Finished on Saturday because on Friday night I found myself with a sick baby who wouldn’t sleep.
Since today marks my blog’s seventh anniversary, I thought I’d do a slightly different kind of quick takes and remember some highlights from each of the seven years I’ve been blogging. Not that anyone will likely care; but it’s interesting to me to see how much this blog has changed over the years. That’s one of the reasons I refuse to be pigeonholed as a “mommy blogger”. I am a mommy and I blog; but I began blogging before I was even engaged to be married and I’ve tried to continue to blog about all the things that interest me, even if sometimes the cute kid stories and pictures do threaten to take over.
So without further ado, here are seven quick peeks into the big changes that have happened at The Wine Dark Sea in the years since I posted my first entry.
1. 2005
In March I got engaged. (Unless I am sorely mistaken this blog entry was the sum total that I posted about my engagement.)
In August I was married (and wrote
about it after the fact.)
On Labor Day I learned how to read a pregnancy test. (But didn’t mention the pregnancy on my blog until November.)
I was mainly writing for myself back then, so there was no rush to be timely, no real sense of crafting things for an audience.
2. 2006
In May Isabella Marie was born and my life changed forever.
Back then I didn’t know how to upload pictures to the blog from my old Dell laptop and I figured that anyone who cared about such things was already reading Dom’s blog anyway.
3. 2007
In February I had a miscarriage, losing baby Francis at about 10 weeks. Then I had a scare with a diagnosis of uterine cancer that turned out to be false.
In June I discovered I was expecting again and immediately posted a picture on the blog. After my miscarriage, I decided I didn’t want to wait to tell the world about our baby because I had no idea how long I’d get to treasure being pregnant. Also, you can see that I’d figured out how to put pictures on the blog. That really changed the feel of things round here.
4. 2008
In March Sophia Therese was born, christened “Phia” by Bella, and I wrote blog posts from the hospital room while I was in labor. bought a house and moved to the other side of Boston.
5. 2009
In July Benedict Joseph was born via planned c-section.
6. 2010
In June—Talk about sibling rivalry! Anthony made his presence known when Ben refused to nurse any more.
7. 2011
In February Anthony arrived a few days before his scheduled c-section.
Who knows what 2012 will bring to the Bettinelli family and to The Wine Dark Sea.
I wanted to add more updates to each take but now I’ve got a house full of sick kids. I’m only finishing this at all today because Anthony finally passed out on my lap.
Take care, eat well, drink plenty, and get better soon, everyone.
xx
Well, I was going to write something thoughtful and interesting (easy to say that now that I can’t), but I hear Thomas. He’s up from about a 20 minute catnap. Sigh. Some of us are sick around here, too. Feel better soon!
p.s. Oh, and I love the new look for your blog. The font makes me feel like I’m reading a book. Oh, and so do your words, you, wordsmith, you.
Thanks, Valerie. I’m doing pretty good on the drinking front. In fact a glance at the mirror this morning revealed that my skin looks the best it’s looked in a long time, suggesting I’ve not been doing a great job staying hydrated of late. I made a huge batch of chicken stock on Saturday and have made two pots of soup so far. I need to be better at getting the kids to drink water too. So hard to juggle all the balls.
Kate, Oh those catnaps are the worst tease. You get all settled into thinking you have a bit of time and then… wah!
The credit for the new blog look all goes to Dom. He’s the font geek. I make fun of him for paying so much attention to fonts and yet obviously it does make a huge difference. I’m lucky that he’s got my back. As for the words… thank you. Lately I feel too short on time to write thoughtful and interesting myself. But not to write at all would be unthinkable.
I hope everyone on your end gets better soon too.
I’m sorry to read that you and the baby have been feeling poorly. 🙁
If it helps, I’ve heard that if you alternate between paracetamon and ibuprofen, it brings the fever down faster.