happy 3rd Birthday! Yours in Crabhood, First Feeding
P.S. Who is this blogger called Dooche?
Dear Crabtot,
Please do something funny so mommy can make more money.
Damn straight, Mrs.Breeder. That birthday tot must earn her keep after all those cupcakes I made today!!
A Birthday letter! Damn, I knew I was forgetting something all these years. Can I do them now, postdate them, and say I did them then?
Satiric or not, you, Crabmommy, actually wrote a letter--and oddly sweet it was--so I'm wondering. . .could you write a few for me? If you don't have time to customize, I'd be happy to just, you know, plagiarize.
Happy 3rd, Crabtot.