Ye Olde Blog Archives

Summer, 2008

Every so often, people ask me if there’s a way to go back and read my old blog posts from my blog Baby Squared on Babble, where I blogged from mid-2007 (when my girls were 6 months old) through Summer 2012 (when they were 5-1/2 and, you know, we got cancer and all.) And the posts even before that, before I moved to Babble.

There’s never been a terribly easy way to to find and go through the old posts, and I kept meaning to build an archive here and never got around to it. But finally – FINALLY! — I’m doing it.

Below are word documents with the blog posts for each year. Be forewarned: They’re not carefully formatted. Most of the pictures aren’t included. Some content may be missing. Any links left in may or may not work. But it’s the best I can do on limited time.

Click on a year to download: (It goes without saying, I hope, that all of this content is owned and copyrighted by me and if you copy, sell, or do weird things with it I will hunt you down and pull all of the clothing out of your family’s drawers and you’ll have to re-fold it, which is the worst.)

First, there are the 2006 through June 2007 posts , which I wrote starting at 11 weeks pregnant, through the girls’ first 5 months. This was the first iteration of Jane’s Calamity. (The link above goes straight to the site; it’s not a Word document.)

2007 Posts  (Girls are 6 months – 1 yr)

2008 Posts (Girls are 1 yr old. And I start writing about depression.)

2009 Posts  (Girls 2 yrs. old)

2010 Posts (Girls 3 yrs. old)

2011 Posts (Girls 4 yrs old)

2012 Posts (Girls 5 yrs old)

Now, if you have unlimited time, and want to see the posts with pictures (in most cases) and comments, you can go over to Babble and start with the very first Baby Squared post and page forward one post at a time, giving Babble lots and lots of page views, which will make them very happy.

Finally, of course, if you’re looking for a more coherent and condensed narrative of pregnancy and the first three years with twins (featuring some anecdotes and insights from Baby Squared) might I, ahem, suggest a certain book?

It was odd going back and looking at some of my old posts in the process of putting this all together. My blogging voice and my relationship with blogging really evolved over time.

Some of this was simply a function of the girls’ age at any given time. As infants and toddlers, they were growing and changing so quickly, and the learning curve was so steep for me — as it is for all new parents. There was always so much that was *new* to share and laugh about and ask for advice on. (And whine about. Current me couldn’t help rolling her eyes a little at old me.)

And then I started writing publicly about my struggles with depression, and I found great solace and support in doing so. I think/hope it was helpful to other people, too.

As time went on, the girls’ development wasn’t happening at quite the same breakneck pace, so I got a bit quirkier and eclectic in what I blogged about. I was more inclined to write about a general topic (e.g. Doing Crafts with Clio ) or do a topical piece (Is It Wrong to Reduce Twin Pregnancies?) instead of narrating day-to-day events.

And as the girls got older and more aware, I didn’t feel like it was appropriate or respectful to reveal quite as much about their behavior, antics, challenges, etc.  Writing about a two-year-old’s tantrums is a very different thing than writing about a five-year-old’s. (I think.)

At the same time, Babble started putting way more emphasis on posts being “clicky” (their word, not mine), so I had to come up with ideas for posts that might have broader appeal, and get Tweeted and pinned to Pinterest and stuff. Which works for some people. But it didn’t really work for me.

It was hard to leave Babble. But I’ve never been a happier blogger than I am now, here in my own little home on the range of the World Wide Webs. I feel extremely fortunate to have readers here who have stuck with me since the Babble days. And new readers. And spammers from former Soviet bloc republics.

Thank you all for reading the words that I write.