Rachel Callahan

When a Two Year Old Cooks Thanksgiving Dinner…

November 27, 2009 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, The Blissfulness of Life

As we were hosting Thanksgiving dinner at our house, I put Ali to work using her new cooking skills.

Cooking with a toddler creates many opportunities for great conversations.

Ali: “What are you doing?”

Me: “Peeling the onion so I can chop it.”

Ali: “You’re peeling off the chocolate?!?!?!?”

(a minute later…)

Me: “Ohhh…the onions are making me cry!!”

Ali: “Don’t cry! There’s no need to be scared!!”

It didn’t take long for her new chef self to become a very opinionated chef self. For instance, she apparently thought that we needed to add more Ginger to our spice cake:She HAD been telling me she wanted to make Gingerbread cookies…I guess I should have listened.

After we finished our first round of cooking, we went outside to check on Chris’ progress with the Christmas lights.

I’m pretty sure that this is the longest that he’s ever held off on decorating the house for Christmas, and it’s all Alabama Football’s fault.

He loves Christmas. It cheers him up tremendously. And so, he uses decorating the house as therapy after a really bad football game.

In years past, Alabama would lose a game sometime in early November, dashing all of Chris’ hopes and dreams for a championship season. So he would drive straight home from the game, barely speaking a word, then walk outside and feverishly festivate our house.

And then he’d come in, a happy husband once again.

But since Alabama is having a good season (until right this second while I’m writing this blog and they’re losing to Auburn and he’s feverishly decorating the INSIDE of the house while pacing and sighing), he actually waited until almost an appropriate time to decorate.

Anyway, back to the story. We went out to check on Daddy’s progress, and Ali was thrilled.

So as he strung lights,

We swung and watched:

And gave supervisory opinions on where the lights should go.

With all of that inactivity, we got cold.

(Now you can’t ever say I didn’t post a picture of myself without makeup.)

Chris told me that he was planning a National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation-esque house-lighting, where he would wait until after Thanksgiving dinner, and then make the whole family go out on the lawn, freezing to death, while he dramatically plugged the lights in and the Angels On High sang “AAAAAAAHHHH”

I told him reenacting that scene would just be BEGGING for our neighbor’s septic tank to start leaking and running down the road à la Cousin Eddie’s RV, but he didn’t care.. .

But when it came down to it, he couldn’t wait that long. Luckily for the family, the house was pre-lit upon their arrival:

Finally, we served dinner:

And then it was Tessa’s turn to watch and supervise:
When dessert came out, everyone kept commenting on how gingery the cake tasted…and how much they liked it. I guess Ali is trading in her Project Runway career aspirations to be on Top Chef instead.

Shopping For Sweet Dreams

November 25, 2009 Rachel Callahan Parent of the Year, Toddlers: The Experience

We finally manned up as parents and decided that it is time to take our ALMOST THREE YEAR OLD out of her crib.

(Pause to let the gasps of horror echo dramatically.)

I know, I know – we should have done it long ago. But:

a) she LOVES her crib – so why rock the boat?

b) We have hardwood stairs, so we wanted to make sure to wait until we didn’t have to worry about her going down them if she got up in the middle of the night, and

c) there hasn’t been a younger sibling to kick her out of the crib, which is pretty much the default reason that everyone I know transitions their kids to beds.

So. Ali and I went shopping for Big Girl Beds yesterday.

But I’m afraid taking her with me on this shopping excursion might have set me up to be quite the disappointment as a big-girl-bed-providing-mother.

Because her attention went straight for beds like the enchanted pumpkin carriage bed:

(Her argument, of course, was that if she slept in the magical pumpkin which took Cinderella to the dreamy ball in her pretty blue dress which “The prince didn’t tear off of her, did he, Momma?”, she’d most definitely quit having those recurring nightmares* about the sisters tearing Cinderella’s pretty PINK dress off. I MEAN – how could you have bad dreams in THIS bed, Mom?!?!)

My argument, however, is that no sixteen year old girl still wants to be sleeping in a carriage bed, so it seems rather impractical to buy, despite the potential bad dream removal.

*And yes, she’s STILL dreaming about all that. She woke up screaming a few times the other night, and then the next day, she informed my friend Nikki, “We’re NOT going to talk about Cinderella at lunch today.”

Anyway. Back to the beds that my daughter will never get.

She especially liked the playhouse-with-a-slide bed:

Seriously – what kid would actually SLEEP when they had a slide hooked up to their bed?!?!

And just about as sleep-inducing of a bed named by Ali as “The House Bed”:

I WOULD say that they make these beds for older kids that would still lay down and go to sleep responsibly even when faced with endless entertainment (ha), but the tunnel on this one is barely big enough for Ali to squeeze through, so apparently, some toddler somewhere will actually REST in a bed like this.

Or not, and some Mom somewhere is beating her head against the wall, saying “Why oh WHY DID I BUY THEM A BED THAT THEY CAN PLAY IN!?!?!??!”

Of course, if Daddy had been with us, he’d have tried to talk Ali into this bed:I know – ONLY in Alabama could football passions run so deeply. Yeesh.

At any rate, I am afraid that I have set Ali up to think of this when I say “Big Girl Bed”,
And she’s going to be sorely disappointed when she gets something more along the lines of this:

Unless her Daddy reads this post. At which point he will melt in all of his Daddy-wrapped-around-his-little-girl’s-finger softness, and will go buy her that crazily impractical carriage bed.

Chefiature.

November 25, 2009 Rachel Callahan Toddlers: The Experience, Wordless Wednesday - as IF I could be wordless.

I’ve been hearing about how Ali has become quite the chef at Gramamma and Pop’s house, apparently earning the title as an expert biscuit maker and cookie cutter.

So, I decided to test out these mad skillz myself at home. I needed to make a Danish, so I enlisted her help.

And I was surprised at how helpful she was – she helped roll out the dough, stir the filling, smooth the filling over the dough, and, of course, was a black belt at cleaning up afterward:

Ooh – I gotta pretend I’m cooking again!

Eh, who am I fooling.

Almost as sweet as the Danish filling….

….or not.

I swear we’re not unfit parents!! I just caught that photo-un-op right after this finger lickin’ moment…

Phew. Now that I’m exonerated, check out everyone else’s Wordless Wednesdays at 5 Minutes for Mom!

…Also on 5 Minutes for Mom is a review/giveaway that I wrote for a baking product that Ali and I have been testing out lately in our cooking adventures – it is a TON of fun – be sure to enter to win one!

Trend Alert! Buy Stock in Carter’s and Gerber Post-Haste!

November 24, 2009 Rachel Callahan Don't Listen to my Fashion Advice, Utter Silliness

Chris and I had the American Music Awards on in the background Sunday night while we busied ourselves with other tasks. But despite the fact that we were hardly paying it any attention, there was an overarching trend that was inescapable of our notice:

Onesies.

Apparently, they are all the rage.

Gone are the days of singers wearing such short skirts that you think you’re ABOUT to see their crotch. No, they have discarded the skirt all together and just resorted to the outfit of a 6 month old.

Fergie started the night out in her very poofy onesie – I guess to give it the true infant-with-a-diaper-inside-my-onesie look:

Then Shakira and all of her backup dancers were sure to draw attention to the fact that they were NOT missing out on this fad by checking out each other’s onesies:

J.Lo sported the Gladiator onesie:

Lady Gaga went with the medical supply Onesie – made out of ace bandages and a headpiece of cotton swabs:

Rihanna stole her onesie idea from a girl we saw at Dragon*Con:

And even sweet little Carrie Underwood couldn’t resist the Onesie trend, and invented the “Good” little Country Girl Onesie:

Of course, onesies weren’t the only statements made at the AMAs.

Jermaine Jackson had to show that the best naming strategy for your kids is to take the first syllable of your name and put it before the most ridiculous of terms. Freaky Scientist kid in the back’s name: Jermajesty.

And Kate Hudson tried to bring to style the man-chest look with the super long straps on her dress and lack of undergarmentage, all of which don’t exactly give off a very feminine look: I guess if you’re going to insist on showing that much skin, at least make it TOTALLY UNATTRACTIVE to the male mind because it just looks like one of their running buddies in a tank top.

And I couldn’t COUNT the number of times she adjusted that top while on stage for a whole minute and a half. Nervous much, Kate?

And yes, we did, unfortunately, see Adam Lambert’s performance. And no, I will not be blogging about it for fear that I will have to re-immerse myself into boiling water in the attempt to cleanse my mind from that horridness.

But the bottom line is, babies everywhere should rejoice – because the onesie look that they pioneered most definitely took first place at the AMAs.

Then again, maybe they should just be disturbed.

Blogwebs, Cobwebs.

November 23, 2009 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Football and I have a Complicated Relationship

So my mind is apparently already on a Thanksgiving break. I am seriously having trouble putting sentences together…

Maybe I’ll actually take a day or two off as a bloggy break for Thanksgiving – something I’ve actually never done.

I know, I’m too obsessive to COMPLETELY break. If I do, I’ll leave you with old reruns or maybe some unpublished posts out of my drafts folder.

Or maybe my brain will arrive back on the scene and I’ll get re-invigorated.

In the meantime, I’ll just share a few things from our weekend.

(Oh yeah – that’s what a blog is for – right?)

My favorite pic of the weekend first: Ali and AJ, playing Princess Turnover:
Ali is STILL on track with her new, err, skills, and after her THIRD achievement IN A ROW, we got something extra special for her reward – Yogurt Mountain. Partially because I’d been wanting to try it myself, and partially because I didn’t have any Princess Gummies with me.

I never knew how much kid’s treats were actually determined by what the PARENT wanted until I became one.

Yogurt Mountain is a self-serve Frozen Yogurt shop where you pick from dozens of flavors of Frozen Yogurt and bazillions of toppings to make your own creation (at the very reasonable price of $0.45/ounce, I might say). We followed Ali’s typical Goldilocks Formula in the creation of our masterpieces:

…although I’m not sure if Ali’s was really “just right”. It WAS rather huge:

But it served it’s purpose and furthered the propoganda that pooping in the potty is VERY! VERY! REWARDING!
Saturday was the last Alabama home game – the weather was perfect, the opponent was lousy, and the game time was early – it was the ideal game to let Ali have another stadium experience. So we headed to Tuscaloosa, where Ali showed her wisdom in making sure that she carried the biggest stick:

And, although she seemed to take special joy in the brutality of sword fighting, her friend Briley was QUITE disturbed by her malicious fighting aggression:

At any rate, we finally pried the sword from her Inigo Montoya-esque grip and headed into the stadium:
Where I saw one last football fashion disaster, for those who can’t decide if they want to wear small, medium, or large printed houndstooth: My advice: even if you’re not sure which would look best on you, please PICK ONE – ANY of them would look better than ALL.

We got to also catch the “Dancing Girls” practicing their act again, where Ali tried to lead them in a new routine:

And pointed out, “Look Mommy, they’re all wearing bras like you!”

Yes, baby, but mine isn’t on the OUTSIDE.

Week of Firsts: a Fail and a Win.

November 21, 2009 Rachel Callahan I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Toddlers: The Experience

I’m not quite sure what kind of vendetta I had against myself when I planned two brand new, somewhat invasive experiences for Ali within 48 hours of each other.

Seriously. I know this child. I know she doesn’t like change. So why stack this week’s odds against me?

The First First: Wednesday – The Dentist.

I’ve been thinking about taking Ali to the dentist for a while now (special shout-out to Mama Hen for making it sound SOOO easy to take a toddler to the dentist, by the way. That was a nasty trick.)

So, in preparation, I’ve been strategizing and optimizing: What could give us the best possible odds of having a favorable experience?

I debated with myself – should I take her to a Pediatric Dentist, or a Dentist that is a friend of ours and Ali knows?

I decided on the friend – familiarity is key with Ali – not bright and fun toys.

Then I started the preparation. I talked about how much fun the dentist was, that they were going to make her teeth pretty like a Princess’ teeth, and we practiced opening our mouth REALLY wide.

(There WAS that incident the day before where my Mom started telling a horror story – in front of Ali – about me getting a filling at Ali’s age and how I thought I was choking to death and totally panicked.)

(At which point I kindly interrupted her and reminded her that Ali did indeed speak and understand English, and that this particular story was not helping my preparation AT ALL.)

But besides that, I thought we were ready. I got all bribery in place, and even let her hold a bag of Cookie Bear Crackers all the way to the dentist, while we talked about how fun it would be, how good she would open her mouth, and how she would get Cookie Bear Crackers and ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD THAT SHE WANTED if she’d simply open her mouth for Doctor Jayme and her helper.

We arrive, and Ali was excited. She started talking about how pretty Doctor Jayme’s office is – “It’s like a Castle!!”. This is a good sign.

Doctor Jayme came out and was wonderfully inviting to Ali. Ali obviously admired her. Another good sign.

And then, we got back to The Chair.

And we were met with a mouth personifying the solidity of The Great Wall of China.

No amount of bribes, me sitting under her, fun things to play with, the appeal of seeing her teeth on the flat screen tv on the wall, Guilt trips about how sad Daddy would be, Doctor Jayme’s sweet kindness, my PRYING HER MOUTH WITH A CROWBAR –

NOTHING would convince her to open her mouth.

“Baby, if you don’t open your mouth, then you won’t get your Cookie Bear Crackers – Mommy will have to eat them.”

“You can have them ALL, Mommy.”

“Don’t you want to go to the park after doing good at the dentist?”

“No, I want to go home.”

They were SO awesome and SO patient with her – but I don’t think that Cinderella herself could have convinced Ali to open her mouth.
Needless to say, I ate a lot of Cookie Bear Crackers on the way home.

The Second First: Friday – The Hair Salon.

I was always convinced that I wouldn’t cut my daughter’s hair for a really long time, but Ali’s hair has gotten so uneven, frizzy and scraggly that I found myself trying to convince Chris to let me get her “just a little trim.”

“Won’t it grow out and get better?”

“It will grow faster if it gets trimmed. Just like mine.”

“Can’t we just buy her more expensive conditioner?”

“She’s already using mine – it is expensive!”

“Can’t we buy her MORE expensive conditioner?”

“That’s not going to fix her uneven hair. It JUST needs a trim.”

“Okay…but only if it’s just a tiny trim. And if you bring me her curls.”

“Deal!”

For proof of the need of this action, I brushed the curl out of her hair:Just a BIT thin on the ends. Can we say Mullet? Yeah – no amount of conditioner can fix THAT.

So I hyped it up to Ali: “We’re going to get our hair cut together! At the Salon! And we’ll look beautiful!! Like Princesses!!!”

I took her to my salon, Hair Reflections, and we saw my favorite hair stylist ever, Shannon.

Ali wasn’t too excited about the Princess ~~T-Shirt~~ dress that she had to wear for the haircut:

But it grew on her.

She watched me get my hair washed and cut first, asking “What’s she doing NOW??” every five seconds.

(In theory, this strategy might have worked at the Dentist, too. But I seriously don’t think ANYTHING would have helped.)

Then it was her turn. We headed back to get her hair washed first, and she started to panic.

Great. Deja vu.

I kept telling her how great it felt, and that Miss Shannon was even better than Mommy and Daddy at washing her hair, and that she’d get pretty colored shampoo, and finally, with her sitting across my legs, I got her to sit and let Shannon work her relaxation magic: I think there might have been drugs in that shampoo.

She then happily and sedatedly headed back to the chair to get her hair cut:
And, besides the constant wiggling that she did to truly test Shannon’s steady hand, she did fairly well.

Except when Shannon would stand between her and the mirror. “I want to watch myself in the mirror!”
Ali seemed happy with her cut (or at least that it was over),

And Chris should be happy that really, in the grand scheme of things, very little got cut off:(I think he may have called Shannon beforehand and bribed her.)

And Ali looks the same, just hopefully a little less scraggly:

…just don’t ask her to open her mouth.

Hoarders, Toddler Edition.

November 20, 2009 Rachel Callahan Parent of the Year, Toddlers: The Experience

Being that she comes from a long line of packrats, poor Ali doesn’t have a chance of being one of those amazing people who seem to have not an iota of clutter in their home.

That being said, she’s already starting to show hoarding tendencies. In particular, with little things.

I’ve never kept her from playing with small objects, because she was never the type to put things in her mouth. In fact, there was shamefully a time when she was a baby where I put her down for a nap, and when Chris got her up, he asked me, “Uh, why did she have 27 cents in her hand?”

“Oh – sorry – I remember her carrying it around earlier – I must not have checked her fists before I put her to sleep.”

Yeah – I’m THAT cautious. And she holds THAT tightly onto her small objects.

She collects all of her smallest toys and puts them SOMEWHERE. Continuously. I’ll wonder where the dots for her Bingo, the fixings for her play cake, and her marbles all went, and then I’ll find them ALL, tucked away in a secret hiding place.

Radford was coming back over to give his Mommy a bit more of a break, and so I knew I needed to collect and hide all of the small objects.

(At least you don’t have to worry about me choking OTHER PEOPLE’S children.)

So I set off on a search.

Toy box, stroller, kitchen set…then I finally spotted something suspicious on the train table:
Did you see it? An oven mitt doesn’t belong on the train table, and Ali is quite particular about that sort of misfit.

And it looked rather bloated:
I peeked inside, and sure enough, hit the jackpot:

In fact, that oven mitt was the Mary Poppin’s Purse of hoarding:

For size comparison, ALL of that came out of the oven mitt:

Yes. My child is a hoarder.

At least she makes it easy to find all small parts.

But, despite all of the boyish fun to be had at that same train table, Radford was MUCH more interested in Ali’s sparkly pink and purple headbands. You might even say obsessed, since every time they fell off, he’d bring them to me to put back on…

And then, he found her necklace:

And then, he got angry, once he realized how mad his Dad would be about these pictures:

And then, even his hair rebelled at his choice of accessories:

And then, I think Ali was a bit smitten by his unkempt, wild, Baby Einstein look.

Things Found on My Husband’s iPhone.

November 19, 2009 Rachel Callahan I would NEVER take too many pictures. . ., Utter Silliness

This post was pre-approved by the husband contained wherein.

Chris didn’t have the camera for his and Ali’s epic farm ride in the fancy red truck, so all of the pictures of their trip were taken with his iPhone.

And, when I went to download the pics off of it, I went ahead and downloaded them all, trying to be nice and provide backup services.

And, because his iPhone hates me because I put it’s first scratch ever on it with my engagement ring and then was too afraid to tell Chris for three days because we were on a date in Atlanta and I didn’t want him to be sad at me or ME to be sad at me while we were on our date and so I was nervous that he’d notice before I told him and he actually DID notice before I told him but he wasn’t upset because he’s like the best husband in the world, the iPhone saved all of it’s pictures in COMPLETELY random order.

(deep breath)

Which means that I had to go through ALL 587 iPhone pictures from the last two years to find the aforementioned farm pictures.

However, what the iPhone meant for evil, I shall blog for good.

It was pretty interesting – it reminded me of when I was a kid, and my Mom had a gallon Ziploc bag containing all of the rolls of film that she’d never gotten around to developing. They’d been in the same cabinet for years, but finally one year for her birthday, I took all 19 rolls to get them developed. We then went through them as a family, and remembered memories we had forgotten.

(When Ali reads this post in 10 years, her first question will be “What’s a ROLL of film?”)

Anyway, that’s what going through his iPhone was like…plus a few hilarious insights into my husband’s head.

For instance – he wasn’t faking his excitement about our Mall’s new Lego store…he was so excited that he felt the need to take this picture – of just the “Coming Soon” poster:

And, I would say that approximately 30% of his 587 photos were of food:

(I like the angelic glow on his food. I can hear the angels singing “aaaaaaaaaah”.)

…Just in case I wasn’t sure already what the way to a man’s heart was…

Speaking of which, I’m glad I made it into this photo with the food – at least I am important enough to share a photo frame with it:

Also, I got to visualize his paranoid-feeding-of-Ali habits when I’m not around:

Apparently, messy toddlers are best to be avoided at all costs…or at least at the cost of a whole roll of Bounty.

Speaking of what Chris and Ali do when I’m not around…

Now, I would like to say that I didn’t find this as hilarious as he did, but I can’t lie on my blog….

Of course, iPhone pictures aren’t the best in quality – often times blurry:Just call us the chocolate milkshake.

Sometimes these issues of blur can create scary effects, such as stump-toddler:

And this legendary photo, capturing that time that we played magician and assistant:

We still have no idea how that picture happened.

But I JUST realized that he took that picture on the aforementioned Atlanta trip RIGHT after I scratched his phone.

All of a sudden I feel like I’ve been sent a death threat from an iPhone.

Another issue that I am SURE is the iPhone’s and not Chris’ fault is the proliferation of upside-down pictures…

Like the three monkeys:

Or this one, and early picture of me and Ali duck-feeding, apparently in China:

Speaking of Ali, he got this incriminating picture of her deconstructing the rock wall at The Fish Market:

But how could anyone not forgive her???

He also managed to catch some priceless family moments with his beloved iPhone, like this picture of our exuberant family on vacation:

Obviously, we were all getting our glumness out of the way in one moment.

He also caught this one, a precious moment that I’d like to title “Breakfast Stare-down with Papa”:

And (although it’s hard to see since I didn’t Photoshop these photos in any way), his home-from-work greeting by all three of his girls – Me, Ali, and the cat:

Now this next picture of me walking into the airport to go to Blogher thankfully did NOT turn into a priceless family picture. He told me later this was the “Last glimpse of Mommy just in case her plane crashes picture”.

That man. He thinks ahead too much sometimes.

But luckily, he was able to take this picture three days later, of Ali waving to “Mommy’s Blue Plane” as it landed safely:

And then, of course, there are tailgating pictures.

Like the satellite feed as he was trying to get the dish set up:

The finally working system:

Horribly happy in-game family photos:

The tailgating wings, as he cooked them,

And the traditional spot for all wing remains:
And finally, I think he takes pictures of his dreams for the future:

She looks thrilled about this plan.

Look for a Sequel to Things Found on my Husband’s iPhone later in the week, to be published on B-Sides!!

Princess Gummies Changed My Daughter’s Life.

November 18, 2009 Rachel Callahan Parent of the Year, Toddlers: The Experience

First of all, I must say thank you for all of your comments and encouragement yesterday. I’m actually (gasp) GLAD I wrote that post now!!

Second of all – seriously?? So you all want me to write more POO blogs?!?

Well, it’s your lucky day.

Because. . . Princess Gummies Changed My Daughter’s Life.

I could tell on Sunday that Ali was fighting the poo hostages again. She’d deny, then get THAT LOOK on her face, then deny and deny some more.

She managed to make it through to Monday, still stubbornly retaining.

So I made a big production of going to Target.

“What would you like – ANYTHING in the whole wide world – as a reward for when you poo-poo in the potty?”

(You can say these sorts of things to toddlers, you see, because the smallness of their world view coincides with the smallness of themselves. Don’t try it with your teenager, or you’ll be buying a brand new Cadillac Escalade. But I’m REALLY banking on the hope that they don’t need to be bribed to poo when they’re old enough to drive.)

Anyway, she quickly answered, “Cookie Bear Crackers!!!”

It took me a minute, but I realized these were Teddy Grahams. Easy enough.

I found those, but on the same aisle, spotted what I thought could potentially be the Mecca Of Existence for a non-pooping Princess.

Princess Gummies.

“Ali!! Do you know what THESE are?!?!? These are PRINCESS GUMMIES!!”

”Is Cinderella in there?!?!?!”

“Yes, she is!! And Ariel, and Belle, and Glass Slippers, and Pumpkin Carriages. . . .We’re going to get these for you to have when you poo-poo on the potty!”

She was excited, but she still managed to hold “it” firmly in place for several more hours.

Finally, it was naptime. I knew it was now or never.

(aka “Now or I’d-Be-Cleaning-Up-a-Stinky-Pull-Up-After-Naptime.”)

So I sat her on the Princess-like Throne, and pulled out what I was hoping to be Poo Magic.

Her eyes got wide.

But she still firmly said “I don’t want to poo-poo.”

“Would you like me to open them and show them to you?”

“Yes.”

I pulled out one of each variety and dramatically exclaimed over their wonderfulness.

“Can you pull them ALL out and show me?”

I pulled them ALL out of the package – Two Cinderellas, Two Ariels, a Belle, and Two Carriages.

That did it. She couldn’t resist the temptation any longer, and she broke her poo-less principles. She bent over, bore down, turned purple, and pushed with all her might.

Princesses may not WANT to poop, but it takes a Princess to convince a Princess to try it.

We celebrated heartily. We had Princess gummies and Cookie Bear Crackers, and she inspected her work and gave me the rundown, a bit more grotesque than last time – this time it was, “I pooped a Daddy and a Mama and a Baby.”

Ew.

But the REAL victory? It was unprecedented.

Today, no poops later, she needed to go, and all it took was mention of the Princesss Gummy Goodness in her future, and it was done – no days of arguing, hours of trying, and tears of completion.

TWO poos in a row. This is landmark.

I may be buying stock in Princess Gummies. I am SO happy with them right now that I don’t mind at all if I am still giving out Princess Gummies for Poo when Ali’s 16 years old.

Widening Your Blog’s Appeal

November 17, 2009November 3, 2013 Rachel Callahan Actually Possibly Informational, I'm a Blog Geek, Pop Post, Writing WAY Out of my Comfort Zone

….Also known as “The Post Which Makes Me Sick at My Stomach With Nervousness”.

I have had several people ask me recently to write a post of advice on how to gain more readers for their blogs and how to take their blog to “the next level”.

Now I must say that writing “How-To” posts make me VERY uncomfortable. I always feel like I’m going to come off as a know-it-all or an expert, neither of which I am in any way.

I have literally been writing, throwing it away, editing it, trashing it, and re-writing this post for months because it makes me so squirmy. So to make myself feel better, I had to add some tongue-in-cheek-ness to this post, so PLEASE don’t take this post all that seriously.

And, I would just like to say, that there are HUNDREDS of ways to grow a blog – these are just some of the things that I personally have done to grow my blogs, very meager though they still are.

Now that I’ve fully disclaimed and disowned this post, here are some pointers that I’ve picked up on:

Comment, comment, comment on other blogs!! There is NOTHING that motivates most of us bloggers more than getting comments (seriously – you’d think I was a total freak if you knew how obsessed I was with comments), and most bloggers will appreciate your comments and go to your blog to check out who you are and read your work. Also, their other readers will start to get to know you through your comments, and they’ll want to see who you are also.But don’t lose sight of the greatest benefit of commenting – the friendships you create by reading each other’s blogs. I have some amazing friends that I would have NEVER met had it not been for our blogs! Commenting back and forth will help you grow friendships and has the side benefit of helping you grow your blog, all at once. If you simply read someone’s blog without commenting, you’re getting to know them, but they’re missing out on the opportunity to get to know you. We all thrive off of knowing our readers!

PARAGRAPH SPACING. Blogs are unbelievably more eye catching and easier to read if written in the shortest paragraphs possible. If a blog post is one long paragraph, it appears to be torturous to read. And don’t just have paragraphs, put whole lines of space between each paragraph. It really eases the strain on the eyes and the mind. Add wide open spaces!

Consistency and commitment. Blogging daily or nearly daily is important to keep interest. Also, Edit, edit, edit. Read and tweak your posts at least three times before hitting publish.

Think in Bloggese. Ask yourself as you go through your day, “How can I make this entertaining/interesting to blog about?”

Pay attention to other bloggers, learn from them, and incorporate tips into YOUR writing style, but don’t sacrifice who you are to be like them. Be yourself and don’t lose sight of that while trying to grow your blog. People are attracted to genuineness.

Don’t write your blogs in a format like you would tell your husband about your day. “When we woke up, we did this. . .and then at breakfast, this happened. . . and then at two p.m., we went here…”. Instead, weave a story. Interlink all of your points. Draw it all together in a nice, neat package to maximize the appeal of your post.

Never show pictures of your kid’s poop. Diapered or otherwise. You can blog about it, you can describe it in disgusting detail (like I have been doing a LOT of lately), but just don’t ever show it.

Take pictures of the craziest stuff (Except the aforementioned poop, of course). Random pictures add interest and humor, and help your readers draw a visual of your story. Also, if your post doesn’t inherently contain pictures, add silly header or footer pictures. Header pictures or illustrations draw your reader immediately into the blog post. Example here. Also, you can use a footer picture to end your post with a last laugh, such as here.

If you are blogging about something negative (mildly negative – I’m not talking about tragedy here), use humor and be self-deprecating to let your readers know that you are, in fact, emotionally okay with the events and not, in fact, using your blog to whine or vent. Of, if you can’t be humorous about it, be sure to wind the blog up in a positive manner, telling what you learned from the event. Example here.

When your kid says something cute, don’t preface this by saying “today, so-and-so said the cutest thing. He said “….”. Isn’t that ADORABLE?”. Instead weave what they said into a story. Draw interest without stating the obvious, which is that you think your kid is adorable. Your readers all think your kid is adorable too, but the story will be a hundred times better if you stage it. See example here.

Use creative ways to add humor and interest, such as using strikethrough on your “real” thoughts and put after them your “politically correct” thoughts. this adds humor. Another way to do this is to use over-the-top, obvious exaggerations, like the “I have re-written this post 684 times because I was so nervous about writing a how-to post” (although that may not be an exaggeration).If you don’t know how to do strikethrough, all you do is put a bit of HTML in your post. Directly before the part you want to strike through, type <strike>. Then right after it, type </strike>.

If I haven’t stressed this enough already, think creatively – don’t just tell a story, but try to come up with original ways to frame your posts, like letters, analysis, rhythm, repeated phrasing, etc. Example here.

Respond to some comments – people do this in different ways – some people respond with another comment, some people respond with email. I have started responding with email when I can, because I realized that I rarely remember to go back to a post I commented on to check for a response.

Get involved on blogging networking sites, especially ones that will link you with bloggers of like-interests – such as 5 Minutes for Mom and their specialized sister sites, Alabama Bloggers, Blogher. . . there are TONS of them in all sorts of specialized blogging niches. Find yours, interact, comment, participate, and become a part of a community! You will be amazed at the number of new relationships you will form by doing this!

If you have a very short anecdote that you want to share, build it into a larger story by adding context, analysis, and humor. Example here.(Some people would disagree with this philosophy, saying that blog posts should be as short as possible to keep the readers attention. I agree that this has merit also. I just can’t seem to write anything short.)

Use blogging tools – there are tons of free programs out there to help you maximize, analyze, and optimize. I blogged about my favorite blogging tools here at Alabama Bloggers.

If you use Blogger, here are some specific tips:

Don’t use word verification for your comments (some people have major issues with these), unless you have an issue with spam commenters. I’ve never used it and have never gotten a single spam comment until the past week.

Use the Full-Page or Pop-up comment system rather than the embedded – although Blogger won’t admit it for some reason, there are MAJOR issues with the embedded form – I often get error after error when trying to comment, as does everyone I’ve ever asked. I know for a fact that I missed out on a lot of comments when I used the embedded system. (This setting can be changed under Settings –> Comments.)

If you insist on using one of the above Blogger features, just please please PLEASE don’t use both. The embedded system doesn’t show that it’s going to make you word verify, so often I will have closed down the page before it comes up to verify, and my comment is lost. It’s a really stinky system – Blogger could really do to improve it.

Allow full blog feed. More people will read your posts, and I don’t think it keeps the people who would comment from commenting. (This can be changed under Settings –> Site Feed)

Be sure to have your email address in your Google Account so that it shows your email address to the blogger when you leave a comment. Many bloggers (including me) respond by email to comments, but if your email address isn’t there, they can’t respond to you.

Regarding music – I personally find it very distracting. I can’t listen to music and read at the same time, so I always mute blogs with music. But I may be alone in that preference, and I can always use mute, so don’t change your music preferences for my sake!

And once again, I stress, COMMENT. Building relationships with other bloggers is the Number One way to grow your blog, and, in my opinion, the most fulfilling part of blogging!!

Please let me know if you have ANY questions – I will attempt to answer them!

Okay…I did it. And…now I totally hate myself for writing such a how-to-ey post.

Ick.

I all of a sudden feel the need to write the silliest, most pointless, inane blog post ever to cleanse myself from this post.

Quick! Somebody do something ridiculous so I can blog about it!