Erin Akin Carroll

Well I wouldn’t go so far to say he’s a gymnast, but Hudson had his first Little Gym experience on Tuesday morning.

We made plans to go last Tuesday. We got up, drove across town to The Little Gym and when we were about a mile away, I heard Hudson throwing up. In his car seat. So I stopped the car, cleaned him up as best I could, and we drove home to finish cleaning up and rest off the bug. The bug lasted a couple of days and was pretty awful, but he’s all better now.

So this past Tuesday we were even more excited to finally get to the Bugs class at Little Gym!

Hudson was a little worried when we first walked in. He kept looking back at me to make sure I wasn’t leaving him, but after about 10 minutes, he realized that I was right next to him and we were just going to play! He had such a good time and ended up screaming (with excitement) the entire time. He has started bobbing and bouncing to music. The mats in the gym are a great way to just let the kids play and romp.

If there’s a class in your area, I highly recommend going. We had been working on patty cake and clapping hands. Hudson is fascinated when I do it, but always leaves his hands in tight fists when I try to help him do it. Now he’s clapping his hands! Not often, but he does it.

He has also officially mastered the act of grabbing his Gerber Yogurt Melts and putting them in his mouth. It’s so exciting! (Yes, I’m a mother and I find little things exciting.)

Not sure if I can owe the success of these recent milestones to Little Gym, but I definitely think it helped. In his class, we worked on flexibility and stretching, forward and backward rolls, playing with balls and bubbles, and just socializing with other children. We’re already excited for next week.

This is his instructor, Mrs. Emily. She was lots of fun and was obviously a cheerleader in a former life!

I have been tossing around the idea of writing this post for a few days, but a few of my favorite blogs have gone on hiatus as a result of something like this, so I’ve decided to come out with it.

I don’t like to blog about blogging. I like to blog about my life. But a big part of my life has become blogging, the blog community, friends I’ve made in real life as a result of blogging, you get the point.

When I first started blogging, I was writing and never knew if anyone (other than me) would read it. I knew my parents would check it if I told them about it. But I was mostly writing about wedding plans and my life leading up to the wedding. The URL to my former blog was both of our last names at blogspot dot com. The name of the blog was “Erin and Todd.” If you Googled my name, the first thing to come up was that blog. So I’ve never been anonymous.

A few months after I started blogging, people I didn’t know started to read. This thought had never crossed my mind. I just thought we’d have a little couple blog and then a little family blog as our family grew. The readers that I had never met before started to become my friends and the blog grew and grew into something I never imagined. I’m not saying my blog is huge, but I’m saying I’ve come in contact with so many people across the country (and some on the other side of the world) from this and that just blows my mind.

But while there are many strangers that read, there are also a lot of people I know in real life that read. There are a lot of people I know in real life that read my blog. But I don’t know that they read my blog until some time later. I get a random email every so often from an old friend or acquaintance and I hear they’ve been reading my blog for months.

Times like this sometimes make me wish I’d thought about the future of blogging in the beginning and originally created an anonymous blog. I’ve never been able to vent about things that are very personal to me, or complain about a job. I’m not sure how much of that I would do if I wasn’t anonymous, but I am very careful about the things that I say.

I feel like I’ve been really candid about my life in the last year– I gave honest thoughts about pregnancy (and how I don’t love being pregnant) and about having lots of difficulty with labor and delivery and the aftermath. But other than the occasional, “Hudson is really fussy today” you will never hear me say a negative word about my child. I don’t think that makes me dishonest. And I don’t think that means that I look fake or that my life looks like a perfect cake walk. He’s my son and someday he’ll be able to read. I don’t need to vent about my family to the world. I don’t care if other bloggers do it, but these are decisions I’ve made.

I have mentioned that I had difficulty healing after Hudson was born. But just because I’m a blogger, I don’t think I’m required to disclose the full details of those events. I’ve said that if you email me and want to know, I will tell you what happened. But I don’t need my whole town knowing my business– much less all of the interwebs.

As bloggers, and blog readers, we all have a right to decide what we’ll share and what we won’t share. Some blogs are centered around a specific topic. Mine happens to be a hodge podge of my life and things that I’m thinking and things that I’m liking. I choose to keep some parts of our life private. There need to be some things that are sacred only to my family.

cartoon via here

It’s also important to know that many of my “real life friends” don’t know everything there is to know either. Even though I’m a blogger and put my life out there, I am still a private person. Believe it or not.

I feel like there is a standard that has been set for bloggers (by other bloggers, maybe) to provide full disclosure. Where someone vacations, what someone purchases, where someone lives, what their kids wear, what they eat, their political views, the size of their diamond, how they choose to give birth, what they name their child… none of these things are a reason to hound on someone. At the risk of sounding extremely cheesy, I want to point out that bloggers are people, too, and there is a person behind your computer screen that wrote the words that you read. And it is that person’s right to decide what they want to share and what they don’t want to share.

Our blogs are our personal scrapbooks in this age of technology and maybe we just want to point out the highlights so we remember them someday when we’re looking back. Maybe the really bad stuff will never leave our minds so it’s just not great to put it in writing.

Most bloggers, though, blog for themselves. Not for the readers. And sometimes bloggers answer questions from readers and address comments from readers. But for the most part, it’s about whatever they want to talk about.

Here’s my point… we all need to take it easy on people that blog. It’s much easier to blog when no one is reading. It’s hard to put it all out there, so it’s nice to know that you can keep some part of your life to yourself and deal with things in your own way. It’s not secretive, but it’s sacred. There are families and loved ones to protect. Private conversations to have and keep private. Keeping parts of your life private doesn’t make you phony or pretentious. It’s just a choice. And it usually is a choice based on the people we love in our daily lives.

I love sharing my life on this blog. The community has been so wonderful and supportive. I just hate seeing people torn down and lose the joy in blogging.

Here’s to everyone finding the joy in blogging!

Ashley Brooke Designs Easter Cards

My dear friend, and sponsor of Blue-Eyed Bride, Ashley Brooke has created some adorable Easter cards to send out to your loved ones. You can choose from the cross or the two more personalized designs. I’ll be sending out the design with the cross on them. So cute!

SHOP HERE for the cards.

Cross in Bloom

Hello Spring

Pastel Heaven (can be personalized with your hair color, hair length, and skin color)

Hair and skin color options

Pray for Cohen

My dear friend Megan of In This Wonderful Life is expecting a precious baby boy.

(Megan in the grey sweater, me next to her, Mrs. Preppy- holding Baby M, and Megan from Tales of the Trees)

But so far, things with Cohen haven’t been going as they’ve dreamed they would. Please go here and read Cohen’s story and add them all to your prayer list. Amazing things happen when God’s people come together to pray. You can also grab the “praying for Cohen” button from the sidebar of her blog.

Today is Todd’s 30th birthday. To him, it doesn’t feel any different to be turning 30 and to no longer be 29, but it is a remarkable day for him.

Because 30 years ago today, the most important person in my life was born. And two years later, I was born and our lives moved forward to bring us to the point where we would meet.

Most of you don’t know Todd, but I want everyone to know that he truly is the kindest, smartest, wittiest, and most patient man I know. He has always been able to make me laugh and his quick wit never ceases to leave me amazed and saying, “how did he come up with that so quickly?”

His love for his family is the kind that you’d want any guy to use a model and his work ethic is admirable. Now, for the past 8 months, Todd has been an incredible father to our precious son.

Todd is a great example of what a loving husband and father should be. He is respectful to everyone he comes in contact with and loves his son unconditionally.

In fact, two nights ago, he got to show how unconditionally he loves his son when Hudson got sick when I was at choir practice and Todd had to clean it up all by himself. That’s a job for a mommy, but I was so proud of him for handling it.

But look at these two. Are they not the spitting image of each other? (It’s okay for some of you to say he looks just like me! Even though we know that’s not true.)

I’m so thankful to have such a great partner and best friend to walk with through life.

We celebrated on Tuesday night by going to the Jimmy Buffett concert and we’ll be celebrating tonight with dinner at Mr. Friendly’s and dessert at Garibaldi Cafe (almond basket- yes!).

We’re meeting Todd’s parents and grandmother for lunch today, so he’ll be surrounded by love all day long. Happy 30th, TC!