I am scrambling to squeeze in a post today – I failed to write early this morning, my kid is refusing to nap right now, I need to go pick up the other one at school soon – and my brain is dry and empty. In need of help, I turned to today’s NaBloPoMo prompt, which was this:
Prompt #6 (Nov 8)
We all work with social media and when we first started experimenting with it, social media was disruptive and threw each of our careers and professional lives in a new direction. But what was new then has grown old. So tell me about the last time something blew your mind. What’s the last truly revolutionary idea, experience or thing you encountered?
Uhhhh. Uhhhh. Uhhhh. Let me think…the last experience that truly blew my mind would have to be…childbirth. Or was it a new app on my iPhone?* No, no. I think childbirth wins.
Ok fine – I realize that’s probably not what the prompt creator had in mind. So if I had to think of another, I would say…breastfeeding. I had no idea that milk came out of multiple holes! Or that my boobs would leak all over my shirt when a baby cried. Any baby! Not just mine!
Ok, ok, you can do this, Amy. Tap into your former career self. It’s only been two years – she’s in there somewhere. They are probably looking for some kind of product here. In which case, I would say…the breast pump? Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be able to feel like cattle at a dairy farm, with modern day machinery sucking milk from my teats, enabling me to feed my child AND do a conference call from my office at the same time.
It probably speaks volumes about my current life stage that my brain could not get beyond anything related to children and parenthood for this one. I read things like this and am reminded how far away I am from my old life, where my job required me to think about technology and pretend like I had a passion for it, when all I wanted to do was get home to see my kid. I’m so grateful for the change.
Which leads me to one last thing that really does blow my mind – isn’t it amazing how much life can change in just a year or two?
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*I actually have an Android phone. I just said iPhone to sound cooler.
Banana Wheels 
I may be the only one to think this, but…what a crappy prompt. “Social media…blah blah blah…when was the last time you were flabbergasted?”
What? Poorly written non-sequitor, how are you supposed to nudge me toward better writing? How about today ask me about social media and tomorrow ask me about having my mind blown. Why you gotta be all conflating things, NaBloPoMo jackasses?
[I know. I’m the only one irrationally angry at prompts. But in fairness, I’m irrationally angry at a lot of things.]
This made me laugh. You’re not the only one. Clearly I struggled with it. And sometimes my brain just doesn’t like to follow a prompt, even if it is well-written.
Know what blew my mind about pumping? That the milk separates and the cream rises to the top, leaving what my Grandma would have called “blue John” at the bottom. Maybe that’s just gross instead of mind blowing?
I have never heard the term “blue John” before. Breast milk is full of magical qualities.