mummy bloggers

My future as a blogger, and as a SAHM

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My Monkey turns 5 next month, I’ve been a SAHM for nearly 5 years and a blogger for a little over 4 years. And in all honesty I’m not sure how much longer that I will be either of those things. I have loved my time at home with the kiddies while they have been small, and my blog has been a real lifeline for much of that time. Connecting with other mums, sharing thoughts and ideas. Sharing the updates about my beautiful children. Sharing the downsides and hardships of being a SAHM and sharing my postnatal depression.

I’ve had ups and downs with blogging but for the most part I have loved it. For a while though, that love has been waning. I’ve struggled to give it the time and energy my blog really needs to be successful. I’ve stopped minding whether it even is succesful, and have just carried on sharing as and when I have felt like it.

I still have ups and downs. Days and weeks where I seem to find more time and more inspiration and resolve to do better to give more attention to my blog. Then I have days and weeks where I just can’t be bothered, to be honest. So I wonder how long to keep blogging… And I don’t really know the answer.

As for being a SAHM, as I mentioned above, it has been wonderful… But I don’t love it as much as I once did. I feel somehow wrong admitting that. I’ve been so lucky that I have been able to be a SAHM, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. LM starts preschool in a month, just a couple of mornings a week, but both she and I need that time. As we gradually increase her time at pre-school, my plan is to start working part time in some capacity.

The truth is I need more now. I have raised my babies at home with me. I have taken pride in their achievements and seen many of them as my own too. I taught them to count, to recognise their colours, to be kind and for the most part we’ll behaved. That’s been my job. But I feel I need something other than being mummy. This isn’t going to happen over night as there are many things to consider but I think my days as a full time SAHM are limited.

I think that may be one of (many)  the reasons my love for the blog is waning. It is called Becoming a SAHM… if I’m not going to be a SAHM anymore… What do I do? Change the name and the whole purpose of the site?

I’m not completely ready to hang up either Cape quite yet. There are some more things I would like to blog about (having one of those weeks I mentioned before, where I want to do it again) and a couple of PR things to complete, though I’m not sure I’ll accept any more. Apologies to anyone who has emailed recently. It is hard enough to find the time and energy to write things I want to write these days, let alone writing things for someone else.

Do you ever doubt your future as a blogger?

I get by, with a little help from my friends

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My word of the week this week, is friends, because I am incredibly grateful for the wonderful friends have in my life and honestly don’t know how I would cope without them!

Last Friday night my closest Mummy friends and I got together for a much needed catch up and meal out. We all worked together pre-children and since having our little munchkins we have gotten so close. We share the ups and the downs and though we really are all quite different, we support each other and are 100% there for each other. As one of my friends put it the other night, we are so lucky we found each other. It had been far too long since our last catch up without children and I hope we don’t leave it so long next time. We got things off our chests, shared the highs and lows of life lately and gave each other a good talking to where needed. Love my girls and I felt so happy and chilled afterwards.

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I’ve also had some lovely time with some newer mummy friends this week and play dates with their little ones. Since Monkey started our local preschool I have gotten to know a few of the local mums. I am a bit of an introvert so find the playground mums thing really awkward but there are a couple of mums I really get on with. One in particular introduced me to someone as the first mummy friend she had met who she would have been friends with pre-children, which I was really touched by. She and I really click which is lovely as her eldest will be in Monkey’s class at primary school, so I think we have many years of friendship ahead of us! Some of the other mummies I chat to on the playgroup run are equally lovely and sometimes just those few mins chatting at the beginning and end of the day, sharing trials and tribulations really can make so much difference to how I feel at the end of the day.

Screenshot_20160420-205641I have also felt incredibly grateful for the friendship and support I get online as a result of my blog and social media this week. Parenting can be so hard, and after sharing a particularly low morning on Instagram and Facebook, the support and encouragement I got from cyber friends was incredible. Many are women I have never met but thanks to the internet we are able to reach out and support each other through this motherhood journey, and I am so grateful for that.

My blog has connected me to so many wonderful people, and as I can be a bit introverted as I mentioned above, I don’t always make the most of this. I shy away from blog conferences and meeting fellow bloggers purely out of shyness and a lack of confidence in myself. But this week I have finally arranged to meet up with a blogger I have admired for some time. I am nervous but we get on so well in typing that I hope we will get on as well in person!

My blog has also reconnected me with people I have lost touch with over the years. A lovely lady I met travelling 9 years ago got in touch this week and told me how much my blog helps her through her motherhood journey, and well wow, what an awesome thing. Helping anyone with my ramblings is amazing and reconnecting with a friend from my past is always lovely. There are other lovely blogging mummies that I worked with in a previous life, and I’ve mentioned before how Sarah from Run, Jump, Scrap and I have become much closer through blogging. Our husbands have been friends since childhood so it really is great when we all get together. We have arranged to meet next weekend and I am so looking forward to that!  The friendship side was just something I really never expected when I started writing my little blog but it is a fantastic bonus.

The final reason that my word of the week this week is friends, is because Saturday is my birthday, and we are having a bbq in the afternoon (fingers crossed for kind weather!) with lots of family and friends over. Once again I am so grateful for having so many lovely people in my life who are coming to celebrate with me, please cross your fingers for good weather for me, otherwise we may have a slightly crowded house!

How has your week been?

The Reading ResidenceAnd then the fun began...Mummascribbles

Mummy Bloggers

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Blogging had been such a help to me since becoming a mum and making the decision to be a SAHM. It has helped me share my experiences and to feel less alone thanks to the wonderful community of parent bloggers out there. There is so much power in blogging and as well as helping each other we can be quite influential.

I was recently sent the following info graphic about the rise and stats of Mummy Bloggers which I find hugely interesting.

Top 50 Mummy Bloggers In UK

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Who knew there was quite so many of us out there? I admit to being honoured to be included in the top 50 bloggers on here. I confess to being a little sceptical about this however as there are many fantastic and far more influential bloggers than I who have not made it onto this list. (Never mind the absence of any daddy bloggers…) I wonder whether it is more a chart of those of us that responded rather than a chart of the top mummy bloggers..

Hubs says I should  not worry and enjoy it and I guess though I am not sure I agree I do feel very proud that someone feels that I belong on this chart alongside such wonderful company.

Whether I do belong on this chart or no I do hope that I have helped other mummies as much as other bloggers have helped me. That is all I really care about. Parenting can be so hard at times and so difficult to know if you are doing it ‘right.’ Reading other Mums’ experiences helps me to know I am not alone and that there is no ‘right’ way and that I am doing ok. I hope my blog helps other Mummies to feel the same way.