For those of you that read my blog…it has been a while since I last posted. Since then, I have had another baby and gotten a rather successful freelance writing career off the ground. After learning I was pregnant with my 4th baby last February, I knew that I could no longer continue to work as a NICU nurse and stay sane! My family always comes first, so I decided to leave my job and stay at home full time to get the house and the children in order.
BUT….we did need a bit more money each month, so I decided to try and make money from home. Now for all of you stay at home mommies who are looking for a little extra cash each month..you know it isn’t easy. But it can be done. I decided to look inside of myself at my other talents and try to use them to make extra money. I was always a good writer and I loved to write, so it seemed natural that I would try to make money by writing. After I did some research, I realized that while magazine writing was certainly more glamorous, website writing was actually more in demand. I began by writing for Helium.com where I was able to make a little extra money selling articles to websites. After I got my feet wet, I began finding my own websites that needed web content. Soon, I had a little niche of 3-4 paying clients that was making me pretty nice money every month.
After blogging and opening up my own parenting website, a major Baby product manufacturer contacted me about managing their message boards. Now I do that as well. Within one year, I now make as much as a stay at home mommy as I did working as a nurse! Scary but true.
If you want to make extra money as a stay at home mommy…start by looking at your talents. Do you draw, write, play music…what do you enjoy doing? Here are a few ideas to get you started.
- Start a pet sitting business. Offer to watch several cats and dogs at the owner’s house each week. You can take your children to let the dogs out, feed them and play with them while their owners are away. My sister did this and made several hundred dollars a month for just a few hours of work!
- Watch a few of your friends’ children in your home each week. Instead of having your friends pay a sitter or a daycare, offer to watch their children in your house. You can make pretty good money and even save your friends a bit in the process.
- If you like to draw or are an artist, try to start a small art business by offering your talents to small businesses in the area. Small businesses need help designing logos, creating dynamic letter heads and even painting murals on their walls. My doctor’s office hired a freelance artist to create unique pictures for his waiting room.
- Start a freelance writing business by writing web content for businesses in your area. By charging a reasonable rate, you can get tons of work for your initial portfolio.
- If you love to exercise, why not get certified to teach a spinning class at your favorite gym. Your kids can play in the kids room while you burn off some extra pounds and make a little extra cash in the process.
Share your success stories here…or give us your great idea!
You can check out my parenting website at www.octopusmom.com
With baby #4 due in October, I realized that I wanted to spend a little more time with my 2 older children. Aidan is starting Kindergarten next week, so I decided to take him to see the St. Louis Cardinals play baseball. It was his first game and BOY was it memorable. We took the Metro Link to the stadium and for all practical purposes, we took a TRAIN! He was soo excited. When we got to the stadium, I thought he was going to dance out of his shorts he was so excited. He bounced and bopped all the way up to the upper deck where our seats were. We bought peanuts, cracker jacks and lemonade and settled into our seats to watch Chris Carpenter pitch against the Cincinatti Reds. He was yelling and laughing the entire time and even had the people around us singing ” Take me OUt to the Ballgame” in the 5th inning!!! When Albert Pujols hit a homerun, I thought he was going to lose it! The fireworks went off and he turned to me and said..”Mommy, I don’t want to watch them on TV anymore…we are going to come here all the time instead!”
The night ended with a nice train ride back to the car and choruses of “Take me out to the Ballgame”!
2 tickets in the upper deck to see the Cardinals play…$40
Lemonade, cracker jacks and peanuts…$20
Mommy and Aidan Night Out at the Ballpark……Priceless!!!
If you are pregnant, considering getting pregnant or just downright curious, you NEED to check out this amazing we
bsite that has tons of full color photos of embryos and fetal development from Week 1 – Week 40. Take a sneak peak at your unborn baby, every step of the way! You will want to bookmark this site I promise!
If you are trying to potty train your boy or girl, you absolutely must plan ahead.. Do your homework, come up with a potty training plan and put it into action. When we potty trained our little ones, it took a lot of planning and even more patience…but in the end it was worth it.
So many parents ask me how to begin potty training their boy or girl. There are so many great potty training tips, I couldn’t possibly know where to start. So….I created a few articles and other free resources for parents looking for answers on how to begin potty training their children. Is your child a stubborn potty trainer? Just not interested in potty training? Don’t worry, with these tips, your boy or girls is sure to be potty trained in no time.
Check them out….
Potty Training Girls: Everything you need to know about Potty Training
Potty Training Boys: Everything you need to know about Potty Training
Potty Training Tips: Books, Movies and more!!!
Potty Training 911
SO this month’s edition of MomSense Magazine features a personal essay written by Bonnie Ferrar….OctopusMOM. NO…not Octo Mom, but rather the editor and founder of Octopusmom.com, a parenting and pregnancy website designed for busy moms who have their hands full.
Check it out
Becoming Human- by Bonnie Ferrar
http://www.christianitytoday.com/momsense/2009/julaug/becominghuman.html
Is your little boy giving you trouble about potty training? Don’t you wish there was a way to potty train him in less than a week? Well there is!!!! Little boys are notoriously more difficult to potty train than girls, but there are a few tricks to get them interested in potty training. From potty training books for boys to fun potty training pottys designed specifically with boys in mind, getting them excited about potty training is the first step towards potty training success!!
Check out these great resources:
How to potty train your girl in a few days!!!! Are you about to begin potty training your girl? Well believe it or not, girls are a bit easier to potty train than boys. Yet there are some pitfalls new parents make when they begin potty training their little girl. Find out if your little girl is truly ready to potty train and what you can do to make potty training a success. These are two great resources to get you started!
Potty Training Girls: Everything you need to know
Got any great potty training tips?? Share them with our readers NOW!!!!!
If you are pregnant, there is a 1/1,000 chance that you could be diagnosed with a molar pregnancy. But what exactly is a molar pregnancy. A molar pregnancy is not a typical pregnancy. There is usually no embryo, just a mass of cells that clusters together like grapes to form the “mole’. What makes a molar pregnancy so devastating is that there is a chance that the cells could be cancerous. What starts out as a happy occasion (a couple find out they are having a baby), can turn into a frightening one in a matter of minutes when it is diagnosed. For the next year, the mother may need to undergo chemotherapy and put off getting pregnant.
To find out more about Molar Pregnancies, read this great article ” Molar Pregnancies”
When news first broke of the Octuplets’ birth in California, I didn’t think much of it. Like most Americans, I am disgusted by the fact that any doctor would implant more than 2 embryos in a female uterus. Any more than that is simply unethical. As a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit RN, I have seem the problems quads and even sextuplets face as they struggle to breathe and eat on their own. Chronic disablities are a real consideration and can bring a lifetime of pain and suffering.
Now she is labeled as Octo Mom and we have a situation. I am Octopus Mom, not Octo Mom and the two are vastly different.
An Octopus Mom is a mother with 2-4 small children at home, juggling life and work at the same time. We are confident, active and the ultimate multitaskers.
Please do not confuse the two!!
