DC Metro Moms

Won't you be my neighbor (after you get a security clearance)?

 Every area of the country has an industry. If I lived in Nebraska, I would probably know farmers. If I lived in Los Angeles, I would likely have a few neighbors in the entertainment game. If I ever become a resident of Maine, I'll bet the lobster trade would be a big employer.

I live in Northern Virginia. It is where government work, defense contracting and high tech all meet. My little house is about two highway exits from CIA headquarters. That means the hot industry for my neck of the woods is "spy." Or at least "spy support."

No one comes right out and says. "Hi. Thanks for inviting me to your cookout. I am a spy."

But things are indeed different here.

Way to make me feel old, Doc

 I went for my annual OB/Gyn visit the other day.

The nurse went through the usual health questions: any problems? any medications? what are you using for birth control?

I laughed and said "Hmmm. Being 45 and a half years old?"

That is a joke that has worked in the past. I took the pill for many, many years. Then I stopped. My husband was supposed to have a vasectomy, but just never got around to it. A year went by, then another.

I gave a sarcastic answer to the birth control question three years ago, and the doctor gave me a list of urologists my husband should see for the, um, procedure.

Two years ago, and I got a short lecture. "Pregnancy's not probable, but not impossible," the doctor said, checking off some codes on my chart. "I've delivered babies to women older than you."

I gave a similar answer a year ago, and the doctor gave me some information about Essure, the new wave of tubal ligation where doctors block your tubes in a quick-and-easy in-office procedure.

This year, as I am eying 46, I got nothing. No response. No shrug of the shoulders. No tsk-tsk. No little lecture.

Can't we all just get along?

 The New York Times visited the recent Bloggy Boot Camp in Baltimore, and published this snarky story on Sunday. The Mom Bloggers went crazy. CRAZY. They are writing letters to the editor and irate blog posts. The nerve! The patronizing tone! The gall to suggest that bloggers are blogging and trying to make money rather than play with their kids!

First of all, I agree with the bloggers that the tone was patronizing. No doubt. But as a longtime reporter and a fairly new blogger, I see both sides of the coin.

I think the reporter was trying to present that there is a whole world out there, where everyone has a voice, even if they do not have the training and experience to get paid for it in the traditional media world. That doesn't mean that some of them are not in demand by corporate sponsors and blogging sites. It's just a new model when it comes to new media, one that readers of the New York Times might not know about.

What readers of traditional media also often don't know is there is a difference between blogging and reporting. Traditional journalists would never (or aren't supposed to) take swag or sponsorship (although papers might want to consider it, given the financial state of affairs at most newspapers these days). The reporter was trying, I think, to point out that mom bloggers are embracing this new business model - particularly if it will pay off in making enough money to be with their kids and not return to a traditional office job. A traditional reporter would never be "sponsored" by Pampers, so I think it is news to some people out there that a blogger can be.

Aging out of the neighborhood baby boomlet

Now that it is not crazy cold, I have a few minutes to stop and chat with my neighbors. At least three of them are pregnant, so that is exciting.

Except I feel so removed from those days I might as well be grandma.

I have lived in my Northern Virginia neighborhood for 13 years. We moved here when my son was 10 months old. There were a bunch of new babies on the block too, followed by a crop of siblings about two years later. I think there were seven born in the spring/summer of 1999. Seven!

Since then, some of those families had a third child and moved to bigger homes. New people moved in. New babies were born. You could chart the neighborhood baby boom right along with the housing boom. Newlyweds moved in, baby showed up, home value shot up, baby turned one - time to cash in and move to the house with the three-car garage.

Down, Tiger

It's been more than three months since Tiger Woods crashed his car and opened the door to his skeevy love life. It's been almost a week since he "broke his silence" and spoke to a "select" group of friends and media members.

And yet Entertainment Tonight and the like can't stop showing him in slow motion. US Weekly keep printing photos of Tiger's wife, Elin, out and about with no dark roots (ever) and no wedding ring (for now).

Now, I like gossip as much as the next person - how else would I know the media's breathless fascination with this couple? But even I have to say "enough."