Ever since I went back to work full-time in June, I have been both fully present and fully absent in the blogosphere. The Waiting has lived up to its name: it sits patiently waiting to receive my critical observations regarding Buzzfeed and cloth diapers, to which I do not give it a scrap. This blog’s Facebook page has similarly been sitting idle. This is what happens when you blog for real money. Since my job entails running all the social media for a bustling nonprofit, I don’t have much to give to my own projects at the end of the day.
Cue tiny violin. It’s rough getting paid, guys.
I have, however, been fairly active on the ol’ Twitter throughout my hiatus. If you can’t make time to observe the world in 140-character increments, you may as well unbutton your pants permanently.
I was looking through my own personal Twitter feed recently because I just can’t get enough of myself when I noticed a slightly disconcerting trend: I tweet about children’s television shows inordinately often.
Thus:
Oh sure, I tweet about other things too, such as ideas for apps I will never actually execute, Michael Jackson lyrics, and the glory of not shaving my legs for three whole months now that leggings weather is upon us. However, children’s television programming – and namely, Nick Jr. shows – is clearly something that I am deeply invested in at this point in my life.
Let’s talk about that.
Why? BECAUSE IMPORTANT.
In my observance of National Emily Posts Month (NaEmPoMo), I’ll be dedicating each Monday in November for posts about some of the kids’ TV shows I like to tweet about, in the hopes that I can move on to more pressing age-appropriate matters like The Walking Dead and Portlandia. It should be fun if for no other reason than I will finally get the chance to present my theory that Dora the Explorer is just a front for a money-laundering operation run out of Lichtenstein.
No, really.
What do you find yourself tweeting about? Did you think that you’d be the best thing to happen to Twitter since Wil Wheaton only to realize that all you do is tweet links to your Facebook posts?
The Waiting 
I find myself compelled to tweet ridiculous things my friends say a lot. Occasionally I’ll drop my own thoughts here and there but my Twitter is almost like a journal of things I find funny that I want to remember.
I used to tweet stuff my friends say, mostly because they didn’t use Twitter. And now they do. Thus the endless tweets about cartoons. Dora doesn’t follow me.
I just jumped on the Twitter bandwagon and am having fun with it, but it is an interesting…realm. Am surprisingly being more personal/revealing on it than I am on my blog…I guess bc most of my friends and acquaintances aren’t on it…
As for TV, I had every intention of avoiding it more with my kid (I didn’t watch it myself for 10 years) but Thomas the Tank Engine has taken hold and let’s just say we are ON THE TRACK. :/
Look forward to seeing your upcoming posts.
Just don’t reveal Chuggington to him. Then you’ll have two trains careening towards your brain.
Yeah, totally get you, since I went back to work in March, the output is a little dismal. Although I don’t tweet all that often, and never thought I’d be the best-thing-to-happen to twitter, I do think it’s kind of fun, more liberating than facebook because most of the people on that list I don’t know and feel like I can share more of the stuff I really think about. Anyway, glad you are hanging in there and if kids shows keep you happy and sane in this crazy work/parenting work, thank goodness for it!
That’s one of the big reasons I like Twitter too: I’m largely anonymous and can be more candid and rant-y if I need to be. Somehow, though, some of my coworkers found me on Twitter. I should probably set up a second account. Because that’s all I need: another social media account to abandon.
I tweet about kids and kid stuff and being a parent so much. My non-parent followers must hate me. Actually, they’ve probably already unfollowed me.
I love your tweets (and your Facebook and pretty much everything you’ve ever written) so it’s their loss.
Ummm….what’s “tweet”?
It’s basically just internet diarrhea, to be honest.
How did I miss all these amazing tweets?? Obviously Twitter hates me.
Or you were busy doing something productive. ;)
Productive? Hold on…lemme go look that word up.
…
Oh NO! I was doing nothing of the sort!
It should be noted that I followed you on twitter. my twitter is (http://www.twitter.com/tylershepard223) I try to be active but I have college papers to write. That being said if you tweet me I will reply cause you took the time to write to me. Hope you are well.
Thanks, Tyler! Thanks for the follow! I have reciprocated.
Bob and Wendy disturb me. I did a post on them back in the day because they just break my heart.
Please link drop.
I tweet observations. At the time, I think they are the funniest, wittiest observations ever observed. I hit “send” and I wait patiently. I watch, in horror, as my personal best is buried under a long line of “IDGAF”s and moms professing their love of wine, all somehow getting retweeted and favorited into the double digits (or higher). I clearly don’t know how to twitter, but from what I read, maybe I don’t want to know how to twitter? But at the very least, it is entertaining.
You might just be my Twitter soulmate. I too get drowned out by moms asking the universe if it’s martini thirty yet. What’s your handle?
Haha, yes! My name is also Emily which I think automatically makes us soul mates of some sort. I already twitter stalked and followed you. I’m HoldMeDontHoldMe… I think my handle is @toddlermama. My signature move is probably taking way too long to decide if I should retweet or favorite something, then instead of doing anything, I just shut it down and take a lap around the kitchen. Works like a charm (at keeping anyone from following or retweeting me).
Dora The Explorer is the reason children all over the world have grown up to be adults you think they can’t achieve anything. “Now, we’ll never get the baby bird back to his mother!” Hate Dora with a burning passion. But enough about Dora. I tweet links to my blog. And I don’t even tweet them. WordPress does it automatically. Yes, I’m pathetic.
PS How do you feel about Wonder Pets? I love ’em.
Haven’t seen the Wonder Pets yet, but i read an article about them in The New Yorker a long time ago. That was the first and last time that sentence will ever happen.
I love your tweets….I also long for the funeral of the “Bubble Guppies”…
Wanna go in with me on a wreath for their tomb?
I have yet to really get into Twitter, which I am secretly afraid means I am actually old. I do, however, share your loathing of Dora. I had a Facebook status one day that said simply “I want to punch Dora in the face”. Something about her just rubs me the wrong way. I also share your love for Peppa. I love her voice, she sounds like a toddler who may have just quit smoking. We are going to have to agree to disagree about Bubble Guppies, however. Those kids have got some catchy tunes. The only kids with better music are the Backyardigans, but they are clearly black, and have better rhythm ( have you seen them dance?!) Fresh Beat Band could die a slow painful death as far as I am concerned, but they also have some great tunes.
PS- I am kind of over the Wonder Pets
“She kind of sounds like a toddler who just quit smoking.” THIS may be my favorite comment for the day. We need to be friends ;)
I neither give (make? compose? proclaim?) nor receive tweets. Nor do I watch kid shows anymore, so I have nothing to contribute to this conversation. But I still like you.
Thanks, Peg. Trust me, the fact that your neither watch cartoons nor tweet actually makes me like you a lot more than I already do.
I tweet about whatever is on my mind at the moment. I haven’t started watching kid shows yet but the time is almost upon us.
Yay! One of the best things abour newborns is that you can watch pretty much anything in their presence and it doesn’t really matter. You still have a ways to go, thank God.
It’s okay. I still watch kids shows when my kids aren’t around. I even watch kid shows THEY don’t even watch anymore. But I don’t tweet it. Because we both know I suck at Twitter.
“Sucking at Twitter” isn’t something I would qualify as a fault ;)
WP links, Instagram junk, Walking Dead comments, and complaining about lack of sleep or going to work. *yawn*
I really need to get on Instagram. I am pretty sure I am the only blogger on the face of the planet without an account.
I seriously only link to my fb posts. Sigh. I keep trying. Sort of. I suck at twitter.
TBH, “succeeding” at Twitter is really only comprised of getting retweeted by a celebrity once every four years. Clearly a huge payoff.
I believe I am the lamest Twitter’er on the planet. For real.
My last tweet was about my disappointment with the politicians here in Canada after our Liberal leader suspended 2 male Liberal members of parliament who had been identified by 2 female members of parliament from another party for unprofessional conduct. After he suspended these 2 male members of parliament he was attacked publicly by the NDP leader (who had apparently known about his female member’s complaints for somewhere between a few months & a year) for making these accusations public & publicly re-victimizing the females.
I don’t believe this! If the NDP leader knew 2 women members of parliament from his party were reporting victimization at the hands of 2 Liberal members of parliament, why wasn’t he the one to do something in the first place? After months of not doing anything, one of the females approached the Liberal leader to report his member’s misconduct – obviously she wanted something more than nothing done! If she was satisfied with how things were handled in the first place she would have said nothing!
A few days later it became public that an NDP staffer was suing an NDP member of parliament for not protecting her from sexual discrimination by another staffer while she worked in his office. What did the NDP leader say – this was handled months ago by the employee union who found there was no basis for fault. What he left out was the woman who made the complaint was offered another position – provided she never spoke about the discrimination she had suffered. She refused! Good for her! Now some other poor woman won’t have to face what she faced because she stood up to these men!
I tweet the clever one-liners that I think of when there is no one around to hear them. Then sit back to see if anyone heard them. So it’s a lot like my real life, where I think I’m clever and everyone hears it, but no one comments because I’m really not as clever as I thought I was.