Today, I’m pleased to launch a new one.

Blog Internship was developed as a direct response to my readers, listeners and mailing list subscribers who have been keenly interested in how I work with my blogging interns at Mom’s Talk Network.

In my internship, I take brand new bloggers and teach them the basics of social networking and successful blogging.  Week by week they learn new habits and strategies and put them into practice on my blog network. They get feedback and constructive critique on their writing and blog formatting. They learn how to make relevant, natural affiliate recommendations that help to monetize the content. They give me ten hours a week and in return I give them coaching and access to my learning resources.  Basically, it’s a super sized barter agreement.  We both give, we both get.

Naturally, I can only accept a small number of interns in each session.  This past spring I received hundreds of applications and accepted ten.  That left a lot of dissappointed baby bloggers out there – and they where among those who have been asking me if I would ever consider selling access to my intern’s training program.

These requests were interesting, but my first thought was that it wouldn’t work.  The lesson plans are great – but the real benefit to my interns is in the group coaching sessions we have each week and the feedback and brainstorming that takes place when we’re communicating about their intern projects.

What’s more interesting to me and what ultimately spurred me into action is that I have been receiving multiple requests from other bloggers as well.  Bloggers who did not apply for the internship and who are not interested in spending time working on someone else’s blog.  They just want to help doing what my interns do on their own websites.

After chatting with some past interns and a few friends, I realized I could develop a curriculum that provides the best of the internship offered in three levels.  I have recorded a special version of the ‘group coaching’ session to go with each week’s lesson plan so that a blogger that wants to go it alone can do so and still get the benefit of my explanation and encouragement. Bloggers who want more help can choose a higher level of membership.

I never would have thought about creating something like this if my market hadn’t asked about it.  And sadly, I may have never acted on their requests if there hadn’t been a few who were darned persistent about it.

Are you listening to your people?

Do you regularly ask your readers, listeners and subscribers to talk to you?  Sometimes it can be as simple as asking them what they want to know. Or just ending a message with a ‘what do you think?’

Over the years I’ve come to understand and appreciate that my personal mailing list subscribers are a mouthy bunch.  They tell me what they think.  They encourage me.  They ask for what they need.

I can’t always give them what they ask for but I do pay attention.  Sometimes the nuttiest requests lead to an amazing new idea.  Hopefully, Blog Internship is one of them.

I saw a distinct pattern in the almost two dozen I had starred (bookmarked). I love the list compilation posts because I have enjoyed and trusted Wendy Piersall’s opinions, advice and hard work for well over a year.

As a work-at-home mom, I especially love when someone has done the legwork and research and put it all in one place. These three posts gave me loads of great information and places to read and connect and learn even more…

1. Top 10 internet business ideas you can start and run in your underwear
2. 15 niche affiliate programs perfect for mom and dad bloggers
3. 18 amazing articles to help you work at home

Sparkplugging often feels like a virtual assistant – they do the work for us and hand us great ideas and resources right when we need them most. Thanks Wendy and Kelly for pointing us in the right direction with so much great content!

Follow Sherra on Twitter: @SherraLife

Jennifer James
www.mommytoomag.com
If you are mom blogger than you probably know Jennifer from the largest directory for mom bloggers, mombloggersclub.com. In fact signing up for her website opened up a lot of doors for me. I found most of my blogging friends through mombloggersclub.com. She is an amazing multi-tasker. Not only does she operate mombloggersclub.com, but she also created TheMomSalon.com, MommyToo.com and NAAHA.com.  She has been featured and quoted in a variety of magazines and newspapers. Looking at what she has achieved motivates me to stay the course and continue with my goals.

Maria T Bailey
www.mariabailey.com
You may know Maria from her most recent ventures Newbaby.com and MomTV.com, however she is also the host of Mom Talk Radio, founder of BlueSuitMom.com, CEO of BSM Media, and a National TV Talk Show Host on Lifetime. Maria has over a decade of experience studying the behaviors of moms and being a mom of four further validates her expertise. She has written several books on marketing to moms, her most recent book Mom 3.0 is a valuable resource for anyone interested in marketing to moms.

Beth Feldman
www.rolemommy.com
Beth is the president of Roll Mommy and overseas all of the online content from reviews to interviews. Her mission for Role Mommy is inspiring – helping your children realize their hopes and dreams doesn’t mean you have to give up your own. As a mother of two children I was quickly wrapped up into the role of “mommy” and lost myself in the process. However as I started blog and meet other influential moms the “me” started to uncoil and I began to set goals and plans for myself.

Allison Worthington
www.mrsfussypants.com
Another great influential mom blogger who makes multi-tasking look easy. She maintains her own blog mrsfussypants.com and is also the founder of Blissfully Domestic, co-host of the Blissdom Conference and founder of Worthington Wire. Did I mention she is also a mom to 5 boys? Need I say more?

Tiffany Washko
www.tiffanywashko.com
Tiffany is an avid environmentalist, a freelance writer, newspaper journalist, internet marketer and mother. Her primary focus is on natural lifestyle and green living. She also owns Bento Lunch Box a site I love to look at while imagining to prepare my own lunch before grabbing something at the closest food chain. Like me, she is always thinking of new ways to bring multiple streams of income into the family. It’s great to see someone else achieving the goals I’m striving for.

Jen Singer
www.mommasaid.net
Her website MommaSaid.net launched in 2003 and is now a virtual community bringing in thousands of faithful visitors around the world. Her goal was to create a community for moms on the brink of desperation can go to laugh and linger.  She has been quoted in a variety of newspapers and magazines and has appeared on several television shows. In 2005, MamaSaid.net received the Forbes Best of the Web designation for Parenting Blogs.  If you are looking for parenting advice MommaSaid.net is a great resource. Look for MomaSaid parenting books this fall.

Cindy Rushton
www.cindyrushton.com
An influential Christian blogger who provides information on marriage, mothering, or homeschooling. Her goal is to encourage and inspire moms to follow their calling in life.

Jessica Smith
www.jessicaknows.com
Who hasn’t heard of JessicaKnows.com? While she doesn’t promote herself as a mom blogger she influences and inspires me every day. I hope to build a recognizable brand for myself like she has done with JessicaKnows.com. Last year I participated in her Rock Your Blog coaching and learned so much during those sessions and still talk to many of the participants today.

Tara Crooks
www.taracrooks.com
Most known for her blog Army Wife Network and Army Wife Talk Radio show has motivated and influenced others to follow their dreams and reach their goals. You will often find her speaking and writing about military life.

Kelly Mccausey
www.kellymccausey.com
It only seems fitting to include Kelly in my list of influential mom bloggers, after all I wouldn’t be writing this post if it wasn’t for her. In the five weeks I’ve been interning at Sparkplugging.com I’ve learned to explore controversial topics, balance my time, and investigate other business opportunities.

While it is impossible for me to include EVERY blog that has influenced me. I would love to know what mom blogger influenced you today.

My name is Stephanie Elie and I am a transitional entrepreneur and mother of two children under the age of four. I am the editor of BizzieMommy.com and was recently listed in the Power Moms 50 list by Neilson Online.

Follow Stephanie on Twitter: @BizzieMommy

I feel obligated to say that I was never the “popular” girl in school, my blog does not bring in thousands of visitors a day and my Twitter and Facebook numbers are not the highest around. However a couple of weeks ago my blog showed up on Nielson’s Power 50 Mom Influencer List and I was floored and excited until I started to hear the negative comments about the list.

Some people were saying they just picked the most popular moms, the moms with the highest twitter followers or the moms that post every day on their blogs.

I was shocked to read a post by one blogger, “It makes me crazy when I see mediocre writers who get more time in the spotlight then they deserve because they know a lot of SEO tricks or market themselves incessantly while fabulous writers are dismissed as lacking influence.”

She even went so far to say that race was a factor in the decision making.

So does popularity automatically make you a power influencer?

In the end I don’t think so. I would imagine that being a popular blogger is great, you get PR reps calling on you all day to promote their product, you get to attend amazing events and you get a ton of traffic coming to your blog which increases your monetization potential. You are basically treated like an “online” celebrity.

Jessica from JessicaKnows.com has been on the receiving end of a lot of negative buzz lately but she is one blogger that I find inspiring and a power influencer. She said, “In my opinion, popularity does not equal influence. You might get everyone reading your blog because you’re funny, but it doesn’t mean they’ll take what you say seriously when recommending anything.” While she might also be labeled as a “popular blogger” she helps out other bloggers when she can.

A popular blog is fun and entertaining to read and on occasion you may even pick up a few tricks of the blogging trade from them. But a blog of influence is a blog that inspires you to do something or take some kind of action. An influential blog is where we turn to when we need blogging advice or help with our business ideas. Or when we are looking for parenting and relationship advice.

When I first began blogging I immediately was sucked into the popularity and traffic game. I was disappointed when my traffic numbers were lower than then shopping and giveaway blogs. I asked myself, where are all the visitors everyone brags about on twitter? I mean how would I be able to influence anyone with such low traffic numbers?

Then I started to receive emails from people that were reading my blog telling me they were actually inspired by all that I’m doing. A blogging friend, Rosina from BabyFriendlyLA.com said she would complain to her husband when she felt overwhelmed but was motivated by all the things that I am trying to do. I have to say I was humbled and grateful for her comments. Because there are days that I’m ready to just throw in the towel. I really just didn’t think I was popular enough to make a difference, to be a real influence.

A new friend of mine Felicia from icompletemeblog.com said, “As a new blogger I initially thought popularity and influence meant the same thing. I mean you have influenced people to believe you are popular, right? And you want to be popular because you want all that traffic coming to your site. But as I grow my online business and look for tools that can really help me, I realized I don’t want just any traffic. I need targeted traffic that will purchase my product. This is where the influence comes in. I feel that in order to be a person of influence you must be able to make people take action (whether good or bad depends on how you want to be remembered). As I grow my business there are some things I just will not purchase regardless of how popular you may be.”

So which type of blog will win over the PR reps? I think when it comes to endorsements and promotion the “popular” blog will always win. After all isn’t that how all of society works, why would it be different online?

However, when looking for support, answers and advice it will be the power influencers that people will turn to. What kind of blogger do you want to be?

At the end of the day it does not matter how popular you are nor does it matter how far your reach is, what matters most is if you influenced someone in a positive way. If your blog post motivated someone else to make a change or take a stand then you truly are a Power Mom Influencer.

Stephanie Elie (@BizzieMommy) is a transitional entrepreneur and mother of two children under the age of four. The editor of BizzieMommy.com and was recently listed in the Power Moms 50 list by Neilson Online.

For the latest on the Steak ‘n Shake fiasco with them refusing service to DeafMom, here’s Karen’s report on her meeting with them, which started out with them saying, “We believe in admitting when we make mistakes and learning from them.” Still no apology from the CEO, but a great start.

Joe over at Working at Home on the Internet shot me a note about a work at home eBay selling mom who has gotten into some serious trouble with her local authorities – to the tune of ten. million. dollars. I am hoping along with Joe that Mary Jo Pletz gets in touch with him to offer her side of the story.

And if you are feeling lonely and want to get MORE of your Mommy fix, please check out Char’s updated Where the Moms are Online and this recent list of the best mom social networking sites. NICE.

And lastly, this has nothing to do with moms, dads, or parenting, but it’s dang cool. A group of SEOs have put some leverage into place to meet their new years resolutions of dropping some pounds. It’s a fight to the death to the skinny jeans and all proceeds are going to charity!

One of the things I have also seen each time are people questioning why these women’s lists exist in the first place – and isn’t it discriminatory? Honestly, I don’t believe that it is – just as it isn’t really discriminatory to not be named to the Top 10 Blogs in Midwest Region if you live in Alabama, or getting left off the Top 10 CEO Blogs when you aren’t a CEO.

At the same time, I do believe there is a shortage of excellent lists featuring great men. I mean a list that highlights great guys doing great things – period. So here is my list of the most accomplished and influential blogging eDads, in no particular order:

Mark Frauenfelder :: BoingBoing

Mark co-founded BoingBoing.net back in 2000 as an extension the print magazine bOING bOING that he published with his wife in 1988. The success and influence of BoingBoing.net speaks for itself, being in the top 5 blogs on the internet for a very, very long time. But Mark’s extra-cool fatherly accomplishments include being an extremely talented illustrator and the author of a science experiment book for kids called The Mad Professor.

Robert Scoble :: Scobleizer

Robert’s first well-known influential blog was written when he blogged for Microsoft from 2003-2006. One of his notable contributions to the blogging medium was the transparency with which he wrote, including criticizing Microsoft and at times praising their competitors Apple and Google. He’s also been vocal as an activist, or I should say, “non-vocal” as he took a week off of writing to support Kathy Sierra when she quit blogging due to the death threats made against her. He is currently VP of Media Development with the startup PodTech, though soon to be leaving to join FastCompany.

Guy Kawasaki :: How to Change the World

Guy is the legendary Apple Evangelist turned VC hero. He’s written 8 books, has 4 children, and is the current Managing Director of Garage Technologies, a venture capital firm and that makes direct investments in early-stage technology companies. He’s also funny, humble, competitive, and a great speaker – which I was able to witness first hand when I met him at Elite Retreat earlier this year.

Darren Rowse :: ProBlogger

Darren is one of the most visible individuals in the blogosphere, and it’s not surprising why. His blog ProBlogger is the most read & authoritative resource for making money from blogging. He’s also one of the co-founders of the b5media blog network, one of the largest blog networks in existence. Read a recent interview with him on balancing work and family life in a home office on Dad Balance.

Brian Clark :: CopyBlogger

Brian is arguably one of the most talented writers in the blogosphere, period. It could be because he used to be an attorney, or perhaps he’s just plain good – but his blog CopyBlogger skyrocketed to success in just a few months’ time and it’s only gotten more successful since then. He recently rolled out his own training program called Teaching Sells. CopyBlogger was also recently named the #1 blog for writers for the second year in a row.

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga :: DailyKos

Markos, or “Kos“, founded Daily Kos as a reaction to the beginning of the Iraq War in 2002. Whether or not you agree with his activist views, his influence as a political blogger is huge, with Jimmy Carter, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi all posting diaries to his site. He’s also been named to the top 100 Most Influential Hispanics and his blog has been now spun off into a yearly political convention called Netroots Nation.

Frank Warren :: PostSecret

Frank started PostSecret as a community art project – people sent in anonymous postcard secrets and confessions to be published online and in a book format. Little did he realize that this artistic endeavor would change lives, save lives, and become four books. But most importantly, the PostSecret project also received a special award from the National Mental Health Association for raising awareness and funds for suicide prevention.

Leo Babauta :: Zen Habits

Leo is living proof that any parent can achieve anything. With 6 kids, in the last 3 years he has quit smoking, become a marathon runner, began waking early, got organized, became a vegan, doubled his income, wrote a novel, nearly eliminated his debt, lost 30 pounds, keeps his inbox empty and his desk clean (o.m.g.), and keeps his house clean all of the time (got any brothers for our wannabe eMoms, Leo?!). He says that some readers ask about his ‘qualifications’ to write Zen Habits. With a ‘resume’ like this, I can only say to them, “Qualifications, SCHMALIFICATIONS!”.

Jeremy Schoemaker :: Shoemoney

Jeremy acts as inspiration to hundreds of thousands of visitors every month – not just with his big $132,994 AdSense checks, but also with his occasional personal posts about being thankful for his family, his experience with Duodenal Switch weight loss surgery, and with his rags to riches story. Shoemoney is the real deal, even offering an eMoms reader free consulting when I ran a contest earlier this year to celebrate my one-year blog anniversary. Jeremy leads by example and it shows.

Jeffrey Zeldman :: A List Apart

Jeffrey was one of the pioneers of web design, publishing online tutorials as early as 1995. In 1998 he co-founded the Web Standards Project as well as started his flagship blog A List Apart. Today he still runs his web design firm HappyCog and has taken to the road running An Event Apart, a traveling road show teaching web design around the U.S. The event is billed as “Not your father’s web conference”… but I’ll have to beg to differ, because being on a list of completely cool dads like this, who wouldn’t want to learn from these fathers?!

If you liked this post, you might also like The Top Ten Hottest Moms in Search Engine Marketing.

As in, literally just him and his wife, in their bathroom, welcomed their third child together. It’s a great story.

And Laila is the spittin’ image of her daddy, too!!

But this blog has quickly become the biggest challenge of them all as well – we found the contests were more time consuming than we anticipated, we needed to get a crash course in U.S. contest laws, and quite frankly my pre-launch monetization strategy was exactly what I had in mind when I wrote #3 on my list of 10 Signs That You are Way Outside of Your Comfort Zone: “3. Your old plan of action may now seem overly simplistic.”

Erika and I have had several heart-to-heart conversations about Parent Product Reviews, and one of the biggest things we found was that the original intention wasn’t the direction in which we wanted to take it. We wanted it to be more fun – and more geared towards becoming more of a shopping and giveaway site. Thus a rename and rebrand was in order ASAP.

So we are pleased to introduce to you Momsational! For now, the content over there will be the same great contests that you have been eating up on a regular basis, just different name and URL. Soon we will be getting our readers exclusive coupons and discounts as well! Plus we’ll be making it easier to keep in touch and stay on top of our giveaways as we launch a better email & newsletter platform.

So please update your bookmarks, links etc. Erika is getting ready to rock the holidays with some seriously rockin’ mom freebies, and I like it when you win.

Link for feed subscribers

Although baby is running a little late, he and his wife are enjoying some time together before all hell breaks loose as they get ready to become a family of 5. Dawud promises to be blogging again once their little one arrives and he has a bit of time to get back into the swing of things.

He’s also (*fingers crossed*) hinted he might write a little more often around here. I heartily second that motion!

We’ll let you know when pictures go live!

Actually, you probably did.

Anyway, these two friends of mine recently announced an inspiring joint venture. And since I’ve learned quite a bit from them myself, I really wanted to not only support them in their endeavors, but help spread the word about something in which I really think you’ll find a ton of value.

You may remember Brian’s hit Tubetorial - which he turned around and sold fairly quickly to SplashPress Media back in March. Tubetorial was built upon the premise that teaching sells. Not so surprisingly, Brian and Tony’s new venture is called exactly that.

Teaching Sells in the future will be a phenomenal paid resource to learn more about leveraging web 2.0 in a really profitable manner, getting around the new Google paid links scandal, and by selling your expertise through your writing (and more, I’m sure, as details emerge).

But now, these two are offering a free report that I dropped everything to read (no, that’s not exaggerated hype to get you to do anything – I really did drop what I was doing when Brian sent it to me the other day).

It’s really good. I’m really intrigued. I can’t wait to see what’s next from them.

You know I don’t promote stuff around here unless I think it’s worth your time – honest, I think you’ll really get a lot of value out of reading this report.

If that’s not enough to get you interested, I will divulge that when I had my very first thoughts of turning eMoms at Home from a one woman show into the magazine it is today, one of the very first people I called to ask if they wanted to be involved was Tony Clark. He told me he was involved in another project at the time – and now I see what he was up to.

Kudos to you Brian for snagging such a talented partner. I’m jealous!

Oh, could I relate.

Then we met at BlogHer, then we became friends, then we started swapping articles, then WorkItMom became a new sponsor here.

To me, this is the perfect advertiser for our site. We share the same goals – helping moms (and dads!) succeed in business and in life. I’ve linked to them in the past because I thought that WorkItMom would add value to your life.

We get to kick that up a notch now, and I’m pleased as punch! (Especially considering I have turned down well over $1000 in advertising revenue in the last month or so because I didn’t think those advertisers would add value to your experience here, there, or anywhere else for that matter).

So what better way to celebrate our new partnership with WorkItMom than to launch our own little group over there? All of the eMoms at Home authors are going to be hanging out and sharing tips, secrets, articles, and just hanging out – please join us!

I’m calling my post Tech Talk Tuesday, but I’m really hoping to address much more than technology (I’m just a sucker for alliteration).

I’ll be sharing my thoughts on startups and web technology (founder of an educational startup for kids and families), the science of parenting (Ph.D. in psychology with a child development blog), and life as a work-at-home dad (first time father with a darling little toddler).

Here are some of first posts I’m really excited to blogging about:

• A funny thing happened on the way to 2.0
• A day in the life of a startup father
• Lessons learned at a post-bubble startup
• 15 free (or really cheap) must-haves when starting an online company
• The power of RSS
• Putting the SAD in Stay At-home DAD.
• Discrimination isn’t just for mommies anymore

…and I’ll even try and throw in a contest or two

I’d also love to answer any questions people might have, so please post questions in a comment or send me some email and I’ll make sure to answer them in regular mailbag posts.

I’m really looking forward to this…

Favorite thing I read this week: “If there’s anything better than being the father of a little girl, I don’t know what it is.” – a line from a fellow first-time dad’s email… I couldn’t agree more.

There isn’t a week that goes by these days in which I am asked either publicly or privately about my thoughts on the lack of women in the Technorati Top 100 list. I have to admit, the question is so damn loaded that each and every time I really have to think about my answer carefully.

Honestly, I think that discrimination is an easy answer that doesn’t exactly fit the problem. I think that there are so many other forces at work here.

Before I begin, here are some fast facts:

• 11% of blogs on the current Technorati Top 100 blogs are led by or singly authored by women (maybe 12%, because I am unsure of the gender of the author of ICanHasCheesburger). They are:
  • Ariana Huffington
  • Michelle Malkin (twice)
  • Kathy Sierra (now retired)
  • Sina
  • Megan Frost
  • Peety Passion
  • Ilker Yoldas (my bad for the initial omission!)
  • Heather Onnen
  • Dooce
  • Xiaxue

• Yet, more women than men are bloggers, with 20% of American women who have visited blogs having their own versus 14 % of men (Synovate.com).

Before you guys get your tightie whities in a knot, this isn’t an accusation. Here’s a few more stats for you:

According to ComScore, the most visited blog topics break down as follows:

• 43% of people visited a political or news blog
• 17% of people visited a “Hipster” blog
• 15% of people visited a tech blog
• 8% of people visited a women’s blog
• 8% of people visited a media blog
• 6% of people visited a personal blog
• 3% of people visited a business blog

And keeping in mind that blogs in general are in the tech industry, overall for every one woman employed in high-tech, there are 4 men alongside her. I HAVE to say that I really think this is more because women tend to be more relationship-oriented human beings than men, generally speaking, and simply have less interest in highly technical stuff than men do.

Are the Cards Stacked Against Women Authors?

Tech and politics tend to rule the blogosphere, which are male-dominated industries outside of the blogosphere – it’s hardly fair to blame anyone around here for what is an online extension of an offline industry.

And whether or not there is discrimination in these industries, that doesn’t change the fact that fewer women pursue these opportunities than men do in the first place. Whether it be a lack of interest, lack of self-confidence, or a stronger desire for work-life balance than our counterparts, I think there are fewer women on the Technorati Top 100 because there are fewer women who want to be there.

Yet to quote Elisa Camahort from BlogHer in a discussion on Lorelle’s blog,

“I know women bloggers who blog anonymously and gender-free, particularly in the tech and politics genres, for the express purpose of “being taken more seriously.” I don’t know any men who do the reverse.”

So What Does This Mean for Women Blog Authors?

Here’s how I look at it – none of this means anything to me, Wendy Piersall, of Sparkplugging. I may be discriminated against at times, and I certainly have had some horrible and gender-abusive comments along the way – but if I buy into the belief that any of these things can stop me from reaching my goal, then it is only me stopping myself from getting there.

Getting onto the Technorati Top 100 list is hard for anyone. And the path that Michael Arrington took to get there is far different than the one that Heather Armstrong took to get there – but they both got there.

Do I wish that there were more women on the list in the first place? Of course I do. But I can only add one more site to it, my own.

If you want more than that, please let me know what I can do to help you get there, but ultimately, it’s up to you to go for it. I hope you do, because I’d love some company when I get there.

Hat tip to Pearl for a really thoughtful post that got me thinking about this in the first place. Photo credit: Clarita

I can go have a latte just for the heck of it.

My family room isn’t getting trashed as I type.

I’m not being asked for candy for breakfast (since I have never once said yes to this request, I kind of wonder why they still ask me this every week).

I can be as productive as I want.

I can grow my business even more, and I’ll have more resources to dedicate to it.

So why am I so sad today?

She did if you are the new VC’s dream – Mothers I‘d Like to Fund.

As in us. MommyBloggers.

I guess the fawning and overdose of schwag wasn’t enough at BlogHer - us moms who blog were once the brunt of insults and jokes… and now some moms are cashing in and laughing all the way to the bank. Seems as though Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter just acquired Maya’s Mom, the rather popular social networking site for moms for an undisclosed amount.

Since us female family CEOs tend to control more than 70 billion+ in spending every year, all I can say that it is about MILF-ing time these fine hot mammas get their share of the spotlight in the male-dominated tech world.

Sunday I didn’t move from my couch. I don’t know if it was because I drank more wine in previous three nights than I had in the previous three months, or if it was just exhausting to be out of the house for three days straight (how DO you people do that?!). Either way I still don’t feel fully recovered.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience. I was bracing myself for much worse than that, as I heard that last years’ conference was very cliquey and left people feeling extremely disconnected from each other. I can’t say that it didn’t happen at least a little bit again this year, but to be fair, you can’t exactly walk into a room with 800 women and expect to connect with everyone. But I will also admit to having more high-school girl moments in which I sometimes felt extremely awkward and unsure of how to start a conversation – this coming from me, yes, ME, who LOVES networking, public speaking, and meeting people. GAH.

The greatness of it was meeting so many talented writers who I have met and/or admired online: Plain Jane, Jennifer Satterwhite, Paula Neale Mooney (despite the fact I blew her off!! ), BusyMom, Shannon Hutton, Gina Trapani, Penelope Trunk, Elizabeth Perry, Colette Ellis, Elise Bauer, Kelly Erb, Stephanie Cockerl, Search Engine Guide ticket-winner Helene Taylor, Nataly Kogan from WorkItMom, Laura Mayes from Sk-rt, Denise Wakeman from The Blog Squad, and kindred spirit Armen Berjikly from the Experience Project.

Plus I got to see my “old” blogging friends, Liz Strauss, Robyn Tippins, Christine Kane, Danielle Wiley, Sheila Scarborough and made some new friends: Jenny Lauck, Carmen Staicer, Paula Bruno, Elizabeth York, and Elisa Taub.

Lastly, I’m totally kicking myself for not talking to IzzyMom, Vanessa Fox, Arieanna Schweber, Dory Devlin, Liz Gumbinner, Mia Kim, and b5Media’s CJ. I either didn’t put two and two together quickly enough, or was never in the right place at the right time to strike up a conversation. Dang, dang, dang, ladies. < / whine >

The “wow” brought out the uber::business geek in me as I was impressed with the level of successful corporations and mainstream media represented there – not reporting on the conference, but in it: participating, conversing, questioning, listening. Companies and publications like GM, Dove, Redbook, Country Living, Yahoo, Google, Edelman, Weber-Shandwick and PBS. If you, like me, are tired of pimp requests being pitched by clueless companies and firms as a blogger, you will stand next to me as I applaud David Wescott as he writes his open-letter apology to bloggers – and I have to say that the companies that were there are really starting to “get it”.

Overall, I have to say that despite some posts claiming otherwise, I think this was a must-attend conference, and every professional woman blogger should be there next year. The networking, exposure and fun was unparalleled by any other event you could go to.

Well, ok, SOBCon is up there, too… and Elite Retreat rocked… I’ll shut up now…

Don’t let the tantrums and finicky appetite fool you. My son Max is really Yoda in disguise. He has taught me many valuable lessons about being an entrepreneur, and I want to share them with you.

Don’t be afraid to mix paint.

Being a closet neat freak, I always cringe when Max dips his paintbrush in green and then blue. He’ll make an ugly mess! No one will like the picture! But I believe in creativity above all, so I bite my lip and sit on my hands and let him work his magic.

And you know what? His picture is beautiful because he wasn’t afraid to mix paint. Carrying this into being an entrepreneur, sometimes I am faced with things that are unconventional, that defy what I already know in my comfort zone. I take a deep breath and forge ahead, and I am always, always, always glad I took the risk.

When it’s “night night” time, close your eyes and go to sleep.

I love my business. I even dream about it. I’ve dreamed up some pretty good ideas while catching ZZZs before Max trounces in at 6 am. But I realize I spend the better part of my week working on Egg Marketing, so at night, I just have to table all my work-related thoughts until the next day. That way, I don’t wake up feeling like I’ve been working all night!

We all hear about separating work and family life, but let’s be honest. It’s really, really hard. Especially if you don’t mind working! But I’ve learned that in order to be 100% effective at my business, I have to step away from it sometimes.

Why work when you can play?

As work at home parents, I’m sure you can relate to running into your office to finish “one little thing” while your child is playing. When Max started playing with his bath animals and telling them they were in the “office” I knew I had to stop doing that. He’ll toddle in here and ask “what doing?” That’s my cue to close up shop and focus on something more fun, be it splashing in the pool or drawing a very rudimentary Dora for the 10th time today.

Being afraid (of bugs) never did anyone any good.

Max is afraid of bugs. And lizards. And fireworks. And facepaint (don’t ask, because I don’t know). We tell him over and over, “there’s nothing to be afraid of.” Do I believe it as an entrepreneur? Am I really fearless when it comes to bringing in enough money or taking risks that could grow my business? I’m trying to practice what I preach to him, though it’s tough at times.

It’s easy to make friends.

I’m an introvert at heart. I would have rather worn a diaper than gone to my first networking event, but I did, and I survived (network, not wear a diaper). And I found out that just like when you’re two, it’s pretty easy to make friends. People at networking events are friendly and approachable (and probably nervous like you). I’ve even made a few play dates as a result. They just involve coffee and business cards rather than sand and shovels.

Never let a little cold (or other obstacle) get you down.

Max gets sick a lot. I mean A LOT. Which means I do too, but that’s another story. The thing is, he keeps going and going like the Energizer Bunny when he’s sick. I guess it’s not until later that he will actually rest in bed when he’s ill. We make up excuses about why we can’t do things. We’re sick. The car is in the shop. We don’t have the money. But really the only thing holding us back from making our businesses grow is ourselves. Don’t see the obstacles as mountains but as anthills. Just step over them and keep going.

Being a parent and an entrepreneur isn’t as hard as it seems. We make it simple because that’s what adults do. But really, it’s child’s play. A two year old could do it.

Without further ado, here are 25 tools, products, services, downloads, and freebies that will help you do what you really want to do – have time to play with your family!

Household Help

1. Thunderbird Grocery List Generator - Free Thunderbird Add-On
   The GLG (Grocery List Generator) is a helpful little tool to store your recipe-ingredients and other groceries you need regularly. It creates a well-organized grocery list to help make your grocery shopping as easy as possible.
2. Amazon Grocery - New “Subscribe & Save” Program
   Amazon has a new subscription service for non-perishable groceries, in which you can have an ongoing order of your regular products delivered for free and for a discount on a monthly basis (or whatever schedule you would like).
3. Sittercity.com – Find a Babysitter, Nanny, Petsitter or Housesitter
   The largest sitter-matching site, offering sitters with background checks and parents’ sitter ratings. (US only)
4. Pet Management - From Download.com
   This can help pet owners with many of the responsibilities that go along with owning a pet. It helps you organize pet records, reminds you of vaccinations and important dates, and prints many useful pages such as pet sitter instructions, greeting cards, missing posters
5. DoMyStuff.com – Outsource the Crappy Stuff
   Chores, errands, anything on your to-do list that can be done by someone else can be posted on this site. Assistants bid on projects and they offer an escrow service to facilitate payment. Free to post tasks and bid on projects.

Family Communications

1. Voicemail Bling
   Vonage offers free email delivery of voicemails with their regular plans, or
   GotVoice offers the same plus voicemail blasts to multiple numbers, plus text messaging via cell or desktop widgets.
2. Earth Class Mail - Snail Mail Delivered via Email
   View scanned images of your sealed envelopes online, and with a few mouse clicks have your mail securely scanned into a PDF document, recycled, shredded or mailed to you or someone else. I’m terrible with paper – this is a dream for every filing-challenged parent like me!

Scheduling & Organization

1. Amy Knapp’s Family Organizer - Home Day Planner
   A fairly inexpensive daily organizer for the at-home parent, with several other products to help all family members stay organized.
2. MomAgenda - Mom Organizer
   They sell pretty and sleek day planners for moms with a free downloadable program to create and print your own pages.
3. Household Notebook - Free Downloadable Planner
   A free semi-comparable version of the above planners.
4. Custody Tool/Scheduler – from Download.com
   Whether you’re in a difficult custody battle or a harmonious custody sharing situation, Custody Toolbox can help. It features a color-coded calendar, a searchable journal, a child info database, an address book with birthday and anniversary reminders, and password protection. The latest version has a schedule wizard, computes parenting time percentages, and multiple daily categorized searchable journal entries.
5. HomeWise Software - from Download.com
   HOMEwise is the most comprehensive yet easy-to-use home and family organizer and personal assistant on the market. HOMEwise includes over 170 features and functions including home inventory, garden and building project planners and trackers, bank account records, ‘to-do’ lists, personal collection databases, calendars, phone books, diaries, shopping lists, recipes, snack and meal planners, and travel planners and organizer.

Parent Helpers

1. ChipIn - Online Fundraising
   Help to collect money for a personal cause, group purchase, or fundraiser using your own custom ChipIn page. They also have blog and Facebook widgets to promote and track money raised.
2. Pregnancy Calendar - from Download.com
   A pregnancy calendar program that keeps the mother-to-be aware with a week-by-week information about every change happens in her body and for his baby. Tips are put there for every week for the mother’s health.
3. Ovulation Calendar - from Download.com
   Calculates fertility period based on menstrual cycle and luteal phase. Also predicts highest probability of conceiving a boy or a girl (don’t ask me how – I have no clue).

Shopping Helpers

1. Upromise.com - Rewards Program
   A free rewards service for eligible purchases on groceries, gasoline, online shopping, etc. at over 40,000 participating retail stores and services. A percentage of every purchase goes into a college savings account.
2. iKobo.com - Prepaid Debit Cards
   Help kids learn to spend on credit or give them a protected way to carry larger amounts of money.
3. BabyToBee.com - Free Baby Stuff
   Take advantage of the fact that you are one of the most coveted demographics on the planet – marketers fall over themselves for new parents and give away free stuff all of the time to you!

Educational Tools, Downloads and Services

1. Tutor.com - On Demand Tutoring
   7 days a week during after-school hours, Tutor.com offers live tutors on call to help kids with homework from 4th – 12th grades. You can try it out for $5 and purchase a subscription or pay-as-you-go. And they also hire work at home parents to do the tutoring (*bonus*)!
2. School Organizer - from Download.com
   Helps kids organize everyday life with an automatic school schedule, event and task calendar, sticky notes, sound reminders, and friend’s information.
3. SmartBaby Flashcards - from Download.com
   This flash cards program helps teach infants, toddlers, and preschoolers so that they have enhanced reading abilities, in speed and comprehension.
4. Kid Browser - from Download.com
   Kid-safe Internet browser made just for kids. Designed to be simple for parents to install and to use. Protects children from pornography and Internet predators. Uses a white-list technology so parents can decide what is suitable for their children and what isn’t.
5. Kids Chore Chart/Point system – from Download.com
   Point System - Your teenagers have to earn points in order to gain privileges. There is also a consequence section to subtract points if you chose to do so.
   MyRewardBoard – Geared toward younger kids with reward coupons, fun animations and achievement certificates; this unique program turns chores and goals into fun and games.
6. Toddler Keys - from Download.com
   This is a useful tool for parents that allows you to lock your computer keyboard, CD drive doors, and power-off button. When the keyboard is used it will display images and play sounds every time a key is pressed, thereby preventing access to the desktop and applications.
7. Family Bank - from Download.com
   Kid’s allowance program. Teaches children to spend wisely, save regularly and avoid debt. Includes auto-deposit, savings, loans and chores modules. Register tracks spending and displays pie charts.

Well, I don’t. I can’t truthfully say what they really want.

Why? I’m not them.

I’ve been married almost 5 years. I’ve built and run three businesses in the past 12 years. So I definitely have a perspective – and a whole heap of guesses – about what our wives and partners want.

For instance, I know that my wife wants security – especially being a mother. She wants security for herself, our children, our home, and our relationship. It became even more important once we got pregnant with our first child.

I also know that my wife needs me. She needs time with me. Time with me away from my office; away from my business. Time to be with her, as her husband, who loves her and cares about her needs. In other words, she needs me to make efforts to nurture our relationship.

So there’s two examples of things my wife, at least wants. Now I could make a blanket statement and say that our partners all want security. And that could be true. Yet isn’t it presumptuous for me to say what someone else wants?

I sure think it is. That’s why I’d love to kick off a conversation on this topic.

To eDads: What do you feel, think, sense that your wives and partners want from us?

To eMoms: What do you really want from us – as men, husbands, dads, business owners, etc?

So what do you think?

Hi, I’m Dawud Miracle. Professionally, I’m a blog and marketing consultant, business coach, educator and web developer who helps people use their websites to grow their business. I’m also a devoted husband and father to two, soon to be three, children. Please let me know if I can help you in any way.