Just about everyone is finding it harder to make ends meet these days. The cost of groceries, for example, has skyrocketed. With such a high unemployment rate, those of us who are able to earn much needed income are feeling fortunate.

Those of us who write or blog part time for a bit of extra cash and those of us who write as a more essential means of income, are just some of the moms who are juggling full time motherhood with part time work.

My younger sister has a small ballet studio where she teaches several classes a week. She is also mom to 5 and 9 year old girls and an 8 month old baby boy. Her husband works in computer programming and has a busy political career, as well—at 37, he is president of borough council, in the town where they live. It’s amazing to see them juggling it all. My sister teaches ballet with the baby on her hip. My mom sits the girls one night per week but the baby is extremely clingy and goes wherever his mommy goes (even to teach dance lessons!).

My other sister, the youngest of the three of us is mom to a 17 month old son. She loves to sew and bake and is quite good at both. A few years back she had her own baking business; she sold her cakes to several restaurants and at farmer’s markets. She took a break to be full time mom, until recently, when she started to sew little girls’ tu-tus to sell at our other sister’s studio.

I’ve always written on and off but a few years ago, I also had my own little greeting card business. I guess you can say I’m a bit crafty; I used collage techniques, paper-punching and cutting, stamping and some free-hand drawing to create unique cards which I sold at two local businesses. If it weren’t for the baby taking up so much of my time, I’d still be doing this. I may slowly ease my way back into it soon.

A mom in our neighborhood who is a former teacher tutors children in her home. Another woman I know who happens to be an amazing cook started her own catering business.

I am impressed with women who turn their talents into a means of income, and juggle this work with the 24/7 job of motherhood. I’m pretty sure that all of the women writing for this blog are busy balancing their writing with the demands of parenting young children, running a household and more.

There’s a new trend in social media networking. Baby bloggers. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to call them micro-bloggers, as I haven’t seen a full-length post yet. (Would their small size make them “micro micro-bloggers?”)

An adorable infant, two months and two weeks old, named “MeGrowUp” recently followed me on Twitter. I followed him back and, since then, I’ve been enjoying his antics. His “tweets” are written in an adorable babytalk format that is short and to-the-point but far more comprehensible than the speech of most toddlers.

The kid does have a bit of an ego. Last night, he posted: “NEWS: I rolled to my left side. It is only the second time. I’m so smart.”

Then again, if I looked as adorable as he does, I’d be a bit full of myself, too.

Today he is going to Grandma’s house and hopes to see the “cute cat.” Just an hour ago, he was a bit gassy. After going through this with my daughter for the past few days, I can definitely sympathize with him. In fact, I’ve thought about starting an account for my daughter just so she can “talk” back to him.

It does make me wonder, though, how does the parent of a newborn find the time to create a social marketing world for the baby? I have enough challenges keeping up with all my blogs in various industries, forget about blogging and networking for an additional person!

I got another interesting follower on Twitter in the past few days, too, and followed them in return. “HisBoysCanSwim” is the microblog of a couple, who identify themselves as Tarzan and Jane, that chose not to tell their real-life family and friends they are blogging about their pregnancy.

The couple’s avatar is an unidentifiable but decidedly pregnant belly. (I’m looking forward to watching it expand over the coming months). The Twitter account is used primarily to promote their blog.

I find this whole idea intriguing—keeping your pregnancy details private to friends and family yet reveal it to the entire digital world. Just recently, at the 12-month mark, “Jane” did reveal her pregnancy to close family and friends and, at press time, the couple is deciding when to share the news with the rest of their “real life” world. Nonetheless, they will keep their “Tarzan and Jane” identities secret for the duration of the pregnancy, permitting them to be completely open and honest in their blog without fear of offending, hurting or grossing out people they see in every day life. Can they maintain this anonymity for the next nine months? And will they share the news when the baby is born?

I love this idea, as I’ve self-censored while writing my blog posts in the past in order to spare feelings. Similarly, I started blogging here at Babies Online before I told certain very close family members about my pregnancy, (we wanted to share the news in person) and I didn’t even think to write under a pseudonym! Fortunately, no one from that side of our family stumbled upon my posts! I may be unusual in that my “real life” world and my online friends are fairly segregated groups, but I was definitely lucky that I didn’t upset anyone!

Expectant couples, infants… Who else is on Twitter? At the expense of sounding shamelessly self-promotional, you can stay up-to-date on all the latest pregnancy and parenting news, including celebrity births, product recalls and free giveaways by following http://twitter.com/Babiesonline. You’ll see a tweet every time there’s an update to the Babies Online blog, so you’ll never miss a thing!

I have to warn you upfront that Twitter is hopelessly addictive. It’s one of those internet inventions that it’s hard to see the point of at first, but after using it for a while, you’ll be hooked.

Twitter is a social networking website. it’s like a personal mini-blog, but one that has extra neat features like social networking, and chatting.

Twitter is used for posting short messages, called “tweets” on your Twitter page. You can either use Twitter as just a personal blog, but where Twitter really gets good is when you link up with your friends’ Twitter pages. Your friends can read what you are posting, and you can read what they are posting. You can see all your tweets and all your friends’ tweets together on one page, so it’s great for communicating with a group of friends.

Lots of moms would love to blog, but don’t have time to write blog posts. Here’s where Twitter is so perfect: tweets are a maximum of 140 letters long, so you can post short messages in those free seconds inbetween diaper changes. And it’s much easier to type a little message one-handed while your sleeping baby is lying on your other arm.

All you need to do is to open a Twitter account, it’s really easy, and it’s free. Then, you can start tweeting. Search for your friends on Twitter, and click on the “Follow” button on their Twitter pages to follow what they are doing.

What are you going to write about? Well, Twitter asks you: “What are you doing?” so just type in what you are doing right now. Check out some of these cool moms who use Twitter to see what they are tweeting about.

You can use Twitter to chat and network too. We had an unexpected free afternoon earlier this week, so I tweeted “anyone wanna go to the park this afternoon?” and within 20 minutes later, a couple of friends tweeted back and we had a playdate.

As well as linking with your friends, you can do lots of other things on Twitter. If you are not completely sick of the election, you can follow politics. Barack Obama has the world’s most popular Twitter page, and then there’s Sarah Palin and John McCain… actually, those are two spoof sites mocking the Republican candidates. The real ones don’t seem to have embraced Twitter yet.

News sites like the New York Times and CNN post breaking news on Twitter. Many blogs also automatically send their latest blog posts to their Twitter site so you can keep up to date with your favorites. You can get a Bible verse sent to you every day by following ESV Daily Verse. You can follow celebrity shenanigans by following Britney Spears‘ Twitter Feed, and find out what Dave Matthews is doing at his.

You’ll be able to see tweets from all the sites you follow on one page, so it’s perfect for keeping up to date with, well, everything!

Babies Online is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Babiesonline so sign up for Twitter, and watch us, your favorite website and your friends. Get breaking news, entertainment, inspiration, and keep in touch with your friends, all in one place.

How I Met Your Father. The Story of Your Birth. These titles are just some of the topics I wish to tell my daughter about. How we met in my first class in University, how soft her father’s voice was during roll call. How he asked me for coffee after class. Fast forward many years later to her induced delivery, and then a last minute caesarean. There are so many details I wish for her to know (and many more I plan to leave out).

For now, I’ve started a blog for her, with a special category called Notes To Mina. This is where I take time to speak to her directly about things going on with her. How much she weights, any milestones she’s currently mastered, new things in her life. With the details of life always crowding the day, I don’t want to forget about the details that may be important to her. Her blog is one of my ways to keep these important events, events that may eventually be of great delight for her to read up on, immortalized so to speak. I include videos, photos and try to update it often.

There are many other ways that parents nowadays can preserve those special moments in their children’s lives. There’s the good old photo album, scrap-booking, and digital videos. A blog is just one of the newer medium for such a task. It’s easy to update, there are many free blog hosts one can use such as Blogger.com, Wordpress and other even more baby-focused sites such as Babies Online’s very own. You can also password-protect posts for privacy and security. With some of the sites It’s easy to get started, and your little one may just thank you for it later.

For more ideas on how to preserve memories, check out 6 Ideas for Keeping Baby Memories.