“You don’t need to iron it. DID YOU HEAR ME? NO IRONING!”

That was the defining quality which put this striped pintuck shirt from The Gap on Amy Hatch’s Non-Mom-Uniform list.

The Mom Uniform. What a dreadful phrase. Today’s mom can balance a lot of hats; career woman at the office, career woman with own business, blogger, designer, artist, wife, yoga instructor, VP, actress, troupe leader, philanthropist, coach, or all of the above. It’s fair to say that today’s mom is certainly not yesterdays mom of June Cleaver lore – and neither are the clothes.

One could argue that there really isn’t such a thing as “mom clothes” – or maybe just the connotation of the term makes us defiantly say there isn’t. There are – as in every profession – certain qualities that make an item of clothing “mom approved”, and these days that usually means function + comfort + STYLE .

I love that mom’s of ThisNext are calling out the good stuff and putting it up there for all to share.

...continued: Finding Fashions For the Fashionable Mom

mom*mom has a blog about her life and her baby that doesn’t look much like your normal mommyblog at all. It’s kind of futuristic and space-age and continues to find the coolest-looking retro-stuff of all time while simultaneously telling tales of baby-raising in a tiny apartment in Oakland, California. It’s a strange and wonderful combination, and we recently asked mom*mom how she came to this interesting approach. She was happy to talk … after being interrupted repeatedly by a lot of jumping off the bureau, somersaulting, and running around naked laughing. Finally, however, her daughter got her swimsuit and dad took her to the pool…

So we see the “mom” part. How did you get to be so mod?

Well, two years ago, when my daughter was one, I started my blog as a baby blog — just for us, to log stuff she was saying and places we went (I even customized my template, because I love to “personalize” stuff). At the same time, I was always on the go with my daughter in toy stores, baby clothing stores, museums, zoos, playgrounds — the typical places all new parents go to give their baby exposure to lots of educational stuff. But I’d rarely see stuff I wanted, so I’d always customize the stuff I bought, like her infant carseat. I made covers in pink stretch velvet and orange.

Anyway, one day…

...continued: An Interview with Mod*Mom

My So-Called SuperMom Life illustrates a rarely discussed parenting problem: being the parental pioneer.   “It sucks being the first one in the group to have a baby,” SuperMom says.  “Not because for awhile, no one really knows how your life has changed. But because you have to actually buy all your child’s clothes!!! For now, we get no hand-me-downs. Guess this will all change one day…the day that Grace starts wearing my clothes! {sigh} The problems of having to shop haunt me!!! (hehe, did you hear/read the sarcasm in that one!?)”  Actually, SuperMom loves the ‘problem’ but she’s careful about the expense…and she’s got good things to say about the usual suspects, like Children’s Place, Gap Kids and Gymboree … but also mentions Janie & Jack – “classic good looks with tailored English Style” as a good source of comfort and clothing at reasonable rates.

Deep-Fried Coke?  I don’t even know how such a thing is possible, but … there it is.  And White Trash Mom (giving due credit to fellow blogger Agent Bed Head) has stumbled upon what may be the ultimate in truly, truly bad food.  “Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse,” she says, “America invents something even more…WHITE TRASH. Thank you, Agent Bed Head, for finding just another example of why most of America is overweight. Grab a Deep Fried Coke and throw in some pork rinds and some funnel cakes! YUM!”  (Michelle Lamar, online community maven and jeans marketer, is the brain behind YTM…and also an active ThisNexter as michellelamar. “Don’t ask about the White Trash obsession,” she tells us. “When you grow up in Wichita, Kansas it just gets in your blood.”)

Shoulda Coulda Woulda is a mommyblog with an edge, and yes, sometimes Mir (writer, copy writer, and mother of two) can get a little controversial, a little over-opinionated.  And she knows it.  But sometimes…  “I don’t want to get into a big political debate here,” she said in a recent post.  “I know a lot of people have very strong feelings when it comes to my subject matter. Where I stand, myself, is immaterial. The truth of the matter is that no matter how you feel, some things are just plain adorable, dammit, when kids do it.” 

This time, she’s absolutely right. (And it’s a great blog, too.)

Ex-Playgroup Mommy interrupts her normal, joyful, personal and funny blog with an important message for us all:  Feel Your Boobies. “Feeling your boobies could save your life - especially if you are under 40 and haven’t had a mammogram yet (like me, although I should have had my baseline mamo already..better get that done!). So Pass this on to all the women in your life.” You can learn more at www.feelyourboobies.org, a site and a group that focuses on creating cool products to raise awareness and educate women, primarily those under 40, about the importance of self-breast exams. And hey: do it now.

ThisNexters have already started to put together amazing lists about unexpected things … like the best way to carry a baby. There’s a movement afoot to find the healthiest, safest, and most comfortable way to carry babies, and you can find it under a variety of tags already: baby wearing, baby carriers, and baby sling (among others), and the products range from a simple (and surprisingly useful) length of cloth to a high-tech cross-country carrier that can last a lifetime.

...continued: Slings, Carriers, Wearing – it’s all about the baby!

1Ideal Life has a long and eclectic list of music she likes, from Shakira to Benatar to the sound track for Rent.  But she’s also found a good use for something even more unusual: “I’ve been relaxing to some classical lullaby songs I had from off of a Baby Sleep CD,” she said in a recent blog. “I don’t have a baby and I’m not trying to put one asleep. I just get frustrated and listening to that actually helps.”

“Fanatical Apathy Dispensed Daily”, says Robin Morgan of 30 Days of Do. In fact, it’s a whole bunch of surprising video links, personal images, and musings on family, animals and art, from the unusual to the outright amazing. Where else could you learn about Poop Freeze, after all – the first freeze-spray aerosol made for animal waste pick-up.

Anne-Marie Nichols, the Mother of All Bloggers, produced A Mama’s Rant and about two zillion other blogs, all of ‘em worth reading.  And Rants isn’t a “bookie blog”, (though it does have a great ‘bookroll’).  Still, now and then Anne-Marie gets enthusiastic about a particular title, and then there’s no stopping her.  Like Flirting with Forty by Jane Porter.   “In this classic bit of chick lit,” she says, “a single mom finds herself divorced with two kids and wondering if this is the life she is meant to have. On a Hawaiian getaway trip to celebrate her 40th birthday, she meets a sexy young surfing instructor. A long distance romance ensues, much to the chagrin of her jealous, but supposedly happily married friends. I won’t give it away, but it does have a bit of a fairytale ending (too good in fact).”

The Self-Proclaimed SuperMom doesn’t think only about her two kids, her husband, her dog, and her life.  In Musings of the Self Proclaimed Super-Mom, she aks confesses a super-secret automotive love affair. “When this house is sold and all debts are paid off,” she admits, “I will be trading in my ‘96 White Ford Taurus beater car for a better, cooler, oh so me, car.  Allow me to introduce my dream car: the Saab convertible 9-3.  OOOOH, I drool over this car daily, as I drive by it on my way to work.  Not a new one, but one that is ‘new to me’.  Oooh, Saab convertible, I want you so bad.”   

Some bloggers stories are automatically, immediately compelling — that is, you just have to stop and read t hem.  Baggage That Goes With Mine is one of those: the blog of a single engaged mom trying to figure out how to raise 10-year old Bug who was adopted from foster care.  And amidst all of her frank and fascinating talk (she’s an ex-Marine and an abuse survivor, as well), there’s also some down-to-earth ‘listing’ going on.  Like this shot of daughter Bug’s brand new Converse.  The shot had only this for a caption: “My daughter is a bad ass.”  Frankly, she ain’t the only one…

The Madcap Adventures of Mama Grouch and the Creep – yes, that’s the name of the blog, no kidding – is exactly as advertised: both adventurous and madcap.  It’s also kind of crafty, because Mama Grouch herself is a fan of knitty, and both sites have great things to say about dying your own knitting yarn using Kool-aid.  It’s fun, they say, and easy and cheap and you get many cool (or would that be ‘kool’?) colors in the process.

Carolyn of Kansas — a wife, mom, grandma, friend, niece, co-worker, VBS director, and church secretary who also (somehow) manages to find time to produce A Prairie View — recommends the wise and wonderful Worn Out Woman:When Your Life is Full and Your Spirit Is Empty by Dr. Steve Stephens & Alice Gray.  Among its telling chapter headings: “Telling Your Story:, “Shoulds and Oughts”, “Time for a Change”, “Playing to your Strengths”, “The Secret of Simplicity” and “The Gift of Forgiveness.”  “This book’s authors encourage us and want to inspire us, the reader, because they believe there is hope,” Carolyn says, as she shares the ups and downs of her own journey in an insightful and personal blog.

Andrea and Emily UG of Red, W(h)ine and Boo are two progressive moms blogging about life at large and the raising of their two babies, Boo and Red, who may be the cutest baby on the planet. And they’re blatantly honest, too: they are careful to recommend good baby-raising tools an educational toys, like the Leapfrog Learn-Around Playground…but they also freely admit that Boos’ current fave toy is a piece of direct mail and a left-over party favor. “So the moral of this story,: Mama Em says, “next birthday all gifts will be either purchased at the dollar tree, sent to us as junk mail, or dug out of some dusty back room and regifted. Yay for Mommies budget!”

Marvel at TreeHuggerz has discovered gDiapers and passes the word along: They’re “flushable inserts in a ‘little g’ cover that don’t cost much more than disposables,” she says. “You can compost the urine soaked inserts and even save on water.” And each purchase also helps support the Children’s Health Environmental Coalition’s Blue Butterfly campaign. “Wow, I would have jumped on these if I’d known about them when DD arrived.

Casserole of my Life is a “sweet, sour, bitter, spicy” blog about a young mom and her family…and the beautiful things she finds in life, including this gorgeous handmade jewelry by Suz. “My friend has a very fine eye for details and most of her pieces are rather interesting,” sesame says. “They’re not the usual faux baubles because these are all semi-precious stones set in sterling silver or 14K gold-filled chains. “

Mommyblogger (actually, multi-blogger) Heather at Queen Bee Confessions has a new additction – “So new,” she says, “I barely have words.” It’s the Moolatte from DQ Grill (formally Dairy Queen). “I don’t know what possessed me to buy one the other day. I don’t like coffee and this is iced coffee. But something whispered in my ear and said “moolatte, mocha moolatte”. I listened. OOOHHHHH I listened. It is cold, it is sweet, it is HEAVEN. I really have no words, I am misting up and I need a fix right now. I live 25 minutes away and I am going to dream about this moolatte all night. Say it with me “Moolatte” It even sounds nice <moooo laaaa tee> (I am southern, don’t make fun of me!)”

Poppy Buxom’s, blog, The Opiate of the Masses, calls itself “a dazzling stream of drivel and persiflage. Really.” And actually, it’s much more…including three wildly diverse book recs: Post Captain, by Patrick (Master and Commander) O’Brian, Bart Simpson’s Guide to Life, and the book pictured at right – the book we all secretly have but will never admit to. “See?” she says. “I’m totally going to master this whole blogging thing.”

Superhero Journal is the lively day-to-day of an extremely pregnant mom is full of energy, good humor, and “diversions,” like this recommendation on The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer. “It’s my new bible,” she says.