Back in August, I saw a note on Twitter Moms about the opportunity to review a new book titled “The BlackBerry Diaries: Adventures in Modern Motherhood.”

Being a BlackBerry-toting mom myself, it sounded like a great opportunity to read something fun - for free - and, who can resist free? (Yes, FTC, I got a free copy of the book to review in this blog.)

The humor book is written like a blog, complete with tags at the end of each short, dated entry. This style turned out to be both a good thing and a bad thing for me. It’s good because the brief entries let you easily pop in and out of the book (you know, like when you have to step away to deal with something that just came in on your BlackBerry). But, it’s also bad because it can be a little too easy to set it aside.

I received my copy in early September and have yet to finish it. But, rather than wait any longer, I figured I should go ahead and earn my free book by writing about it now.

The premise of the book is that toddlers and technology are not so different. “If they’re quiet, you’re constantly checking them to make sure everything is okay. If they’re loud and interrrupting, you just want them to shut up and go away. When they do, the cycle starts all over again.”

There were some observations to which I could relate: “… many BB-using employees will burn out quicker and resign faster as they continue to jam two years’ worth of work into seven and a half months.” But, others that I could not: “The bottom line is this: children and BBSPs [one of the author's acronyms for BlackBerry Smartphone] are all about ownership, one upmanship and petty jealousies.”

And, according to an article in CIO, the author says “she’s sharing lessons learned from her experience using a BlackBerry over the past year to enhance her and her childrens’ lives;” and, quite frankly, I didn’t see any of that in the book. Tips like don’t share your BlackBerry with someone or theyll see your BrickBreaker score, don’t use your BlackBerry at fondue parties and BlackBerries are good for keeping up with neighborhood gossip, yes. But, life enhancements? I’m afraid not.

It’s a nice, light, sometimes funny read; but, maybe because my girl is no longer a toddler or maybe because I’ve added an iPhone (personal) to my BlackBerry (work), I just never could really get into it. Not every book has to be a page-turner, I guess. But, since this one didn’t turn out to be for me, it remains unfinished. And apparently, I’m not the only one who hasn’t turned all its pages.

If anyone out there made it to the end and feels I missed something, please let me know!

Check out this fun (and funny!) promotion by MomsRising.org to celebrate someone you consider “Mother of the Year.”

The video allows you to customize with a few quick keystrokes a news report by CNNBC for the person you consider Top Mom. Type in a name and email address, and the program will do the rest. Be sure to send yours before Mothers Day this Sunday.

Included in the video clip are hysterical “man on the street” reactions to the announcement, as well as cameos by Obama as well as Octomom and Branjelina (both depicted wondering how you—or your chosen Mom—beat them out for the title).

Here is the link for the Mother of the Year Award video that you can customize and forward.

No matter what, I’ll always be able to tell my kids that I beat them to Facebook.

Granted, they’re only 2 and 3 right now, but STILL, I was there FIRST. My latest online reading/giggling obsession has been Oh Crap. My Parents Joined Facebook.

If you haven’t been there yet, go! Now!

I’ll wait……..ho hum. Twiddling thumbs. Getting some coffee.

Ok, back now.

Funny, funny stuff, people. Right?

And my poor, poor children.

I’m such a geek that no matter what tech thing is hot when they’re teenagers, I’ll have been there first.

Guaranteed.

Evil laughter……….

FACEBOOK STATUS UPDATE, MON, MAR 16, 2009:

3:49pm Christian reports: Berkeley (7lbs, 7oz - 20 in - 9.9 Apgar Scale) sends her love to all. She’s now feeding for the 1st time like she’s been doing it her whole life!

***

BACKSTORY:

Two and a half years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting my son, Beckett, for the first time.

As a first time father, Beckett’s arrival in our Ft. Worth, TX hospital delivery room — and his mother, Karla, who did all the heroic work that life-changing day — truly humbled me.  Trying to convey to my own mother on my cell phone a minutes later what it like to see him born and to hold him in my own arms was nearly impossible.  I simply lacked the words.  Tears replaced them as I fumbled to express myself.  Luckily, she understood and let me go back to my wife and son, telling me to give her a call later that night when time allowed me to fill her in more fully.

While photographs have allowed me to ‘remember’ those first few minutes/hours of Beckett’s young life, so much of what took place that afternoon has faded into the funky contours of the human brain, lost to the natural passing of time.  Even the entries I posted on our family blog only hit a few highlights, often written long after they took place.  The sense of the in-the-moment immediacy and wunderlust, however, was impossible to translate…

…until now.

FAST FORWARD:

Two and a half years later, my wife and I returned to the same hospital delivery unit to meet our first daughter, Berkeley.

Since Beckett’s birth, our family blog has magnified significantly from a tepid attempt to semi-privately ‘journal’ a few family moments here and there to the development of a robust hub of digital stories, photos, and videos that are now regularly shared with hundreds of family, friends, colleagues, and strangers around the world.  At last count, we’ve crossed the 2,250 blog post mark…and that was before our daughter’s birth.  We suspect a ‘few’ more will be added, too.

Additionally, we’ve added an iPhone to our tool set, not to mention dualing Facebook accounts for both parents. This means that just-in-time storytelling options have been magnified far beyond the boundaries of what a family blog can pull off.  Seems that blogging is so last status update.

It was only a matter of time before we’d put it all together, letting our family and friends grab a virtual real-time seat with us as we prepared to deliver our daughter via type-n-post Facebook status updates. something that would have been inconceivable not that long ago.

• Ever wondered how you’d tell the story of your child’s birth through the lens of 140-character Facebook status updates?
• Ever wondered what it’d be like to Facebook status update every step leading to, during, and after your child’s birth?
• Ever wonder how such a story would read, one status update at a time?

This is our story, told 140-characters (or less) at at time.

Continue Reading »

I’m sure you couldn’t miss it - we have a new header design on our site! The design was done by Rachael Cahours Acklin(one of the writers here) through her business Caffeinated Design. I’m just so impressed with the work she did and the professionalism of her business that I want to shout it out to the world! Rachael does a ton of web design work, so head on over if you’re ever in need of custom graphics, site building, design, business cards, hosting……..the list goes on. Rachael also designed a few different buttons (1 shown here)for you to use to promote the site if you’d like - just contact us and we’ll get you one to use on your own site to share This Mommy Gig with your readers!

Also, in case you missed it on the sidebar, you can follow This Mommy Gig on Twitter for updates of all of the great stuff going on here! We’re @thismommygig - check us out!

I’m so excited to announce that This Mommy Gig is now included on the mommybar toolbar! The mommybar is a free toolbar that you can include on your browser menu and it includes a great listing of mommy blogs, communities, coupons, gadgets, and a collection of great resources for moms (and anyone, actually!) The woman who created

and manages this is so amazing - she just had her first baby last week and responded to my email inquiry the next day! Now that’s dedication!

The download is amazingly simple and well worth the minute or so it takes to do. One of the coolest things about the mommybar is that it also includes the kidzbar - a toolbar with tons of listings of kid-friendly educational and fun websites.

Really, this toolbar would be perfect for any parent or anyone who has children using their computer. I highly recommend the mommybar, it’s on my laptop right now (I’m running Firefox) and it’s working great for me. Check it out!

Note: If you find a site that you think should be included on the mommybar, there is a place for you to recommend your favorites - I actually just submitted a request that Skimbaco be added to the shopping section!

What a perfect day to launch our mommy blog!

Mothers’ Day is for celebrating moms and we decided to celebrate US by launching This Mommy Gig today. We’re a group of working moms trying to survive the juggling act of career and motherhood. We come from all over the U.S. and have different backgrounds, but we’re all dealing with the same issues. Join us in our quest (usually chaotic) to keep everything running smoothly.

Our children are different ages and we have different careers, but the craziness is the same. We’ll be writing about our experiences and ups and downs while we try to balance juggle career, motherhood, and relationships. We’re all writing on our own schedule - some days you’ll get all of us, some days none. We’re all insanely busy, but want to share our lives with other moms like us - after all, who could get through motherhood without friends and community?

Who are we? Here’s a brief introduction:

Kate

Kate Olson shares her 40 acres in Wisconsin with a husband, a 1-year-old boy, a 2-year-old girl, and a giant dog. She attempts to work at home and is constantly protecting her laptop from little hands and sippy cups - her printer has already been corrupted by a mini-technician and her “fix-it” paperclips. She’s a child of the ’80’s and mistakenly believed that women could have it all………ha. She’s an accountant turned stay-at-home mom turned teacher turned consultant, and always, always, always, no matter how hard she runs, MOM. She blogs about her other professions and lots of tech/geeky stuff at Kate Says. You can find her on twitter as @kolson29.

Stephanie

Stephanie Sandifer lives and works in Houston, Texas where she shares her life with an amazingly supportive and loving partner, two beautiful 4 month old twins — one boy and one girl, two yellow labs, and two spoiled cats. Stephanie works full-time in education at the high school level as an instructional coach, and has the great luck to work on a campus that has a daycare where the twins spend the day. Prior to her current education role, Stephanie studied and worked as a visual artist, graphic designer, and adjunct college art faculty. Her interest in education technology has led her to recent explorations with online education and she hopes to eventually become more involved in online eLearning adventures. As another “child of the eighties”, she feels passionate about focusing on family over career like many others of her generation, and she hopes eventually to find a better way to manage a career while also pursuing her passion for Motherhood.

A water-bug by nature who grew up in Southwest Louisiana, Stephanie enjoys the Houston weather (except in August) and access to the Gulf Coast. When she gets away from work she enjoys spending time with family and friends — especially when that time includes good Cajun food, barbeque, or chips & salsa and a sunny afternoon around someone’s pool or at a lake or beach house. She is also an avid reader and sports fan — especially college sports. She enjoys hiking, traveling, golfing, and can be found enjoying a nice dinner with wine as well as holding her own at a crawfish boil. She hopes to eventually dust off her golf clubs and her art supplies… someday…

Stephanie blogs about education, education technology, leadership, and school improvement on her own blog Change Agency and on the group blog LeaderTalk.org. You can also find her on LinkedIn and Twitter @ssandifer, and occasionally playing around in Second Life with a bunch of other edtech geeks on ISTE Island.

Christine

Christine Perkett is a busy mom of two busy boys, ages 3 and 6. As a working mother, Christine spends every day trying to maintain balance between her passion for family and motherhood and her drive to run a successful business. She founded and runs PerkettPR, Inc. - a high tech pr agency with over 30 employees across 10 states - in 1998.

Perkett is active in her local community as well as the city of Boston - serving as Vice President on the Board for Boston’s Business Marketing Association and is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Norwell Visiting Nurses Association in Norwell, Mass. In addition to writing for This Mommy Gig about motherhood and its joys and challenges, she also writes for her company blog and two personal blogs including Training4Dublin which follows her marathon training with her husband for the Dublin Marathon in October 2008. Perkett is also a Blogger for WomenForHire.com (run by Tory Johnson, the Workplace Contributor on ABC’s Good Morning America) and has been a guest-blogger for PRWeek. She has been a featured speaker on the topic of technology and PR and is also a published author in “Inside the Minds: Public Relations Best Practices” by Aspatore Books and was profiled in the “Entrepreneurial Small Business” college text book by McGraw Hill (January 2008).

Christine lives with her husband, children and three dogs – two beagles and a Chihuahua – in Marshfield, Mass. She enjoys the areas many beaches as well as running, kayaking, reading, writing, travel, wine, chocolate, cheese and is an avid Red Sox fan. If you can catch her in between her family and work commitments, you can connect with Christine on Linkedin, Facebook or on Twitter at @missusP.

Thanks for visiting and we hope you’ll be back!

We’re not quite up and running yet, but we will be soon! If you want to contact us, email kolson29 at gmail.com or via twitter at @kolson29, @missusp, or @ssandifer.

Stay tuned for some great mommy writing starting on Sunday, May 11, 2008!

For now, why not just subscribe so you don’t miss our first “real” post?