Allergen Dad is One Year Old!
Well, technically he’s well into his thirties but Allergen Dad the persona has been going for a year! Actually, I’d missed this milestone. I only noticed once I was invoiced for the annual web-hosting cost but it still seems worth celebrating.
One year: It seems like nothing and an eternity all in one. Little Piglet has shot up into a physical, highly verbose dictator. He alternates between skilled negotiator, tyrant and sweetheart. We love him very, very much. We have discovered a joy for family camping; a joy for being out on mountain bikes (or balance bikes) and a joy of playing musical instruments. In short, he is just a little version of me! He also loves smoothies, singing along to musicals and sleeping in a big old bed; so he’s his mummy’s son too. Some days are great; some days are tough but I could not be prouder of the person he has become.
Notable events of the last year include the following for Piglet:
- Meeting his great-granddad up in Newcastle
- Riding (just) his big bike with pedals
- Taking part in his first musical theatre rehearsal/audition
- Performing his first Christmas concert
- Spending his first (and then many more) night under the stars in a tent
- Counting to 100
- Recognising his written name
- His first fully soya and dairy free (home catered) birthday party – I never wrote a blog about this and was too excited on the day to remember to take many photographs but there were definitely some good lessons learnt from this. Maybe next year.
- Lastly, but by no means least, learning the word ‘poo’ and using it repeatedly in every sentence possible thereafter.
Similarly I’ve probably grown as a parent in the last year. I’m much more settled into family life and parenthood than I was a year ago. I’ve always loved Piglet very much but I have a much stronger relationship with him than I did when he was little. Particularly over the last few weeks, with my wife recovering from her surgery, I have seen a real solidarity develop between the two of us. (Not so strong, however, that it can’t be broken in desperate pleading tears of ‘I want my mummy’ because I filled his tub of cereal too full. Nothing’s strong enough for that, right?). I also feel like my wife and I have learnt our way into our roles better than we had a year ago. Our communication is better, our constructive criticism much easier to share without upsetting the other, our fragility much lower.
The allergen dad blogging experience has been quite something too. It’s incredibly cathartic to put your experiences and challenges, frustrations and celebrations down in words. Even if it is baffling sometimes why so many of you keep coming back to read them. I had no preconceptions of scale when I first started doing this. I didn’t know whether it would have dried up within a few weeks or months or whether I’d be rolling in copious advertising revenue, winning book deals and being invited onto Strictly Come Dancing at Christmas. I think it’s fair to say it’s ended up somewhere firmly in the middle of these two outcomes.
I’ve had very nearly 2000 unique users visit the site since it started. Granted that might be some people viewing from their phone and their laptop separately but I think it’s safe to say that’s significantly more visitors than I have friends; even if they all had 6 devices each. Further to that I’ve had roughly 5500 web page hits (you having read this post counts as one hit; reading this one counts as another ;p ).. So thank you, because I’m well aware that some of my most enthusiastic followers have read nearly all of my 80 published blogs.
What I find most surprising about some of the traffic to the website is the geographical diversity. As you’d expect, most of my traffic originates from the UK with London as my most popular city. However, I’ve had nearly 200 visitors from the USA and some traffic from a splattering of countries all over the world. I accept that some of this may just be SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) software but i like to think that somewhere in Peru there are a family of 4 avid Allergen Dad followers, fully kitted up in my (as yet unlaunched) corporate merchandise dreaming of a gluten-free, vegan cheese Pizza Express pizza.
Anyway, whether you’re a faceless bot, a sycophantic family member trying to drive up my web hits or just someone who stumbled across this because they’re managing or finding out about allergies: Thank you and I hope you enjoy this and/or find it useful. And if you happen to have friends in Peru, feel free to share…