This Week’s Super Mama
Monday 3rd May 2010
This Week’s Super Mama is Elina Furman, a.k.a. Julian’s Mom.
Children: Julian Jack Landauer, 2 years old
City: Just moved out of NYC. Now in Dobbs Ferry, New York.
Profession: Author, webpreneur, speaker
Tell us a funny story about Julian: Julian makes me laugh on a daily basis. His energy, humour and excitement is contagious. I know I should have more funny stories, but I’m usually too absent-minded to remember and the days usually flow together to form what I call the “mommy fog.”
Best part about being a mom: The best part is seeing him grow up and become more independent. I wasn’t terribly jazzed about the whole baby stage, but I am really enjoying the toddler thing. Watching him explore his world, show his unique personality and even defy me has been surprisingly funny and refreshing. I swear, every time he shakes his head and says “no,” I feel like I’m going to fallover and have a cute attack. Everyone says enjoy every day before they grow up. And I am. But I can’t help finding that it gets more interesting with every passing day. In fact, I just told my husband that I wish babies were born as 1year olds. But could you imagine giving birth to something that size?
Your ‘must-have’ mommy product: Since I’m in the business of writing about baby products, it’s ironic that I’m a bit of a minimalist. I never carried a diaper bag and bypassed the whole umbrella stroller stage by encouraging him to walk everywhere. I have to say the one product that inspired my love of all things baby-cool was the Orbit Baby stroller. I’m a bit of a design freak and the fact that it was created by this amazing group, some of whom worked for Apple, was really appealing to me. And I recently saw the new Orbit G2. Even though I am reticent about having another baby right now, that thing is so gorgeous it makes me think twice. But seriously, it was the one product that made me feel cool whenI first had my son and was feeling anything but.
Have you made any family traditions of your own? Gosh, I wish I had a better answer. But no. We don’t have any set traditions. I realized early on that I’m not the baking, cooking, craft making, tradition-setting kind of mom, but we do plenty of fun things—going to the park, movement classes, reading at home. Julian is also lucky to have an uncle and aunt who love him very much and come from the city for monthly sleepovers. Julian is crazy about them and loves the extra attention. And I love watching them all cavort.
Where do you go for information on parenting? I have stopped searching for parenting advice after a bout of internet-search insanity in the first year of his life. He had colic and had trouble sleeping and I spent months researching ways to get him to sleep. But all the divergent opinions made me even crazier. I also stopped reading books about parenting since many of them are so milestone-based, rigid and full of marketing mumbo jumbo (as a writer of self-help books, I know the formula pretty well). And child development experts are not my thing either,especially since we had a terrible experience with one early in his life. I am trying to develop my gut instinct, just flow with it and be more natural. The one parenting book I really enjoyed this year was Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy. It’s all about being more relaxed and letting kids have more freedom. The author breaks down a lot of the recent parental insanity that I was a part of and now find amusing. Mostly I read good literature. I’ve always been a big reader and find that I am enjoying more serious novels about women, motherhood and choices. I just finished The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller, Brooklyn by Colm Toibin and Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton.
How has life changed the most since becoming a parent? I was a born a worrier so that has just increased, but I’m used to it by now. It’s the pace of life that’s really changed. I’ve never been someone who thrives on chaos, which I realize makes me a less than ideal candidate for motherhood. I’ve mostly worked at home and took my time doing everything. But now life goes at this break-neck speed and while it’s more exciting, it’s also far more exhausting. I never know my schedule day to day which can be frustrating since I like a bit of order and predictability. That said, I am amazed by parents like the ones on the Bravo show 9 By Design. They have seven kids, move every 6 months and have a thriving design business. I would love to be so go with the flow and relaxed as they are, but maybe that happens when you have more kids. Either way,life has changed irrevocably and is much fuller and happier all in all.
Tell us about your amazing website Mamaista. How did it start? Mamaista is a daily email and website for moms, featuring one cool product every day. We wanted to launch a daily email rather than a blog because we love sites like Daily Candy and how they deliver information instead of you having to search for it. And the fact that we limit the amount of copy to 150 words makes it easy to digest for busy moms like myself. I started the site when Julian was 7 months old with my sister Leah, who is the co-founder, and an author and editor like me. When Julian was born, I was working from home as an editor of a regional magazine that was folding and I had to come up with some kind of gig to keep my sanity and make money. I spent a lot of time researching products for Julian and saw so many cool blogs, but wanted to create something more stylish,tongue in cheek and geared to the chic Elle magazine mom who enjoys discovering new products and being an influencer. I had some good experience working in new media as editorial director of sites like Seventeen.com, ELLEgirl and WomansDay.com and took all that professional background to create the site. We’ve had an amazing time working on it and our fan base really keeps us going and growing. We’re celebrating our one year anniversary now and we’re excited to launch a bunch of new initiatives this year. The most gratifying part of the business is meeting all these amazing mompreneurs. I’ve never been one for joining mommy groups, so to meet so many cool hard working moms who I have so much in common with has been one of the most rewarding aspects. And of course, hearing from all our Mamaistas who have an amazing sense of humor and inspire us to write every day.
