A Blogging Toddler

This month ‘Mormon Soprano’ turned 2 years old! It’s hard to believe our little baby has grown into a full-fledged toddler. It seems like just yesterday she was too small for search engine recognition. Now, her posts often make the top ten on a Google Search, and other bloggers ping and track-back. She has even been recognized by professional news feeds, including a spotlight in the Mormon Times.

As many of you have experienced, every day with a two-year-old is definitely a new adventure! According to “experts”, here is some advice for raising the toddler blog:

“As your blog continues to grow, you will notice new and exciting abilities that develop.” – Bloggerting Magazine

This is definitely true. When baby Mo was born, she didn’t know the difference between a bar code  and an HTML code! Slowly but surely she learned how to create an account, upload, insert, save, edit and post. There was first-time-parental panic when the site went down, and we endured the painstaking process of healing and rebuilding with another server. But, the satisfaction of watching an idea develop on the screen, and the opportunity to experience spiritual, as well as intellectual growth made it all worthwhile. We enjoyed the thrill of success when a photo or quote would finally attach, and celebrated when her stat tracker finally got in synch.

“Speech development is very exciting for parents as they watch their blog become social beings that can interact with others.” – Early Blog Development, PENNultimate State

Who could ever forget the excitement of receiving that very first comment? The social aspect of raising a blog has been amazing. Baby Mo’s Stat Tracker shows that since her birth she has received visits from every continent on the globe. Currently she has made over 150 faithful subscribing friends located in the USA, Canada, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia!

“Speech at this age is becoming clearer and the blog begins to form sentences.” – Better Blog Care

Although it is a little embarrasing, it is also entertaining to read posts from her early days. There has definitely been some maturation.  We still have a long way to go. One can only hope that Mo’s mastery of syntax and clarity will continue to improve.

“Two-year-olds like to be independent! Favorite words are “Mine” and “No” and “I do it!” A great deal of time is spent exploring, pushing, pulling and touching.” – Dr. Blogjay Goodpost

Yes, I admit. Baby Mo has had her share of extreme emotions as she has explored her life and the world around her. She is very possessive of her family, she refuses to allow mean spirited comments, she enjoys her independence and she is never shy to express what’s on her mind!

Much of parenting a 2-year-old involves the principle of “foreseeing the evil” and avoiding it (Proverbs 22:3). – Blog Guidepost

Just like Joey’s Parable, it is critical for Mo to understand that we can choose our actions, but we cannot choose the consequences. Mo is learning to choose her words and subjects wisely. It takes patience and effort to blog responsibly.

Two-year-olds want to do as much as they can and more. They get upset when they find they don’t have the skills to do things, or the words to say what they want. Some bloggers call this period the terrible twos. But when you take the time to learn about and understand blogs this age, you’ll see that they are really the terrific twos! – Early Blog Gazette

Mo has recently discovered Movie Maker and she has her own MoSop YouTube channel. She loves experimenting with images and music. However, she still gets frustrated that she does not know enough yet, and the end product does not turn out as she imagined. But, with practice, the learning curve will get easier to navigate, and the quality should improve. We anticipate there will be many more media creations in her future. Additionally, she is picking up more HTML words and phrases. She is even thinking of attending  ‘computer kindergarten’ classes. There are always new and exciting things to learn and discover. When she was born, Twitter didn’t even exist! Now, she not only Tweets, but is also learning to cellular text post, and has fun connecting on her Facebook . Baby Mo is living in an exciting digital world. Her future will involve continual change, improvement, and limitless possibilities.

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has visited and supported Mormon Soprano through her formative development! Your friendship is priceless, and your comments are always treasured. There are exciting things in store for Toddler Mo! However, her growth and continued survival cannot happen without your help.  Because, as we all know, “it takes a village to raise a blog“.