iBlog Friday: Our weekly roundup of Aussie bloggers

At iVillage we’re passionate about supporting Australian bloggers. That’s why we’ve created iBlog Friday.

It’s a chance for bloggers to introduce their favourite post of the week to iVillage readers and for our community to read what Aussie writers are up to.

Here are the bloggers who have sent their submissions this week. Happy reading!

Rebecca Bowyer of Seeing the Lighter Side of Parenting talks about how her life has changed since her little boy started walking in her post Weekdays with a toddler: a pie chart.

In the past week Son #2 (nearly 14 months old now) has fully mastered the art of walking. This has resulted in a significant increase in incidents of injury (currently bruises to his shins, knees, cheek, head and arms create an alarming rainbow of healing) and a drastic decrease in my ability to get anything done (including, but not limited to, writing hilarious and insightful blogs).

Read the rest of Rebecca's post here.

Lisa Wilson of Two Point Five Kids tackles a tricky subject of sex and the "I'm too tired" monster that creeps into parent's bedrooms in her post 101 Positions, 102 Excuses.

Read the rest of Lisa's post here.

Mel Kettle of The Cook's Notebook helps us reduce food wastage (kids are the worst when it comes to this!) in her post Top 10 tips to reduce food waste.

However the biggest change for us not throwing away food as been to get chickens! Yes, yes, I had to weave a mention of our crazy chickens in here somewhere! We throw away very little food now we have chickens – they eat most things, and what they don’t want we give to our worm farm or our compost. The only food we don’t “recycle” are meat scraps (although the chickens do get some). We also get a massive box of veggie scraps from our local fruit and veg shop every week to feed our girls, so we are also helping them reduce their waste.

Read the rest of Mel's post here.

Eloise Carter of The Female Eccentric gives us her take on Julia Gillard's recent interview in her post My take on Gillard and Summers at the Opera House.

Watching Julia Gillard's interview with Anne Summers the other night was great. Not only did I get to see two of my heroes have a discussion about sexism but I also got to hear Gillard discuss her political career. For any young left wing feminist it was probably an awesome thing to see, but I couldn't help but feel that something was missing.

Read the rest of Eloise's post here.

Keri Arkell of Awesomely Unprepared has some advice for the super busy in her post Note to self: Read this when overwhelmed.

I really think that being overwhelmed is one of those things that comes with adulthood. Actually, it starts much earlier than that for a lot of us…I guess we become much more aware of it with the responsibilities that trying to be a fully functioning adult can carry. I feel overwhelmed at least once a week fortnight month and each time I am trying to learn how to better deal with it. You may know the feeling – too many tasks to complete, not enough time. Too many people asking things of you, not enough of you to go around. Feeling like you’re super busy all the time getting nothing done.

Read the rest of Keri's post here.

Kathryn Boyde of Katzrambles talks about her mission to teach her sons to express their feelings in her post Suffering In Silence.

I try to allow my husband space to sort things out in his own mind before probing him too much about his emotions. However, sometimes it is hard to understand what is going on with him if he doesn’t share this information with me. I also try to allow my son room to express his feelings and am conscious of not invalidating his comments about his emotions. However, I do worry that as he gets older he will learn that, as a male, he is supposed to ‘toughen up’, not be a ‘wuss’ and just ‘get over it’.

Read the rest of Kathryn's post here.

Kellie Turtu of Mama Pyjama shares the familiar feeling that growing up and becoming parent seems to have happened so fast in her post All Grown Up.

I’m pretty sure it was just yesterday that I was sitting on a school bench, giggling with my friends about what we were going to be when we grew up.  We talked about how old we’d be when we got married, how many kids we planned to have, all the things we were going to do when we were ‘free’ from the shackles of youth.  It all seems like a lifetime away.  Thirty seemed so old, and the thoughts of us being parents and career women, wives and homeowners, were like alien concepts – far far away in a land we were yet to discover.

Read the rest of Kellie's post here.

Toni Welch of Finding Myself Young discusses relationships in her post The greatest gift a man can give his daughter is to love her mother.

My relationship with T is a lot better and very affectionate. We say I love you all the time and we hug a lot. I have always had a strong desire to create a family where my children would grow up knowing that their parents love each other. I think its important for children to see a man treat their mother right. This is most probably because I grew up without that and I know the mistakes that I have made because of it.

Read the rest of Toni's post here.

Susan Taylor of One Woman Circus talks about the room in which she spends them most time in her home in her post I spend a total of one month every year...in the kitchen.

As most readers will know, I'm a stay-at-home mum to two young boys aged 16 months and about to turn three. Only the eldest goes to day care and he's only there twice a week. I also work a bit from home, run this blog thing and do creative writing in my 'spare time'. So what does this mean? In a nutshell - I'm permanently stressed, surrounded by chaos, never have enough time in the day, yet am constantly showered in love.

Read the rest of Susan's post here.

Joanna Lamb of Joanna Writes Here writes a beautiful letter to her future daughter in her post Dear future daughter.

You are beautiful, my daughter.  Your laughter is like music to my ears.  Don’t ever let anyone take that away from you.  You are strong, and their words will not hurt you.  You are smarter than to be pulled down to someone else’s level. You are clever. You are capable.  You will rise and fall, and you will rise again.

Read the rest of Joanna's post here.

Nami Clarke of Bubba Gum HQ revisits the simplicity of childhood in her post Stripping Back.

I remember the day that mum waltzed in the door of my childhood home carrying a video cassette player under her arm.  It was seriously fancy and I am quite certain that we were the very last family in the nation to own one.  It was strictly reserved for very special occasions.  We lived in a solar-powered house so even watching the colour telly was a treat; for the majority of days it was the old black and white job with its pull-out power knob that would clickety clack through the channels.  This was the late 80's, not the 1950's by the way.   As kids we were taught to cherish everything that we had and on the occasions we were treated with something special it felt like Christmas.

Read the rest of Nami's post here.

Jacintha Webster of Time to get a veghead talks about the challenge of staying in touch with aging relatives in her post Is it okay if I call you?

The following questions made me the saddest I have felt all year.  "Can I have your number" followed by "Is it ok if I call you?".  I wasn't propositioned at a bar and there was no sleazy men.  It was my pop asking.  I couldn't believe it, he didn't want to bug me but just wanted to keep in touch.  This conversation broke my heart a little.  What had happened over the past few years that my poppy, a man who had known me before I knew myself, didn't think he could call me?

Read the rest of Jacintha's post here.

This week’s winner will be published on Monday and will receive a Cetaphil Pack.

To enter our weekly iBlog Friday competition, send your entry through to info@themotherish.com by midday on Thursday.