Well, I’ve been blogging for almost a month now, and have reached a point at which some reflection about the validity of the exercise seems to be the order of the day. And this weekend, I have been enjoying a few spare moments in which I can muse over such things and reflect on feelings about the hows and whys. Long weekends are absolutely amazing.

When I set out to create a blog, I wasn’t sure really what I wanted to write about the most - I thought of writing about green living, or maybe articles of environmental significance, since these are both areas of interest I would like to explore more fully. Truthfully, writing a parenting blog was one of my last choices. It’s something I do day in and day out, and I really wanted my writing to be about escape from that. Then again, in writing about my experiences as a stay at home mom, I have a wealth of experiences to draw from and frankly something happens every day that I can draw from and write about.

So why blog exactly? Some moms keep a journal, others maybe just talk with friends, family, and spouses. And yet, here I am, hopefully just throwing it all out there for people to read (admittedly not many yet, but I’m a realist, these things take time). First of all, there is the allure of writing something other people will read - I can get a word in edgewise. At home all day with my son the chatterbox, I don’t have a lot of room to speak and of course he’s probably not going to find my ideas on cooking or tips for how to be more patient too interesting - he’s strictly a results guy.

Blogging is also a test market of sorts for my exploration of writing and whether or not I can hack it. I really would like to be a published writer but as a former scientist and chemist, there was never a lot of room for creative exploration. And so the decision to blog was simple, it’s an experiment to test the waters as it were. And of course, blogging about my experiences as a parent is also somewhat safe, since it’s known territory. I’m perhaps not quite ready to commit fully to fiction writing, but at least I can practice coherent thought, and sentence completion - these are not concepts I worry myself with too much as a mother of one rambunctious three year old.

And finally, I think I enjoy blogging because I can feel at least somewhat as though I’m contributing to society again, albeit in some small, possibly superficial and definitely obscure (for the moment) way. Since I am on a daily basis outwitted by a three year old and two cats, I find my sense of contribution slightly skewed - as though I exist for entertainment value alone (not necessarily a bad thing, but a very humbling feeling nevertheless). And so through writing about topics in which I have some experience, (hopefully providing useful information to those who might need it), I feel once again like I have some resemblance of my former life where I felt…if not smart, at least smarter than a house cat.