It’s Too Hot to Blog

 So a little over a month ago, I did purchase a Wordpress domain for $49 and started a blog about me working with children in the past. The blog now has 20 posts. I share memories of the past and also current articles in order to raise awareness and educate. For instance, I shared an article about a child left behind on a daycare field trip and shared all the tips I used over the years to make sure that never happened to me. I’ve also shared things I learned in shaken baby training and SIDS training. I want to talk about car seat safety as well, but it seems like car seat safety guidelines change CONSTANTLY. I did pester someone in a comment section who was judging the parents of a child pictured in a car seat to show me a picture of it being done right and after a million fricking comments, she gave me this:

But I feel like as soon as I make a post about it, the guidelines will change again and the car seat Karen’s will come for me. Maybe I’ll hold off. 

I share memories of when I worked at the children’s museum, and share my own pictures of my daughter enjoying our “Busman’s holidays” there. 

I get just about zero views unless I do something to encourage engagement. The most views come when I answer the daily prompt. But I have to make sure my answer fits with the blog theme. I also got a $50 credit and used $29 of it for a “campaign”. I “promoted” my intro post. I got a significant number of views, but no comments. Which begs the question, do I want comments?  That blog is different from this one, where I just mind vomit on a semi regular basis. If I do another campaign, it will be on my shaken baby awareness post. You might think, why would a shaken baby syndrome awareness/prevention post be controversial and generate negative comments?  Well because one of the recommendations is to set the baby down in a safe space (a crib with no pillows, blankets etc) and walk out of the room, only checking on them every 15 minutes (not actually touching them) until you feel like you’ve cooled off. This is considered “letting the baby cry it out” which a lot of people are against, and I am too- but it’s better than being murdered. Full stop. I had a little trouble conveying that in a professional manner. I never let my daughter “cry it out” but she was an easy baby, and I never felt any sort of “rage” (thank God). 

I also have five subscribers there. It also gives me a world map with countries in which people have read my blog from. It’s about half United States and half scattered throughout!  

There’s a clear difference between blogger dot com and Wordpress though. Blogger dot com has way more community. People interact more here. I stopped being able to interact when I acquired a second Google account. That’s why, when I want to reply to a comment here,

I can only do so with a screenshot on a new post. And I can’t comment anymore. Maybe Google thinks I’m shady 😎. Who knows, I don’t care. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

On Wordpress, like me, people have themes and don’t interact much. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t gotten comments there yet-

But I’m still scared to. 

Back in November, I participated in NaNoWriMo for only the first five days. I was on a rolld writing my book about having worked with kids so much, but then I just got emotionally exhausted from it. That’s why I quit on the 6th. I still saved what I did write. I want to do NaNoWriMo again this year, but the thought of making it 30 whole days without that emotional exhaustion is anxiety inducing. Having worked with kids in so many different roles- daycare, children’s hospital, child crisis center, CASA, and a little bit of hospital volunteering many years ago, comes with a lot of complex trauma. Over the years, I not only didn’t deal with my own trauma properly, but caring for all these kids in so many ways for so little pay has added layers. I had to carry theirs as well, obviously. Even though not directly, indirectly. It makes me get on these wonderful rolls with my writing and then all of a sudden I can’t anymore. She describes it well. 

Another thing about blogging is using images. It’s illegal to use images that you get from Google image!  You have to use images that come from a free stock image site or a paid stock image site to which you have a subscription. In my Wordpress blog, I’ve used my own photographs- most of which contain my own daughter. She’s aware of me using them, and I’ve asked her if it was ok to use them to which she said yes.  Advocates for kids that are shared online say they should be 15 to be able to give consent to be shared online, and mine is 17. 

But I mentioned briefly volunteering in a children’s hospital. In the old days they called them candy stripper because they wore red and white stripe dresses. Well by the early 2000’s the dresses were out, but I did have a red and white stripe polo shirt that I wore with either black or khaki pants. There is a picture of me in that shirt reading to a kid in a hospital bed. A nurse took it without my or the kid’s knowledge and then shared with me the next time she saw me. I can’t find it now for the life of me, but even if I could, I wouldn’t be allowed to share the picture of the kid. He must be an adult now, but it still would be illegal for me to share. So I tried to find candy stripper or “woman in a red and white stripe shirt” pics on the free stock image sites and these are what I got: 

At least that’s all I got that didn’t looks like it was trying to be pornographic 🙄. I like the lady with the blue dreads, but she isn’t wearing pants!  And her shirt doesn’t have stripes!  

When I tweak my Wordpress blog a little more, I’ll share it here. When I tweak it even more I’ll share it on Facebook. Makes me nervous but I want to share my life’s work.