Mommybloggers: Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to chat with us! Your blog is called "Mom to the Screaming Masses" - for the benefit of our readers, exactly how many kids are we talking about here? Is it really the "masses" doing the screaming?

Carmen: HA! It depends on the time of day and how much sleep I've had. Mostly, I named the blog for my kids - 6 kids who canNOT ever seem to be quiet. I really don't notice it much, but lots of people tell me that my house is pretty loud. It's the music of our lives, as my oldest says. Now, I just notice when it's quiet. Too much quiet is a very, very bad thing.

I've got six kids of my very own (ages 13.5, 11, 8.5,6,3.5 and 2) and I also have three step kids. I do afternoon day care for two other kids as well, so they've been mentioned a time or two lately.

Mommybloggers: You've been blogging for several years now. How did you get started? Have you always been a writer?

Carmen: I was an active member on an attachment parenting website, and one of the other women started a blog. I read hers for a week or two, all the while thinking "I can do THAT!". I went to the Blogger website, read the fine print, and boom! I was up and typing. I haven't always been a writer - the vast majority of the writing that I had done before my blog was complaint letters. I can write an EFFECTIVE complaint letter. I've been really amazed, though, by how much I've come to love writing. It's become a big part of who I am and how I want to progress in my life.

Mommybloggers: How has blogging changed your social life?

Carmen: Social life?? I'm supposed to have one of my own, and not just live through my kids? Well, I haven't met many bloggers in real life - at least not those who I knew after I started my blog, those who read me or whose work I read. (I have met a few, though, and those people are still talking to me, so I must have not looked too weird.) I hope to change that this summer when I attend BlogHer - I think I'd wet my pants if someone looked at my name tag and could say with a straight face, "Hey, I've read your stuff!" and they weren't someone that I owed money to.

Mommybloggers: We've been enjoying your joint project with Chris of The Big Yellow House - tell us about what you are doing, and why:

Carmen: Both being mothers of a larger than typical size family, we hear the comments over and over and over. The most common question we are asked, though, is "HOW on earth do you do it?" We decided that it would be fun, not to mention give us each something to write about, if we picked a topic each week and explored it. That way, readers could hear two different spins on the same subject - my boring one, and Chris' incredibly gifted version. So far, we've done organization - in which it was determined that my upcoming tattoo should be the word "rubbermaid", sleep, chores, morning schedules, and a pictoral view of big family stuff. Other bloggers have joined us on those days, with those topics. It's really been a fun thing to do, and I hope it's been interesting for others as well.

Mommybloggers: As the mother of a large family, what are you sick to death of explaining to people with smaller families?

Carmen: How my family is no different from theirs, how I DON'T always have it together, and I don't have any more patience with my kids than they do. I'm not a saint, and by the same token my kids shouldn't be referred to as "those poor kids, with so many siblings". Oh, and the fact that, yes, we do know how all those kids got here.

Whew. Maybe I've got a chip on my shoulder, eh?

Mommybloggers: Dealing with preteens is a tough subject. You seem to balance the demands of parenting so well! Do your older children read your blog? What do they think about your writing? Have they ever forbidden you from writing about a subject?

Carmen: Yeah, my oldest reads my blog almost daily. It annoys the snot out of me, but I can't seem to get him to stop. My kids all know that I blog, but they seem to be pretty cool with it. I don't think they've ever told me not to blog something, but there are, of course, some things that I just don't discuss.

Mommybloggers: Do you consider yourself to be a Mommyblogger? Where do you think this whole Mommyblogging phenomenon is going?

Carmen: Well, I'm a mommy, and I blog. You know, the whole MommyBlogger phenomenon really cracks me up. Women have power, women are a strong presence in so many ways. All of a sudden, we are using our blogs to shape the way things are happening, and it's waking the world up. Scaring some people, too. I don't think Mommyblogging is going to go away - in fact, I think it will really take off in the next few years.

Mommybloggers: You've taken on insurance companies, the nuns at your children's school, and taken over the soccer team. What's next?

Carmen: I'd LOVE to just have some time off, and not have to worry about any troubles right now. I think that's wishful thinking, though! Seriously? I'd love to lose 20 more pounds - I'm really working hard on that right now and have ten gone. I'm up to walking about 3 miles a day, 5 days a week. And hating every minute of it.

Mommybloggers: Let's talk about books - we know you are a voracious reader. What are you reading now? We also hear you have a novel in the works - wanna tell us about it?

Carmen: I just finished the Agnes Browne trilogy, sent to me by the bestest friend evah. I think it's about time for an Outlander re-read, and I've usually got a few other books going on at once. You know, one for the van, one for the bedroom, one for the kitchen - and then of course, there are the magazines..... I love to read. I could cheerfully do it all day long. To the detriment of my house, my kids, and my laundry.

Mommybloggers:We also hear you have a novel in the works - wanna tell us about it?

Carmen: I'm about 25,000 words into my book, and I've hit a bit of a stumbling block. I love what I've done though, and will NOT give it up. I can't wait to see where it goes, and then the pressure will be ON to try to do something with it.

Mommybloggers: Tell us something that most people would be surprised to learn about you.

Carmen: Hmm, the revelation that I want to get a tattoo took a TON of people by storm. I was really shocked by that! Maybe the fact that I can't decide what I want to be when I grow up?

Mommybloggers: And here are the questions we subject all of our featured bloggers to (With apologies to Bernard Pivot and Inside the Actors Studio):

1. What is your favorite parent related word? School

2. What is your least favorite parent related word? Tummyache - it can mean so many things. All of which are yucky things and keep people home from school. Hmmm, maybe I should change it to STREP though - we've had it FOUR times here since November.

3. What is your favorite creative censored curse word used around children? Um, I have a potty mouth. When my oldest was my only, I was very creative and used words like "sugar" and "fudge", as well as the eternally popular "fiddlesticks". But, um, I have long since lost my creativity and just let it fly. It's a bad, bad habit I have, and one that I can't seem to stop.

4. What is your favorite hiding place within your home when you need to get away from it all? I don't have a hiding place - they follow me everywhere. I can't go to the bathroom without little fingers under the door, a few sets of eyes watching me from the tub, and bloodcurdling screams leaking through the walls. I have been known, though, to go sit in my van to make a c
all on my cell phone, just so I can hear.

5. What hiding place have you been found in too often and can no longer use? The laundry room. Of course, I'm always there, so maybe it's not such a good place to hide.

6. If Oprah exists, what would you like to hear her say when you arrive at the Oprah Winfrey show when she features the Mommybloggers? And, here is the author of the newest New York Times Bestseller, the book that's spent a record breaking length of time in the number one spot...........

Be sure to check back tomorrow to see what Carmen has to share in her guest essay! We know you'll love it!