Best! Toddler! Art! Supplies! Evah!

No art on walls, floors, people or pets. No “colour wonder” paints to eat or markers to suck.

1. The generic brand travel size “magnetic drawing doohickie.”
$2.99 at Toys R Us.

His first drawing experience.
He loved it so much that he actually stopped to hug it several times.

The final product, captured for posterity.

2. The Aquadoodle (non-licensed character variety, of course).
($29.99 at Toys R Us.)

Drawing? With water? Ever so cool!
Nothing to clean up and the art evaporates in a few minutes. Me likey.
(You should have seen it when he dropped his ice cubes on it and smeared them around!)

We’ll work on the pincer pencil grip at a later date…

(I’ve been holding my tongue about this for a while but now it’s public so go send your congrats to Michelle, Joe & Kayla!)

Michelle at Scribbit has created a Google custom search engine of nearly 1700 mom blogs. If you want information on one of the many topics we all post about, try her search engine out. If you want similar posts to link to, she’s got that too. It’s really very cool, and huge props to Michelle for putting it together.

A little more info for you via an e-interview (paraphrased, because I lost the questions I asked her):

MMTaM: How on earth did you come up with such a great idea?

Scribbit: My husband needs the credit. He’s been after me for a couple months to put the CSE (Custom Search Engine) together because he did one for maps that’s been successful. He’s been my agent and mentor in the whole blogging experience and finally I figured that since he’s been right in so many other areas maybe he was right about this too.

MMTaM: Are you some kind of special techie genius or something?

Scribbit: Figuring it out wasn’t hard, Google announced months ago that they were making it possible to put a CSE together, and it’s fairly easy. It was merely being aware of the technology available and then putting it to use in my niche. I’m not adept at coding, I bumble around the CSS and haven’t a clue about things like java and PHP but I get by.

MMTaM: How did you decide which blogs to include?

Scribbit: At first I only intended to add the 200 or so blogs I’ve frequented from time to time but when I got into it I quickly realized that it made sense to add as many as had pertinent posts and information. I’m a member of several blogrolls so I went through each and added the momblogs that were listed there. I didn’t add all of them–if their content was objectionable (and that’s a purely subjective thing I know, but it is my CSE so I had to be the one making the judgment call in this area) or if they hadn’t posted in a month I didn’t add them. Of the blogs registered with Blogher I added the majority of them but wasn’t as thorough there just because of the huge number of blogs involved. I was getting tired after 1500.

MMTaM: Is your CSE complete or are you continuing to add to it? How can someone get their blog listed?

Scribbit: It’s now grown to nearly 1700 momblogs, though I’ve kept the “1500″ label just for convenience sake. If someone wants their blog added (and they should check first to see if their blog comes up) they should email me at scribbit at gmail dot com. Please don’t leave a message in the comments because it’s harder to trace it back and with the number of emails I get that’s a little inconvenient to respond that way.

So there it is, glad you like it and thanks for the interest. As a final note, one of the things that I love about blogging is it’s non-competitive nature. That may sound odd to say but with blogging, as opposed to print and other media, my neighbor’s success helps me as well. If I can boost another blog’s stats and ranking and they link to me, then my ranking and links are benefited. When a blogger friend succeeds, it boosts my blog as well. It’s a symbiotic relationship that no other media enjoys and one that I find wonderful. I hope this CSE I’ve created helps to strengthen the momblog/blogs by women community and makes all of us a little more successful in our endeavors.

So, there you have it. A very cool little idea grown into a very cool big thing. If you’d like to post Michelle’s CSE on your site, just email her for the code. It looks like this:

Search 1500 Momblogs

Search for ideas on parenting, crafts, gardening, books, cooking and more…
hosted by Scribbit

Give it a shot. You know you’re tempted. Try it from this post and see what you come up with. Find something interesting? Tell us in comments!

I was always taught never to speak ill of the dead. So I won’t. But Oh.My.God. That poor little motherless baby. No matter how much of a moron your mother is (oops, I said I wouldn’t do that) every girl should be able to know her mama. Now this precious child has two men fighting over paternity, no brother and no mother. I hope she’s strong. Here’s the CNN news vid. May she rest in peace. May her daughter grow up strong, confident and loved.

anna nicole smith

Many of you know of my love for animals. Our pets are our furry children, and we love all animals and think they deserve great respect (even the ones we’d never have in our house, like snakes.)
I was raised to take special care of those who cannot care for themselves. My husband and I believe that we should also speak for those who have no voice, and we are indeed very outspoken about it at times. We are raising the boy the same way ~ to believe that animals are no less valuable than people, and to care for them with love and compassion. Wanna hear my rant about people that let their cats outside? (If you live on a farm, you get a pass.)

A fellow animal person, Aimee, has a new blog and she’s hosting a contest to promote it. Go over and enter to win a horse pack at this post. (Tara! You’ll love it!)

• Check us out at the Dr. MOZ propaganda page!

This little boy needs your help to cure a disease that is slowly taking his life. Some kind bloggers have worked together to create a series of online raffles with all profits going to MD Canada. Tickets cost from $1-$5 and are available through paypal secure. Go check it out. You needed a good deed to get back in Santa’s good books, right? Here it is.

The boy and I are having another crazy day with visits, a photo shoot, a walk date and a lot of napping (on his part…photo editing on mine). My legs and butt are screaming from too many lunges yesterday. I’m earning my mom’s Christmas baking!

(If you can’t see my new banner, clear your cache. Does anyone know how to clear the cache in the old version of firefox? I have the newest version and can’t remember where it is on the old one. In the new one, it’s tools - clear private data…but in the old one there’s no “clear private data” option…Leave a comment if you use the old one and can help, please!)

Updated with code at the bottom…

I have a new roomie over in my sidebar. Please click and check out Scooter McGavin’s 9th Green. Surprisingly, his blog is not at all related to golf. He writes about music, TV, sports and politics and it looks like he updates every day. Go send him some clicky love from MMTaM, would ya?

Oh, and if you’re free tonight, check out Kristen’s first Blog Talk Radio show from 10-11pm EST tonight. (8-9 pm mountain time, for you locals.)
Tonight, she’ll be talking about:
*Feminist Parenting: The good, the bad, and the Husbands…
*Frank and funny talk about clueless husbands, racy girls toys and clothing, and a friendly debate with two other bloggers.

Have you been to Much More Opinionated yet? Have you entered my current contest? Funny how lurkers come out of the woodwork when there’s a prize involved. Hmmmm. I already have over 40 entrants, 38 of whom I have never heard of. I’m so glad you’re all reading, but leave a comment once in a while, would ya?
(Don’t worry, commenters and real life friends don’t get precedence over there - prize winners are all selected using a randomizer. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to say hello sometimes. It’s just good manners. I love you all just the same.)

Could you do me a favour? (or a ‘favor’ if you’re American…) Could you pimp the new place at your blog? Pretty please? With cherries on top? I’ll like you for a blurb in one of your posts, but I’ll love you and be your best friend for a permalink in your sidebar.

Click here to get the code.
Thanks, yo.