Cyber Monday is here, and so is the coolest holiday gift guide yet (says me)

It's become a cliche to say that blogs are about one's passions - or at least the successful ones generally are. And I was using that line one day, when someone asked me about Cool Mom Picks: So, are you passionate about shopping then?


I said no.

I like shoppping. Hell to the yeah. I make no bones about that. But Cool Mom Picks doesn't reflect our passion for shopping - it reflects our passion for supporting small businesses, great design, responsible consumerism, and our love of connecting moms to helpful resources--and to one another.

(Also being able to write fun copy about products without a client telling me to make the logo bigger or take out the expression "hell to the yeah." I admit I like that part a whoooole lot. Maybe too much.)

So this year as we were weeding through literally thousands of pitches and ideas to put together our fourth (wow) Holiday Gift Guide, we really thought what would really be helpful to parents, is suggesting relatively affordable items that are still cool. In other words, you don't have to sell your soul at the store rhyming with ball-fart to get a gift a kid will adore for $6.95, or a custom piece of keepsake jewelry for under $30, or a personalized piece of original art for the grandparents that should probably cost ten times the price it does.

So I'm just going to go ahead and say that I'm extra proud of the Holiday Gift Guide this year. If you click over (please click over? Please? Please?) you'll find more than 100 gift ideas for everyone from the eco fashionista, to your Twilight-obsessed niece, to teachers and nannies, and the stay-at-home dad who's earned a little time to himself. And spurred by the economy (grrrr economy) we've included one pick under $20 in every category and a ton of kids gifts under $12. Plus a whole section of charitable giving ideas that are extra awesome in their own right.



The same way we're working hard trying to support mom-run businesses in a brutal economy, we hope that you'll be so kind as to support ours by putting one of our lovely buttons on your blog or website. In return, we will think many good things about you.

Also, we'll enter you to win a truly awesome $450 (hello!) prize package from our two delicious sponsors, The Fine Art of Family and Chronicle Books. Details are all on the guide.

Thanks mamas. Happy shopping. And thanks for supporting something that means so much to me, to Kristen, and to the rest of our incredible team.

One big happy F-A-M-I-L-Y

When I was four, I remember sitting down at my preschool table to paint a mom, a dad, and two kids on a blue and white piece of gingham fabric. At the bottom, I spelled out the word FAMILY.

I still recall the teachers rushing over, shocked shocked at the word I had written without having done so before. I shrugged, "I just sounded it out." But I still remember, even then, that I was proud of a word with more sounds in it than cat or dog or Liz or Dad.

Last night I caught a glimpse of Thalia furiously working over a sheet of construction paper.

I cried.

I was feeling all obnoxiously proud, the way you're never supposed to admit that you often feel as a parent lest someone call you out on it. All I wanted to do was race through the town screaming at the top of my lungs that my daughter is starting to learn how to write. SHE'S WRITING! SHE'S WRITING! Which, as a writer, is my greatest pride. Not that I wouldn't be happy if she also learned how to kick a field goal or solder two pieces of iron together. But still. She's writing. Oh joy.

Now here is where I must admit that Thalia did write Mamily, the first time.

What can I say, she's her own person.

Our Mamily.

Infiltrating the Literati

Just when I was feeling kind of low and powerless and generally blah (that's the technical term), the universe tossed me a bone in the form of a distraction. A big honkin' distraction, in fact: A reading of one of the essays I contributed to See Mom Run at an event to benefit our local public school.

When I agreed to it, I assumed it was just another "mom thing." (Not that there's anything wrong with that. I love my mom things!)  I didn't give it much thought. But when the giant posters started appearing all over my neighborhood, I realized that um, no. It was not just another mom thing.

It was Tad Friend. It was Paul Zelinksky. It was Janice Eidus. And it was Gabriel Byrne - yes, that Gabriel Byrne - doing a little piece from this guy called James Joyce.

Answers: Yes he is, yes he is, and yes, very.

And then there was uh, me. Mom-101. Reading about talking toys.

I spent the entire day in a heightened state of anxiety, making self-deprecating jokes to fend off the heavy feeling that I was about to be completely outclassed. When I climbed the stairs to the art gallery where the event was held and saw Liz Gumbinner, Author, on my name tag at the sign-in table, I was terrified of being discovered. Like someone I knew would see my chest and point at me and screech that horrible alien sound that Donald Sutherland made at the end of the 1970's Invasions of the Body Snatchers remake.

Fake! Fraud! Why, you don't even have a Masters, you Mom-101 person.

And then I realized what I was doing. I was falling into that trap. The one where people assume writing about mom stuff is somehow less interesting/important/worthwhile than writing about pretty much anything else. Love. Tragedy. Racism. Taxidermy. That our stories, however frivolous or profound, just don't count. Or they don't count to the people who count. Or something.

I couldn't believe that after all these years of defending the power and the essential voices of mothers as memoirists, that I had become my own worst, painfully insecure critic.

But when I started reading,

the crowd smiled.

They nodded in recognition at references to the talking toy keyboard. They laughed in the right places. As I plowed through the essay they continued to laugh, even as the humor-enhancing effects of the Chardonnay was wearing off. At the end, they clapped, and not just in that polite sort of way. Nate beamed. We might have even sold a book or two.

I felt like an author. Maybe for the first time ever.

And it was a really freaking great feeling.

Even if I did look like Popeye.

[event photos: Aki Tuccu]

Shaking fist angrily at the universe

I had never heard of the site Caring Bridge until this week. Then I received an email about someone who had set up a page there.

Then I received a second email from someone entirely different who had set up a page there.

That's not exactly a good week.

Caring Bridge offers journal pages to help people stay in touch with sick friends and family through updates and photos. You can sign the guestbook, make a donation - or, basically, click refresh frantically, hoping for positive news in the next update.

Other bloggers who are reading might guess that the second email I received was about Anissa Mayhew, a mom of three and all-around hilarious woman who is now fighting for her life in an Atlanta hospital, after the massive stroke she had on Tuesday. The news has weighed heavily on me.

The first email I got however, was about my brother's niece. Florence is Thalia's age. Her mom and my sister-in-law and I were all pregnant at the same time, comparing belly growth and whining about nausea. Florence was a perfectly normal, sweet, funny baby and then toddler - I still remember the first time my girls, and my brother's two girls, and Florence and her sister all raced around the backyard together as we all cooed and ahhed at all that lovely estrogen, and imagined what they'd be like as teenagers, borrowing mascaras and comparing boyfriend stories and pretty much scaring the crap out of us.

My niece and nieces-in-law. Florence is in pink.

And then Florence turned 20 months. She started to have tremors.

Later, she started limping. Then she started speaking less. Then she developed Celiac. Then tremors became blank stare seizures. Those became body drop seizures. She had to wear a helmet. A fucking helmet, people. A three year-old had to wear a helmet because they never knew if she was going to just fall down at any moment.

This August she stopped walking.

This September she stopped talking.

There is still no diagnosis.

I can't even imagine what it is doing to this family who has spent months and months and months taking turns living in the Residence Inn near the hospital while their 6 year-old is home with grandparents and sitters and au pairs. And aside from the emotion of seeing their baby girl fighting for her own life and going on steroids and IV drips and medicines that give her kidney stones, they are battling debt and insurance claim rejections and...well, you can imagine.

I have hardly let myself think about Florence. I haven't reached out to her parents, even though I've checked in with my family frequently for updates. I haven't called. I haven't written. And I feel utterly horrible about my silence. The truth is, it's just been that painful and terrifying to me. And sometimes in a crisis, I'm not the person I want to be. I'm the person who shuts down completely and removes myself from the situation so it won't hurt me. Because I feel things very, very deeply. 

I can't watch the news anymore, because stories of abducted children and drive-by shootings just bring me to tears. Those are not even children I know and have pushed on a swing and have handed a slice of birthday cake to at a party. Those children are not Florence.

Following the story of Anissa this week has hit me doubly hard because it's brought up all the feelings and emotions about Florence. And because just feeling it is killing me, I figure I will do something. However small it is. After all,  one of our own is hurt, we rally. That's what we do. That's what I was just talking about this week. And a few days before that, too.

[EDITED TO ADD - I've removed the link to the website. All I ask for is prayers or good wishes or white light or however you think of positive healing energy, directed her way.]

If you want to help Anissa's family, this is the button with a link to do just that.
[edited: link no longer active]

I just keep thinking, there but for the grace of...someone.

Someone who's seriously messing with good people right now.

-----
I've closed comments on this post because I'd rather you click anywhere in here, than the link to comment. If you do have some helpful information though for Florence and her family, by all means email me any time at mom101[at]mac.com.

Bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy fun fun fun fun fun

When you're lying there in the hospital cradling that new baby in your arms, no one tells you that you'll never be able to wear pencil skirts without Spanx again. They don't tell you've just had your very last shower with the bathroom door closed. And they certainly don't tell you about Bouncy Castle Duty.

This week at our preschool fair, I was thrust into the wild world of oversized inflatables volunteerism. And if I could sum it up in one word it would be this:

Feet.

I devoted an entire hour to hoisting kids up onto the bouncy platform thing by their feet. Most in socks, but not all. Yep, I touched a whole lot of sweaty children's feet this weekend in the name of fundraising and community spirit.

Most of the kids were delightful. If there is a prize for well-behaved, obedient bouncy castle addicts under 6 with faces painted like superheroes, surely our school takes it by a longshot. (Let's start a trophy case, PTA!) But then there was the 13 year-old who was taller than me. And sweatier. And, it seems, not yet much interested in underarm deodorant. Eau de Teen Boy. Delightful.


When I got home that night I didn't think much of it, except to marvel at how I survived an entire hour in an unventilated classroom with no windows, that had been stuffed quite literally to the ceiling with coated 1000 denier nylon and hot air. But when I plucked my sweater dress off the floor the next morning, it hit me.

Hit me right in the nose, in fact.

Which makes me wonder how many other people that I had interacted with all day were privy to the delightful scent.

Apologies fellow parents. Apologies pizza delivery guy. Apologies Nate.

And that's to say nothing of the yellow spin-art paint that it turns out was all over my back, some of it, oddly, in the same shape and size as a small child's handprint.

Blogging Moms Wooed by Food Firms - My rambly two cents on the LA Times Article

Today the Los Angeles Times ran a front page story called Blogging Moms Wooed by Food Firms. I'm quoted in it, as are a number of other bloggers who may or may not be happy about it.

Although man I love Elisa Camahort-Page's pornography analogy. That alone makes it worth the read.

I spent nearly an hour speaking with the reporter about it, and frankly, it was a lovely conversation. I liked her a lot and I think she has a good handle on the issue of blogs and brands. Mine was one of the last interviews, and she was clearly shocked at that point by the stories she had heard from other bloggers about freebies, junkets, and what she described as something like indiscriminate effusiveness by a few (not all) bloggers about any and every product being presented at a corporate event. She also said something about exclamation points and all caps. As in OMG CRUNCH BARS ONLY HAVE 209 CALORIES! AM EATING 30 NOW! #nestlefamily

(Disclosure: Nestle Crunch was one of my first advertising clients. I too have eaten 30 in one sitting. Solidarity!)

The first thing the reporter mentioned was a quote she had jotted down that struck her as interesting: Because of all the attention from marketers, one source said, "there has never been a better time to be a mom with a computer."

"That," I said, "makes me cringe."

It made me cringe because there are a lot of great reasons to be a mom with a computer - and offers for free canned vegetables in exchange for positive posts on a blog, as far as I'm concerned, is not one of them.

The most radical thing about moms who blog is the way we've been able to form communities. Connect on deeply profound levels. Stave off isolation. We share our truths, however good, bad, controversial or painful. We've taken on politics. We've taken on societal ills. We've simply made one another feel good on a daily basis.

We've raised money for friends in need. We've started wonderful businesses. We've supported our families. We have literally saved one another's lives.

And sometimes, we even get ourselves published.

This crazy new democratic self-publishing tool, this thing called blog, it is awesome in a million freaking ways. So hell yeah, it's a good time to be a mom with a computer.

But.

In the article, it seems my use of the term "cringe" was combined with a description of the motivation for starting Blog with Integrity. And while I recognize some things will get lost in translation when a reporter has to cull down my rambly 600 word description into one crisp sentence (no small task, sorry reporters), I would hope that anyone who knows me or Susan or Kristen or Julie or where we seem to be going with the campaign recognizes that isn't exactly the case.

If anything made us cringe this past spring, it was the media coverage of mom bloggers. The misperception that all mom bloggers seem to exist to do is reprint press releases about products in exchange for a freebie or two. That the marketing mom bloggers (Review bloggers? Ad bloggers? Gimme bloggers?) are consistently in the media as the only mom bloggers.

And now, once again. On the front page of the LA Times.

I do cringe at deception. I cringe at bloggers who are so flattered by the attention of marketers that they are willing to do their bidding for free. I cringe reading glowing reviews of products that I know first hand are second rate. It happens. Let's not pretend it doesn't.

But there are plenty of times it doesn't. Christine Young (who defends her position here) may have a closet full of stuff she won't feature, but isn't that preferable to giving the thumbs up to anything and everything that shows up in the mail? Her readers seem to think so.

I'm often torn when I'm asked to comment on these stories. I don't want to accept a nice comfy position on the front lines of the mommy wars. I've recently turned down two different talk show offers, in which producers seemed to want to create a forum for mothers to fight about hot-button issues. I love thoughtful debate and discussion, but I don't want to be the woman on stage attacking another mother's values because it makes a good sound byte.

On the other hand, I do talk to reporters. Because I want another side of the story out there. In this case, it may have been the very last line, but it was there - we are not all whores.

I also said that sometimes bloggers are just naive when dealing with brands.

It's true.

They are.
 
I will count myself among them.

Maybe not right now, not as much. But there have been some things I have done that I'd change. There are a couple of times I used a branded hashtag on Twitter and regretted hitting publish. There are some events I attended where I found myself thinking, what the heck am I doing here?

I went because they offered. And it made me feel good to be on a list.

Isn't that how it works for so many of us?

It's tough navigating this tricky brand-blogger dance. Because it's completely new. It simply hasn't existed before. And we have no idea where it will be next month or next year. We're not journalists but we're not regular old consumers either. We are some weird new hybrid.

Just call us Pod People. Or geeks. That's what Nate does.

Now I'd like to put some of the onus on the marketers and PR folks here for a change:

You come to parenting bloggers because we're authentic. We're genuine. Our online relationships are real and our influence is palpable. We don't have gatekeepers and we don't have filters and maybe it makes your brand look pretty cool to share our space.

But if you continue creating an environment in which our credibility is consistently on the line; if you choose to engage with less ethical bloggers; if you send your products to anyone willing to write up a half-assed piece of crap review on it, complete with all the © and ™and ® symbols on your press release; if don't think through your junkets well enough that even thoughtful, credible guests are labeled as sell-outs, you mess it all up. YOU MESS IT ALL UP. You will destroy what was built here long before you came along and offered us free KY Jelly products.

And then, what good are we to you? What good are we to each other?

Bloggers - We're Givers

The holidays are here, more or less, whether I'm ready or not. It's a little challenging for us this year with tighter budgets than ever. Or to be brutally honest, it feels nothing short of awful not to be able to give my kids the things they're asking for, especially now that they're old enough to ask for them.

(Not including the trip to Friendly's which Thalia somehow thinks is like a trip to Disney after hearing that damn commercial all the time. Gah.)

One thing I've found that makes me feel better about what I can't do is remembering what I can do. There's a lot.

And there are so many bloggers just all wrapped up in the spirit of giving and tied with a big foofy red bow while cheesy holiday music seems to swirl around them and cartoon angels dance in their footsteps, that it seemed like a good opportunity to mention a few of their efforts.

***First of all, I'm so excited that we put together an XBox 360 giveaway at Cool Mom Picks today in which you can not only win one for yourself, you can win one for your favorite local children's charity. I never write up the Cool Mom Picks giveaways here, but I love this one so much.  Details are on the post and a big whoo-hoo to the Microsoft team at Edelman for helping rally around this idea. You've got until Saturday night to enter.

***Debbie Bookstabber and Candace Lindemann of Mamanista, yesterday announced the launch of Bloganthropy which is so brilliant, I'm just honored to know them. They're basically combining all the corporate giving resources out there with the benevolence of bloggers and the power of social media. (You are powerful! Yes you are!) But this is no grassroots thingie, Bloganthropy is a bona fide 501c3 non-profit to help you make your own fundraisers and chariable efforts more legit and more lucrative. They also need volunteers. Hint. Follow them on twitter at Bloganthropy. I did.

***Speaking of which: Maddie would have turned two yesterday. How amazing that her memory is still living on through so many beautiful people and their generosity.

***If you haven't already, check out Her Bad Mother's Give Good Blog campaign which outlines some clear simple ways to include charities in your posts or giveaways. (Hey, like Cool Mom Picks just did!) Similarly, another blogger named Alyssa has started a Blog For a Cause effort in which bloggers are asked to earmark some of their kid-friendly swag this holiday for local Ronald McDonald houses.

Bloggers?

We are a cool bunch. As if you needed more evidence.

If you know of any more great giving efforts from bloggers, please feel free to list them in comments.

Lessons from the bag of Ineffective Parenting Tricks

Just when I think I kind of have this parenting thing down, some new situation comes along that proves to me that, nope. Not really. 

Trying to give my daughter eyedrops last week to battle the cold that had spread to her eyes, was a comedy of parenting errors. You'd have thought we told her we'd need to make her eat something green every day for a week. Oh, there was crying. And wailing. And thrashing - the thrashing was probably the worst. She was absolutely terrified by the thought of eyedrops. IT WILL HUUUUUURT IT WILL HUUUUURT she screamed repeatedly, inconsolably.

So I opened my bag of Ineffective Parenting Tricks and tried them all nearly simultaneously.

I asked nicely. I asked not so nicely. I put one in my own eye to show her how it works. I put one on her doll. I put one on my hand. I showed her eyedrop photos on the internet. I  raised my voice. I stroked her hair. I offered her candy. I offered her cookies. I threatened her with no TV. I stopped just short of threatening to send her off to the circus to be raised by clowns.

Really, it was like the worst episode of SuperNanny you've ever seen.

(Or the best. Depending on your perspective.)

So I did what anyone does in this kind of situation: I went to Twitter.

The consensus seemed to be that I lie her down, and put the drop on the outside of her inner eye, then tell her to turn her head to the side and the drop will roll in.

But before I could figure what the hell any of that meant, I came back to a smiling Thalia.

"Daddy put my eyedrop in. It was fun!"

Fun?

"Yes! I lied down on the coach and then I put my feet in the air and I squeeeeeezed my eyes closed then...we did it! And it didn't hurt!"

Uh, wow.

"Mommy?"

"Yes sweetie?"

"Let's do it again!"

What's up with the FTC and blogs these days? Don't ask me, ask the FTC

Things I have seen or heard about the FTC regulation of blogs in the last six months (which, by the way, goes into effect on December 1)

Targeting bloggers is discriminatory
Targeting bloggers violates my free speech

The FTC is not actually targeting bloggers at all

It's a law

It's a guideline

It's all Obama's fault


You need to disclose free books if you're a book blogger

You don't need to disclose free books if you're a book blogger

Fuck the FTC

Go FTC!

You have to disclose your affiliate links the same as a free product

You don't have to disclose your affiliate links.

If you don't disclose you could be fined $11,000

And my favorite of all:

This all started just to regulate mommybloggers

Yee-ha.

Since starting Blog with Integrity, we've realized that we have a great opportunity to use the effort as an educational resource for bloggers, by bloggers. So we decided hey, we don't know all the answers - let's go to the source.

 I'm excited to announce that tomorrow we're hosting our second webinar - a free town hall meeting featuring Mary Engle, Associate Director of Consumer Protection of the FTC. It's from 12-1pm EST and you can even show up in your pjs. Such is the beauty of the web.

Mary Engel will answer questions that have already been sent in by bloggers and PR folks. And if you have a question, hopefully you'll be able to ask it too. But you have to sign up here.

Hopefully this will be the end of a lot of the misinformation. Or at least the stuff about how the FTC is just gunning for mom blogs. You know, because we moms, we're all so stoooooopid.

By the way, if you haven't read Susan Getgood's post about The FTC, free speech and journalism, it's awesome.

And if you don't care about any of this stuff? Carry on. Tomorrow I'll be back and tell you about my daughter, the eyedrop addict.

The Yankees Parade: The view from a New Yorker

Let's just say you can't beat the view, the snacks are free, and the temperature is downright balmy.

Happy happy joy joy

I was really honored that yesterday, Gretchen Rubin, amazing author and happiness evangelist included me in her series of Happiness Project interviews.

(You can also find it on Slate, which...wow. Kinda nice.)

It seems like happiness is making a comeback. Or maybe because I'm interested in it, the happiness stuff is just finding me. This past spring, Meagan Francis launched The Happiest Mom to change the parenting discussion from preserving sanity to striving for joy. (Her words.) And I'm always thinking of folks like Jen Lemen and Karen Walrond who strike me as being focused on putting beauty into the world and spreading happiness, building up their communities instead of tearing them down.

These are the people I try to have in my head more and more lately, as opposed to the energy suckers and the fair-weather friends and the walking trainwrecks who want to suck the world into their personal dramas, of which there seems to be a new one every minute of every day.

Although man, it is fun to get sucked into a good personal drama. But it's kind of like a one night stand - it gets your blood pumping at the time but afterward...well. You know.

One of the answers I gave Gretchen in the interview seems to have struck a chord. She asked me Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness or detracts a lot from their happiness? I answered:

The happiest people seem to be very focused  whatever they are doing. Unhappy people seem to be very focused on what other people are doing.

I think it's true. So I'm making a pledge to myself to try and refocus a bit. Even though it can be hard. Really hard. But if it makes me a little happier then I'll consider it a success.

I always take the side in the ugly parenting debates that what's most important isn't whether you breastfeed or formula feed, whether you work or stay at home, whether your kids sleep in your bed or not. It's happy parents = happy kids.

I want my kids to be happy. I'm pretty sure that starts with me.

Eulogy for a poop joke

Thalia came home last week informing us that Poop is now a bad word. Or so say her preschool teachers.

RIP the poop joke. Its passing is sad and untimely, but not altogether unexpected.

What can I say, we had a good run while we can, what with Thalia's President Poopyhead baby shirt, and Nate teaching her songs in which he substitutes the word Poop for pretty much anything. We try are trying not to be sad, but instead to honor its memory and to be grateful for the time we did have together.

Nate is certainly in the denial phase, as he continues to defy reason and invoke Poop's name. I'm hoping he'll come around soon for the good of the family.

The most difficult part of this, however, may be the imminent departure from our lives of Poop's cousins, Fart and Butt, who no doubt are soon to follow. (It always happens in threes, right?) Sage may be the one to take this news the hardest, she being fond of telling strangers on the street that Butt is her favorite word. Fortunately, toddlers are resilient. I have confidence that, in time, she will come to forget Butt and learn to love again.

And now, you are welcome to mediate silently for one minute.

Coming to terms with the princess thing

Okay so I admit it. We're snotty. We didn't want our kids to be your ordinary, run of the mill Disney fairy princesses, with the sparkles and the scratchy tulle and the strap-on wings that flew here directly from Dongguan Province (like magic!) and landed in the local Target.

Nate decided they should be Renaissance princesses. Mommy the feminist gave in. And with the help of some dresses we already owned, a visit to the Renaissance faire this summer, and a thrift shop pashmina torn in two, we had princesses.
 

Presenting Hermia and Helena. 

The crazy thing is, I loved it.

Sure, they weren't as original as the kid dressed like a Metro Card machine, and they didn't garner the attention of the kid who was the A Train. (Subway humor is big in New York.) But they felt beautiful. They were happy. And that made me happy.

I guess this is just the beginning of that whole thing whereby parents give up their dreams for their kids, when they realize their kids have dreams of their own.