TEN.
On Wednesday Chloe turned TEN. Fifty two weeks...times ten...FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY WEEKS. 520 blog posts..give or take(lol). On Monday I started going back through my own blog starting at the begining. My intentions were to save a few photos from every month to build a folder of some of my favorite photos to be able to post and share. I spent several hours over the course of 2 days and I gave up! It turned out to be a job that would have likely taken two full days in front of a computer looking through 500+ posts and saving photos not to mention that I got tied up re-living all the things in each post! I got to about age 4 and I had to stop but..it was really fun and definitely not time wasted. I learned a few things as well. I learned that we have done a lot of stuff in the last ten years and not that I forgot anything but..it's weird to think about how long ago some of that stuff was. Chloe first walking..potty training..first trip to Disneyland..first day of preschool..the list goes on. So many "firsts" for all of us again it's hard to keep track. I remember I started writing this blog the first time Heather landed in the hospital while pregnant and..it just became something I enjoyed doing. Oddly, at this point I truly have no idea who is even checking these posts anymore but there was a time when I knew quite a few people that were. It's not a typical social media experience where people "like" or "comment" and I know they are out there. This is literally me just talking to myself through my keyboard and I have no idea who sees it. The blog lives on the web but it's not set to be public-ally searchable so..random people could have watched Chloe grow up and I would never know. It was always pretty much something I wanted to do so we could look back on the things we did and Chloe(when she got older) could do the same. Heck the other day she spent an hour going through old posts so it's already paying off in that way.
Sadly, I am going to have to find another way to save this 10 year 500+ post record of our lives because I know that eventually the platform that the photos live on(FLICKR that I have paid for the last 10 years) is not going to last forever. In fact, if that site went belly up today this blog would just be ten years worth of words and absolutely no pictures. Devastating. I think the writing is on the wall as far as that goes..it's only a matter of time. It's basically for that reason that I am really going to be slowing or stopping posts on here. I know I have said that before but, ten years was a nice solid number and honestly Chloe has gotten to the age that she isn't really that interested in me taking photos of her anymore. If something interesting happens I will try to make a point to post about it but..I really want to focus on being able to archive what I have already done so at least it wasn't all a waste of effort. We'll see!
So Chloe's 10th birthday fell on a Wednesday this year so it was business as usual for the most part with school and whatnot. I took her bowling on the last day of winter break(Monday) and tried to fill the week with fun things that she likes. We went to Sweet Tomatoes(Chloe's request) for dinner with her grandparents and she ate some of the most gigantic chocolate cake you have ever seen(from Safeway). January birthday have always been difficult for a kids birthday party so, hopefully we can plan something for a half birthday later this year for her with some kid friends. She's a great kid and honestly I know parents are always biased but..probably the greatest. =) It has not escaped us how fortunate we are that Chloe has been the model of health and by all accounts is (generally,lol) extremely sweet, caring, smart, thoughtful and just an all around great kid. We learned early on that hungry = hangry so with that little bit of information on hand, almost every situation is quite manageable with a snack, LOL.
Being the "at home" parent the last 10 years has really taught me a lot. I say this often but..if you would have told me 10 years before Chloe was born that when I was 30 I was going to be a stay at home dad..a HouseHusband if you will..I never would have freaking believed you. Looking back at the last 10 years having done it this way I can say, I truly appreciate how lucky I am/we are that we have been able to make any of this work the way it has. I only hope that Chloe's life has somehow been improved by our situation(I fully believe it has). Being able to spend so much time with both of her parents I honestly don't think she understands how not-normal that even is. In fact, she probably wishes she could spend less time with us sometimes, lol but THAT AIN'T HAPPENING anytime soon. =)
Anyway, I just wanted to post a few photos taken a few weeks ago that I would say (with the exception of 1 additional lost tooth that you can't even see) these photos represent our beautiful, smart, TEN year old little girl that we call, Chloe.
What in the world.
Have a great weekend, folks~
-B,H,C
