Reflection on Blogging

I have struggled over the last year to define this blog a bit. What began as a convenient way to share information about LO seemed more complicated along the way. As I followed the admirable blogs of friends and the impressive blogs of strangers, I often dreamt of my blog having a greater purpose. As I was inspired by these others, I too wanted to inspire, entertain, or make a statement. As I was impressed by the accomplishments and wisdom of my friends and their families, I set goals of emulating their strengths. In the meantime, I tried to be humble and honest in my posts. I wanted to have an authentic representation of my experience as a new mom. What I failed to realize is that such honesty would leave me feeling vulnerable to the comments and judgement of readers. That I would have to consider the ramifications of posting about personal struggles and anticipate that others would feel free to comment on things normally too private to have discussed in person. I, who often struggle to find the right way to make a point in public, learned to have DH edit "risky" posts and still ruffled feathers a time or two.

Please do not misunderstand me, I am writing more of my fear of being under the microscope rather than of a true experience there. Like most fears, these were more real in my own mind. They were mostly self-imposed. I avoided mention of our family name, location and my profession to protect our anonymity...to prevent some imagined stranger from hunting us down. Who was I kidding? While I still wish to keep those details private, I realized recently that I need to humble myself a bit more. I need to relax...more. At the end of all of this, this blog is now just what it was in the beginning. It's a convenient place for me to share about our adventures as LO's parents. In addition, it has been the only place where I have set down my thoughts and feelings over the last year. I have all of about a dozen readers, most of whom are close friends and family. All of whom know who and where I am and what I do. All of whom have shown us much love and support in the last year. None of whom have the time, interest or inclination to judge the kind of wife, mother, or professional I am.

That said, I begin a month of reflecting on our first year with LO. Some posts may be too personal to have been public. If you feel like you're eavesdropping and don't like it, you won't hurt my feelings if you skip to the next post. When I was in high school, my favorite teacher asked us to keep a journal which she collected and read periodically. We were allowed to fold over any pages that we wrote for ourselves and didn't want her to read. If I could fold over some posts I would. Since I can't, I wanted to shed this little light on the monsters in my head. There are things I have wanted to write for months now and haven't taken the time. There are things I've forgotten to write about LO and want to record so I don't really forget them. There will, of course, be real-time things that LO does that I still need to document as they happen. I hope these things will be entertaining or insightful in their own way, but this month I want to write for the three of us living in the Land of Nages.