Maintaining friendships when you are a mama can be a tricky business. Often already juggling a hectic home life, work and children, while also trying to carve out a bit of time with Daddy-o, can leave little room for your girlfriends.

The way I see it, there are a few friendship fizzling high risk situations:

1) You become a mama: Many report that their friendships with single/childless girlfriends suffer. Mama feels they don’t understand why she doesn’t want to ditch the kid to go dancing every weekend. This has not actually been my experience. My single friends have shown extreme interest and understanding when it comes to my kids. And I am equally keen to hear their Sex in the City lifestyle stories.

2) You have a child with a disability: Hate to say it, but mamas of kids with disabilities get ditched. I’ll explain why it happens in the autism world: you have a friend who brings her 3-year-old over for weekly playdates. Her kid can’t talk, has meltdowns for “no reason”, maybe he’s a bit aggressive, doesn’t relate to the other kids there and his behaviour is disruptive. The mama host thinks “Hmmm…this playdate would go much more smoothly if that kid with the problems doesn’t come”. The playdate invitations stop.

3) You constantly bail on plans: When you regularly drop out of social plans at the last minute, eventually your friends will stop inviting you. I generally don’t accept invitations in the first place because of my bailing stats. But, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate receiving a low pressure “turn up if you can swing it” invitation. It makes me feel that I have not been forgotten, and also that there is some understanding about my situation.

4) You become a Mama of Many: Right around the birth of your fourth child, families you normally socialize with suddenly stop inviting you over. Who can blame them – your family takes up their whole house.

How have your friendships survived? What are the biggest friendship hurdles you’ve encountered in your mama life? Are you still close with the friends you had pre-kids, or did you shake it up socially when you hit the mama scene?

My boy and his best buddy. They’ve just learned how to ‘tell on’ each other and have been practicing—a lot!

My kids are always tattling on one another.  Even the youngest one has started giving me a play by play of their disagreements.  Should I intervene?  Or should I be letting them figure it out on their own?

The parallel play phase seems to end right around the time that verbal skills are really taking off.  And as they start interacting with other kids, whether they’re playing with siblings or with friends, at some point, inevitably somebody is going to get upset.  Then they have two choices, get into an argument with their playmate, or report it to the authorities.  And you, mama, are the sergeant on duty.

1) “What are you going to do about it?” I’ll never forget my 6th grade teacher.  This was her tagline.  Whatever issue you brought to her—problems with a classmate, a forgotten dayplanner or lost assignment, she’d look at you with a deadpan expression and say “What are you going to do about it?”  At the time it seemed harsh, but the theory was a good one.  Kids have more problem-solving skills than they realize, and sometimes they just need a grown-up to make them stop and work through the issue on their own.  Try putting the ball in their court with questions like “What do you think you should say to your friend?” and “How can you guys fix this so that you can keep playing together?”

2) Let them sort it out—the supervised way. If you say “I don’t want to hear it!  Go figure it out yourselves!” she may get discouraged and feel un-heard when she comes to you with a problem.  Instead of stone-walling (which can be tempting after the millionth “He’s in my room!” “She touched my arm!”) let her know that you will keep an ear out in case the problem gets too big, but that you trust her to figure out the smaller issues without a grown-up having to come in and interrupt the fun.

Nanny Carrie Wants to Know:  How do you manage ‘tattling’ in your house?  Is it mostly among siblings or with friends?  Do you handle them differently?

As you can see, we Mabel gals take our blogging conferences VERY seriously!

Just back from BlogHer ’10 in New York City and quite frankly am feeling like I need a bit of a holiday. So much squealing and excitement on the first night left me with a nasty case of laryngitis. I spent the rest of the conference struggling to speak. But, you can imagine the energy of a conference with 2400 women bloggers all in one place. Having the opportunity to spend time with so many online friends and supporters of Mabel’s Labels was just awesome.

As a blogger, I’ve had several non-bloggers ask me many questions – from how to get started to why I like to blog. The answers are long and wordy, but a few quick points include:

1) If you’re going to blog, blog about something you love. If you are not passionate about what you do, it’s going to, well…suck.
2) Don’t go into it for the money. While bloggers often receive products to review, free diapers and diaper cream won’t pay the mortgage. The money *may* follow if you have enough readers that advertisers will pay to be on your site – but counting on that happening is probably not the best plan.
3) Know your limits. If you’re going to talk about your kids, have a big think about privacy before you get started. It’s one thing to talk about toilet training but if your tween catches wind that you’ve been blogging about her training bra, you’ll be in the doghouse faster than you can say “Justin Bieber”.
4) Blogging creates one heck of an awesome journal. I feel like my kids will have great fun in a few years looking back at their childhood through my eyes.
5) Blogging gives you a spectacular feeling of being heard. It is powerful.

So if you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, what is stopping you? I’m hoping to see you at BlogHer in San Diego next year, because there are many lessons to be learned at BlogHer. The biggest for me this time around was that even with a shocking case of laryngitis, I still have a voice.

I’m wondering what kinds of things I can do with my 4-month-old?  Now that we’re moving past the stage where she’s sleeping all the time, I’m looking for some suggestions for how to entertain her.

The early days with an infant can be so hectic, when a quiet moment rolls around, it can be tough to know how to use it!  When they’re too young to build block towers and have tea parties you still want to engage them—yet it feels like you’ve played “peek-a-boo” a hundred times this week already!

Keep talking:  If you need to get things done around the house, talk to your baby about what you’re doing.  Whether you’re folding laundry or making dinner, (“blue socks,” “two onions”) the beauty of their fresh little minds is that everything is a learning experience.

Little routines: Every day doesn’t have to include an elaborate circle time and music lesson.  Make a habit of singing nursery rhymes during diaper changes and reading books before bed.  For moms and dads who work outside the home, tell baby about your day at the office.  Years from now, when the teen years hit, you’ll look back with nostalgia on your little pyjama-clad captive audience!

Nanny Carrie’s Tip: Pack away the board books and kiddie series for later and opt for a few pages of your favourite books each day instead.  Your little one will just enjoy listening to you, and you get to take a stroll down memory lane with your own childhood classics (or work your way through the bestseller list!).