Clare's Dad

The following post originally appeared on A Family Runs Through It—one of my favorite dad blogs.

Today is my anniversary. So I came over here to A Family Runs Through It to spend the day with someone special. No, it’s not my wedding anniversary—I wouldn’t be here with Phil if it were that anniversary. It’s my blogiversary actually. My third blogiversary.

On August 22, 2005, I started blogging. It’s kind of funny to look back now and read that I thought I came “late to daddy blogging” because there were “dozens of great blogs by dads out there…of course there are hundreds of blogs by moms.” Three years later I don’t feel like I started so late. Today, there are hundreds of blogs by dads and thousands by moms. Given that increase, I almost feel like a pioneer.

Another pioneer is Phil who started his blog over a year before mine. Talk about old! The blog that is, not Phil.

When Phil asked if I’d write a guest post for him this summer, I asked for August 22. I wanted to spend my blog’s third anniversary here. You see, Phil commented on my very first post three years ago. I guess he was part of my welcoming committee to the blogosphere. To return the favor, I like to come over once in a while and visit. The truth is that I’d be over here whether he commented on that first post or not—because I consider him not only a blogmigo, but one of the better dad bloggers out there.

In my second post on Clare’s Dad, I explained “why I write.” It’s a post that I’ve linked to directly in my sidebar [now found on my About page], and it’s gotten a new comment as recently as last month. In part, that post answered, obviously, why I write. I still look back at it occasionally. It reminds me that the first purpose of my blog is as a journal for my daughter. (The mention in that post of the journal that my own mother had written for me also got me a little sentimental earlier this year when she passed away.)

Three years later, my blog has evolved. For a while, there were no posts for months at a time. A little short of two years ago, I revived it and began “meeting” many more of my regular readers. The blog’s focus is still on Clare and “what she’s done, what I’ve done, what we’ll do together.” For this to be a true journal of Clare’s childhood—one that I hope she’ll save and read occasionally—I figure that she should know a little about her Mom and me too and “the world we’re growing up in.”

There are far better dad bloggers than me. There are dad bloggers who have more readers and work hard to bring traffic to their blogs. There are dad bloggers who are funnier, deeper, and more entertaining. I’m not always funny. I’m not always deep. I’m not always entertaining. But, I hope, sometimes I’m a little of all of these things. I seem to be entertaining enough for a few of you to stick around and continue to read my posts. Some of you just starting, some of you for a few weeks or months, some for three years.

You probably don’t know this, but you—all of you dad and mom bloggers especially—are now another reason why I write. Three years ago, I started blogging for Clare and me. I didn’t think of it as joining a community or finding friends, but that’s what I’ve done. You entertain me and you keep me coming back. You let me know that there are other parents out there dealing with the same world we are. Today, I’m doing more than marking three years of blogging. I’m celebrating three years of hanging out with you. Thanks for being at your blogs, and thanks for coming by mine.