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| Daggy? |
I have a favourite cousin ( I actually have a number of favourite cousins) anyway this one, who I will call Ed, is close to my own age. I don't see a lot of him but we have an odd kind of a bond. When we were kids, Ed lived on the other side of Sydney, I guess an hour or more drive away so we didn't see a lot of each other in those days, either.
Sometimes Grandpa would ask who wanted to make the trip to Manly to see the cousins and I would inevitably be the one to put my hand up. I remember that at one point in the drive Grandpa would announce that the traffic was heavy and he needed to concentrate so no talking was allowed. He would later announce the end of the tricky bit and we could talk again. This aspect of the journey is pretty much all I can remember of the drive. It was routine and I never thought a lot about it but many years later I mentioned it to my Dad and he said the silence would have been designed to keep Grandma quiet. It's a bit funny because as far as I remember Grandma wasn't that much of a chatterbox! Then again, I am supposedly quite like her so um, yea. Memory is unreliable, right?
Back to my cousin, we were in the same grade at school and for part of each visit my uncle, an interesting man, would send us to separate bedrooms to do maths and later compare our results.
Maybe my relationship with Ed was forged through Saturday afternoon maths exercises and Shredded Wheat dinners......
I haven't heard a lot of Ed lately but yesterday he called me for some baby related information and along with some general catching up, we were talking about my lack of employment. Ed has the ability to speak with total authority, even when he knows little to nothing on the subject, and quickly determined (while showing off his vocabulary) that I should use my "droll, dry, laconic" ability to "turn a phrase" and become the next Mommy blogger sensation. I expressed some concern about my ability to carve a niche in an already full market but Ed was on a roll and he wasn't about to stop. In next to no time he identified my unique selling point as a potential mommy blogger and checked for domain name availability: Daggy Mum of daggymum.com.
Some time ago I posted about my inability (or maybe unwillingness) to develop a specific blogging persona and come to think of it I was the same as a doula, not wanting to brand myself as others do "The Modern Doula", "Birthwise Doula" or "Mamabear Doula".
It might, indeed, be smart to label myself "Daggy Mum", creating a self deprecating, droll and laconic personal brand but what happens on the days I want to be cool, stylish, frugal, thoughtful or perspicacious?
