To Twitter or Not To Twitter

There's been a lot of talk lately about the ROI on Twitter. For me, that'd kind of be like trying to prove the ROI on having kids. There's so much that's totally immeasurable about both experiences, but at the end of the day, you know you're better off having it/them in your life. And Twitter doesn't wake you up in the middle of the night (at least now it doesn't, since I figured out how to turn off that TweetDeck chirp).

If you've read my books, you know what my kids mean to me. The books themselves, for starters.

But what does Twitter mean to me? After a year, this much, so far:

1. New set of friends, both personal and professional. I had 20 of them turn up a book signing in Ottawa - all people I never would have met without Twitter. It was an awesome experience. I've met social media gurus (you know who you are), my new favourite photographer (she took the author photo for my latest book, CL Buchanan), and women and Moms who make me laugh and think every day.

2. Corporate connections. Through Twitter I've connected and reconnected with P.R. Agencies and corporations which have resulted in work, travel, and learning.

3. Instant sources. I write magazine and newspaper articles. When I'm not sure what questions to ask, I go to Twitterville and my inbox is instantly filled. (Celebs like Mindy Cohn and Ian D'sa of Billy Talent both loved my "from the Twitter crowd" set of questions). I need to get fun stories about camping with kids? Voila. My friends are happy I've found new people to bug for their anecdotes. Not to mention my own kids.

4. Laughs. I laugh every single day reading something on Twitter. And this from a person who NEVER opens an email joke. NEVER.

5. Custom Kathy News Feed. From the serious news networks to the lighter lifestyle all the way to pure personal gossip, I am in the know, all the time. First place I learned about the Haiti Earthquake, Michael Jackson dying, and that red wine drinkers gain less weight than non-red wine drinkers. No, really.

6. Grammar/spelling/edit skills. You only have 140 letters. You learn to be succinct. And if you make a spelling or grammar mistake, Tweeps are not afraid to tell ya. Love it.

7. Advice. From finding out how to treat a small medical issue to stopping kids from fighting, it's like having a huge coffee klatch going all the time.

8. Instant Feedback. While it's still exciting to get an email from someone commenting on my work, it's more amazing to get a Tweet from someone saying "Your book just made me snot laugh. Right now."

I've given up trying to convince other people to use Twitter. You know, the ones who say "But I don't want to read about what people had for breakfast". I think those of us on Twitter are in on a really big secret right now.

The ROI on Twitter doesn't stand for Return on Investment for me. It stands for Really Owning Information. And that's something I can keep to myself. And my Tweeps.

Who Gives a List?

I do. That's who. I run my whole life by lists and schedules. I get to feel like I accomplish things, and more importantly, I can usually keep the four kids in rotation without forgetting someone somewhere.

Most of the time.

Anyway he's recovered from that and the custodian gave him cookies.

This month's Funny Mummy is all about my List Obsession, and why (I think) it works for me.

As well, I've discovered that I am a Busy Body. All Moms are. In a good way.

Read my latest Health & Harmony blog "UnBalanced" to find out why that is.

And - have some exciting news - Amazon.ca has started shipping "Shut Up and Eat: Tales of Chicken, Children and Chardonnay" - they're earlier than we thought and we love it. Visit them to order right away, or go to Health & Harmony to get a great price on a three-pack of my books "Journey to the Darkside: SuperMom Goes Home", "The BlackBerry Diaries: Adventures in Modern Motherhood" and "Shut Up and Eat".

Details on my book launch (behind the scenes) coming soon.

Here's the thing.

11 years ago today, I gave birth to my third child, my daughter Bridget.

Now all Moms like to share their "birth stories" so I won't bore you with the usual tales of pain, blood, yelling and eventual delight. But I will share with you what happened after my sister arrived in the middle of the night to watch my other two kids so my husband and I could get to the hospital, preferably before I delivered.

"Kath - your car's not in the driveway."

"Of course it is. Good thing I packed my hospital bag last week and it's in there already."

So as we race out on to the front porch of our house, my husband says "The car's not in the driveway."

I say "Well will you look at that."

So he starts searching up and down the street for it (at this point maybe he's thinking he's the owner of Herbie the Love Bug which would be the only car that could relocate itself? Not sure of the thought process here.)

So, I tap him on the shoulder and say, "Here's the thing."

"STILL IN FREAKING LABOUR OVER HERE."

We have another car, which we get into, and while he's murmuring about contacting the police and what a pain this is I gently reminded him that he was probably going to have to wait a few hours to report it. Okay, it wasn't gentle, but he got the message.

When we arrived at the hospital, the nurse immediately admonished me for not bringing my own slippers, robe, etc, which were of course at the point likely in a crate on their way to a new country, in the back of our formerly owned vehicle.

I said something like "Listen sister. I had a whole car wrapped around those slippers so back off."

Which may have explained her lack of empathy during the actual birth. (Note to self: Don't tell a labour and delivery nurse to "back off")

As it turns out, I was delivering in a teaching hospital, so as the cast of thousands gathered to witness this great birth, a rather unique looking red-headed intern was selected to do the actual delivery. Everything went fine and fast forward to us happily sitting on the couch at home, watching tv in between the mayhem which a newborn brings into your life.

An ad for a national drugstore chain came on, set in a hospital, and as my husband and I both started leaning forward, watching in great interest, I said to him "Isn't that the guy who delivered Bridget?" He said "That's what I'm thinking." I said "Huh. Interesting that they use real doctors as actors."

I paused and then thought - but what if its the other way around? That the hospital was using actors as....

Well luckily I don't like to over think things, and today Bridget is an amazing hockey player, aspiring writer, total Daddy's girl, and truth-speaker. We went to pick out a birthday present at a sporting store and came across a tshirt which read "Born with skates on" to which she profoundly stated: "Well that would hurt."

Happy 11th Bridget. I'm even going to forgive you for this morning, when I woke you up with "Happy Birthday Bridget" and you responded with "Where's Daddy?"

Probably out looking for one of our cars, down the street.

Sign me up!

As I try to get myself and the kids over our "Disney Hangover", I've had a few days to reflect on what was truly an amazing week for us in DisneyWorld. I'm not even going to tell you about the rides because you already know those are spectacular. It was amazing to me for these reasons:

1) I didn't give one Time Out. I threatened the kids with things like "I can't believe you're in the Happiest Place on Earth and you're still cranky"...but so were a lot of exhausted kids and parents I walked by. I said to a friend "I have to remember: They're still the same kids, just in a better environment."

2) I know the Disney customer service experience is renowned around the world. I was still totally unexpected to be blown away the way I was. I said to one employee (or Cast Member) "If I had to be this happy all the time, I'd be pretty sarcastic after a while." She said "Oh, it's easy. I love what I do. I love the people and I believe in the product."

3) The impact it would have on my children - not only on the "This is the most amazing week of my life!" scale (which they said, and it was), but on the spirit of Volunteerism which hopefully was passed on to them.

Let me explain: The main reason I was at Disney was to participate in the press event for their recently launched "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" campaign. Basically, participants sign up through Volunteer Canada (in Canada) and after they have performed a day of volunteer effort, they receive a free Disney park pass. Disney's goal was to have 1,000,000 people signed up in this first year. Six weeks into the campaign they had 600,000. Hmm I guess people like going to Disney or something.

We were there for the big unveiling of the world's largest (Guinness World Book certified) canned food sculpture. What was just as amazing as how this sculpture looked, was that the 115,000 cans it took to make this sculpture would be donated to foodbanks in the Florida area. When we arrived the sculpture was concealed by thousands of white balloons. Kermit the Frog made an appearance to talk about the effort (and to diss Fozzy Bear's jokes, which I loved), and then the master "revealer" of them all, Extreme Home Makeover's host, Ty Pennington came out and with his megaphone blasted "Raise those balloons!"



Our role? We were asked to donate an hour of our time to help package and sort the food cans. Let's just say my kids initial reaction to being asked to take time to this while at DisneyWorld was not exactly enthusiastic. (Can I use the words "this sucks" in a post about Disney?)

But when we arrived at our designated time, they were pretty excited to be greeted by Disney stars from Zeke & Luther, Camp Rock...and some little known fella called Joe Jonas.



















With that as the backdrop, they really got into sorting the cans, taping the boxes, and being a part of a well oiled volunteer machine.








My daughter Bridget.

















Some people just stood around posing. (You might recognize him.)

*cough* unmarketing

Okay, he helped a bit...






















We went outside afterwards to plant some trees and listen to the screams of girls trying to get close to Joe (my son shook his hand - girls who want to touch my son's hand are welcome to do so).


























I was lucky enough to be asked to do a remote broadcast from the Rose Garden in front of the Cinderella Castle, for CTV. With the flawless help of the Disney production and p.r. teams, we pulled it off. You can see it here.

I'll post next about the Disney Social Media Moms Conference I also attended while there, and share some insights on Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, Kathy Ireland, and one of the most hysterical comediennes I've heard in a long time. Stay tuned.

Moms, Magic & Mickey

I'm writing this blog on my son's teeny laptop as I sit in my hotel room at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge. Hey - look at that - a giraffe just walked past my window. Beats the view from my home office by about 1000%.

While I've been here we've attended a Press Event for Disney's "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" volunteer drive, have heard amazing speakers at the Social Media Moms Conference (not to mention meeting many interesting mom bloggers) and of course have been enjoying showing the kids DisneyWorld for the first time.

I'll post a much longer blog with my Lessons Learned, Moments of Truth and of course Fun with Family stories, once we're back.

If you're in Canada, tune into CTVNewsNet around 2:15 this afternoon to see me doing a live remote broadcast from in front of Cinderella's Castle (okay that's just so cool). I'll be sharing some tips on how to find time for Valentines Day with a busy family, and how to spend time with that same busy family on Family Day. Hmmm maybe some volunteering to bank a day for our next trip to Disney? Quite possibly.

You take the groundhog, I'll take the mouse.

My son asked me this morning:

"What is the point of Groundhog Day?"

I"m not actually sure why we need to keep up to date on a rodent and his shadow (there's always at least six more weeks of winter in Canada after February 2nd), and for me Groundhog Day will always be linked to the Bill Murray movie of the same name, in which he is forced to live the same day, over and over again.

Kind of like when you're a Mom. In the middle of a cold Canadian winter.

You know what I mean.

I was leaving WalMart one day and ran into another Mom I know - she said "Here just give me your list - I forgot mine and I'm sure they're probably the same."

Sort of depressing.

But this year I have something to look forward to which is going to blow our February blahs away. We're taking the kids to DisneyWorld. And they don't know about it. Not yet.

Thanks to the amazing folks in the social media department of Disney, I'm going as press, and attending the Disney Social Media Moms' Conference .

Besides getting out of the cold, having a Disney experience, and thrilling the kids, I'll also be meeting some pretty cool and powerful social media Moms.

Now that's something I could do over and over again.

Goodbye Willie: Hello Mickey.

Clothes Call

Today is Pyjama Day at my younger kids' school. (Or, in the US Pajama Day - we Canadians like to live large on the "and sometimes "y" rule".)

They are beyond excited.

The very idea of Not Having To Get Dressed is immensely appealing to them. I find this sort of funny because it's not as though they get "dressed" for school. I don't make them adhere to a lot of rules when choosing clothes for the day.

Simply:

1) It has to be within 2 sizes of their regular size. (Oversize is one thing, tripping in gym is another)

2) If they've worn it for three days and it still doesn't stink, go for it (less laundry for me, after all)

3) The t-shirt can't have words on it that either I don't understand or that could be taken the wrong way. (I rue the day FCUK came into existence. And the other day I saw a t-shirt at a store extolling the virtues of Peanut Butter & Jam - I was worried about that one because it might be seen as taunting the poor kids who are allergic to nuts, even though it wasn't Scratch & Sniff.)

4) They should try to resemble other persons the same sex as they are. Enough said.

5) If they wear their Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys they are opening themselves to unfortunate ridicule from transplanted Calgarians, Ottawans and the occasional Vancouverite (but really.)

6) They can wear seasonably inappropriate clothes. It simply gives me another occasion to say "Now, wasn't I right about the shorts? Isn't Mommy always right?" It's a win/win really.

7) If you really think it looks like a "real" shirt and not a pyjama shirt, go ahead. I'm not entirely sure what makes a pyjama shirt a pyjama shirt in the first place, besides the store section it's bought in.

8) Fresh underpants are preferred. (Seriously, what do you think is causing that itch, Einstein?)

Above all, I just really want my kids to be ready to get on the school bus, no matter what they're wearing.

Because I know the one thing I'll be wearing, is a smile.