Cake

Yes, it’s official.

Who’s the Mummy is a year old. And, I don’t like to boast, but my blog is already fully toilet trained and talking in full sentences. Mostly.

Right now, I’m staring down the barrel of a nine-week summer holiday and an ex-husband who lives too far away to be of any much use when it comes to childcare. Work is going very well (hurrah!), the MADs are going brilliantly (hurrah!), we’ve got some exciting plans for the Tots100 (hurrah!) but I need to fit all this in and still get some sleep over the next two and a bit months (sob).

So, please don’t be alarmed if I’m not around quite as much as usual over the summer. And don't, you know, throw any ‘ding dong the witch is dead’ parties, either.

To celebrate my first anniversary, I asked the Google Gods which of my posts have been most popular since I launched Who’s the Mummy. After I excluded the Tots100 indexes, here’s the top 12 Who’s the Mummy posts:

  1. The MADs Nominations: Of all the projects I’ve been involved in over the past couple of years, I’m probably most proud of the MAD Awards – the UK’s first independent awards for parent bloggers, which have been a huge success this year. This post, where we shared details of all the blogs nominated (not just the finalists) is a great resource for anyone looking for amazing parent blogs. There are also a couple of blogs involving people who aren’t British. Or parents. Go figure.
  2. Too Good Not to Share: One of the joys of blogging is getting to know all the totally crazy people who share the Internet, and who like to look for things to be enraged by. This post was about Ben, and why he thinks I am the most evil and vindictive mother he has ever known.
  3. Communities, Cliques and a New Meme: This post from January is still referred to in our house as ‘clique-gate’. It is also the reason why everyone in my family now owns a t-shirt with a certain inspirational slogan on the front. Clique-gate was supposed to be a warm, uplifting post about how online communities come to be seen as exclusive, and how nice it would be to do disprove this notion by doing something extra welcoming for new bloggers. Instead it spawned lifelong feuds, anonymous hate comments, and countless late night tearful phone calls. Yeah, I can just about laugh about it now. 
  4. Monkey Porn: a new parenting low: According to Google an alarming number of people spend their time online looking for monkey porn. Imagine how disappointed they must be to find this post, about the time I accidentally sent Flea to school with photos of monkeys doing unmentionable things to one another.
  5. You are a failure and an embarrassment, frankly: A not at all sarcastic post about the time I told the vicar’s wife exactly what I thought of her for failing in her womanly duty and having a c-section. Pfft. What a loser.
  6. What do you know about libel? This is one of my more educational posts about bloggers, and libel. It contains lots of facts, and almost no monkey porn. There is some great info in the comments, too.
  7. Why don’t fathers get called Dadpreneurs? One of my regular rants about sexism, this time asking why Mums in business need a special, cosy, fluffy name but men in business are just business men.
  8. A Cautionary Tale about Blogging: This post could also be known as the perfect example of why you should never use the real name of your teenage crush on your blog. Oh, the humiliation.
  9. My name is Sally, and I’m emotionally autistic: Another one of my blogging about blogging posts, this time wondering how much personal information you need to share on a blog to connect with readers, and whether pouring out your deepest feelings is the right approach for everyone.
  10. Who could forget that face? This is the post I wrote so that you need NEVER again feel like a bad parent. Literally, this post is about the day I couldn’t pick my own daughter out of a line-up. Bookmark it. One day you’ll thank me.
  11. Obviously, I missed the perfect parent pamphlet: A post about kids and television and why parents get so het up about each other’s choices.
  12. Things to do in Manchester when you’re three: Apparently blog posts about city breaks are immensely popular. I sort of wish I’d known that before posting a pic of my daughter thrusting her backside towards the camera.