Before & After Blogging

****Originally posted on Scholastic Parent Voices. But, I wanted to share with you as well.****

Before I started blogging my daily routine looked like this: work, pick up kid, cook, take care of kid, watch TV, sleep. Lather, rinse and repeat.

Now, while there’s nothing wrong with that, and I was happy, you can see why it might become a bit monotonous. There was no interaction with other parents in that routine. The people I worked with at the time were either older (with older kids) or younger (with no kids). No one had a child close in age to mine (at the time she wasn’t even 1).

My friends fit into similar categories. They either weren’t even married or were married with no kids. Those who did have kids lived further away so I wasn’t able to see them often.

You might think that I could have joined a local mommy group in order to connect with other moms. However, most of the mommy groups are catered for stay at home moms. I am a working mom. That means I’m unable to attend events during the week and believe me when I say that none of the groups I looked at had events on the weekends.

So, I found myself interacting mainly with my husband and with my own mom, who is our childcare provider when we’re at work. Until I started blogging.

I began blogging in 2006 after I read one of those “here’s how you can make money working from home” e-books. But, after starting my blog and eventually finding myself on twitter, facebook, and other social networks, I found that blogging was so much more. I was able to actually connect with other moms, and dads, who knew what I was talking about. They got it. Sometimes, they even helped by sharing their experience or tips.

You know the saying. “It takes a village to raise a child.” It was like I had found my own village.

Fast forward a few years and I’ve now actually met some local mom bloggers and have attended several tweet-ups. I’m also connected with many moms on twitter.

And my daily routine? It now looks a little like this: social networking, work, pick up kid, cook, play with kid, blog, sleep. Or like this: work, kid, house, tweet-up, sleep. Or maybe even like this: work, kid, husband, blog, social networking, sleep.

It varies. And that is a major improvement over monotony.

Photo by Rita Crane Photography