The Mom Crowd

The blogosphere starting club hopping on Friday with 5minutesformom.com’s Ultimate Blog Party. Moms all around the web are introducing themselves and trying not to spill their drinks on each other’s blogs.

We have opened our doors here at The Mom Crowd to welcome you! Please come in, grab a drink from the open bar, and stay a while.

Here is a fabulous video introducing ourselves.

Pull up a comfy booth and enjoy some of our favorite treats:

• 30 Ways to Encourage Your Mom Friends

• What’s In Your Pantry?

• Who’s Your Favorite Celebrity Mom?

• Are you “letting yourself go”?

• Marilla Cuthbert: A Wonderful Maternal Figure

• What to Expect for Your Child’s Surgery

Please leave a comment and let us know that you have been by!

Thanks for coming!

• 10 Things I’ve Learned from Being a Mom – Jaimee wrote a wonderful post describing all the things we can relate to about being a mom. Every word of it is true. Especially #4.

• Tales from Labor and Delivery Blog – Have you seen this blog yet? Seriously, great stuff. The blog is written by a Labor and Delivery nurse and she shares her experiences and stories. I really find people’s birth stories interesting. If you have a sense of humor – Check it out!

• Share Baby Einstein with your baby and get moving! – My Readable Feast shares their thoughts on the controversy of Baby Einstein videos. I think she makes a valid point about using them as a tool rather than a constant babysitter.

• 5 Foods to Rejuvenate Your Body – Wellness Junction shares five foods to help your energy level. I know I need all the energy I can get to keep chasing my baby now that she is on the move. This also gives me another reason to put garlic in everything I eat. My husband loves that. Ha!

• Oprah’s Big Joke…oh I mean Give – Firemans_wife on CafeMom.com explains her passionate take on Oprah’s new reality show, The Big Give.. I haven’t seen the show. I only saw bits of them talking about it on Oprah the next day. From Firemans_wife’s perspective the show really isn’t helping those in need and the motives of the contestants are all wrong.

• Top 10 Things Not to Say to New Mothers – This article is mostly for new dads, but we can all get a laugh out of it. I have so experienced the first point, ” When you come home from work and your wife is sitting on the couch with your newborn in the exact same position you last saw her nine hours ago, don’t ask ‘What did you do all day? How come you didn’t take a shower yet?’ ” Ha!

• The Ultimate Blog Party! – The Ultimate Blog Party hosted by 5MinutesforMoms.com begins this Friday. It is being held March 7 – 14. Be sure to come by Monday and check out our party post. We’ll have some great food on the grill and music pumping. Maybe some karaoke (just kidding!). For more details check out their instructions.

In the past ten months my husband and I have both quit our regular day jobs. We know that it wouldn’t have been possible to pursue our dreams if our finances were out of control. About three years ago we were both were working full-time jobs making more than the national family average and we had nothing to show for it. Our net worth was negative. We decided to take charge of our finances and learn about money. Since then we have paid off more than $50,000 of debt. The biggest tool that got us under control was a budget. This post is not about how to make a budget, but simply the act of getting together and trying to set a budget for your family.

Around the first of each month my husband and I get together and have a family budget meeting. We discuss how we want to spend the money that we are going to earn that month. Famous financial guru Dave Ramsey, says that when you budget, you’re spending on paper, on purpose, before the month begins. We use a zero budget and give every dollar a name. We never have to wonder where all our money went, because we knew where it was going before the month even started.

Getting together monthly helps us to plan out our calendar and our finances accordingly. We look to see if there are any birthdays or holidays that we want buy gifts for. We always know when Christmas is coming, so we know we need to save for it. Looking at the calendar also helps us be on the same page with how we are going to spend our time.

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My friend, Pete (the only male to ever comment on this site), is very excited about being a new dad. He enthusiastically jumped in and started changing diapers on day 1. He works for a small junior high and they recently had a diaper drive for him and one other teacher. The stack of diapers in his garage is about 8 ft wide and 4 ft high! Seriously. In this article Pete shares his first experiences with diapering.

Starting off with my credentials, I’ve been a father for exactly 4 weeks today, thus I’ve changed somewhere between two to three hundred diapers. My experience with diapering before becoming a parent was limited to a few isolated incidences of babysitting for a friend or my sisters. When it was time to clean up the dirty-deed, I simply used whatever diapers were supplied, never noticing their effectiveness or brand. In grocery stores, I undoubtedly walked past the disposable diaper aisle, but had never stopped to determine my “Brand” or even price range. Consequently, I did like the idea of environmentally friendly and exploring the world of cloth diapers…if the opportunity ever presented itself.

Well, the opportunity did present itself this year and I wanted to be prepared. A month before our son arrived there was a disposable sale at Babies R Us and I capitalized on it. I purchased 2 super-sized boxes of Newborn size and 2 mega-sized boxes of size 1 diapers. The cost per diaper was as low as 7 cents per diaper, which is significantly less when compared to some of the “Brand Name” diapers which can easily cost 25 cents per diaper. (And when you’re using 12+/- diapers a day, it makes a big difference). For what it is worth, my wife and I decided that we would postpone the use of cloth diapers until our son was at a stage where he was dirtying fewer diapers per day.

Now, about the four boxes of diapers. They were the cheapest in price I had researched, but would they get the job done? Since I had so many, I was determined that these would work! Unfortunately, our son was not just dirtying these diapers, but he was regularly wetting his clothes as well. The diapers frequently leaked liquids near his lower lumbar. The worst of it happened last Tuesday, when I changed his diaper six times between 6pm and midnight, and believe it or not, all six times the diapers had leaked and soiled his clothes. That was the night I decided to cut my losses and invest in the “Brand Name” diapers. Since making that decision exactly one week ago, I can honestly confirm that our son has never needed to a change of outfit due to his diaper leaking! Thus, as difficult as it is for my spend-thrift mind to admit it, my practical lesson learned here is that the “Brand Name” diapers are worth the extra expense. This same principle extends to Ice Cream brands as well.

Lessons learned – If I was a seasoned parent I would have more credibility for my these theorems, never-the-less, while I’m on the subject, I’ve included an extra paragraph with additional postulates.

1. Every child is different and things can change at each stage, so “Brand A” may be best now, but “Brand B” may be your best choice after future development.
2. Do not buy in bulk until you have “street tested” the brand and size to confirm it’s the way to go.
3. There is a significant amount of money spent each year on diapering, so one very practical way to help new parents is to start a “Diaper Drive”.

The leaking diapers that I purchased in bulk was the “Especially For Baby” brand from Babies R Us. Since then, I have used Huggies and Pampers. Both have worked out very well, but I especially liked the Pampers. My next brand to try out will be Luvs.

I love the Suave commercial with the woman who instantly changes before our eyes as she goes through marriage and three pregnancies. After the first two pregnancies she has “let herself go” exhibited by her not dressing up to take out the trash and wearing a bunny suit. Then after washing her hair with Suave, she is instantly beautiful and pregnant with the third. I enjoy the art direction of the commercial, but the idea that a shampoo will make me look instantaneously gorgeous is a bit silly. Actually now that I think about it I do look a lot better after a shower.

The commercial claims “89% percent of moms admit to letting themselves go.” Really? That many? I find it hard to believe. What does “letting yourself go” mean anyway? I think it means that you don’t take pride in the way you look anymore when you once did. We have all seen the moms on Oprah, What Not to Wear, and every other make-over show showing moms that only wear sweats, won’t put anything on her face besides Chapstick, and her signature hair style is a ponytail. It makes for great t.v., but does that represent most moms?

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