What happened to “The Playful Mom”?
If you’ve been around here for any amount of time, you may know me as The Playful Mom. I had that name for the past 12 years, that was my identity in the social media world. I’ve added some of my favorite memories from that early era!
I was a stay at home mom blogging to her family under “Growing up Downing” in 2009, and that worked for that season. It was in 2012, I had a 6 year old and had been blogging for a couple of years and was ready to make it into something more and take it seriously. And in those 12 years I experienced so many blessings under that moniker. My family and I went to shows, trips, had VIP experiences, and I made a little side money as a stay at home mom. But as Jayden was edging closer and closer to graduating high school I found myself wondering what my next steps would be. I wanted to still create content, work with brands and companies, write my blog, etc. But I wasn’t sure how to pull it all under one umbrella as “The Playful Mom”.
So, funny enough, well it wasn’t funny at all actually, the month Jayden graduated I realized I had let my domain lapse. A domain that I had owned and paid for, for over 12 years, was now owned by some company. I was extremely upset, but it was my own fault. In all the busyness of this past year I had ignored emails reminding me it was time to pay my subscription and add on another year. And the moment slipped by and someone else scooped it up. I had a few options at this point, but the main one was to ask a broker to negotiate my domain name and not only pay the broker over $100, but then be at the mercy of whoever now owned my domain. They could ask for $50, or they could ask for $20,000. And I had sat and thought about it at length, cried at my own procrastinating self for letting it go, and really considered what I’d do. And as terrible as it felt to let it go, I realized this was it, this was what I’d been thinking about for some time and let’s be honest, it was going to take something this dramatic to make me pull the plug.
So then I was left with all the social media handles and no website. I couldn’t continue to have these accounts using this name because when you look up the website online it literally goes to some casino or something, and well, that’s just not a good look. So then, I was stuck trying to figure out what my new handle would be, would this be the time to move everything under one umbrella or what? So I started by looking at other avenues of The Playful Mom, maybe .org, .net, .co, etc. And that all felt so silly and dumb. If I wasn’t getting the .com, I didn’t want it. So then I thought about some of my favorite creators who do everything under their own names. I’d actually been thinking about buying my name as a domain for years because I’d like to write a book or two some day. So this thought excited me, only to find out my name .com was already taken. So then I started thinking about adding words in front of my name, and I tried heykristen.com, nope, already taken. I was about to throw in the towel and then I did heykristendowning.com and voila, there is was. Ready for the taking! But, before I committed I had to make sure it wasn’t used as a handle anywhere on social media. The lengths us creatives have to go through, y’all! Once I was in the clear there, I made the commitment, bought the domain, and here we are. The process of finding a new name took me 5 days. The process of finding my branding, creating my “umbrella” and feeling comfortable relaunching, that took 3.5 months. But, here we are! So I hope you’re still along for the ride and please know I'm still a mom, I'm still playful but in this space you'll see me as more than just that!
