Today I’m interviewing Amber of Re-Organizing Mom. Amber is a beautiful friend and if you’re not already following her on twitter, you really should. She also writes at Unlikely Mama and has graciously agreed to be my official Blogher correspondent, given that so far no one has offered to sponsor my trip from Australia to New York. Go ahead, go over to her site and soak up the awesomeness. I’ll wait.
Before you had Alexa, were you a super-organised person?
Wow, was I ever! I actually had an organizing business. …

I like the idea and the reality of a family. You have company without having to get out of pyjamas. You get to be around somebody who has seen you at your absolute worst and still thinks you’re pretty awesome. You have in-jokes and non-secret codes. All in all, it’s a pretty sweet deal.
That is, until somebody gets sick. This week that person was me. I was the evil carrier monkey that brought this flu into our home. And then spread it to all and sundry. But even before I’d …

It is all kinds of challenging to attempt any renovation with a toddler. Other than brief napping periods (oh so brief!) you need at least one person to run interference. Because as delightful as it is that they just want to be a part of absolutely everything, you can’t really let them do the vast majority of things and even ‘helping’ is very limited – particularly when you’re dealing with the final gloss coat on a couple of doors.
But I have developed just a few strategies -
1. Helping
Helping is great, …

Everyone has one. That meal that is easy to make, tasty and cheap. I like to cook in bulk. I’m incapable of cooking for one or two people, so I’m all about the leftovers. Because it means that I don’t have to cook lunch and waste precious nap time by cooking. I can heat and watch a guilty pleasure on TV. Actually, I have no guilty pleasures on TV because there are plenty of things I feel guilty about. Watching Dr Phil/Gossip Girl/Other various crappy reality programs isn’t one of …

It’s two days later. Standing up or crouching down still feels like torture. You never know how often in a day you do just that until your muscles are in trauma. Add a toddler to that? I am always crouching down for one reason or another.
Still, completely worth it. Our house formerly the domain of fake wood grain is slowly being transformed into something else entirely. How I hate that fake wood. I hated looking at it in the morning when I woke up, when I had breakfast, while I …

I thought it would be a brilliant plan to make a dent in the painting. Long weekend. Perfect time to do projects around the house – or so hardware store advertising would have me believe. Obviously the marketing geniuses for those advertising campaigns don’t have toddlers.
A sweet little bundle who looks up at you with her big eyes when you are in the middle of cutting in and says ‘Mummy! To-urn! Pu-lease’. Very difficult to resist. Also very difficult to impress on her that the paint brush doesn’t need to …

Four day weekends. A chance to catch up on all those pesky things that seem to slip through the cracks when you have only a two day weekend. Except, I didn’t clean the house, or get any painting done, or do any washing or really do anything vaguely useful.
We went to a birthday party at the Australian Reptile Park, we visited a friend who’s just come home with her new baby, we hunted for Easter eggs and I watched Riley consumer her own body weight in chocolate. And then today …

Welcome to the March Carnival of Natural Parenting: Vintage green!
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month we’re writing about being green — both how green we were when we were young and how green our kids are today. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

I have a confession to make I have no recollection of my childhood. That’s an exaggeration. I do have three or …

This year I want to get organised. And not just with the big stuff, with all the little details as well. But I suppose if I could get on top of the little stuff, the big stuff would follow. Control freakdom is creepy that way.
Now, my inner perfectionist may be dead, but my inner control freak never dies, she just lies (almost) dormant and often passes judgement on everything.My inner control freak is in league with my inner Virgo, who is often (and easily) enraged by the piles of washing, …

I am so glad that I subscribed to the comments at PhD in Parenting’s article  - Dr. Phil Stay-at-home mom vs. working mom show because if I hadn’t I would have missed out an an a really interesting debate. And that’s one of the things I love about Annie’s blog is it almost always sparks intense debate, and there’s nothing I love more than a good debate.
Caroline’s comment sparked a big reaction, but I didn’t comment (yet!) I had so many ideas about it that I thought I could only do …