My first impressions of “The Mommy Blog” were very good- a very professional looking site with a nice title bar and a tasteful colour scheme, which is skinnable.
I headed straight for the About Me page after a quick glance around. It is informative and makes it clear that the author, Mindy, is a working Mum with three kids. The rest of the site is pretty straight forward – a three bar layout with links, archives, search boxes and um… more links. I sometimes wonder whether all the stuff people put in sidebars is really necessary, or whether people just put stuff in them because they can (especially MT users, who are offered a plethora of features of this kind). Not sure how useful they are though – something that crossed my mind whilst I was looking around this site especially. I am also not a big fan of loads of linkage. Less is better for me as I am never going to have time to click 100 or so links and read a weblog too. As impressive as the site looks, it is designed commercially by a third-party, so I can’t give the author too much credit for this, though I guess she could have had some input in to the process. No disrespect, the overall feel of the site is a good one, just a few niggles really.
Ok, on to the content then. Well the major theme, as can be ascertained by the title itself, is the personal life of Mindy and her family. These are all honest, fairly in depth and often amusing (along the lines of “don’t kids say/do the funniest things”). Its pleasant enough to read with few spelling or grammar mistakes and I felt like I soon became a part of Mindy’s world, particularly her home-life.
One criticism of the blog though is there isn’t much else besides the home-life stuff for readers to get their teeth in to – unfortunately it is a bit of a one-horse blog in that respect. Ok so there are a few memes, links to other blogs and witty topics as well as a couple of work related posts, but generally these are sparser than the family posts. Fine, if you like families. In fact great, I expect (at least if the comments are anything to go by). Not so fine though if you like, say, motorbikes or new-age therapy or Marxist philosophy or something. Best off trying elsewhere for those kind of things, methinks.
Overall then, reading “The Mommy Blog” is a pleasant experience and gives people a great insight in to family life. I would say it probably only has lasting appeal to those with similar lifestyles though, despite the flash template.
The Mommy Blog