One comment = one vaccine

I'm so honored to serve as a Social Good Fellow for Shot@Life, an initiative of the United Nations Foundation that educates, connects and empowers the championing of vaccines as one of the most cost effective ways to save the lives of children in the world’s hardest to reach places.

This week, my post to mark the unexpected milestone my son E landed upon at age seven launched on Shot@Life's Blogust site on August 7th. It filled me up to blog for such good and to be in the company of talented writers and parents, all tapping away at keyboards to get vaccines to children in need.

My goal was 100 comments. Together, we have far surpassed that. And the number of comments here and on other Blogust posts is on a thrilling up-tick.

Here are three must-read posts by my fellow fellows. Please keep clicking, commenting and sharing all month long so that we can keep children from dying from vaccine-preventable disease.

The power of post-its - At Girl's Gone Child, Rebecca beautifully shares the power of looking back on life, the opportunity of Alzheimer's and a video of sweet baby Bo getting her wave. 

He enjoys being a boy - This post at Lesbian Dad made me weepy and happy and nod along at the wonderful complexities of being a boy and the blessing of being a woman who watches it all unfold.

Passing the torch - Shannon explains why we're doing this and the thunderous clap when 31 bloggers rally for a cause. 

Summer camp stories of the past. And of the future: a scrapbook

A few weeks ago, I looked back on my summer camp experiences, full of frosty-blue eyeshadow and lanyard bracelets, but the campfire smoke-tinged, God's Eye yarn-wrapped, Cutter-doused, Tretorned memories haven't stopped spinning in my head. 

E has picked up on it, asking me to tell him stories over and over again, wondering how bad the cafeteria food really was, wanting details on archery clinic and sleeping in the pine forest without a tent on some nights. He's whispered my counselor-bestowed secret camp name to me and spontaneously blurted out flagpole songs I've taught him over the years.

We've listened to other people's camp stories, too. The Not Boyfriend told us about his summers with North Shore kids at Camp Chi. And my mom laughed as she recounted picking up my brother from his first-ever sleepaway week -- with dozens of bug bites, both ears raging red and swollen from double infections on each side, a suitcase of damp and mildewed clothes, wearing the exact red sweatsuit he wore on day one, and sporting a grin from ear to throbbing ear. Blissfully unaware of anything other than his thrill at being in Potter cabin for seven whole days.

It's made me think that the time is coming for E to spend a week, maybe two, in a bunk, playing Capture the Flag, shooting arrows into shrubs, screaming undecipherable cheers until the final, weepy Kumbaya at closing campfire. Next summer? 

Today, on the quick car-trip home from day camp just a few neighborhoods away, we listened to some other kids' stories. We don't know them, but we connected to their interviews, the chants, the detailed explanations of the complexity and sobbing in choosing captains of the annual Color Days competition. 

E and I just sat in the car for 40 more minutes than we needed to, both for our own reasons, riveted by this This American Life on summer-camp culture, the people who don't get it and the people who really do.

And when the line came that some of the best moments of life happened at camp or with camp friends, I thought of some of my people. You know who you are. (Noonweh.)

Listen. It's the magic you probably remember, summed up in under an hour.

"I love this," E said, nodding toward the podcast ending on my phone. 

"Me, too," I said, nodding back, smiling, knowing he has so much more to love, to experience. And all of it far away from home and me. Next year.

The real kind of potty talk

Since my son could speak, our conversations have been full of potty talk. And I quickly realized that the shortcut to making him laugh, to easing a tense situation, and diffusing a ticking tantrum was to get really good at potty humor.

It's not like it was a trick to hone this skill. I'd been thinking potty humor for most of my life. What took time and practice was releasing all of the girly insistence that I did not want to discuss bodily functions, even in a funny way. I still don't want to go into too much detail, mind you. But I think I've gone up a few levels in my potty humor proficiency.

Thank goodness, I started early. During the years when it was just E and I in the house most days (and giggly pre-bedtime hours), the body business was a hilarious and secret conversation get safe between the two of us. Then along came the Not Boyfriend. And now comfortable dropping the f-bomb (not THAT f-bomb, the far worse word for toot or poot that I deplore and have not yet brought myself to mutter, even in the context of a great joke or relatively laughable pun) and probably happy to be around a dude-bro who is way comfortable with his body and boy stuff and this kind of talk, E let loose. With another guy around, potty talk now consumes a lot of our time to joke around. Even if I demand it has been enough, to dial down the poop hilarity for at least a little bit, it sneaks back in like...well, you know.

With two gents in the house and subsequently in my bathroom (yes, mine and mine alone) more often, that 10'x10' real estate has become even more precious. 

"If we ever all live together," the Not Boyfriend has professed with more authority than I expected, "we MUST have two bathrooms."

At first I heard this as a high-maintenance demand. I mean, he's been a bachelor for quite a while. He's not so used to sharing. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized he is absolutely right.

I spend a lot of time in my bathroom, and I'm not shy about saying it's my favorite space in my home. I retreat there for long baths. I take my time when I'm putting on make-up for a night out. I love spreading out my flat iron and curling iron and lipsticks and hair pins on the counter without the balancing act of trying to fit two things on a pedestal sink. And while my son can lip-synch into the mirror while carefully brushing his locks for a good, long time, neither of these guys is spending most of their extended stays in the bathroom getting fancy. Ahem. 

The Not Boyfriend has once or twice explained in more detail while it is a good thing for a growing boy and a grown man to have their own thrones -- but I've stopped him abruptly. I get it. The conversation has already played out in my head. No need to go into those details. I guess no matter how potty-humor adept I am, I am just not that loo-evolved just yet. 

In the meantime, we are, a few times a week, making it work in the shared space of the bathroom. One day, I hope there will be a ladies' room and a men's, where all kinds of bathroom business can take place. Behind closed doors. For now, it's OK that they roll their eyes and laugh when I raise a hand to stop the details from...umm...flowing. I am comfortable with the jokes and references and puns and funnies, reminding them that good things, and maybe even an f-bomb, come to those who (sit and) wait.

This post is sponsored by Cottonelle as a part of the Talk It Out campaign with Cherry Healy to discuss bathroom habits and better ways to get clean. Please visit the Cottonelle Facebook page here for more information and get in on the conversation.