B y C h r i s t e e n V i l b r u n When describing Liz Gumbinner, co-founder of the sassy shopping review website, Cool Mom Picks, the term “supermom” seems almost inevitable, but she’d be the first to graciously demur. As Gumbinner recently said on her popular personal blog, Mom 101, “Frankly, I don’t do it all nor do I want to. I’m sure I do more than some and less than others; there’s great comfort in that middle section of the bell curve. I also find solace in the fact that I won’t be busy forever. There are times for productivity and times for rest. Times for input and times for output. There were times in my life when I sat around and played Spades on Yahoo for hours on end. I just don’t have that luxury right now.” Right now Liz, who lives in Brooklyn, is a devoted mom to five-year-old Thalia and three-year-old Sage, and creative director of an ad agency. But the main reason she’s regularly founded on distinguished lists of online influencers like Parent magazine’s Top 10 Power Moms and The Nielsen Power Mom 50, is her work as co-publisher, and editor-in-chief of Cool Mom Picks (coolmompicks.com), which many moms across the country enjoy as a source of reliable and savvy (and often quite entertaining) recommendations on products for families. Covering a vast array of stuff with a proudly-declared “soft spot for nonmainstream products and services,” the site is a stroll through shopping serendipity, whether you come upon superhero costumes with style, enchanting alphabet posters for a nursery, or “metal lunch boxes like the olden days, only way cooler.” Cool Mom Picks got its start in 2006 as a simple grassroots shopping blog. At the time, Gumbinner had recently started her personal blog, Mom 101 (mom-101.com), a virtual space she describes as “a room of my own, as Virginia Woolf put it. It’s the place I can connect with the parenting community on a deep level about the topics and issues we care about...everything from parenting culture to reality TV to politics.” Through Mom-101, Gumbinner met fellow blogger Kristen Chase, of the popular MotherhoodUncensored.net. The two quickly became friends and decided to start Cool Mom Picks after only one month. The decision was a no-brainer for Gumbinner, who shared Chase’s passion for blogging about mommy stuff and loved the idea of helping small businesses get the word out. Moms were eager and willing to check out this new site that promised to “track down cool stuff so you can stay busy being fabulous.” The site readership continued to grow, and it wasn’t long before Cool Mom Picks was getting reviews and being featured on other sites. Now in its fifth year, the site has gained nationwide acclaim. Real Simple magazine named it one of the three best websites for parents, and Gumbinner has been featured on The Today Show and has even sat down with Katie Couric. For Gumbinner and Chase, the success was both exciting and unexpected. “It’s truly an amazing feeling anytime you’re able to get recognition for doing something you love to do,” Gumbinner says. But while Parents magazine once called Cool Mom Picks “the online arbiter of cool for the swingset crowd,” this mom doesn’t consider herself cool at all. “We are not cool moms, we just pick out cool mom stuff,” she says. “ My kids only think I’m cool when I tell them they can have ice cream for lunch!”