About Us
New York City Mom's Blog is a collaborative group of women living or working in New York City. They wrestle strollers down subway stairs and struggle with taxi cabs on every corner. But whether they're parenting without backyards, extra storage space or carpools, or enjoying their recent escapes to the suburbs in spite of their horrific commutes, these moms are living proof that "the city never sleeps".
- CONTACT US by email: info(at)nycmomsblog(dot)com
- OUR PRESS PAGE: New York City Moms Blog Media Guide and Press Page
- Our URLs: http://www.nycmomsblog.com and http://svmomblog.typepad.com/nyc_moms/
- Copyright & Permissions
- Our Legal Guru/Lawyer: Linsey Krolik
- Our OH-SO-FABULOUS Graphic Designer (banner and buttons): Kris Loew
.
Adelaide Morgan is the pen name of this mom who lives in Brooklyn with her husband and three children. She blogs at oneofthosehorriblemoms.blogspot
Alexandra Como Saghir is a wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin and friend and probably enemy, of some great people. She is a free-lance writer, some-time actress and former sales and marketing profesisonal for luxury goods and services. Her current top clients include a 22 month old boy who has a yet nameless sister due in February and a devastatingly handsome attorney husband, Peter Saghir. She is also the frustrated owner of two adult male cats who desperately need a new home.
Alexandra is an NYU Tisch Shool of the Arts graduate and is a consummate native New Yorker because of her diverse cultural background and hostile attitude towards any US geographical location outside of a subway ride. Already fluent in three languages, Alexandra is currently mastering, Toddler-ese as well as learning how to potty train, cook, clean, and everything else running a tiny 2 bedroom Brooklyn apartment entails. She can come off a bit snarky, but deep down is a good person with strong faith and some nice values.
Amanda B. is a full-time working mom and
native Manhattanite, who grew up on the mean streets of the Upper West Side back
in the 1970’s. During the day, she is a vice president at a PR agency in New
York. The rest of the time you can find her: hanging out with her family, trying
to get to the gym, eating at a new restaurant, worshiping her daughter,
fantasizing about buying a “classic six” on West End Avenue, reading a celebrity
gossip magazine, serving on a couple of professional boards, crushing on her
husband, getting a 10-minute chair massage at the nail salon on 23rd
street, playing Scrabulous, stressing over EVERYTHING, and watching way too much
reality TV. She secretly dreams of being a professional writer and recently
started her own blog, http://mommyjuice.blogspot.com/, where she shares all of her
neurotic observations and experiences as a NYC-based working mom. She lives in
the east 20’s with her incredible daughter, L. and her amazing husband,
O.
Amanda May is a WACM (Work at Coffee Shop Mom), having traded in her day job at a national woman's magazine for the freelance world. While she misses all the swag, she loves the extra time it gives her with her two young kids. Amanda's work has appeared in New York Magazine, Time Out New York, The New York Post, Redbook, and Parenting, among other print and Web publications. After over six years in Park Slope, Brooklyn (where having a child is practically a pre-requisite of residency,) Amanda is getting used to living in the burbs, where people will actually feed their kids sweets and people don't get into fights over whether you can assume a blue hat belongs to a boy.
Amanda's most fervent wish right now is for one night of uninterrupted sleep, but she'd take even three hours of straight snooze time if she could get it.
Amanda now divides her time between running into Manhattan for meetings and dancing to Elvis (her daughter's favorite pick for impromptu dance parties).
.
Amy Kotulski has lived in Manhattan for ten years, while working as a senior development professional for a variety of non-profits. After the birth of her son in July 2007 (who joined her two year old daughter), she decided to begin working from home part-time as a fundraising professional for an Israel-based organization (if for no other reason than to limit her time attached to the breast pump!) Amy's foray into the work at home world has rendered her an expert at "cookies and conference calls", "wiping while writing" and "pee-pee while Powerpointing".
Amy also maintains a freelance writing career, covering Manhattan-based topics at www.littleviews.com and motherhood moments (and more) at www.mamadramas.blogspot.com.
.
Amy O., originally from Buffalo, settled in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn six years ago with her husband, Omer, and two kids, Jake and Fiona. Having worked previously as a McDonald's grill cook, lifeguard, campus police dispatcher, receptionist, waitress, concierge, stage actress, movie and TV extra, mad scientist, and production assistant, she is thrilled to be a stay-at-home mom. Amy and Omer are in the midst of a never-ending renovation of a brownstone that will either kill them or make them stronger, but right now it's leaning towards killing them (or them killing each other).
Amy watches too much TV, laughs at (and makes) inappropriate jokes, and secretly wishes to replace all of her friends' Veggie Booty with Cheetos. Someday she will finally arrange all of her photos into scrapbooks and learn how to knit more than scarves.
.
Andi Silverman is the author of Mama Knows Breast: A Beginner's Guide to Breastfeeding (Quirk Books). This comforting handbook is filled with advice, humor, and support from women who have experienced the ups and downs of breastfeeding and "life" with an infant. Andi also runs the popular blog mamaknowsbreast, a site that features breastfeeding news, tips and anecdotes. The Mama Knows Breast blog was voted one of the Top 100 Mom Blogs by Mother's Day Central.
Andi was first inspired to breastfeed by her mom. While her mom breastfed her brother, Andi occupied herself with a doll and toy diaper bag. Of course she ran into some problems "feeding" her doll. So it wasn't until thirty-plus years later, that Andi learned the ropes for real with back-to-back pregnancies. Her sons, who are eighteen months apart, taught her the fundamentals of the "milky way.
Prior to breastfeeding for hours on end, Andi was a lawyer and a television reporter. She reported for the CBS and Fox affiliates in Boston and an NBC station in Charlottesville, Virginia. She is a graduate of Brown University, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Becca Levey grew up in Park Slope, Brooklyn back in the days before Starbucks and Barnes and Noble set up shop. She attended both public and private schools in Brooklyn and has a myriad of opinions on the pros and cons of both. Becca graduated from the University of Michigan where she met her midwestern husband and strong-armed him into moving to Manhattan where they have lived ever since. In her past life she was an aspiring actress and screenwriter and worked as a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant. As a stay at home mom to identical twin girls for past 6 years, she is thrilled to turn on the creative, non-playdoh centered part of her brain and get back into writing as a blogger for New York City Moms Blog.
x
Beth Feldman is the founder of Role Mommy, a website and event company dedicated to inspiring, entertaining and informing today's busy moms. Beth is also the co-author of the new laugh out loud book Peeing in Peace: Tales & Tips for Type A Moms (NK Publications, 2007). Beth was the vice president for the CBS Communications Group where she spearheaded publicity campaigns on behalf of several divisions of the company. She recently left CBS to launch BeyondPR - an entertainment public relations agency representing television projects, original programming for the web and best-selling authors.
Beth and her husband Darin live in New Rochelle, NY with their precocious, yet adorable kids Rebecca and Dylan, and their cat, Rudy, who sometimes suffers from Deli Cat reflux disorder.
Carolyn Pravda lives in Brooklyn in Carroll Gardens with her toddler son (born on St. Patrick's Day 2006) and her husband Adam. She is pregnant with Baby #2 due on St. Patrick's Day 2008. She has lived in NYC for just under 10 years after having grown up on a working farm in Northwest Iowa. In her past life, she was Director of Marketing at Clear Channel Entertainment in the Broadway producing division and worked on shows including The Producers, Sweet Charity, La Cage Aux Folles, and All Shook Up. She got her start â both in NYC and on Broadway with Disney's The Lion King during its pre-Broadway run in Minneapolis. The show swept her along in all the excitement of opening night to the Big Apple where she decided the city fit her perfectly so two days after graduating from college, she moved here to an apartment she had never seen in person. And mostly still loves it here every single day.
.
Cynthia Yahia is a 35 year old mother living in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn with her one and a half year old son, Diego Rocco, and her husband, Matt Curinga. She worked as an attorney for The Legal Aid Society, Juvenile Rights Division, for five years, where she represented children in abuse and neglect cases in the Manhattan family court. Prior to that, she spent two years at The Family Center, where she provided legal services to parents with life threatening illnesses, with the goal of creating a more secure future for their children. She currently works part-time for the New York City Bar Association, as a Legal Referral Counselor, providing brief legal advice, resources, and referrals to the public on a variety of legal issues. She and Matt both work part-time which allows them to split the childcare duties 50-50. This would explain why Diego is dressed
the way he is half of the time.
.
Deb Feyerick is an award-winning CNN journalist who specializes in crime and terrorism. The best compliment she ever received was from her kindergartener who said, âYou won trophies? You must be a good reporter. But you're a great mommy. Deb believes multi-tasking, especially for moms, should qualify as an official Olympic sport. Deb is really excited to be writing about her life as a Mom since it's such a perfect complement to her life as a journalist and she could not imagine being one without the other.
.
.
Eden Pontz is currently Executive Producer at CNN's New York Bureau in addition to her position of "Chief Mama"at home. An award-winning journalist, she's produced and reported both domestically (Los Angeles, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York), and internationally (London, Paris, Germany, the Middle East). Sadly, she moved from London back to New York just before giving birth-totally nixing her daughter's chance for dual citizenship. She recently moved from Manhattan to what realtors refer to as "Manhattan East"â Brooklyn --along with her husband and toddler daughter in order to allow their family to have a second room at home. She first came to New York for college even though her best friend's father warned her she was moving to "a den of iniquities". Eden is a graduate of NYU's Gallatin School .
xxxx
Jayne Sosland lives in New York City with her husband and two children. Prior to being a SAHM, she worked in television and in web production and was a freelance writer. Now she writes, takes care of her kids and tries to keep all balls in the air--with moderate success. Still, she considers herself extremely lucky and wouldn't trade places with anyone --except, maybe herself in a parallel universe in which she is the same but has longer legs, never smoked cigarettes and has a handsome cabinet containing beautifully labeled folders and bins.
xxxx
Jen Lee is a student of play who learns daily from the masters: her two daughters, ages four and one. She and her husband launched their family on a Grand Adventure when they moved from the suburbs of Denver to Brooklyn's Park Slope in early 2007. Motherhood has taught Jen many useful skills like cooking one-handed and achieving the appearance of regular bathing, even when the reality gets a little shaky. Urban living demands all the skills she can muster. Jen writes fiction during nap time and blogs at Jen Lee.
Jessica Ciosek lives in lower Manhattan with her family: a daughter who consistently astounds her Midwestern-bred mother with her street smarts and city savvy and a tow-headed boy who knocks Mom dead with his blue eyes and cherubic smile. She also harbors two cats though it is debatable who actually owns whom. Jess and her husband moved to New York in 1993 and intend to stay for the duration. Jess loves to write, walk, hang out with the kids and sleep among other things. She bakes at night so the kids can no€™t help and she has successfully convinced her husband he is a better cook and therefore, should prepare all family dinners henceforth. Her goal in life is to laugh with abandon once everyday for the rest of her life and to revel in the goodness that is this life with children.
x
Jess F is a full-time working mother with a very talkative, nearly-two-year-old daughter named Leah. Coming from a long line of working moms, there's a lot of self-applied pressure to figure out how to juggle it all. (Her mother raised five kids, worked full time and went to school part-time, earning her MBA and masters, I mean, what is she bitchin' about?) Important to her success is her fabulous husband, who takes it very personally when Leah prefers her mommy over him. Little does Leah know, there's a baby sibling coming in September to challenge her household rule.
Jess works as a web publisher at a fabulous children's book publisher and thinks about the needs of teachers all day long. But what she really wants to do is write rom-com screenplays with her talented (and separated-at-birth) writing partner, who lives in Los Angeles. Jess now lives in New Jersey and works in Manhattan, but was raised a sweet Midwestern girl.
Karen is the mother of two sons, ages 4 years and 17 months. She moved
to a tiny one bedroom in Battery Park City/Tribeca with the boys and
her husband in August. Her first "welcome to the city" moment came
just days after settling in the new location, when Karen realized that
she had missed the boat on the preschool admissions circus by more than
a year. Due to extreme luck and circumstances beyond the
new-to-the-city mom's control, she was lucky to find an open spot for
her son. Karen currently has a part time job as a freelancer at Conde
Nast. On weekends, Karen enjoys seeing all the sights New York City
has to offer, even if it means pushing around 65 pounds in a
Phil&Ted's double stroller.
xxxxxxxx
Always a thrill seeker, Liz Figenshu ditched her South Jersey beach town roots after high school for life in the Big Apple. Earning a degree from NYU, traveling to exotic places, and writing the fashion pages of a national women's magazine left her thirsty for the next adventure. Marriage, parenthood, and life as a stay at home mom across the river from Manhattan in NJ has proven to be the most exhilarating endeavor of all. With a toddler to chase after and a baby on the way the challenge of maintaining her style is just as difficult as the challenge of balancing motherhood with the rest of her life.
xxxx
Lizzy has worked as an editor for both major trade book publishers, medical education
companies, and for top pharmaceutical advertising agencies. Following the birth
of her son in March 2006, she decided to say goodbye to the rat race and stay
home. It wasn’t long until she discovered that being a Stay-at-Home-Mom was
harder than any other job she’d ever held. (And the pay was lousy, to boot.)
Some days, Lizzy’s parenting philosophy is simply just to get through the day.
When her son is sleeping or otherwise occupied, she enjoys napping, snacking,
and figuring out how to work her Mac Powerbook. In the fall of 2007, Lizzy and
her husband decided that because Sam was Just So Awesome, they’d try to produce
a sibling—Baby Clara is due in June 2008.
Lizzy lives in Brooklyn
with her family and continues her freelance editing career working on projects
for a wide range of clients—from medical education text and conference materials
to erotic books. She writes about motherhood and her real-life struggles with
family, money, health, and happiness on her personal blog, hilarities ensue.
xxxxxx
Kelcey Kintner has worked in the White House, spent years as a local TV reporter/anchor and earned a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University. She even lived in Montana where this city girl had to drive three hours just to find sushi. But nothing has ever kicked her bum like motherhood. It's exhausting. It's frustrating. It's strangely addictive.
This West Village mama has two young daughters (Dylan and Summer) and tries to suppress their endless zest for complete chaos, while finding time for her husband, Rick Folbaum (a Fox anchor), yoga and really bad television. Kelcey is the creator and editor-in-chief of the mama bird diaries, a smart, funny and always unpredictable take on motherhood. She is also a contributor (sharing all things kid related) for the entertaining site, Notes on a Party and the contact gal for Totspot, a private social network for tots and their parents.
Melissa Chapman-Mushnick is a 34 year-old Staten Island writer and Mom who is on a one-woman mission; to give a voice to the overwhelmingly intelligent, funky, urban and yes-quite savvy parents who currently reside in NYC's often forgotten and way-too stereotyped fifth borough! She currently writes a weekly column for The Staten Island Advance, called Kids in the City, where she gives parents the inside scoop on fun, family-friendly activities (places where parents changing diapers, Mommies breastfeeding and sippy cups strewn about are pretty commonplace) and where she shares anecdotes about life with her two kids; six year-old Madison, and two and a half year old Jackson--yes she is a proud patriotic American too! And when she's not busy scooping up her eight-year-old Shih Tzu Mellie's poop-she also contributes to the pregnancy and parenting channel at www.ivillage.com- and like everyother SAWM freelancer-she is always on the look out for her next writing gig!
.
Nancy Rabinowitz Friedman is a married mother of seven year old boy/girl twins living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan . She is a third generation Manhattanite who thinks life in the city is spectacular, impossible, funny, challenging, poignant, exciting, and really, really cool. Nancy spent her first year out of college working as a lounge singer in Paris . That was the last time she did anything glamorous and exciting. Since then, she has been working in the armpit of television: writing promotional copy for such television clients as HBO, Lifetime, ESPN and the Disney Channel. (You may know her work if you watch Lifetime; she wrote the promo about the woman who (read dramatically) "thought she had everything"..until!!
She has been published online in TheImperfectParent.com and in print in Brain,Child magazine and in the anthologies The Knitters Gift (Avalon Press 2005)and The Bigger the Better the Tighter the Sweater (Seal Press 2007). To keep some semblance of romance alive in her marriage, Nancy and her husband take private ballroom dancing lessons every week. Nancy is a compulsive knitter, and avid cook, and a really bad athlete.
Rebecca Rodskog was born and raised in "Chicagoland". That's Chicago's euphemism for âthe last stop in the suburbs on the commuter train. She is the mom of one tank of a toddling boy. Giving birth to and raising him in Manhattan provided sharp contrast to all she knew about raising kids. Being a Mom is the most glorious and terrifying of jobs she has ever taken on. As an Organizational Development and Change Management Consultant, Life Coach, and Actor, she feels she should have the tools to manage this new job, but every day provides its challenges! She works from her pre-war, oh, so New York! apartment in Manhattan and is married to an incredibly supportive but very busy man, making childcare one of the most important discussions ongoing discussions sheâll ever have. You can check out her coaching and consulting business, Rodskog Change Consulting, at http://www.rodskog.com. Rebecca, like most New Yorkers, has a true love/hate relationship with the city. However, she is consistently grateful for all that it provides to her and her family. There is nothing like New York. And she is continually in awe of all of you, the moms, who are doing it all, every day.
Ursula von Rydingsvard is a hardworking commuting mom who lives in Chatham New Jersey with her husband, three kids, one dog, guinea pig and (inhalation) a few basement mice. Ursula grew up way too fast in SOHO . She was the ultimate City chick, If you had told her back in high school that she'd be living in New Jersey, she would have looked at you side-ways and said "UCK! no way ... I'll never be 'bridge-and-tunnel.'"
Now she's loaded with bridges and tunnels! Spending much NJ Transit train time under the Hudson river . Ursula works full time as a producer at a small production company. She spent 7 years at CNN and 2 years at MSNBC before having an epiphany that finding Saddam Hussein in a Spider hole is not worth driving the Volvo station wagon (not 4 wheel drive) through a snowstorm to get to work on New Years Day. Ursula tries to juggle it all: kids, work, playgroup, tae-kwon-do, gymnastics, blogging and her husband's inability to change the toilet paper roll. The balls drop often, but she has learned over the years to let herself off the hook.
Véronique. Raised in Queens, schooled in Manhattan, and having spent the better part of her twenties in The Slope; Véronique is the mother of three very active children, and is married to an incredibly creative Dane. After a nine-year stint building web communities in Silicon Valley, she's recently moved back "home" to NY and is adjusting to the fact that her kids will probably end up with thick New Yawk accents before long. She started blogging in 2006 in an effort to (re)capture the fun and wonder of childhood.
Véronique also blogs on her kids' craft site: Little Elephants.
Vicki . Many women dream of having and bringing children up, and one day they get to see that dream come true. A child is born, filling their lives with wonder, and joy. But then what? Vicki Bodwell, mother of three, wife of one and the creator and owner of the Warm Biscuit Bedding Company.
Bodwell says that she wants to “empower women” through the work she does. And that’s what ends up happening: the interns she takes on start careers in various fields, while the artisans she works with see their business thrive. As a 2006 winner of Country Living Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year award, Vicki continues to find tremendous joy helping mom's discover their passion. A writer wanna-be, she loves to blog on her company blog, FromOneMom (www.kidsbeddingblog.com) as well as New York City Mom blogs. Blogging keeps her plugged into the passions of other women and provides much needed voice outside her home and business. If there is a legacy here it’s this: motherhood is just the beginning of a woman’s life. Bodwell proves that having a passion is really enough to make a dream come true.
New York City Moms Blog is a member of the Silicon Valley Moms Group. Other blogs in the group include Silicon Valley Moms Blog, Chicago Moms Blog and DC Metro Moms Blog.
The Co-Founding Team:
PARTNER - SILICON VALLEY MOMS GROUP & CO-FOUNDER: Jill Asher considers herself a community builder, exemplified by creating collaborative blogs,
growing high-tech and bio-tech companies as a Human Resource Executive,
and even taking the role of "President" for the local parent's club, PAMP.
Her other passion is community outreach and supporting local non
profits. Jill learned never to take "no" for an answer, and has proven
that will a little faith, communication and sheer will, communities can
support one another.
By far, her biggest challenge and greatest joy is motherhood. Jill and her husband are the proud parents of two elementary school aged daughters. Jill admits that she is NOT A PERFECT PARENT and fears her daughter's teenage years. Her girls can be heard running around the house screaming, "Mommy is blogging again!" and she needs to bribe from time to time them with treats. Is she allowed to admit that? On the bright side, Jill really digs living in Silicon Valley and tries her best to blend in, praying that no one will hear her "New Jersey accent". Unless, of course, she is royally upset.
Jill Asher is the Co-Founder of Silicon Valley Moms Blog, Chicago Moms Blog, DC Metro Moms Blog, NYC Moms Blog and New Jersey Moms Blog. More sites to come in the near future! Jill handles PR, Marketing, Business Development and outreach for this collaborative community.
Beth Blecherman is a techie turned blogger mom who is in charge of blogging technology (and here are 5 things to know about me). She started her career in application development, then system auditing and her last role was Senior Manager, Computer Process Integrity, for Deloitte. After senior management she decided to take on family management (with husband and three boys, two of which are twins preschoolers). Other hobbies include compulsive use of Web 2.0 technology, implementing technology process improvements for friends and families, searching for fashionable mom wear, organizing makeovers for moms and learning more then she ever wanted to about super heroes. Beth's personal blog is about tips, tricks, and discussions on parents use of technology for their families (Techmamas.com).
Tekla S. Nee spent her 20s in New York City, living on 1st Ave, E 73rd, E 80th, and E 88th, respectively. This was when the Upper East Side was all about singles, not kids; whenever she goes back, she's floored by the amount of mom-centric retail that has replaced the fern bars. She blogged for five years before there was such a word, writing about her life with three kids in The Mommy Zone for the Palo Alto Daily News. She parlayed that gig into two books, The Mommy Zone: Tales from the Trenches of Parenthood and The Everything Baby's First Year Book. Neither the books nor the column made real money, so she never gave up her day job, hiding her supermom cape to masquerade as a mild-mannered technology journalist working for a major metropolitan magazine.
Welcome, Welcome blog sistahs in NYC!!!
Posted by: Beth Blecherman | October 16, 2007 at 03:17 PM
I just wanted to welcome you all to the NYC Moms Blog... what an incredible group and we are thrilled that you have joined this collaborative community.
WELCOME!!!!
jill
Posted by: Jill Asher | October 18, 2007 at 10:12 PM