How You Can Use Blogging to Capture Your Children's Memories

Children grow like weeds and as parents, we have 18 years to remember them as children. Scrap booking, photography, and journaling are commonly the top choices for holding on to the precious memories of our children. Each activity has proven to be a great way to encapsulate the tiny window called childhood. However, each poses a set of drawbacks. For instance, scrap booking is costly, time consuming and caters to the very crafty. Photography requires an acquired skill and if pursued the purchase of special, often expensive, camera equipment. Journaling, the most cost efficient of the three, is easy to achieve if you enjoy writing, but poses another conundrum. How do you preserve journals for later sharing with your children and loved ones?

Recently, I was introduced to blogs and the concept of blogging. What is a blog you ask? In simple terms, a blog is a website where entries also known as posts are written in chronological order and displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" is often used interchangeably with the term blogging as a verb, meaning to add new posts to an existing blog. The term is a portmanteau (a word that fuses two or more words or word parts together to give a combined meaning) of web log.

Instantly I was intrigued. How could I use a blog to capture the remaining years of my children's childhood? My research showed there are many companies like Blogger.com, Wordpress.com, and Blogstream that offer free blog services. All I needed was internet access, a working computer, and a valid email address. Within minutes, I too was blogging. For years, I had internet service with AOL and did not realize that they provided free blogging services as well.

So what do you need to do to capture memories of your children? First, cover the basics - computer, internet access, and email address (many of which are free through Yahoo! or MSN.)

1. Find a blog service that you are comfortable with. Then start having fun!

2. Create a fun blog name that reflects the personality of your child.

3. Decide the focus of your blog. Are you trying to capture every aspect of her childhood? Alternatively, are you going to focus on his sports activities? What about your child's academic achievements? Whatever you decide the opportunities are limitless.

4. Set up your blog - decide on a template. Pick colors you or your children like the most.

5. Remember blogs are internet-based websites. Unless you want the whole world to know as much about your children as you do...make sure your blog is private and not open to internet surfers.

6. Then start posting. Your posts can be as long or as short as you wish - they comprise your memories of your child. Each post is individually titled by you to represent the subject matter of the post. Don't be shy - take pictures! Using your family digital camera or even drugstore disposable camera continue to take pictures of your children and family events. Save them on disc and upload them into your blog post. This way you can tell the story and have the pictures to reflect the event.

7. Get creative! Blogs have additional functionally contained in widgets also known as page elements. Widgets contain pre-written computer code for us non-technologically savvy types. By adding a widget or page element to your blog, you will be able to add music videos, links to other sites of interest to your kids, video footage of your kids, and much much more.

8. Increase the fun by allowing your kids to participate. There is always more than one side to every story. Say for instance you take the kids canoeing for the weekend. As the parent, you can talk about the trip from your perspective; however, your kids may have seen or participated in additional activities. By allowing, them to access your blog, little Johnnie or Suzie can share the canoeing experience from their own eyes.

You will thoroughly enjoy blogging, but you will want to take the next step. Yes, there is more - you can turn your children's blog into a book! For more information check out Blurb, "a company and a community that believes passionately in the joy of books - reading them, making them, sharing them, and selling them." Blurb provides the software and detailed instructions for archiving the memories captured in your blog.

If you have never scrap booked or taken photography classes there is no need to start now. Start capturing those moments of your children via blog.