100th Post

I realized last week that I would soon reach a significant milepost in the short life of this blog – my 100th post. How elegant and appropriate that this post would occur during the time I was in China for my adoption – since it was the adoption of Libby Doodle Doo that became the impetus to start this blog in the first place. I thought I would devote this post to the subject of blogging and my short term observations of being part of the blogging world.

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On September 20th, 2007 I started this blog. In that post I said,

I am not an early adopter of technology. I was still listening to vinyl when everyone else had moved to tapes. I had moved to cassette tapes just as crowds were flocking to CD's. So it is no surprise that I'm probably one of the last people in America to start a blog.

Why now? Well, I want to capture my thoughts as I watch my children grow.” Z (aka Little Zo Peep) just started Kindergarten the day after Labor Day. Wasn't she a baby just an eye blink ago? I'm astounded at how quickly she's growing up. If I capture stories and images of that rapid transformation, maybe I can savor the time a little better.

Z has an amazing joy for life. She's silly and funny and devilish and sometimes a handful. I adore this child and love being her mother.

E (aka Libby Doodle Doo) has not joined the family yet. I started the paperwork for her adoption the day after Labor Day in 2005 (come to think of it -- the day after Labor Day is a milestone date for both of my girls). I submitted my dossier to China in November and it was date stamped (LID - in adoption lingo) on December 7th, 2005. So I am in the 7th trimester of waiting for this bundle of joy.

I'm close to being matched to her. There is a tiny, tiny chance that the match may happen the first week of October. More likely it will happen in Early November or Early December. Once we're matched, I'll travel about 8 to 10 weeks later to China and finalize the adoption.

So --although the name for this blog isn't 100% accurate today -- by January or February the three of us can honestly be called-- Hen and Chicks.

And thus began my foray into the wonderful world of blogging.

So why blog? Couldn’t I just write my thoughts in a journal?

In the end I'm writing this blog to share with my girls someday. This is the story of all of us as a family. Why did I choose to publish my thoughts to the Internet world instead of just scribbling them into a spiral bound notebook or typing them into a Word document? The difference is that Blogging gives me a broader audience than just Little Zo Peep and Libby Doodle Doo. That invisible Internet audience in blogging performs 3 important functions:

Blogging forces me to spend the time writing these thoughts and observations down. I’m a single mom with lots to do and very little time. Before adopting Little Zo Peep, I thought about keeping a journal (I used to keep one in college), but time slipped away from me and I never established the discipline to even start.

It is easy for me to establish a behavior if I know someone else is relying on me to keep up with my end of the bargain. For example, years ago my friend Clare and I decided we needed to establish a habit of exercising each and every weekday. We made a pact that we would meet each other at our local YMCA at 5 AM every morning. For 2.5 years I dragged my tired butt out of bed because I knew that Clare would be waiting for me at that Gym. Clare said that knowing I would be there forced her to come too. We kept each other on track. (Until Clare accepted another job and moved away –bummer).

That’s what the blog does for me.

Your expectation that I will post every day forces me to carve out 30 minutes to an hour each day when I sit down and write what I’m seeing, feeling, and experiencing.

You all keep me on track. (Now of course I’m sure that admitting that I perform best when I know someone is relying on me says something profound about my flawed psyche – we’ll save that discussion for another time.)

Blogging encourages me to be honest in my observations. You are all like a priest hearing my confession. I’ve had many days when I’ll write something about Zo Peep or the adoption process and I’ll sit back and think, “You are sugar-coating what really happened.” Knowing someone is reading these entries beside my girls has encouraged me to write what really is going on and not some Hallmark greeting card version of it.

So You all keep me honest.

Blogging helps me to improve my writing skills. Years before I sold out and got my MBA, I got my undergraduate degree in English. Some teachers in high school and college encouraged me to write and told me that I had a unique voice and style. But even though I knew I had a smidgen more talent for writing than the average Joe on the street, I knew early on that I wasn’t good enough to make a living doing it.

So I taught High School English for awhile. And then I joined a small consulting firm where I did Public Relations work. And then I went to fancy-schmancy Business School. And then I joined Corporate America.

Over the years in the world of business my writing had deteriorated to writing boring memos that all begin: “This memo recommends that we BLAH BLAH BLAH.”

My writing (like my hips) had become wide and sedentary and flabby. You all are like an editor peeking over my shoulder. I write my initial drafts each night after Zo Peep goes to bed. Then I edit it the next morning to make sure that it’s sharp and crisp and concise. Sometimes I’ll do a final edit during my lunchtime right before I post. After all people will be reading this – I have to make it interesting.

You are helping me to regain my writing skills.

So I realize that the reasons that I’ve stated are not as pithy or quotable as “You complete me” – but that’s my story.

But isn’t writing on the Internet Scary?

The simple answer is Yes. It’s petrifying. I never know when some crazy whack job is going to find my little blog and latch on to me. Or worse yet latch on to my sweet girls.

I take some precautions for those things. That’s why I moderate comments to make sure I control what’s being posted on the blog. That’s also why I established the nom de plumes of mama hen, Little Zo Peep and Libby Doodle Doo. Who we are in the real world isn’t important or necessary to enjoy our story.

I’m also careful about where I publish information about the blog. I’m not trying to win the award for most web visits. I don’t need or want to be the most read blog in cyberspace. I’m happy with the traffic that I get: that I seem to get a lot of return visitors: and that folks have a tendency to stay for awhile when they do visit.

I thought long and hard about whether I should post pictures of the girls on the blog. That’s the scariest part of blogging – and one that still causes me some concern. Of course, I think my girls are adorable (not one hint of mommy bias there) and what mother doesn’t want to show off photos of her brood. But showing a photo to a colleague at work and posting it on the internet are two very different things.

Based on where I’ve publish information about the blog, I suspect that I’m sourcing most of my visitors from the small community of people adopting from China. I know how difficult the long wait is for these parents as they stand is this seemingly unending queue to establish or expand their families.

Even though this is not the main reason I blog, I hope that my blog is helping some of these families through the wait. I thought that having faces to go along with the stories of my daughters would help our stories come alive for readers and give those waiting families something tangible with which to relate.

But I closely monitor what’s going on. If I discover even a hint that my girl’s images are showing up in another part of the web, I’ll shut this site down faster than you can say Jack Rabbit.

I’m a very protective mama hen.

So what has surprised me about blogging?

I’m dumbfounded by how many people have discovered me. On average (not peak times like now) I get about 100 people visiting my site every day – that amazes me. They come from around the world and a sizable chunk of them visit regularly. And based on the comments I receive (more on that later) they seem to be a very nice group of people. I feel like I’ve expanded my group of acquaintances through this blog.

I’m amazed at how many people don’t ever comment. Now I have to admit that before I started to blog I lurked on many a blog and never once commented. But I – foolishly I guess – believed that I was in the vast minority of blog readers who read but never commented.

I do want to thank the folks who regularly comment. Since this blog will be read by my girls someday, I think that your comments enrich the character and fabric of the blog and will make it an even more interesting chronicle of their lives growing up.

I honestly wish some of you would feel comfortable to comment – at least once in a while. I won’t bite; I promise. I think more comments will improve the blog overall. If you are afraid to comment because I moderate comments, let me say that the only reason I moderate comments is because I want to screen out solicitations for business (yes, I do get them) and because I want to screen out references to my real identity (mostly coming from my relatives).

Give commenting a try. If you’ve never commented on a blog it may feel like jumping into a swimming pool at first – all tingly and freezing. But stick around and you’ll get used to it.

How long do I intend to blog?

As long as I feel comfortable that I’m not compromising my family’s safety and that the community of this blog remains as warm and friendly as it has so far – I’d like to continue to blog for a very long time. I will – of course – end if it is interfering with living my real life with my girls (my top priority) or if they get to an age when they ask me to stop doing it.

Right now Little Zo Peep thinks the blog is cool and asked me if she can write an entry someday (she really likes to write and compose stories). I think when I get home we may start doing that occasionally – I promise to translate from her phonetically based spelling.

I like that I’m establishing a living journal of the little moments of our lives together. I’ve already discovered with Zo Peep how incredibly fast children grow up. Preserving these moments when they happen will help me taste every moment of mothering these lovely, complex and interesting girls.

So here’s to 100 posts – a memorable milestone. I hope I will have many more to come.