GoodyBlog

Finally, Someone Who's Eager to Listen to You!

If you're a mom, you no doubt occasionally feel like certain people are trying to tune you out.  So here's an opportunity to connect with someone who really, really wants to hear from you. As part of its 20th birthday celebration, Mothers and More, a national mommy network with chapters around the country, is conducting a survey on how women feel about motherhood. "We're inviting women to share their real life experiences as mothers, the good, the bad and the ugly” says Joanne Brundage, executive director of Mothers & More.  “No matter whether they’re in the paid workplace or not, all mothers do unpaid work caring for their families, and that unpaid work has real social and economic value.  We want to identify common barriers mothers face in their everyday lives, by surveying how mothers view themselves and how they feel others view them, related to their role as a mother and their work as a mother."  You can take the survey online between now and the end of March.  The group promises it will share its survey results in April.

New Kids on the Block

And now for a nice, warm GoodyBlog welcome to our two newest bloggers, Josh and Tracy! They both recently joined the Parents staff and have already started blogging: Josh is our GoodyGossip guru and Tracy is our resident beauty expert. Of course they're both so much more: To get the full scoop, check out their bios on our About Us page. Yay, new friends!

Do You Have Recurring Dreams?

Normally, what happens in my bed stays in my bed. But here's an exception I feel I can share with the entire Goodyblog world. I had a dream last night that I was pregnant. This is not the first time this theme has shown up in my dreams. I'd say at least once or twice a month for the past 6 months or so, I've dreamed that I was in some stage of pregnancy (and, weirdly, I get more and more pregnant each time). Editor's note: I'm not preggers, nor am I planning to be preggers any time soon.

What could these dreams mean? According to this online dream dictionary (totally legit, I know): "Symbolically, pregnancy dreams may indicate the birth of a new project or idea in one's life, or being pregnant with emotion." Hmm...I'll have to think more about that.

So, do you have recurring dreams? Are you willing to share them with us (please post them in the comments!). And have you looked up their meanings?

Shameless Plug and Reminder to Listen to our Podcast

I hope you've all had a chance to listen to our free Parents podcasts (they're really great, if I do say so myself!). Well, right now, the podcast is featured on the  itunes podcast splash page. And the little guy who is the face of the Parents podcast is none other than my son little Will when he was just a baby! Please tune in, and if you have any ideas for upcoming podcast features or you want to ask our experts a question, shoot us an email at podcast@parents.com.

Meet the GoodyBloggers

So you may have noticed that a whole bunch of us (all Parents staffers) post here at GoodyBlog. We probably overshare enough in our posts (or maybe that's just me...), but we decided it was time to give you guys the official rundown and do an "About Us" page. Check us out here (or click on the new link at left in our sidebar.)

But it's not just all about us—we started a GoodyBlog Facebook group so everyone can get in on the action! It's a place where you guys can post the cool/interesting things you find, and most importantly, we want to get to know you better!! So stop by, join up, and say hello!

Misty Water-Colored Memories

Last weekend, a few of my college friends and I road-tripped it back up to our alma mater for a bit of nostalgia. But instead of re-living college life and regressing back to all-night partying (who can stay up that late anymore anyway??), we discovered fun new activities in our old collegetown: Ithaca, N.Y. Which got me thinking: how cool would it be to do a nostalgia trip with your kids?!

We had so much fun walking around campus, visiting our old haunts, taking silly pictures next to memorable landmarks, and eating at restaurants we used to go to every single day when we were 21. We also found new family-friendly activities like berry picking (see pic of me concentrating very hard on choosing the ripest raspberry), going to the Farmers' Market, hiking the trails at Treman State Park, and laying out by the waterfalls--things we never got to do when we were constantly in the library until all hours studying for ridiculously hard exams.

Have you taken any trips back to your collegetown, the town you grew up in, the place you met your spouse, or any other nostalgic places with your kids? Tell us.

We Rock!!! (Warning: Shameless Self Congrats Are Contained Within This Post)

Little did I know that as I was sleeping last night the awesome, charming, and delightful Izzy of Izzymom fame was awarding me a ROCKING GIRL BLOGGER AWARD which I humbly accept on behalf of all the girls and guys here at goodyblog. Here's the what she said about us (which basically made me want to cry—even though I know Izzy is occasionally given to hyperboyle)

I love the GoodyBlog. It’s like all the best mom, baby, parenting, news and shopping blogs all rolled up into one; serving up wonderful, tasty morsels of every day.

And we didn't even pay her or anything! Seriously, This really, really is what we aspire to do so the idea that someone like Izzy thinks we actually accomplish makes me so happy I don't even know what to do with myself! Thank you Izzy!!!! xoxoxo, Team GoodyBlog!