I started my blog the year my kid was born (2012). This blog was primarily targeted to capture my kid’s growing up years and share them with friends and families. So this is a kind of inactively, an active blog. At that time, I never had any social media accounts nor I was aware of any blogger community. All my writing was purely centered around my kid’s antics and funny anecdotes. During the course of time, I came across Kanika, who was publishing her E-books about her children’s stories in similar lines. I spoke to her and even published my first E-book. But later, gave up on that too, as I wanted my kid to be away from gadgets so I didn’t spend much time on gadgets myself. Only through her blogs, I came to know about this #AtoZ Challenge last year. But didn’t register for it, as my kid’s vacations would start in the second week of April.

Just on an impulse, I had registered for “My Friend Alexa” campaign last September. That was the time when I heard about the blogger’s community. Heard about a lot of other blogging platforms and campaigns. So slowly started participating in the various activities across the board. But all my participation was limited to my niche of the blog. By now you all would have known my niche – which is “KIDDIE TALKIES – Looking at the world through a kid’s eyes“. I just didn’t feel like deviating from my main niche. “MyFriend Alexa” gave me few of the wonderful blogger friends, who became more closer and also act as my mentors during my self doubting period. I was really doubtful whether the #AtoZ Challenge would get any readers for my niche as the world is moving fast and nobody has time to listen to my kid’s stories. But it’s my friends who have pushed me and gave me confidence.

So I chose the theme, which happens regularly at my home for this year’s #AtoZ Challenge. My dad always narrates stories from Indian Mythology to my kid during his afternoon naps or post his dinners. So I just picked up those stories from horse’s mouth without much of a trouble. I didn’t know any other theme for which I and my son could do justice in a similar way, as what we have done today. I think I can proudly say that we are successful in completing this series. A lot of people thought that I did a lot of research on these articles and wrote the stories. But actually, most of the stories are known to my kid so it was just a breeze. The only stumbling block we had encountered in the entire challenge is for letter X. We had to do a lot of research and finally zeroed in on the Xankar Nadham (which is the closest that can come to the consonant sound X).

As my kid’s school will close for summer holidays after April 15th, I had written all the articles from 15th till 31st upfront before March 31st itself. I didn’t like scheduling them upfront, though I learned the scheduling techniques from my friends. So everyday morning, after my kid goes to swimming, I used to sit and verify the article once and hit the publish button myself. I had to do a lot of background work to get the right license free pictures for the various posts, which also was completed prior to March 31st.

People may ask about the traffic, likes and other milestones like ranks and all. But what I wanted mainly from this challenge is that I get a platform wherein people can stop by and listen to a six-year-old kid’s ramblings. I am glad that at least I got a few readers apart from my hardcore supporters from Alexa campaign.

Initially, I used to read around 40/50 blogs daily apart from my friends. I never used to look back whether I got so many likes or comments on my blog posts. I was just like a star-struck kid looking and loving the variety of the blogs and the content. But after my kid’s school has closed down for summer vacations, my reading has dwindled day after day as the amount of time I spent in front of my lappy, the equal amount of time, in fact, it would be double that time, my kid would also end up spending time in front of gadgets (lappy, TV, etc). I really didn’t want him to become a gadget zombie in this summer. But there are few blogs that I never missed out. Mahesh’s series on rivers is so amazing that I had bookmarked it for future reference. Same goes with Surabhi’s series of DIY activities for kids. We are in fact trying most of them at home in these holidays. Keith’s series is such a wonderful read for kid’s that I had taken print outs of them and given it to my kid.

Of course, as a mom/adult, I liked few blogs that I used to visit regularly, but since the niche of this blog is KIDDIE TALKIES, I had only mentioned those blogs that I have introduced to my kid and he knows those authors also. Other friends, I hope you wouldn’t mind for not mentioning your names here. But honestly your blogs are also close to my heart and I keep visiting them even post this challenge.

My take away from this challenge:

• Consistent posting requires a lot more planning and research
• Learned about different genres in blogging. Believe me, the variety is mind blogging
• Met a lot of new bloggers who have become good friends
• Made my resolve to stick to my blog’s niche more stronger.

So the net result of this #AtoZ Challenge is that you may or may not see me in participating in all the campaigns hence forward unless they suit the niche of this blog. I just want to stick to my niche and have that uniqueness in my blog.

But before saying my final goodbyes for this challenge, I want to thank this platform (Blog chatter and #AtoZ Challenge) for giving me the confidence that my blog’s niche can still survive in this big blog world. All the best to all my fellow blogger friends in the future and I hope to see the better and better articles from you all so that my learning can keep happening continuously with all your support.

Also, a humble request to all my friends, please let me know how my series is? Hope you are getting entertained enough to revisit my six year old ramblings. Please let me know your honest feedback.