"Would a young mother describe twenty or thirty cunning tricks and sayings of the baby to a bachelor who has been helplessly put beside her at dinner [...]?" Emily Post

So opens a post on mommy email etiquette, brought to you by Emaily Post, a netiquette-fixated gal whose blog advises people on decorum in email.

Some months ago I was moved to write on my personal blog about a particularly prolific species of rude mommy: the Multimedia Mommy. She's the mom who sends you 50 hi-res jpegs of her tot (freshly born and in full meconium-tinted glory). Multimedia Mom might also mass-mail pix of an early fetal sonogram. To everyone in her email address book, including her pediatrician (and the customer service department of Ebay).

I didn't think I had anything new to say on the subject, until I received a note from Emaily Post. Emaily herself has done a snippet on the Multimedia Mommy, only her piece is far more succinct, direct, and helpful than mine.

Highlights from Emaily Post's tips on creating offspring-centric email updates that won't go straight to the Trash:

Segment Your Audience.
Yes, I said it, even when it comes to baby updates good old segmentation applies. While grandparents can't get enough of their little muffin, most friends would be satisfied with only periodic updates.

Less is More.
I am just as prone to snapping endless photos as the next mum, but let's try and keep in mind that no one wants to see 151 photographs of little Madison or Charlie trick-or-treating. Pick a handful to share, a dozen if you must, but spare your friends from endless slideshows (remember they don't make fun of slideshows for nothing!).

Anyone else have a multimedia mommy spamming your inbox? Or (gasp!) are you one yourself? Attack it, defend it, tell me what you think of it.

Last week I received an invitation to a baby shower in honor of someone's second child. The invite asked me to bring a dessert item and included a link to a registry involving organic cotton bibs. Or, if one did not wish to buy from the registry, one could consult an attached wish list for gift pointers. There is so much wrong with this picture that I hardly know where to begin. But I do know that this makes an excellent topic for this my new monthly mini-column, Rude Mommy!

Frankly I've got big beef with any sort of baby registry; so much so that I think I'll leave the topic of registries in general for another post. But perhaps my biggest problem with baby registries is that, like babies themselves, one seems to lead to another. A first-time mom is encouraged to register by everyone these days. Maybe she does so reluctantly. But then she gets all this lovely loot! And next thing you know, this chick is having yet another shower thrown for her and you're meant come bearing both baked goods and Petit Bâteau onesies. All this for someone you haven't even since her first shower!

Naturally I RSVP'd "no" to that invite but here's what I didn't say: Mommy-to-be, maybe I'm meant to be flattered to be asked to your party, but I don't know you well enough to shower you with gifts during this joyful time. Even if I did, why should I help re-supply you with baby gear when you should already have it? Is it my problem you eBayed your Medela Pump In Style after Baby #1? My problem you picked Bob the Builder sheets for the boy nursery first time around, but now you need pink layette for the girl? Ever heard of dots and stripes? Or the colors white, yellow, or green? Ever heard of reduce, reuse, recycle? Lady, you're not the only one with a wish list. I've got one too and you're on it: I wish you'd buzz right off.

What do you mamas think? Is this new ritual the height of rudeness, or is Crabmommy the rude one?

(And for more rude zingers from moms, check this out.)

Not ME! One is my seven, people. Crabmommy walks in the shackles of motherhood, beaten down, worn out and only one little duckling shall be my brood. But I want to speak of the phrase "we are pregnant." Because it really tweaks my vibe. And I feel like Crabhub and I are the only couple who never used the first person plural when I got knocked up. Okay, so maybe this isn't the most relevant place to begin my new monthly Manners&Etiquette discussion, "Rude Mommy," but this is my blog, and that phrase just dang offends my ears and crabs me out!

We are pregnant. Dad-to-be, unless you're a seahorse, in which case the spawn would indeed be lodged in your tum-tum, please revert to the third person singular feminine in my presence! She is pregnant, not you. And while maybe you'd like to be and you maybe you think you can even imagine it, and heck there's even a disorder where men actually mimic pregnancy...the truth is, pregnancy is women's work. You sowed it, but she grows it.

I know when fathers say they're pregnant too it's meant to be cute and supposed to show a desire to understand and commune with the greatness that is motherhood. But it irks me that we can't call a spade a spade anymore. So a pregnant woman is now actually only half-pregnant, because he completes her and all that? Sorry, Dad, but I'm only seeing one bump and it's not yours. (And if you ask me, your pet dog is dead, not passed away, or passed on or over or under.)

What do you think? Am I just a rudemommy, or is anyone else out there allergic to this line?

Speaking of pregnant and being offended, there's perhaps only one worse preggie-related phrase that could come to these ears and I *almost* heard it last month. There was I at the grocery store—admittedly tummy wibbling over my too-low jeans—when I exchanged light banter with an acquaintance, and then at one point she looked down at my stomach and said, "Are you...?" I was dumbfounded. I guess at least she had the decency to bloody trail off rather than finish the sentence! But LAWD, doesn't everyone know to avoid that question? Guess not—I have a friend who has twice been asked on different occasions by the same woman if she was pregnant. And no, she wasn't.

I thought everyone, especially women and moms, knew to avoid looking at, much less commenting on, a possibly-pregnant tum. Apparently not in Crabtown. Maybe it's because everyone has taut, toned ski-abs three seconds post-partum so that even a slight bit of chunk is reason to suspect reproduction. Well, good for you, taut-abbed ladies. Now please run along to the gym. Some of us have donuts to eat and blogging to do.

I'd like to announce a new mini-column in this blog to replace Million Dollar Mommy. Some of you have asked for more of my genius mommy inventions (those nifty gadgets designed to make parenting easier),  but I'm sorry to say my brain is empty. It was more or less empty to begin with. And now it's nothing but a hollow ringing void. Indeed, I think I've sadly given all I have to give to Million Dollar Mommy. But I have plenty to say on other matters. Such as mom etiquette.

It seems to me that having tots coincides, for many of us, with losing something in the process: our manners. Granted post-partum hormones and exhaustion probably play a role, but however we excuse it, I think we moms (dads too) need to brush up on our basic behavior. And since there are no books out there to tell us how to acquire such a skill set when it comes to this aspect of momming, Crabmommy wants to fill the gap. (If you see a Modern Moms' Guide to Etiquette by Jessica Seinfeld, people, just remember, you heard it here first!)

So let's get into it here, shall we? Please do send me your pet peeves or shameful admissions as moms. We all could use a lesson or two. And that includes me. My table manners, for one thing, are atrocious. But now I have Crabtot who can tell me to ask to be excused or not talk with my mouth full, and I'm appalled to note that everything I've taught her is everything I myself have entirely forgotten.

Please stay tuned for monthly highlights of this sort of behavior right here. We'll bash the boastful moms, the moms who don't RSVP to birthday party invites, the flakemommy who doesn't show up for the playdate, the mom who offers unsolicited advice on your kid's hair, the mom who's missing her sensitivity chip, and the mom who generally needs to stop and think before she offers you her wisdom without being asked.

Speaking of offering wisdom without being asked. Sheesh, I clearly need this guide. In a big way!

Suggested topics for this column?