Why do you blog? Potty Mummy @ThePottyDiaries

1. What is your Blog Name/Url? (Twitter ID & Facebook Fan Page URL)

Blog:  The Potty Diaries

I also tweet as @thepottydiaries

No Facebook since I’m essentially a luddite and can’t cope with yet another stream of electronic information – although not so long ago I said that about twitter, and well…

2.  What is your name/alias?

Potty Mummy.  And every time I write / say this I ask myself ‘why did I chose such a ridiculous sounding name?'(Answer; because I never expected to have to write / say this to anyone’s face, that’s why)

3.  How did you come up with your Blog Name?

It’s based on a set of  diary entries I wrote whilst trying to potty train my oldest son.  After repeated start/stop sessions I was getting so depressed by the constant mopping up, laundry, treats and temper tantrums (mainly my own), I decided that the only way to get through it was to write it down and make it funny.  I did nothing with the result  for a year or so after that and then happened across blogging, when I decided to put my witterings to some use as a basis for my own blog.  And I’d just read ‘The Nanny Diaries’ hence the title.  Never accuse me of original thought.

4.  When did you start blogging?

Summer 2007.  I was online looking at allergy sites (both my sons are allergic to nuts) and I came across Pig In The Kitchen’s site and was hooked.  It was informative, entertaining, and funny, and after reading her back-catalogue and then trawling through her blog-roll I thought ‘I could do this.  Well, not this exactly, but something like it.’  And so I set up The Potty Diaries.

5.  Has blogging met your expectations so far?

Since I didn’t have any, yes.  It’s given me so much more than I ever imagined it would.

6.  What has been your biggest challenge?

Keeping going through the frequent writers’ block, and maintaining my interest in the blog when ‘real life’ gets in the way.  Oh, and not using it as a dumping ground for the deeply personal stuff that we all go through.  Too many family and friends now read it for me to ever use it for that – which is ironic, since it started off as so anonymous that even my husband didn’t have the address for the first year…

7.  Share with us your blogging HIGHLIGHT and LOWLIGHT.

Highlight; got to be the first comment I ever got (from Frog in the Field).  Oh, and reading one of my posts at Cybermummy last summer. And finally if I’m honest, being mentioned in national newspapers gives my ‘look at me!’ side a hell of a boost!

Lowlight:  I’ve been lucky enough (or perhaps not contentious enough) to not have been trolled particularly, but have to say that I found it really depressing a couple of years back when, having had a post about child safety featured on Alpha Mummy (in The Times Online), there were a number of comments that made it clear some people didn’t bother to properly read what I had written.

8.  What do you hope to achieve through your blogging?

I still haven’t worked that one out, completely.  Of course lots of us have dreams of publication, writing jobs, etc, but I don’t seem to have got round to any of that yet…

What has been your favourite post and why?

I’ve just checked; you want me to pick one post out of nearly 800?  In that case, I’m going to pick the one I wrote after attending last year’s Cybermummy, mainly because it sums up so much of the way that I feel about blogging.

 

Thank you Potty Mummy … we love your fantastic way with words!

~Karin