Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Why I No Longer Blog Every Day



Over two months ago, I had lofty intentions of writing a new post every day except Sunday. And for a while I was able to keep up with it - I even came pretty close while I was on vacation for two weeks! But once we came home from vacation, my baby boy turned 4-months-old and it started getting harder and harder to find enough time every day to write. Sure, I could knock out a couple paragraphs in a matter of minutes, but I try to have my posts be well-written and full of photos and sometimes good resources, references, and links. Plus I like to have a nice title image as well. And all of that often takes much longer.

This post is kind of serving as a brief apology letter to all of my readers for not being "on the ball." But I'm assuming that the majority of my readers are also moms, and hope that you all understand how precious time is when you have a baby (or kids in general).

When my baby boy was only a couple months old, he slept a lot. He took numerous naps throughout the day - often an hour or two hours long - giving me plenty of time to write as well as do other things around the house. Now that he's nearly 6-months-old though... he is attracted to bright screens like a moth to a flame - he wants to touch them and stare at them, and I don't want him watching any screens for any length of time. The American Pediatric Association says kids shouldn't watch any TV before the age of 2 years, and I'm sure any screen time, whether it's a cell phone, ipad, laptop, or tv - is bad. I can no longer have him lay peacefully on one arm while I type. Now he's squirmy and wants to see what the bright light is. I could try to blog while he's entertained by his toys/jumperoo/activity gym/etc, but I would rather spend time with him. So working while he's awake is a no-go.

Now that he's nearly half a year old, he only naps about three times a day, and usually only for 30-45 minutes. Perhaps that could be a sufficient amount of time to write a quick post... but sometimes creating the title image alone takes 20-30 minutes (I'm a perfectionist). Also, sometimes I have other things I need to do - like shower, eat, walk the dogs, vacuum, laundry, or pack (we're moving in just a couple of weeks). If I spend the baby's entire nap writing... what happens is he wakes up and I realize I'm still not wearing any pants and my lemon meringue flavored Greek yogurt is sitting next to me, untouched.

While I do have some time to do things after Baby G goes to bed for the night (he is usually asleep by 8:30 at the latest), I try and use that time to relax with my husband before we go to bed. We've said in the past that we won't be on the computer much after he gets home from work, and though we've been slipping a bit lately, I'd like to start enforcing our "no computers/ipads rule" again.

I'm actually quite upset that I do not have as much time to devote to this as I would like. I am quite upset I don't have as much time to devote to a lot of things - like read, sew, cook, and watch Doctor Who. But making sacrifices comes with the territory [of being a parent]. And if it comes down to writing about nipple blisters or playing with my son and watching him laugh... you tell me which one you would pick. #sorryimnotsorry ;)
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