Cyber Stalkers

While Kate was playing at the indoor playground at our local mall last week, I noticed a cute little boy enter the play area, riding on the hip of a casually dressed young woman. Normally, this would not be worth noting. After all, I spend my days taking my girls here and there to experience kid friendly environments. The fact that mall was filled with young kids and their sweat-pants laden mothers on a cold February morning in not unusual. But after I noticed this particular mom and her little one, I did a double take.


The mom was attractive. Young and cute, wearing a cute little army-green hat and jeans with sneakers . . . but she was not what made me look twice. The young boy with her was not of the same ethnicity she was . . . she was white, he was black. THAT was not what made me do a double take (though, if she noticed my second glances, she probably thinks it was).




Once I looked a few times at the mom, her son, and her older daughter standing at her side, I realized why the were so familiar and intriguing to me.




I read her blog. The mom -- someone just like me -- I read the blog she writes daily. And I don't even know her.




She is a friend-of-a-friend . . . way down the line, someone I probably would have no occasion to ever meet in person. Once upon a time, when I started this blog, my friend showed me the blog that the mall-mom writes, and I used some of her formatting and ideas to start my own blog. I used to check back in to her site every now and then to see what she was doing with her blog as I started working on my own . . . and I quickly got sucked into the stories and daily events about which she was writing.




The mom -- we will call her Ms. C -- has two beautiful daughters. They are just about a year ahead of my girls, and they are as darling as they could be. Mrs. C is married and very much in love with her high-school-sweetheart husband. When I began eavesdropping into their cyber lives, I learned that Mrs. C is a talented amateur photographer like myself. And I also learned that their family was beginning the journey to adopt a young child from Vietnam. Aside from the adoption story line, she and I seemed to have a lot in common. So I kept reading, long after I needed to for research and blog-creating purposes.




Like I said, the stories had me hooked. I found myself checking in a few times a week to see the faces of those pretty little girls and to hear about their adventures in adoption. When they switched from the Vietnam adoption path to the Ethiopia path, I secretly said a little prayer in hopes that they would find the child that they so wanted in their loving family. When their old bloggers site moved to a different location (and format -- I lost all my inspiration!) -- I re-bookmarked them and kept reading. When middle sister was sick one morning and big sister was so caring, I couldn't help but hope that I would have girls so in love with each other some day (and I do!). And when the family brought home that beautiful baby boy, Silas, last summer, I CRIED when I saw the pictures and read the full-length account of what they had been through.



So, as I stood there and looked at the REAL Mrs. C, little boy Silas, and her middle daughter (I knew big sister must be at Kindergarten because I read the blogs about her first days of school back in the fall) . . . I could not help but feel like I was looking at a celebrity.


I'm totally weird. And, apparently, I'm a cyber stalker.


I know that Mrs. C thought I stared because her child is African American. I know with certainly she gets that a lot. As a matter of fact, my first thought when trying to figure out why she looked so familiar was that she must be a nanny . . . maybe I had met her in my neighborhood or at a friend's house. After I realized (a) that I must be staring and (b) that the woman I was looking at was someone I have kinda cyber-stalked for about 3 years now . . . I quickly turned away. I sat there and tried to pretend I was all into Kate sliding down the slide and crawling through the tunnels of the playground. Really, all I was thinking was, "Stop staring!" and "Should I go and talk to her? Is that really her?! Should I tell her how I love her blog, her photography . . . and I kinda love her family, too?" I'm just glad Kate managed to enjoy the playground and not hurt herself while her totally distracted mother oogled over someone she does not even know.





In the end, I didn't go speak to her. I couldn't muster up the courage. It would just be too weird. I've actually had a few people come up to me in public and mention that they read my blog . . . and it usually freaks me out slightly. It's always a similar situation -- a friend-of-a-friend or something, totally harmless -- except the one time that this grandmotherly lady came up to my grocery cart in Publix and called Meg by name. THAT was strange. Turns out she was the MIL of a friend and had seen pictures of Meg a few times . . . but still. I didn't want to be that creepy lady calling Silas (and Addison, the older sister) by name and scaring Mrs. C to death. I decided just to keep my distance and not speak to to Mrs. C.





It was a surreal experience, for some strange reason. For pete's sake -- this was no celebrity, but I still left the play area feeling a rush, like I had just met someone famous. Someone I admired from afar, someone I respected . . . kinda like a celebrity, really. I wondered if I had ever been someone's Mrs. C . . . has someone ever seen me in public, known me from this blog, but NOT addressed me and mentioned that they are a reader? Do I have cyber-stalkers?



Hmm.



I'm weird, I know. I'll be sure to keep you up to date on my cyber-stalker activities in the future. And if you are out there Cyber Stalking me, at least take a minute to post a comment and let me know you are out there! I might be surprised to find how many friends-of-friends are reading my blog.