Aussie bloggers on submissive wives and a budget for dummies

iBlog Friday is our weekly roundup of the best of Aussie parenting bloggers. These writers will take us through all the highlights and lowlights of their parenting adventure this past week, including parenting advice on how to survive the heat, school holiday fun and getting ready for a new year.

Lauren Matheson of Create Bake Make tries to capture exactly what’s so special of taking children to the beach in her post Through your eyes – at the beach.

You are patient as we unload the car, slather both yourself and your brother in sunscreen and walk towards the beach.  As we walk through the park and get our first glimpse of the sparkling ocean, you point at it excitedly and keep saying ‘beach beach beach’. Your excitement is obvious, you want to walk on the sand and help us set up.  You become impatient as you get changed into your swimming gear, and yet another layer of sunscreen is applied.

Read the rest of Lauren’s post here.

Sarah Joy-Pierce of Love Bites gives her take on the Full House submissive wife scandal in her post My take on being a submissive...

I’ve seen a lot of chatter in the media lately surrounding Candace Cameron Bure, the actress from Full House who has, for some reason, come out and said that she’s a proud submissive wife. Probably not in the way that you’re thinking though…

For starters, I have no idea what kind of conversation led to that particular revelation. Is it something that she just brought up over tea and biscuits? But now that the concept is out there and being talked about, I’m going to add my two cents to the conversation.

Read the rest of Sarah's post here.

Lilani Goonesena of LILANI GOONESENA juggles work and motherhood in her post Realities of a working mum.

I certainly never expected that this masters would drag on for so long but it turns out that having a couple of children and suffering sleep deprivation is not helpful when trying to write essays. But now that we are all sleeping a bit more (that said, I am writing this at 1am having gone to bed at 10.30pm – another story), there’s no excuse not to finish the damn thing. Which is why I’m spending this week writing another big essay, instead of doing lots of other things, like generating paid writing, redeveloping my website yet again (a growing obsession of mine), or preparing my youngest to start daycare.

Read the rest of Lilani's post here.

Meg Hanan of Mumdainty experience that parental right of passage we all look forward to and dread in equal amounts in her post The hardest decision, the easiest day.

Sometimes, the hardest things you can imagine actually turn out to be the easiest - as was the (unexpected) case when my baby started childcare this week. After winning the childcare place lottery in October, I spent two and a half long months dreading the inevitable moment of separation, and second-guessing my hard fought decision

Read the rest of Meg's post here.

Shelley Marsh of Money Mummy helps us start of our new year on the right foot financially in her post How to create a budget.

The first step to developing your budget is to figure out what you spend.   There are lots of ways of doing this from writing it all down, to using an app on your phone or keeping all your receipts in a a plastic bag.  In our case most of our transactions are done on card (either credit or debit), so I simply downloaded 3 months of transactions from internet banking into excel and put each month on a separate sheet.  I then used Excels “sort” function to put similar transactions from each month together and added them up.

Read the rest of Shelley's post here.

Bonnie Pockley of Colourbash handles the heat in a unique way in her post This heat.

There are moments that humble you as a parent. The moment you pack it in and yell, ‘Get into the car now!’ and then remember cringing at a mother doing the same thing, another lifetime ago, before you had children, when you didn’t understand. Oh how things have changed; how naivety has given way to the uncompromising dictatorship of a 2 year old who no longer sees nor hears anything other than their own will. It sometimes feels like a force of inertia in the wrong direction, the current tow that crashes on dangerous shelf-rock in defiance of the safe, soft shore. ‘Get into the car now’ started out as a very pleasant, ‘Come on kids, let’s go, let’s get in the car’. 20 minutes of straying out into the road, pulling at the groceries and screaming, ‘No mummy I want ice cream!’, has a way of wearing you down, of making you the woman you never wanted to be: the voice that growls, ‘Car. Now! I’m sick of this!’

Read the rest of Bonnie's post here.

Stephanie Rogers of She said what? shares her daughter's hilarious birthday gift wish list in her post She wants a what?

My daughter has put her birthday wish list on the fridge. Here it is in all its glory…

Read the rest of Stephanie's post here.

Jacintha Webster of Time to get a veghead talks about those special activities that keep her happy in her post Books and berries over boots.

I’m one of those girls that dresses fairly well and current but hates going clothes shopping.  Any invite from my fashionable girlfriends is met with NO I hate it.  I usually regret the loss of money spent on my clothes and get annoyed at the amount of room they take up.  And yes they take up a lot of room.  One look at my bedroom and you would never believe this post.  I have shoes lined along the floor, dresses hanging from the walls and two closets full of “stuff” eek what a waste.  I’d much rather these closets by full of fairy tales and adventures.  This objection to shopping is not equal for all things though you see.   Invite me to a fresh food market, spice bizarre, winery or boutique bookshop and I’ll be happily lost for hours and spend all the money in my banana shaped purse.

Read the rest of Jacintha's post here.

This week's winner will receive a set of Sun Sox. These amazing products will protect little feet from hot beach sand, sunburn, slips and scrapes.

The winner of this week's iBlog Friday will be announced on Monday and published.

If you'd like to enter the competition please send your submission to info@themotherish.com by midday on Thursday.

Goodluck!