A few months ago, I was on a phone call with a bunch of really smart people. Besides being smart, they are also incredibly funny. One of those smart, funny people started talking about some nifty tip she had read about that would help you keep your socks from disappearing into the clutches of the sock monster that we all deal with in our laundry rooms.

As brilliant as this idea was, and as hard as I laughed at this funny woman's description of the sock monster, it wasn't a tip I'd ever use in my real life. I'm just not that kind of mom.

This little discussion led us to bigger discussions about our individual parenting styles. Some of us are Type A, spreadsheet style moms. Moms who always have it together and even if they dont, they're striving to get it together. Some of us are laid back, slacker style moms who just sort of go with the flow and would rather let our kids go sockless than to deal with one more thing we have to do in the laundry room.

There's nothing inherently wrong with either parenting style. We should all do what we want or need to do and be proud that we survive to parent another day.

There's also nothing wrong with having a friendly little family routine smackdown. That's exactly what we're doing this month with leader of the Type A spreadsheet moms, Rita, and leader of the laid back slacker moms, Sarah, starting us off with their stories.

Read Sarah's story and Rita's story and then tell your own - either in the comments of the post that resonates most with you or by blogging your story on your blog and adding it to the LinkHer widget for the story that best fits your parenting style.

The best story from each team will be featured in next week's smackdown (and the blogger with the best story from each team will help choose the next best story, too.)

Let me give you a sneak peek at the topics our Spreadsheet moms and our Slacker moms will be blogging about all month.

September 9 - The Dinner Wars
September 16 - The Laundry Mountain
September 23 - The White Glove Test

Start thinking about your posts now, and which team you'll fall under. And may the best team win!

~~Denise (aka Slacker Mom... except when I'm not...)