one thousand

I had planned to blog about reaching the halfway point of Whole30 tonight, but when I logged on, I noticed that this will be post number 1,000...and that just seems way too monumental a milestone to waste on something as frivolous as a diet nutritional reset. So maybe we'll catch up on the food talk later.

So, a thousand posts. That seems like a lot. I mean, it's been a little over seven years since I posted that first scintillating post, so I guess I'm really only averaging 142 posts a year, but still. A thousand. It feels big.

Hey! Erika of 2008 looks like a younger, skinnier version of Erika of the Present!

I remember what I was thinking when I started this blog. Along with what I explained in my first post about not wanting to be a creepy anonymous commenter anymore, I had another motive as well. You see, I was really into mommy blogs back then. And although we'd only been married barely six months, I knew we would start trying to have a baby sometime soon, and I knew that once we did have a baby pregnancy, I would most definitely want to have a blog. I wanted to do the weekly bump pictures, the monthly updates, the nursery reveal, and most of all- inundate the world with the pictures and stories about our babies. All four of them- because that was the plan.

So I figured I'd better go ahead and 'establish' a blog so that I'd be ready when the time came. I wanted to be in the habit of writing, and I wanted to have a handful of blog friends that would care if I did. So I started writing, biding my time until I could break out into full-fledged mommyblog-dom.

My selfie game was strong then, even if my makeup game was not. And look at that cool date stamp!

And you know, it's a really good thing I started this blog then. God knows I needed all that time to really get in the habit of writing, right? Ha. 

If I'd known then how long my journey to parenthood was going to be, I don't know if I would have started. I had no desire to be an infertility blogger- I barely even knew that such a thing existed. And when I first learned about them, it seemed a little too depressing- and simultaneously like I'd finally found my tribe. And because I found my people, I kept writing. 

And now that I've crossed to the other side, the promised land, the greener pasture, it's easy to focus on everything that's great and awesome (and truly, most everything is), but I am so thankful for the years when it wasn't, but I wrote anyway. Maybe it seems weird, but I don't want to grow satisfied- to forget where I came from, to forget what I went through, to forget the years the locusts ravaged. And I don't want to forget that even in the midst of that, there were so many happy days. So many amazing experiences. There was so much love, and experiences to laugh at, and people to hug, and grammar to rant about. And I'm thankful that I wrote it down so that now, and tomorrow, and in twenty years- I will still remember. And I'm thankful for each of you that came down into my joy or my sadness, whatever the flavor of the day happened to be, and joined me in my laughter and tears.

C'mon now, did you really think I'd force you to go a whole post without a picture of Millie? I know my people.

 If there's anything I've learned in my old age (I'm not the whippersnapper I was back in '08, unfortunately), it's that I never remember as much as I think I do. Sometimes I reread my old posts and am shocked by how I have NO RECOLLECTION of whatever situation or event I blogged about that day- and it's weird, like finding out I have amnesia or something. And so I'm thankful for my record here, and it encourages me to keep going- to write down my stories, even the ones that are mundane or ordinary or less-than-beautiful, because one day (or in ten minutes) I will forget. And I think that would be sad.

They let me get away with ANYTHING during breathing treatment time!! Parent guilt for the win!

 I guess I've rambled for long enough...you know, for like seven years, actually. But I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks for caring, for commenting, for sharing your lives, for encouraging me, for challenging me, and for making me feel like my silly stories- all one thousand of them- matter.