The Top 5 Posts From Decoding Dadhood's First 5 Years

When I started this blog five years ago, I didn't have particularly high hopes for it. I figured I would post pictures occasionally for the family in Michigan to see, but I always assumed interest would eventually wane and I'd power it down. I was aware most blogs failed in the long term. Bloggers lose interest and their websites sit idle for weeks, months or years at a time.

But for some reason that didn't happen. My fervor for the site increased, and its following grew past my initial target audience. I added standing features like the Augie Picture of the Day, the Daily Augie Soundbite and Augie Tested, Augie Approved. And I started posting more often and at greater length. I've tried to keep things fresh, but occasionally I do fall into a rut. It's usually due to lack of time rather than lack of interest.

With that said, I'm here to celebrate the blog's momentous anniversary with the top five posts, in descending order, from the first five years. These are ranked by pageviews -- calculated by Blogger -- and don't necessarily reflect what I feel my best posts have been. (That's another post for another day).

5. Diamond Candles

Two years ago today, I posted about the candle I bought Gretchen for her birthday. It was a special candle that had a ring encased in the wax. When the candle melted enough, the ring was revealed. It was a gamble considering I didn't know what kind of ring was going to be in the candle, but apparently you all were as excited to see the ring as I was.

4. Augie Picture of the Day, Aug. 20, 2013

The Augie Picture of the Day posts are a lot like the Daily Augie Soundbite posts, they don't draw a lot of clicks because people see much of what they need to see on the Facebook link to the post. For some reason, this two-word post was different. I fear it was because some Internet robot found the words "spanking" and "Grandma" on Augie's T-shirt.

3. Yard Crashers

This one I'd like to rub in Mrs. Augie's Mom's face a little bit. When I first started posting about the work we were doing around the outside of the house, she said something like, "Why are you posting about that? No one wants to read about that." WRONG! People did want to read about it. Lots of people.

2. Acknowledged Third Party Content

Sometimes on the Internet, people post videos of their children doing cute things. And sometimes on the Internet, big corporations like to rain on children doing cute things on the Internet. This was one of those cases. Augie was dancing around in the kitchen while a song played in the background. The studio that owned the song got all grumpy about my posting a video with their song in it, and they made me acknowledge their song was being played in the video. I did, and haven't heard anything from them since. Although there is now links to the artist's YouTube page if you watch the video on YouTube.

1. Tonight's 1 a.m. Activity: Remembrance

A couple of times over the past five years, I've had to write about death. While the blog's primary purpose is fun and entertainment, sometimes it takes a serious turn. Those posts seem to resonate with people in a way my day-to-day posts don't, but I don't write them often because they are harder. They are emotionally draining to write and read, and that's not why I'm here. In this instance, I think the popularity of the post speaks as much about the man involved as it does about my writing ability.

So there you have it. Those were the five most-read posts from my first five years. They weren't exactly what I was expecting, at least not all of them, but the numbers speak for themselves. If there's something you'd like to see more of on the blog, let me know, and I'll see what I can do. Here's to another five years.