Santa got all of our letters, obviously...

I've been a total downer lately, and, really, who wants to read about downerness? I know, I know - one of the greatest things about blogging as a parent is that it is both an outlet for complicated emotions and a space in which one can find support for both one's tribulations and one's trials. I know this so well (tune in on Monday for a story about just how extraordinary the parent blogging community can be as place of love and support) but I'm getting a little tired of my own downerness. I wouldn't want to read gloomy me: why should anyone else?

So - happy words today! News about something that actually lifted my spirits recently: Mama Tulip has revived her blog!

For those of you who might not know her, Mama Tulip is a wonderful writer who has extensively chronicled her life with her scrumptious children, Julia and Oliver, and her partner-in-crime, Dave.  She was one of the first Canadian bloggers that I found when I began blogging, and her writing has made me laugh and cry and laugh 'til I cried more times than I can count. Her posts about her mother, who died four years ago, have been some of the moving reflections on mother-daughter relationships, and family, and loss, that I have ever read.

When she decided to shut down her blog, bloggers across Canada and the States and, for all I know, the rest of the world, mourned. (She shut it down after realizing how overwhelmingly vulnerable she felt after discovering that a certain corrupt splogger company that I will not mention or link to was stealing all of her content and the content of every other blogger she knew, including yours truly.) She maintained a presence in the 'hood, visiting blogs and commenting and staying in touch, but her blog stayed down. I stayed down, that is, until the other week, when she realized that she loved blogging just too much to stay away and - to the joy of many - revived her blog.

Go, welcome her back, if you haven't already. And if you haven't yet met her, go introduce yourself. I promise you that you'll love her.

Welcome back, Mama T. We couldn't quit you, either.