iBlog Friday: Our weekly roundup of Aussie bloggers

At iVillage we’re passionate about supporting Australian bloggers. That’s why we’ve created iBlog Friday.

It’s a chance for bloggers to introduce their favourite post of the week to iVillage readers and for our community to read what Aussie writers are up to.

Here are the bloggers who have sent their submissions this week. Happy reading!

Louisa Simmonds of My Midlife Mayhem weighs in on the kids vs homework debate in her post Horrible Homework.

Apparently it is a universal issue of monumental proportions and I am not the only parent with the grey hair and eye twitch to prove that my child refuses to do his homework.

There are a lot of us out there who struggle nightly and at weekends to get the homework completed, and feel bullied by schools to make sure it gets done. It’s obviously harder these days when a lot of us women work, to find the time to monitor the kids homework as well as nurture them in other ways.

Read the rest of Louisa's post here.

Keri Arkell of Awesomely Unprepared handles her child's potty mouth with deft parenting skills in her post What did you say??

At 21 months of age (yes – I’m still talking in “months” which feels awkward but let’s go with it), the Little Mister’s powers of speech are coming along in leaps and bounds. Almost every day he has a new word to learn and attempt. He even has his own little language for the things he can’t quite master. It’s quite a fun age. The other morning his first words of the day were “f*ck f*ck”. Just sitting in his cot, looking happy as Larry to see me. I’m sure he didn’t mean it, but my first words of the day can often be the same (can I get a hell yeah?). I don’t know what he was referring to, but he did have a dummy in his mouth, so we’ll put it down to the muffled effect.

I’ve become the master of lovingly correcting him when we’re out in public and he yells out, “COCK! COCK! COCK!”

“Oh, yes! I can see the CLOCK too!”

Read the rest of Keri's post here.

Susan Taylor of One Woman Circus shares with us her version of a book review (and we love it!) in her post Fifty Shades of Vomit.

Back to our book though, I'm no prude so it wasn't all the throbbing genitals and sexual escapades going on that bothered me, it was the fact that quite frankly, it was plain old crap. Lazy, uninspired writing; awful characters; and a plot thinner than a run over panty liner. Mummy yawn was more like it. And, it was completely obvious that a man had written this instead of the posh-but-secretly-naughty sounding "Natasha Walker."

How does stuff like this get published? Even without the "From the publishers of Fifty Shades of Grey" big stamp on the front cover, it's clear the author and his team were attempting to cash in on the mummy porn (heave!) craze. Seriously, it's more like really, really bad Mills and Boon garbage. Nothing clever or entertaining about this style of writing at all.

Read the rest of Susan's post here.

Joanna Lamb of Joanna Writes Here reminds us all what real beauty is in her post Is beauty skin deep?

Oh to be a child again.  We are barely out of nappies when we are inundated with ideals of how we should appear, and what ‘beautiful’ really is.  Suddenly, beauty isn’t about who we are, but rather more about how we look.  Flick through a glossy magazine and you’ll have a pretty good idea about what we are supposed to think beauty is.  We should have a flatter tummy and skinnier thighs.  Magazines are full of girls who are slim and leggy with flowing hair and perky breasts.  We see these images on billboards, on ads, on TV shows, in movies.  We admire them on catwalks and in magazines.  We are surrounded by images of high end fashion, flawless skin and thighs that have no dimples.  Not one dimple.  Eventually, these images and ideals become deeply ingrained in who we are and how we feel about ourselves.  And how we feel about ourselves sometimes isn’t that nice.

Read the rest of Joanna's post here.

Rebecca Bowyer of Seeing the Lighter Side of Parenting would like to change the conversation we're having about motherhood in her post Corporatise motherhood: reclaim the right to whinge.

It’s time we reclaim our right to whinge and be heard, ladies. It’s time to repackage and redesign our image: let’s corporatise motherhood.

It’s not as difficult as it sounds and it’s all in the marketing: a web designer doesn’t offer to “fiddle around with a few pictures and colours to make your company page look nicer so people want to go there and buy stuff”. No, my unlearned friend: a web designer will “optimise the primary customer interface in order to maximise engagement and increase net profit margins.”

Read the rest of Rebecca's post here.

Kellie of Mama Pyjama deals with that difficult moment when a toddler doesn't want to go to daycare anymore in her post Daycare.

I’ve had a tough few weeks…and it’s wearing me down.  My son has decided that he doesn’t like going to daycare anymore.  He’s been going since he was about 10 months old.  I had hoped these days would be over by now.  I guess it isn’t to be.

What has ensued is tantrums and screaming in the parking lot.  Fists clenched, iron claw grip on the car seat and me standing at the car door, toddler on hip, begging for him to just get out of the car.  Please just get out and go inside.

Read the rest of Kellie's post here.

This week’s winner will receive a ‘Toni&Guy Haircare Pack‘. The winner will also be published on Monday.

If you’d like to enter iBlog Friday send us your entry by midday on Thursday at [email protected]