It´s late at night and all I can think about is how much I “miss” SpanglishBaby. Crazy, huh? How could I “miss” it here when I dedicate so many hours of my day to this space writing, commenting, sharing, reaching out to others, promoting, etc…
What I miss is my real voice here. I miss sharing the ins and outs of the bilingual and bicultural journey with my girl and my husband. I miss putting together those blog posts that informed, were completely useful and you could relate to.
What has happened is that in the course of the last two and a half years since Roxana and I brought SpanglishBaby to life our personal and professional lives have become more demanding. The upkeep of this site has become more demanding, but no matter what else is happening in our lives, we both keep coming back here, our virtual casita, as the one thing we treasure the most.
Through the journey of growing SpanglishBaby and figuring out how to make it profitable to at least be able to maintain itself {we don’t receive any sort of income from here yet, it all goes back to growing SpanglishBaby} we have taken the route of partnering up with brands and causes we felt aligned with–and we felt you would, as well–in order to be able to have the finances to take SpanglishBaby to the place we envision it at.
Along the way came an unexpected book deal, invitation to events, press, travel to conferences, freelance writing gigs to further our message of raising bilingual kids and much, much more that has left me {I’m pretty sure Roxana as well, but I won’t speak for her} exhausted and clinging to any hour I can find to create the content that makes me proud to share with you. On top of all that, I’ve also had to launch my own social media business and community to be able to support my family financially while I wait for SpanglishBaby to be able to securely do that.
Our mission is really for this space to be the place you , your family and friends come to for resources, inspiration and a pat in the back every day of your journey of raising bilingual and bicutlural kids. To do that, I must face the growing pains that come along with it.
My focus right now is more on everything happening behind the scenes to be able to bring SpanglishBaby to the next level. You will be seeing some of that “next level” very, very soon when we launch a much-needed site redesign that has us super excited. I’m also working harder than I ever thought on the book which will be published in Fall of 2012…you have no idea how nervous this whole book-writing process has me! Plus, we’ve partnered up with some amazing and talented people to bring the SpanglishBaby experience offline during some exciting events in major cities next year.
Are you tired already? It is exhausting just thinking about it, but it’s easier when the passion is there. And that’s what keeps me going. Our passion, your passion…our SpanglishBaby Familia.
Now, I would love to hear from you {and maybe I can finally go to sleep!}. What do you wish we would be doing differently? Were do we get an A+ and where are we failing? What do you want more or less of? Please be honest and real, we can take it!
Excited about the site re-design and always, always, very proud to be part of the SpanglishBaby family – as a reader/fan and as a contributor. I honestly don’t think my boys would be at the level they’re at with their Spanish without the community, support, encouragement, tips and information I’ve gotten here. I’m forever thankful.
As for ideas for improvement – I miss this too – the personal posts from you and Roxana. They aren’t as frequent anymore – but I think most of us understand the immense workload you’re dealing with, (on top of “regular life!”)
I’ve been dealing with some of the same issues on a smaller scale. When I first started my blog I replied to every comment and visited back everyone who visited me. That’s hard to keep up with as numbers grow – so I can’t imagine how you or some of the other blogueras juggle what you do. My boys are older and I don’t work outside the home – women who have babies or younger children, full time jobs, etc. on top of the whole blogging thing — seriously not sure how they hold it together!
Anyway – thank you for this community and for all you give of yourselves. You’ve changed many people’s lives for the better and I’m glad to see you’re getting rewarded for it, even if that means things are hectic for awhile.
I’ll be one of the first in line to buy the book.
BESOS!