To the Pseudonym and Back Again

Awhile back I read someone's post about how one of their readers had sent a threatening email to them that included information about where she lived, where her children went to school and all sorts of other craziness. The post went on to give a warning about using identifying information and photos, your real names, etc. This served to terrify me well and I set out to change every mention of my children's names in my blog to pseudonyms. 
Well, about 346 posts in, I got tired. It was extremely time consuming to go back through every.single.post and manually change every mention of our names. I decided to take a break and well, that was months ago.

I've kept thinking about going back to finish the job, but I just don't wanna. Yes, I truly believe that there are crazies out there and we should use some measure of protection when we post on the Internet for all the world to see, but I also feel like in this day of technology, that if someone really, truly wanted to find us, they certainly could do so.

In fact, my inlaws rarely use the Internet, yet I easily found there street address and phone numbers online even though they have unlisted numbers and I am far from tech-savvy.   I also was able to find three of my past addresses with a few simple search words in google. 

All of this is to say, that I think I'm going to go back to blogging the way I started.  I used first names only and did not mention exact locations, show identifying pictures, etc., but mostly I want to go back to being real.  Now, I'm not saying that bloggers that use pseudonyms for their family members aren't being real with their audiences, but for me, it took entirely too much forethought to make sure I inserted the right name when I was typing out my posts.  I had to constantly hit the backspace key because I would find myself typing in names and then having to go back and change them.  Call me lazy.

Besides,  there are some of you who know me in real life  and others of you have been with me for awhile and already KNOW my children's names.  For those of you who don't, allow me to introduce my brood:

First up is my oldest daughter, Gabriella (Sweetpea).  She is my mini-me.  A bookworm.  A lover of all things chocolate.  American Girl doll enthusiast.  Ballerina.  Jabberjaws extraordinaire. 

Then comes my bubba, Aron.  He is our little ham.  He is a serious train and hotwheels collector.  A pizza enthusiast who also loves any kind of meat you put in front of him.  He posesses a grin that can make your heart smile no matter how bad your day is going.

And bringing up the back of the train is our little Sugar Plum, Lydia.  A sweet and easy going toddler who loves Blues Clues and strawberries.  She is an excellent copycat and loves her siblings to pieces.  She loves having her picture taken and wearing hats. 

There they are, folks.   In all their cuteness. :)