the house, a dog, and a kid

Years ago when I was really putting all I had into blogging, for like 6 months, I explained the key to blogging to my husband. A house, a dog, and a kid. Jokingly, I told him if I had those three things I would get have a huge following. Now certainly this isn’t true. The key to blogging is likely hard work, perseverance, and good content. But looking at which blogs are successful a house, a dog, and a kid doesn’t hurt the cause. Now, about 5 years after that conversation, I have all 3. The great blogging trifecta.

We went in the traditional order. Got the house first. Then the dog. Now the kid. I didn’t really post a bunch on either front for the past few years and now that the baby is here I think you will probably see more of the house and the dog, but probably not the baby. Though I am guessing there will be lots of mom posts coming. Especially food-related posts since she is heading toward solid foods and I am excited to try making her food.

I have been going back and forth on how much to feature the kid, aka The Great Pumpkin, on the blog. Asking myself questions like “would I have wanted my mom sharing my photos for the world to see?” “At what point does her privacy trump my desire to tell a story with a cute picture?” I am not sure I have the answer to this. And because I don’t think I have the answer I am leaning towards her privacy. So she will be referred to on the blog as The Great Pumpkin. Pictures will be minimal and probably of the back of her head or some other feature that doesn’t make her identifiable. Cause you never know I may become über famous as a blogger and she doesn’t need that headache. So that probably won’t happen, but better safe than sorry cause the internet is a strange place.

Why The Great Pumpkin

We found out in late August that we were matched with a new mom. Which was a relief after a fall through adoption in July. It was also hard to be in the waiting game again. We had a very wide range of when the baby would arrive sometime between October 21 - November 7. So the closer we got the more I anticipated the phone ringing. We didn’t tell more than a handful of people that we might be parents before the end of the year. So when I posted this Peanuts cartoon on Facebook at the end of October only a few people got the reference.

In addition to waiting for the phone to ring, I also spent a lot of time dreaming of what day she would arrive and a lot of scenarios I thought would be perfect. My husband’s birthday is Oct 26, mine is the 28th. So we have a whole birthday week together and often take a birthday vacation. So how cool if the baby arrived to make it a really great week. So the 24th would have been really cool. That came and went and it was oohh the 27th would be cool all 3 together. Nope came and went. Ok, the 30th still an even number and spaced correctly, but I went to bed on the 30th figuring that had come and gone too.

At 5 am on the 31st the phone rang. I looked at the caller id and knew we were headed to the hospital. As we got the details I asked a very important question, “Was she born last night or this morning?” This morning. Oh wow, we had a little Halloween baby! and she managed to squeeze herself into the tail-end of birthday week! Tom was so excited it took him a minute to realize it was Halloween, and that our little girl would share a birthday with his mom!

So after 5 years of trying, which included 2 years of adoption process it only seems right that she should be called our Great Pumpkin.