Look at me with your eyes Mummy ~ The Sunday Parenting Party link up

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Ness

I’ve talked before about my (sometimes failed) efforts to put down my mobile phone and just be in the moment with my son, R (4). I’m proud to say I’ve come a long way since writing that post back in August and I’ve reached the point where the familiar tone from my phone, alerting me to a new message, has actually become an annoyance, an interruption to my time with R, rather than an escape.

As ever though, R continues to teach me that I can still do better. While I no longer check my messages and emails every ten minutes, while I no longer “just check-in” to Facebook for a quick look over there (that inevitably lasts thirty minutes or more), I do still have the phone by my side constantly. My phone is my camera and I take a LOT of pictures. A quiet day of photography for me is about fifty photos. A regular day is around seventy or eighty and if I happen to be taking photos for an activity that I know will end up on the blog, then we are talking over one hundred photos in a single day (I’m slightly obsessed with getting “the” shot. I’m a perfectionist, what can I say?)

There’s a couple of reasons why I’m so obsessed with taking photos but first and foremost, it is because I am so acutely aware of how special these early years with R really are, and just how quickly it will all fly by. I am so determined to treasure these moments, and not forget a single one of them. R will change so much within the space of a single week. His face is just that little bit more grown up than the week before, the games he likes to play, the favourite toy that never leaves his side, the super-hero outfit that is worn everywhere, all of it is so fleeting and I want so much to remember. So, I take pictures. Constantly.

Today, were playing outside in the sunshine and R was being silly and showing me a funny dance move he’d made up.

“Look at me Mummy!” he exclaimed.

Oh, you are so cute, I thought. I needed to capture this adorable moment, so I began snapping away (actually I’d been snapping away for the entire fifteen minutes we’d been out there).

Again, R pleaded with me “Look at me Mummy!”

“I am looking at you darling.” I replied as I took another shot.

“No. Look at me with your eyes Mummy!”

It was like being woken up. Yes, I was noticing what he was doing, loving it, appreciating it, preserving it, but I was watching it on a screen. He saw Mummy looking down at a device. He saw Mummy engaged with a phone, not present and engaged with him. Finally I got it. I put down the phone. I committed his gorgeous antics to my memory banks instead of a memory card. Now, with my Mummy brain the way it is, I am sure I won’t be able to recall all the details of what he was doing by tomorrow, let alone by next week. It doesn’t matter. All this time I’ve been so caught up in my own memories, trying to give myself something to look back on in years to come, I was forgetting about what kind of memories I’ve been creating for him. I want him to remember a Mummy who was present and engaged and interested. Who looked him in the eyes.

I’m linking this post to Real Life Wednesday over at Picklebums. Click on over to see what real life is being shared by others.

Now to this week’s Sunday Parenting Party linky.

Thank you to all of you for linking up. Here are just a few of my favourites from last week.

When ordinary becomes extraordinary – Awesomely Awake
We all need some slow time – Life Happens Then Write
Nothing was working – LittleOwlCrunchyMomma
Twenty Two Things I Love – The Cute and the Beauty
Chill Out Corner – Positive Time Out – Adventures at Home with Mum

Thank you again to everyone who linked up. If you’ve been featured this week, please feel free to grab a Sunday Parenting Party “Ive been featured” button from my sidebar. I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s posts again this week. We invite you to link up your parenting posts, old or new, humorous or heartfelt, and as many as you like. We ask that you don’t link up kids activities. This linky is purely for posts about parenting. If you do have a kids activity to link up, pop on over to The Weekly Kids’ Co-op. We would love to see you link up there.

The Sunday Parenting Party

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Ness

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Sunday Parenting Party. I would like to say thank you to everyone who has been visiting and leaving such lovely comments to let me know how much you are enjoying this linky. It means so much to me to know that you have been enjoying the posts and finding inspiration. I read so many inspiring posts this week, everything from creating effective family rules (via Awesomely Awake), to learning not to judge one another as Mums (via Keeping Up with the Kimmels), to setting an example for our children to help foster a love of reading (via My Little Bookcase).

I also came across a wonderful post from Little Moments to Embrace all about ways to help calm a child who is crying and distressed. I actually read this post back in May and have been using some of the techniques suggested by Heather since then and they have worked beautifully. Thank you Heather for linking up. Pop on over and read her post. She shares some really wonderful ideas for helping a child to focus and calm down.

Another post that really spoke to me was Back To School Blues over at Here Come The Girls. My son may no be in school yet, but I often think about what it will be like for him to adjust to school life. Will sitting at a desk all day and not being able to talk suit his personality and learning style? How will he adjust to making new friends? To having homework? To having so many rules when we don’t really do rules around here? (That last question sounds like it is anarchy around here! It’s really not. I’ll need to write a post one day to explain how we do things around here.) Rebecca’s post at Here Come The Girls has some practical, thoughtful ideas for helping kids adjust to all the changes that come with going back to school. I hope you’ll click over there and have a read, it really is a lovely post.

Now to this week’s linky.

The Sunday Parenting Party is a linky where we invite you to link up your posts on parenting, new or old, and as many as you like. Your post might be inspirational or humorous, it could be about your parenting journey or how you overcame a bad day, anything at all.

If you are linking up, please include a Sunday Parenting Party button either in your post or somewhere on your blog (you can grab the code for the button from my sidebar on the right). Alternatively, please include a text link back to this post in your post.

I hope you find inspiration, make connections with one another, and have a laugh as well. Let’s make this a place to share ideas and provide support for one another. Let’s use this linky as a place to ask questions and create discussions. I’m looking forward to reading through your posts again this week.

Finding ways to connect on difficult days – The Sunday Parenting Party

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Ness

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Sunday Parenting Party. I hope you enjoyed visiting some of the posts that were linked up last week. Which ones inspired you? This week I’m honored to feature posts from Awesomely Awake and Famiglia&Seoul which focus on ways to stay calm and keep connected on those difficult days.

Shawn at Awesomely Awake shares some brilliant ideas in her post How to be a calm parent.

Gina at Famiglia&Seoul shares how she stays calm and reconnects with her son with her Mommy Meltdown Basket.

Thank you for linking up. If you’ve been featured this week, please feel free to grab a Sunday Parenting Party “Ive been featured” button from my sidebar. I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s posts again this week.

Now to this week’s linky.

The Sunday Parenting Party

Posted on September 16, 2012 by Ness

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Sunday Parenting Party. I hope you enjoyed visiting some of the posts that were linked up last week. Which ones inspired you? This week I’m honored to feature posts from Aspiring Mum, Famiglia&Seoul, Little Wonders’ Days and Happy Whimsical Hearts.

Aspiring Mum – Encouraging sibling kindness
Famiglia&Seoul – Words from the Heart ~ Sent Across the Sea
Happy Whimsical Hearts – Our Nightly Rhythm
Little Wonders’ Days – 10 Easy and Inexpensive Ways to Show Your Kids You Love Them.

Now to this week’s linky.

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The Sunday Parenting Party

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Ness

Welcome to the 2nd week of The Sunday Parenting Party link up. We had over 80 wonderful posts linked up last week. Thank you so much to everyone for joining in. Your posts were all amazing, inspiring, funny and best of all encouraging. It was such a pleasure to read through them. I’m honored to feature the following inspiring posts from last week’s link up. If you’ve been featured this week, please feel free to grab a Sunday Parenting Party “Ive been featured” button from my sidebar.

Mama Smiles – Parenting beyond Kairos. A beautiful, uplifting post about finding beauty in every moment of motherhood.
Stuck Under A Baby – You Can’t Spoil A Baby.
Picklebums – Getting My Stuff Together as a Parent.

I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s posts again this week. I’m also really excited about the week ahead for a couple of reasons. Tomorrow I’ll be guest posting for one of my favourite sites and I’m sharing a simple Christmas craft that can easily be adapted for any time of year. All will be revealed tomorrow!

The other thing that has me so excited for the week ahead is that Amanda Morgan’s Parenting with Positive Guidance ecourse begins this Wednesday, September 12. If you missed my post about Amanda’s ecourse you can see it here. I have learnt so much from Amanda’s ebook, particularly about eliminating negative language such as no and don’t and instead using positive language to teach and guide R (4 yrs). The tools I gained from the book are simple and practical. I’m looking forward to building on those skills and learning new ways to stay calm and encourage R to make the right choices on his own, rather than as a response to threat or punishment. I’ve never done an ecourse before and I would love for you to join me so that we can learn together.

Join me on the Parenting with Positive Guidance ecourse

The course is open for registration now and classes begin on September 12, 2012. You’ll receive two e-books, and the course includes videos, links, printables and a discussion forum. I love the idea of an ecourse because it means I can study at my own pace, in my own time, and around a schedule that suits my family. I’m also looking forward to the discussion forum so that I can share my experiences with other parents and discuss how we’ve been going with putting Amanda’s tools into practise. Read the full details of Parenting with Positive Guidance, and sign up and join me on this course. I’m looking forward to sharing in the discussions with you and learning together.

Now to this week’s linky.

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The Sunday Parenting Party

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Ness

A few weeks ago, some blogging friends of mine and I were talking about our parenting journey and the posts we have published on our blogs about that journey. We were discussing the best place the share these posts with our readers. All the link parties with which we currently participate focus primarily on kids’ activities, rather than parenting. As far as we knew, there was no link party specifically for parenting posts and so the idea for The Sunday Parenting Party was born.

I am so excited and honored to be hosting The Sunday Parenting Party in conjunction with the following blogs:
Dirt and Boogers
Play Activities
Taming the Goblin
The Golden Gleam

We invite you to link up your posts on parenting, new or old, and as many as you like. Your post might be inspirational or humorous, it could be about your parenting journey or how you overcame a bad day, anything at all. If you are linking up, please include a Sunday Parenting Party button either in your post or somewhere on your blog (you can grab the code for the button from my sidebar on the right). Alternatively, please include a text link back to this post in your post. Let’s make this a place to share ideas and provide support for one another. Let’s use this linky as a place to ask questions and create discussions.

Each week I will feature my favourite posts from the previous week. I will also be pinning some of the posts to both The Sunday Parenting Party Pinterest board and my own personal Parenting Pinterest board. As this is the first week, I thought I’d share with you some of my favourite sites for parenting support and inspiration. There are many, many sites that I love to read for parenting inspiration but these are the sites I read on a daily basis, the ones that I turn to when I need to refocus.

Aha! Parenting – I first read a post from Dr Laura Markham a couple of years ago and it was a lightbulb moment. Everything made sense and from that point on, I became a more confident parent. I trusted my instincts and had a name for what I was trying to do – Positive Parenting. Dr Markham shows practical ways to parent from a place of love, alternatives to time-outs and how to build more connected relationships with our children.

Finding Joy - Rachel at Finding Joy writes from the heart. If you are feeling as though what you’re doing as a parent is not enough, if you are feeling lost in the blur of daily stress, if you are finding it impossible to just stop and be with your children, then get ready to feel revived. Rachel reminds me daily to just stop and see the beauty in the every day moments and to see value in what I’m doing as a mother.

Hands Free Mama – The first time I read a post at Hands Free Mama it was like a wake up call. It’s so easy to get caught up in messages, emails, to-do lists and phone calls. Rachel has inspired me to put the phone down and live in the moment.

Let’s Lasso The Moon – My dear friend Zina has inspired my parenting more than she will ever know. It is because of Zina that I now take photos of the most ordinary moments in my day – the moments that to anyone else would appear so mundane, but these are the moments I will want to remember in years to come. Yes I will love looking through the photos of birthdays, and graduations and weddings, but what I will really want to see, the photos I will absolutely treasure, are the ones that show how life really is for us on a daily basis.

I also read through my Parenting board on Pinterest often. It’s where I pin all the posts that have spoken to me and inspired me.

So now I invite you to link up your parenting posts, new or old and as many as you wish. I hope this becomes a place where you find inspiration, make connections with one another, and have a laugh as well. I’m looking forward to reading through your posts.

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