Rookie Moms

My husband walked into the kitchen once last week to see the tail end of a very special performance. I was caught in the act performing Old MacDonald for my baby by making grand animal gestures and noises.

I spice it up by including some rather unusual “farm” animals… like peacocks, rhinoceroses, and snakes. I’ll pretty much do anything for a laugh around here. They’re not all winners though, it turns out my elephant is quite frightening.

My self-described techno-phobe pal Valerie started up with Dropshots.com when she and her little family of three moved across the pond to London from San Francisco.

She uploads photos and videos and we, her faraway friends and family, can comment in real time. It’s a pretty cool tool. And a great alternative to creating and managing your own blog. Also for those who have siblings with babies, too so there can be one photo site for the whole family.

For the first few weeks of her new life, she was posting daily… and now that the swing of things has gotten hold of her a bit… the updates aren’t as frequent. But let’s not fault Valerie. We know how hard it can be with a 7-month old at home.

We have to give props to rookie parents Rachel and Clay who came up with Minti.com, a web site that enables the sharing of advice from parents to other parents.

You can post advice based on your experience, read advice from other parents, and answer the requests for advice that are posted here. Plus, you can become *friends* with other Minti members, making it easy to get their advice in the future.

Use it as an outlet to give all the advice you wish you were given, or advice you want to give your newbie mom friend when she’s done recovering from birth and is ready to listen to you.

Secret Agent Josephine gives a great photo pictorial and instructions on how to make an awesome merbaby costume!

I like to think if my son were a daughter, this is the kind of thing I would do to him / her…but alas, my baby is a boy and I’m too wrapped up in gender roles to make him a merbaby costume.

Or am I just too lazy with the sewing machine?