Baby’s first blogs

PHILADELPHIA — Even though she lives in Philadelphia and her two grandchildren live in New Mexico, Deborah Lear knows exactly what they are doing every day. But then, so does everyone else.

The children are the subject of their mother’s baby blog in which she logs every milestone, funny outburst and cute picture on her home page, Anna’s Soapbox, at www.annelear.com.

If you want to know what Lazarus, 2, got on his birthday or how Maggie, 7 months, reacted to her first haircut, it’s all documented, along with lots of heartfelt outpourings from Mom, on the World Wide Web.

The blog “has made a huge difference for me,” said Lear. “I don’t want to just call up all the time, so I’ll look in on the blog and see what’s happening. I feel like I’m participating in their lives.”

Baby blogs are fast becoming the new mommy (or daddy) must-have, like a Playtex Diaper Genie or Baby Bjorn infant carrier. Like other kinds of blogs, they vary in quality and style, but at their core are oodles of adorable baby pictures, practical parenting advice and such nuggets as “Bobby did the cutest thing today.”

They may have started as a way to keep distant relatives in touch with a new baby in the family, but they often are read by complete strangers, thanks to myriad Web links connecting baby blogs worldwide.

The sites, with names such as Daddyzine and Bloggingmommies, are this generation’s baby books, although many bloggers also scrupulously record every burp, giggle and bottle in book form as well — which makes you wonder when they have time to actually care for the baby.

Of course, it’s impossible to know how many baby blogs there are, but “they’ve taken off faster than other blogs,” said Clancy Ratliff, who is writing about gender-specific Web logs for her doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota.

The trend started in the late ‘90s with the advent of sites such as Livejournal that make it easy to create your own blog. At the same time, Ratliff said, reality television blurred the lines between public and private lives.

“People are much more willing to make their private lives public,” she said.

Or it may be that baby blogs are nothing more than a form of high-tech bragging. In the pre-Internet era, you flipped open your wallet to show off pictures of the grandchildren, said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

“In the Internet era, you can post pictures for the whole world to see, which some people think is cool, and some of us might think is pretty creepy,” he said.

Martin Kelly experienced the worst of it when someone threatened his infant son on his Baby Theo Web page. After that, the Quaker peace activist removed all references to his South Jersey hometown from his site, www.nonviolence.org/martink.

“We don’t feel worried just having his picture up there,” said Kelly, who has been blogging about Theo for more than a year.

In fact, strangers often end up huge fans of the site. “We get lots of comments,” said Kelly. “And it’s always, ‘Oh, what a cute baby.’ “

As you click through the sites, it’s obvious blogs provide an online community for people stuck in the house all day with the kids. But it’s not all discourses on doo-doo. Many writers focus on social and political issues, such as parental leave at work or home schooling. And sometimes it just feels good to get stuff off your chest.

Blogging lets Anne Lear, who lives in an isolated rural community, chew over the many ways her life has changed since her children were born.

“I was late to the game, 36 when I had my first child. It really changes your perspective a lot. I knew it would, but I didn’t know how much it would. This is sort of a personal outlet,” said the freelance technical writer and editor.

Garrett Scott’s Daddyzine.typepad.com, arguably one of the most literary baby blogs, has dialogue in French and headings such as “On the philosophical basis of denying my child the right to wear bubblewrap underpants,” complete with a passage from Thoreau’s “Autumnal Tints.”

At the opposite end of the blogging spectrum is Trixieupdate.com, in which Trixie’s doting father, Ben McNeil, logs every diaper change, thousands so far, and hours slept for his now-15-month-old daughter. (He discontinued the bottle count, presumably after she moved to a sippy cup).

And then there are the daily entries, such as this recent potboiler: “We’re still working on the concept of toilet training when Trixie lets us. Her interest in the subject comes and goes.”

The site has gotten so popular — 1,000 hits a day — that McNeil, a graphic designer, is creating a program that others can use to record the minutiae of their own babies’ existence.

“One of things people like is when I do charts and graphs: How much milk does the baby drink, how many diapers do I change in a year,” he said. “They find that really fascinating.”

But will parents find it fascinating to write these things after two, three, or 15 years? At some point, the magic of babyhood grows mundane, and even the most smitten parent gets weary of potty talk.

And what of the then-teenagers Trixie and Baby L, whose friends — and boyfriends! — could click onto their sites and see bare bottoms and faces smeared with peas? Oh, the humiliation. McNeil, for one, plans to relish every minute.

“I’ll probably try to torture her with whatever the final diaper count is,” he said.