Grandson No. 2 born!

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Baby Mac arrived at 2:10 this morning! Megan was on the phone with me barely 30 minutes later with the news. The healthy "big boy" weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces and was 20 inches long.

Mom, baby, and Dad are doing fine ... now that their hearts have returned to resting rate after a mad-dash, usually-45-minute drive to the hospital, with Megan having contractions every two minutes and "ready to kill my husband" and Preston worrying he'd have to "play doctor." Baby Mac was delivered 30 minutes after they got to the hospital. Shew! Megan had been induced, but this was a far different scenario than the doctor described when administering the newfangled induction method yesterday afternoon.

Hooray for babies, healthy moms, and fast-driving dads! And hooray for technology allowing this long-distance grandma to get to see the baby mere minutes after he was born! (Thanks, Preston, for the photos!)

Now back to our previously scheduled programming (see previous post).

Searching for sense

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Ever since publishing my I wanna be HGTV'd post, I've been inundated by visitors landing here via a search for "HGTV." I'm happy to have the hits but feeling a tad guilty that somehow many of those arriving think this site -- despite the granny panties hanging on the line above -- really is HGTV and proceed to request help with their kitchens, yards and double-wides.

I'm baffled.

So I decided to use my nifty Squarespace analytics tools to figure out how and why they've clicked to Grandma's Briefs when searching for HGTV. I hoped what I'd find would assuage the bit of guilt I feel for unknowingly duping some folks into thinking I can offer them help with their downtrodden homes.

Then I clicked over to my "Search Engine Queries Summary" and saw the number of searches ... and immediately gave up plans to assuage guilt, for in the past week, there have been 598 searches using keyword variations of HGTV (believe it or not, there apparently are variations of HGTV). That's FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY EIGHT people who ended up on Grandma's Briefs instead of the HGTV website.

Why those 598 people might think the words "Grandma's" and "Briefs" are in any way related to "Home" and "Garden" -- regardless of what Google or Bing or Yahoo might say -- I don't know. And why, if they did go ahead and click out of curiosity, they would go so far as to honestly believe this site is the place to request help with their homes and comment with a request, I really don't know.

Like I said, I'm baffled.

The duped and downtrodden will have to remain such as I don't have the time -- and no longer the inclination -- to try to make sense of such things. (I did, though, take the time to tweet the HGTV Twitter account asking them to please help the confused folks who think I can offer them design assistance. No tweet back ... yet.)

Funny what you find, though, when you dig into a blog's analytics tools. In addition to the 598 hits to my site resulting from searches for HGTV (plus several other hits completely unrelated to grandparenting or grandmas or even briefs -- ya know, the things I do blog about), I actually did have visitors arriving via searches related to grandparenting and grandmas. Sort of.

Herein lies the "sort of." Below are the past week's grandma-related searches that baffle me most (the preceding number is search count):

2     how do i distance myself from my grandbaby (This is so not what Grandma's Briefs is about. How did such a search land them here? Funny thing is, it wasn't just one crabby grandma with intimacy issues searching for an answer, it was two!)

2     what should grandma carry in her purse (Meh. Sort of makes sense. Maybe my Grandma's Bag post lured them here.)

1     why are our grandkids always with the other grandparents? (I'm a jealous grandma. I admit it. But I didn't think it was that obvious.)

1     told grandma want a kiss for birthday (This one saddens me. I hope the grandchild in search of a kiss got one.)

1     craw cookie monster step by step (What the cuss is a 'craw cookie monster'?)

1     happy granmas (Okay, yeah, we do have those here.)

1     eating happy granmas (But we don't do this to them!)

1     www.verybiggestanimal (Hmmm ... and hmmm again. What more is there to say?)

1     hatch-n-grow dinosaur egg (Now this one makes sense. Glad to know I'm an expert on these, at least to the degree folks come here to find out more.)

1     grandma's tales for humidity (I do offer up a lot of hot air here, but no humidity. I don't think.)

Baffling, right? If you can make sense of these, do let me know.

I'm off to do a little searching of my own. To find out what the heck "craw cookie monsters" are. They just might be something worth adding to the Recipe Box -- or to News to Use as a warning to my dear readers to beware.

Who knows?

Photo credit: stock.xchng

Today's question:

Which search engine is your favorite and how often do you use it?

Three things I blame on technology

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Little kids no longer learn that telephones go brrrrring. 

Because phones no longer ring, they sing ... or scream or crow or play themes from horror flicks or annoying comedy shows.

Coworkers no longer gather around the water cooler to discuss last night's cliffhanger episode of their favorite television series.

Because everyone records shows, to watch on different dates, at different times. Or they catch it on Hulu or iTunes -- alone -- and can't say anything until they're sure others have seen it. By then the thrill, the urgency, the excitement is gone.

Dogs are no longer taught to fetch the newspaper.

Because the news is all read online. Or not at all.

I really shouldn't complain, though, because:

1. I hate talking on the phone.

2. I no longer work in an office so I never engage in chit chat with coworkers about favorite televsion shows.

3. My dogs don't fetch the paper -- which I actually do still read in print -- because some days, fetching the paper myself is about the only exercise I get because I spend much of my time sitting on my cuss blogging. Yet another thing I blame on technology. (Which is more acceptable than blaming it on lack of willpower and motivation, wouldn't you say?)

Photo credits: Click photos for source.

Today's question:

What do you blame on advances in technology?

Jekyll, Hyde and Bubby

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Bubby's mom, Megan, was an incredibly moody and sensitive child, the most senstive of my three daughters.

Based on our latest Skype visit with Bubby, seems that Megan's finally getting paid back for all she put her parents through.

From the heights of happiness to the depths of despair, I think Bubby covered it all in our 20-minute visit. All the while. Megan just shook her head, saying, "Yep, he's two."

He's not just two, Megan. He's just like you!

Today's question:

What question would you like to see asked of Grandma's Briefs readers?