Browse by Tags

• Strollerderby Playdate: Hanging With a Messy Loh Life

  Just back from a playdate with writer/performer Sandra Tsing Loh and her two kids. Between us, their place is a pit! Clothes everywehere and they had this strange color-coded dishware system, which, I'm pretty sure, kept her off the hook for actually washing them but once a week. No judgment, though. She's solo household-heading for the next two years. Her husband, a musician and their home's main source of cleaning and cooking, got a temporary gig with Bette Middler's show in Las Vegas. Instead of moving the whole family from Southern California to Sin City, they're doing the long-distance daddy thing. Hence, the pigsty. Read More... Posted Apr 02 2008, 05:33 PM by Madeline Holler with | with no comments Filed under: playgroups, parenting bloggers, strollerderby playdate, the loh life, the loh down, sandra tsing loh

• Strollerderby Playdate: Because 8 Wasn't Enough

  What is wrong with these people? One woman, along with her husband and five kids (yes, five), invited her sister, brother-in-law and their 2.5 kids (baby to hatch in the spring) to come and live with them, together, under one roof. "Temporarily." (I know.)  This "temporary" arrangement has been going along for at least a year now and I don't see any posts of scratched-out eyes or lawyers or anything. Just lots and lots of names of kids which I'm pretty sure even the grown-ups don't actually remember. The bloggers provide a nice cheat-sheet of the cast for the rest of us.  Besides being the premise of a great reality show ...   Read More... Posted Jan 30 2008, 07:15 AM by Madeline Holler with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: blog, autism, Large families, Big Love, parenting bloggers, strollerderby playdate, blogging parents, Amy Lutz, bigger families, sisterhood, communal living

• Strollerderby Playdate: The Awful Blog I Can't Stop Reading

  How can it be that I am a regular reader of this blog? I mean, you could hardly call it a blog -- she posts only once or twice a month, it's not terribly interesting, it's surrounded by ads for gentle yet overpriced baby laundry detergent that you don't even need. And it's her! Her! I don't even like her! I am not interested in her! I do nothing but criticize and disagree with her. I didn't watch her on TV before and, now that she's back, I still don't. I won't! Yet, I read her blog. I check it for updates, feel let down when there are none. I find myself identifying with her truly mundane stories and smiling at -- and I mean this in the rudest ways -- the very unfunny funny things she strains to write. Please, what is wrong with me? Read More... Posted Jan 09 2008, 07:32 AM by Madeline Holler with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: parenting, celebrity, the view, blog, blogs, breastfeeding, celebrity moms, blogging, blogs as therapy, parent bloggers, parenting bloggers, bloggers, celebrity parents, breast feeding, parental resources, parenting blogs, celebrity parenting, elisabeth hasselbeck, parenting humor, strollerderby playdate, Strollerderby playdates, celebrity mommies, celebrity mothers, playdate, blogging parents, celebrity pregnancy, celebrlity parenting, breeders, parent dish, perfect mothers, parent topics, parent behavior, celebrity worship, parent blogs, blogroll, birth stories, dreft

• Strollerderby Playdate: Sometimes You Feel Like a Blog, Sometimes You Don’t

  Don’t get me wrong, I love blogging for Strollerderby. Instead of reacting to the day's news with long-winded diatribes delivered to my confused 2-year-old, I get to post them for grown-ups who might actually give a rip. And something about blogging makes me want to read even more blogs than I had before, which is just a fun, fun thing to get to do “for work.” You know? But I’m an essay writer at heart. Though I love the snappy, instant reactions of bloggers, there’s nothing more satisfying than sinking my web browser into a carefully shaped piece with characters and dialogue and a beginning, middle and end. So while I’m keeping up with my regulars in blogland ... Read More... Posted Oct 15 2007, 07:02 AM by Madeline Holler with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: parenting bloggers, essays, strollerderby playdate, Madeline Holler

• The Key to a Successful Parenting Blog: Don't Take Yourself too Seriously

  The Birmingham News says that the best mom and dad blogs don't take themselves too seriously. I concur. Most of the parenting blogs that I read regularly lean toward the self-deprecating and sarcastic. This article named a couple of blogs that I'm sure everyone is familiar with (Dad Gone Mad, Breed 'em and Weep, Suburban Turmoil) and points out that you can tell just from the name that these people aren't afraid to laugh at themselves. In my humble opinion (see, there is that sarcasm again) parenting is a tough job. It is a great job, but it is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and let's face it - kids can be frustrating. If we weren't laughing at ourselves, we would probably be crying. Plus, no two children are the same (even twins) and those parents who are convinced that their way is the only way bug the shit out of us. Nobody likes a know-it-all. And so far nothing has convinced me that In don't really know anything as much as my daughter has. And she is not even three years old yet. I can't wait until she is a teenager. Posted Mar 02 2007, 09:34 AM by Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah with | with 26 comment(s) Filed under: mommy blogs, daddy blogs, parenting bloggers

• The Parenting Conversation: Why Time Magazine Piece on "Hip Parents" Gets It Wrong

  I know that my fellow Derby-ers have already run roughshod over Time magazine's hit piece on Babble and so-called "hip parenting". Goddess knows that the damn "hip parenting" and "grup" memes perpetuated by monolithic media are wearing thin on my own soul. But there was one further point I couldn't let go by. Near the end of page one, James Poniewozik states: "The Howl of this movement is Neal Pollack's new memoir Alternadad." That comment is so fallacious as to border on dishonesty. Is Poniewozik unaware that Pollack's book sparked something of a mini-riot among Babble's readers and editorial staff? Or is he aware of it, but fears that pointing it out will spoil his fictional narrative of blogging parents as all being hipper-than-thou? Read More... Posted Feb 11 2007, 07:09 AM by thezeroboss with | with 17 comment(s) Filed under: parenting, Babble, grups, blogosphere, James Poniewozik, Time Magazine, parenting bloggers, hip parenting