Hey. What happened to us over here? We used to write so much more than we have in the last few months. Heck, we didn’t even get the third leg of our huge trip to Europe *in June* properly documented, and it’s just snowballed from there. We’re feeling a little like slackers in the blogging department these days, but the lack of posts has been for an overarching big reason: we’ve been busy and life is full. We’ve been documenting lots of events with photos, but we haven’t even taken much time to sort through those…sigh. Andrew and I both really like to devote time to writing posts and making them fun for our friends and family to read, and time has seemed to be in shorter supply this autumn.

I’ve actually been thinking a lot about time and Facebook lately. As a stay-at-home parent, it has been a wonderful way for me to feel connected to people I love, to share the little daily things Griffin says or does, and sometimes (oftentimes) get immediate feedback (read: sympathy) for days that are less-than stellar. But Facebook goes away hourly. Things I write or read there are surely logged, but it’s not like a journal or this blog. I can’t really go back and reflect, and when it comes to my development as a parent and things I want to remember about Griffin’s rapid growing up, Facebook is no substitute for what we have here. This blog is absolutely for sharing with family and friends what we’ve been up to; but it is also, in many ways, taking the place of a memory book or journal that we will treasure for years. I feel like my time on Facebook has taken away some of the recording I would like to do with this blog, and I’m starting to rethink how I record our daily lives. Some of those little things that get put as status updates on Facebook are actually things I’d like to remember: Like the other day, I was in the basement doing laundry, and Griffin had stripped down naked and ran through the hall with maracas yelling, “It’s music time! It’s music time!” Or how he’s lately taken to flushing the toilet by saying, “Bye bye pee pees! Bye bye poo poos! I’m going to Griffin’s house! See ya tomorrow! Bye bye!” Or at breakfast on Friday, he asked for “more juice please? Hey Mama! I’m a good polite-er!” Those things are ending up as little anecdotes on Facebook, not being recorded for all of us to remember. I have visions of Griffin going back through our blog and reading about his life in his early years, and if I write it all down on Facebook, he’ll have nothing to read!

The point is not to give up Facebook. I think it helps me feel connected to adults in a life that is mainly devoted to toddlerhood, and I’m grateful for that. But I am going to try to change the way I blog. I’m trying something different where, instead of immediately recording little daily things on Facebook, I write them down as “Things to Remember” posts every once in a while on the blog. They won’t be the most eloquent or cohesive posts, but I think they’ll satisfy my need to record a few more memories.

And here’s one to start me off: Today, after he tried on the dragon costume I made him for Halloween, Griffin said, “I’m not a dragon anymore. I’m just a real boy.”