The MAD Blog Awards: Nominations are Open!

Nominations are now open for the second annual MAD Blog Awards. MAD stands for Mummy and Daddy (in case you were wondering).

I was lucky enough to be a finalist last year and had a ball at the awards ceremony.

I'd love to go again this year and for this I need your help, dear readers, if you would be so kind.

There are fifteen categories this year. I think I'm eligible in the following categories:
MAD Blog of the Year
Best MAD Blog for Family Life
Best Pre-School Fun MAD Blog
Best MAD Blog Writer
MAD Blog Post of the Year (for Time)

You can nominate me, yourself or anyone else, here.

Thank you.

Now I just need to decide which blogs to nominate. I may be some time, I have a lot of favourites!



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The MAD Blog Awards: Nominations are Open!

Fifty Go MAD in Bognor

I attended the first ever MAD blog awards on Monday. It is now Wednesday and I'm still nursing a hangover!

Let me set the scene for you. There were about fifty bloggers (plus judges and sponsors), most of them without children, on a night out away from home. There was wine on the table. On my table I was the only one drinking white wine. It would, of course, have been churlish not to drink it all.

I had a ball. I love the fact that you can meet someone for the first time (in real life) and yet you know all about them through blogging. So you act like you've been friends for years and you end up at a disco in a Butlins bowling alley at 1am dancing the Macarena.

My highlights would have to include:

Spending the best part of two days in a car with Lindy from Squidgyboo. Seriously, if you're going to spend hours and hours in a confined space with someone, you need to get on with them. And, boy, did we get on. I don't think there was more than 30 seconds silence at any point on our road trip.

Meeting beautiful baby soa from Making it up and her mum too of course.

Collecting the Best Baby Blog Award on behalf of Babyrambles. I still have her award. I may post it to her. Possibly.

Cheering the winner of my category, Most Inspirational Blog, Strange & Beautiful. Rachel is really lovely and a thoroughly deserving winner. Well, I cheered until I realised I hadn't won and I had to text my husband, my mum and my best friend to tell them I was a loser!

Seeing Tim from Bringing Up Charlie totally overwhelmed to win Best Blog Writer and Blogger of the Year. Well done, Tim.

Spending time with lovely old friends and making new ones.

Sharing another bottle of wine with New Mummy, when really we should have moved on to water - or gone to bed.

I could go on, my apologies if I've missed you out of my round-up. I have a headache!

Oh and finally being able to say I have been to Butlins!

Huge congratulations to all the winners and runners up and massive thanks to the organiser extraordinaire, Sally, and all of the sponsors. There will be video and photographic evidence of the ceremony and more on The MADs website soon.

Now, where did I put the Nurofen?






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Fifty Go MAD in Bognor

Competition, Cuddles and Rock and Roll

The MADs 2010 are blogging awards, celebrating the UK's best mummy and daddy blogs. MAD stands for Mummy And Daddy (in case you were wondering)! Since their launch last week there have been over 1,000 nominations! Wow.

There are awards for the following:

MAD Blogger of the Year

Most Innovative MAD Blog
Best MAD Family Fun Blog
Funniest MAD Blog
Best-Looking MAD Blog
Best MAD Baby Blogger
Best New MAD Blog
Most Inspirational MAD Blog
Best MAD Blog Photography
Best MAD Blog Writer

The five blogs with the most nominations in each category will go forward to the public vote. The MAD Blogger of the Year will be decided by a panel of judges.

When I first heard about the awards, and the prizes on offer, I thought 'that's great'. There are awards in all areas, why not blogging?

On the launch day, however, I felt uneasy. What if Baby Baby wasn't nominated? This was short-lived. Thankfully a couple of friends let me know that they had nominated me. Phew!

I haven't nominated yet as there are a few categories where I can not decide which blog to vote for. You can only nominate one blog in each category.

I've been delighted to see loads of my favourite bloggers being nominated, including many new blogs. The current list of nominees can be found on Who's The Mummy?.

Through Twitter and Facebook I have seen how happy people are to see their blogs nominated - I know I am. I've also been pleased to see congratulations flying about.

There are some bloggers who have openly criticised the awards, saying that they don't like competition. I can understand this. I know how I felt before I found out that I had been nominated. There can only be a few winners, this makes the rest of us losers. Or does it? 

Competition is part of life. Competition is apparently being removed from the curriculum in schools. When my boys are at school maybe I'll agree with this, but right now I can't see how it prepares them for real life. Surely children need to understand that they can't win at everything. They should be encouraged to excel where they can or improve where they can't - and to know the difference between the two.

I write a public blog. I am excited when I see that I have a new reader or when someone leaves a comment. I am honestly happy that some people like Baby Baby enough to nominate it/me. I'd love to win an award. There I've said it. There's nothing wrong with that, is there? I don't expect to make it to the public vote, but that's okay. Really. I am happy to be taking part. I certainly haven't got it in me to launch a Vote Baby Baby campaign. Imagine begging for nominations and not getting them. Oh the shame!

For more thoughts on competition please read these excellent posts from Baking Mad Mama, Sleep is for the Weak, Hot Cross Mum, Babyrambles and Battling On.

If you haven't nominated yet, but would like to do so, click here. Nominations close on 25th April.

For more examples of blogs to nominate check out the best of the British Mummy Bloggers carnival at The Mad House.

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I was delighted to be asked to contribute a guest post for the new Cuddledry blog (remember them from Dragons Den?). Funnily enough the post I wrote is about child development NOT being a competition - a pet subject of mine. The editor of the blog, Jo, who also writes the excellent Slummy Single Mummy blog, gave my post the title 'Being a Parent - Some Words of Wisdom'. It amused me to be called wise!

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Finally... I've finally added a new song to my Myspace. It's called 'I Want More' and it's a rock number! It's about people with no talent who think they deserve to be famous - another example of the anti-competitive trend? I hope you like it.

Competition, Cuddles and Rock and Roll