Website Spotlight: Mommylogue

Revealing. Refreshing. Raw. Mommylogue.blog is a new voice in parenting, an online diary where Elle Double U Pepper writes about the hardest job a woman can have: mommying. With unusual candor, a razor-sharp wit and an abiding love for her little ones, Elle shares with readers her daily life raising two precious kids.

“It’s my inner dialogue (my mommy voice) unedited, unfiltered and undeniably relatable,” says Elle. “It’s my real-life documentation of the coveted community called mommyhood. My scrapbook stories.”

The just launched blog includes stories by Elle about how her life sometimes resembles the 80s comedy Adventures in Babysitting, mommying in the time of Final Four and going crib-less for the first time in seven years.

“I remember when I first got this crib. My older lovie was still in my belly and I was on the cusp of this journey,” Elle writes. “By the time he turned 2-years-old, I was sure I was one and done. But a year later, with a pap smear and a pep talk from my OBGYN, I got knocked up again. It’s was actually classier than that, but it’s a story for another time. By year three, we used that crib for the second little redhead in my life, and I have to admit it reminded me not only of my kids’ youth, but my own. Now, after seven plus years, my house is crib-less. Which has taken on a different meaning for me. No, I don’t want more babies -- I love my children beyond, but two sometimes feels like 10, even on the best days -- and I feel like I’ve entered a new stage. A new milestone in mommyhood.”

Elle is a New York area mother living with two little red heads and her ginger-hued husband. She began writing her daily thoughts on social media and steadily built an audience. Now, with Mommylogue.blog, she is sharing her stories with a whole new audience.

“I think moms will appreciate my perspective because it’s real. I don’t sugarcoat the daily challenges we face raising children,” Elle says. “Every day is an adventure. Some days are better than others. Some days we feel like total failures. But each day belongs to us. This is my way of sharing those stories.”

I had a chance to interview her to learn more.

Why did you create Mommylogue.blog?Before I became a mommy, both times, I had the most sincere intentions to scrapbook the milestone of my son’s lives, but becoming the kind of mommy I strive to be kind of got in my way of creating these fancy books. Luckily for me, I had also been someone who kept a physical and mental diary of my day or a milestone in my life, even more so when I entered mommyhood, and when my sons would fall sleep aka nap in the car in between the millions of things we would do in the first 12 hours of the day, I would write in the notes pages of my phone... to myself. That snap shot of time was like a written photograph of a memory I never wanted to forget. It was my safe space, too. Where I could be the most authentic and honest.

Why is it helpful for mothers to read other mom's thoughts on parenting? I think once you become a mommy there is an unwritten rule you have to know everything and if you don’t you’re doing something wrong. Mommyhood while it is a community or a neighborhood it can also feel lonely at times, so sharing my stories and emotions gives other mommies the feeling and security of being safe and the vulnerable with a wicked twist of genuine humor.

I truly believe no one knows any more about being a mommy than in that moment and that mommy. My sons were created by the love, science and magic between their daddy and me. But that’s where it might begin and it’s up to us how want the story to unfold. It’s so the most incredible yet utterly indescribable thing to be a mommy.

How has it been helpful for you to write?Writing for me has been a way of talking out what I’m working out. It allows me to see my successes and my failures written out in front of me as a guide and a reference. A comic relief or a tear jerker. It lets me remember to be proud of myself and my children. Fall back in love with the history of our lives.

What's the most helpful piece of parenting advice you've gotten so far?I think the best advice about being a parent is if I find myself worrying if I’m a good mommy already makes me that much greater of a mommy. Being a mommy is a journey not a destination and sometimes it’s more like a wild ride... so buckle up and hang on.