Five Years Of Blogging

Looking back now I find it quite ironic that I started my blog on April Fool’s Day 2012. I remember the day well – it was LP’s best friend’s christening and one of LP’s first public baby led weaning events. Having LP sit on the table in her Bumbo, eating pretty much anything from the buffet, was a talking point for so many people and it inspired me to start documenting our weaning journey.

But, weaning doesn’t last forever, and my blog back then was quite sporadic, just writing when I had the urge and with a young baby, my return to work and then with Little Man coming along I didn’t have much time to blog at all. But that all changed when Little Man was a few months old and had a tendency to wake up at 6am and not go back to sleep. I had a couple of hours to pass each day so after putting some washing on, making a cup of tea and feeding Little Man I would just sit and write. I decided to take blogging more seriously at that point – as I had more time to dedicate to it.

Did I know, on that April Fool’s Day five years ago that I was starting something that would become by job? That would enable me to stay at home with the children and work around them? No, I didn’t have a clue and I’d like to think that if blogging being my job was my intention that I would have started blogging a lot sooner – but I started it when I did, bumbled along for a bit before ploughing more time into it three and a half years ago and I am now where I am, in a place I never expected to be – at home with my children.

In the last five years I have written about so much, I have put our whole lives on these pages and it has been a rollercoaster of emotions. But, this blog has always been there as a sounding board, a diary and a photo album – for that I am so thankful.

I feel like I have achieved so much in those five years and this blog has grown to be something I never even thought possible. I have been in the Top 10 of the Tots100 chart for the last 12 months. I have been shortlisted for awards and put in a few big Top 10 lists. I have been in newspapers and our family has been recognised in the street. The children go to school with children whose parents followed us on Instagram before we even met, not realising we lived so close to each other. Blogging has given our lives such a surreal feel at times but this blog is probably my proudest achievement.

I’m no good at hobbies – I don’t have the time to dedicate to them. But, when I decided to take blogging seriously I knew it could be something amazing for us. That it could, maybe, change our lives. And so I found the time. I found a few hours each day – putting anything else on the back burner and just focusing my time on family and this blog. Looking back I was looking after a family, working 19 hours a week in my day job around my husband’s shifts and spending 30+ hours a week on this blog. I don’t know how I did it. But I did, and I’m so glad I did.

It’s only now, now that blogging is my job, that I can take my foot off the pedal. I can have an evening off, have some down time and work at a slower pace. I have found a balance that we are all happy with and LP will tell anyone who listens that her Mummy is a blogger. She says it with pride and with love and when she first said it I would cringe – how did she know, at five, that I’m a blogger? They pick up so much. But now, when LP says I’m a blogger I hold my head up high. Yes, yes LP, I am a blogger.

I’m not just someone with a blog any more. I’m a blogger and I think it has been the making of me. I’ve always loved to write and now I have the perfect hobby for me – one that I am fortunate enough to get paid to do – and our whole family benefit from it. Blogging has literally changed my life and, although I didn’t expect that blog I started on April Fools Day five years ago to turn into what it has I am just so glad I started it.

Happy five years of blogging to me. It’s been an experience, an education and an adventure – but, it has been so rewarding and I don’t think I will ever look back now. I can only see that it’s a blogging life for me.

Here’s to the next five years – and many more after that.