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§ May 21st, 2010 § Filed under Announcements § Tagged Articles Comments Off
MamaBloo is looking for a few guest bloggers to write articles for this blog.
If you have something to say, let MamaBloo give you the platform. I am most interested in the topics of photography, interior design, food/drink, education, books, travel, kids, writing/blogging, marriage, and…. I am probably forgetting something. You do not have to have your own blog to apply. I am looking for moms who have a reflection or article on motherhood and/or marriage. I am also looking for a mom or non-mom who has an interest (see above) that would like to share her expertise in that area. The tone of the articles should be either funny or poignant and target women.
Some possible ideas to get the juices flowing:
Perspectives on being a step-parent
Adoption – the process, the rewards
How photography inspires you
Empty nesting
What motherhood has taught me
Why we live the way we do (values, decisions, being green, no debt, homeschooling, etc)
What my kids do/don’t learn at school
Being a writer and a mom
Single parenting
Why I stay married
Is soccer really “all that?”
How to decorate on a dime
How to capture family memories when you are super duper busy’
Returning to work after being a stay at home mom
Why I wanted children
The list goes on!
Here’s how to submit your ideas:
Send me an email at kari@mamabloo.com with the topic GUEST BLOGGER in the subject line.
Please give me a short (50-100 word) pitch as to the kind of article you want to write. One guideline to consider, most of my blog posts are not any longer than 500 words. So when you pitch your ideas, know that if you start to get up into the 1000+ word category for your article idea (not the pitch, the article itself) than you will be asked to break it into parts.
Please give include the URL of your own blog, if you have one,
If you do have a blog, lets talk about a reciprical article, if you’d like.
Be sure to include a contact email so I can get back to you.
If you have a product or service to promote this does not automatically disqualifiy you from submitting an article BUT I am not looking for reviews or promotions. Your product or service should be an organic part of some story or confession or reflection or angle or tip that constitutes interesting reading.
Also, please remember that MamaBloo retains the right to edit your article for content and appropriateness. The actual number of guest bloggers selected will be determined by MamaBloo.
What’s in it for YOU?:
* MamaBloo gets 3000+ page views per month
* Those page views come from all over the United States, Canada and Europe.
* MamaBloo has a substantial subcriber list — which I will not sell to you, but it will give you a guarenteed readership.
* MamaBloo is in the top 28% of all websites — according to Alexa.
* Guest blogging is a great way to drive readership to your own site!
* Or, Guest blogging is an even better way to just try out blogging and see if you like it!
* A chance to tell your story, your way!
Okay, lets see what happens. Good luck!
Those of us walking around calling ourselves mothers could easily be mistaken for lunatics. Seriously, the guilt alone from forgetting to drop Lily off at piano lessons or not nursing Ty until he could drive, is enough to weigh down a small burro. But then you start to add the real maniacal moments like when I first found my husband carrying my baby boy in a Baby Bjorn and doing the dishes at the same time. I mean, holy crap, that would send anyone over the edge, right? Isn’t it obvious that this multi-tasking in the male gender is to be treated with suspicion at least and horror at most – well, as a mother, I chose horror. What if my son fell out? What if he was emotional damaged from being reduced to assistant kitchen scullery maid? What if my husband got it in his mind that he could replace me and I was unneeded in the family (I mean, afterall, he was tending the child and doing the dishes) Like I said, lunatic.
As for Liar, that is a bit more complicated. I think we moms and wives actually lie a lot. And let’s face it, telling the truth can be really overrated. It did not work to my advantage when, after seeing the movie Troy, my husband asked me if he looked like Brad Pitt (I kid you not) and I, well, told the truth. “Not even close, honey… not even close.” The look of utter disbelief and betrayal on his face snapped me right our of my truth-telling high and I quickly countered with, “But I am sure by the time you are 40, you’ll be a spitting image of the god Achilles, uhem, I mean Brad Pitt.” Remarkably, this little gem seemed to work. I cannot remember the last time I told the truth about one of the worksheets containing triangles, squares, and circles with chicken-scratched pencil marks along the photocopied edges that my kids bring home from school to show me. I say, “Wow, good job, you are amazing!” And my kids do do a good job and they are amazing, but this is hardly represented by a worksheet. But, isn’t it my duty to pretend it is? I don’t think Lily would ever quite recover if she came home to show me her schoolwork and I said, “Explain to me the pedagogical objective that your teacher accomplished by giving you this work and which of the state’s learning requirements does this meet?” Or, even better yet, really get them thinking with, “What did you learn about yourself by doing this busy work?” I am guessing that going with the “WOW, Good Job” is better suited for the psyche of a 10 year old little girl.
The more powerful lies are the ones we moms tell ourselves. We tell ourselves that we can do it all, that we can do it alone, and that the endless hours of taking care of everyone else won’t really take its toll on us. We tell ourselves that the burnt toast tastes as good as the yummy golden brown one we just sacrificed for our first born. We claim that we don’t mind that we turned in our sporty red BMW for a mini-van and that our children don’t really define who we are. We lie about how much we need our husbands to understand us and our girlfriends to validate our choices. And we lie to ourselves that we will ever ever be able to have a flat stomach again — because the truth about that one is just too much to take.
But the truth is this. That when we become mothers we are transformed. The old passes away and we are a new creation. We understand viscerally the meaning of sacrificial and unconditional love. And in this state I think we would willingly forfeit our lives so that our children can live richer fuller ones than we ever had. A lunatic? A liar? Nah, just a good mom.
I swore that when I became a mom I would not, absolutely not, become one of those moms who could only talk about her kids; one of those moms who had the almost supernatural ability to steer any conversation whether it be about classic literature, politics, or lingerie, back to her offspring.
Well, guess what. I am there.
In fact, I am so there that I have started this blog to help me accomplish just that.
It is not that I don’t love literature and politics. I mean, I do. (I do admit, though, that it is my husband who likes the lingerie, not me). I used to be an avid NPR listener. I used to read Shakespeare for fun, for goodness sakes. But when faced with the chance to bring up something funny my four year old son said, or to lament with another mom about the perils of 13 year old girls, I cannot resist. It is like a reflex. At first, I tried my own intervention. But all I could come up with was a subscription to Entertainment Weekly and so now I can talk about my kids and the entertainment industry, not exactly the Ivy-league solution I was hoping for.
So, there is no doubt that motherhood has changed me. I feel that in many ways I am the sequel to myself. The first part of the story was the flashy, sexy version that knew something about wine, music, and art. Someone who wore heels and drank fancy beers and drove a sports car. But, part II (as most sequels tend to be) is a bit “off” from the original. Not bad, not bad at all, just so wildly not what you expected that it causes you to tilt your head and wonder is this comfortable-clothes-wearing, covered-in-sweet potatoes, messy-ponytail, PTA mom the same person as before?
Well. I am the same person but different, too. I can still talk about Barrack Obama, Dante’s Inferno, and the pros and cons to wearing thong underwear. But, I can also steer each and every one of those conversations back to the 5 most incredible, wonderful, amazing, awe-inspiring people I know…my kids.
The Kiddos: Age 13, 12, 9, 4 (the only boy) and a baby!
