Weekly Reflections and The Sunday Parenting Party

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Ness

Well here we are at the weekend already and it’s time for The Sunday Parenting Party. How did this week fly by so fast? It’s been awfully quiet around here lately, I’m so sorry. In fact, I haven’t posted anything since last week’s Sunday Parenting Party.

There’s been lots happening this week despite the lack of posts. I’ve been busy working with a fab designer on a new look for One Perfect Day. It will be a few more weeks before we are ready to launch the new design, but it’s looking wonderful and I can’t wait to share it with you all. On Monday I will be launching a new weekly series which I am SO excited about so be sure to stop by for that. This week I will also be guest posting at one of my favourite blogs Carrots Are Orange. I’m so honoured to be writing for Marnie. I’ll be sure to share the link with you all on my Facebook page and Pinterest so keep an eye out for it.

I’m also changing the way I introduce The Sunday Parenting Party – hence the “weekly reflections” title. I’ll be looking back at the week that was, sharing updates and happenings, or general musings. Lots of little changes happening around here and there’s more to come!

After a hectic week, we decided a day at the beach was in order today. It makes me smile so much when I see R (4 yrs) by the water. Not so long ago he was so reluctant to go anywhere near the water’s edge. Nowadays he challenges us to race with him to see who will be first into the water.

We love to search for treasures at the beach. We always find something special to bring home and add to our collection shells, driftwood and sea glass. Usually it is just one or two small shells, or a beautiful pebble. Today though, we happened upon an absolute bounty of AMAZING shells, the size and beauty of which we’d never seen at our local beach. Our haul was so large and wonderous that I’ll be devoting an entire post to it later this week, but among the largest of the shells was this beautiful specimen.

This was another favourite. A gorgeous enormous sea snail shell.

Sorry these photos are a little out of focus. R was so excited, running along the shore making discoveries. I didn’t want to ask him to stand still so I could take photos. These snaps are the best I could manage. It was a beautiful afternoon and definitely helped us unwind from our hectic week.

How was your week? What discoveries did you make?

Now to this week’s linky. A huge THANK YOU to everyone who linked up last week. A few of my favourites from last week are listed below. It was REALLY difficult to choose just a few this week, as it is every week. If you haven’t already, pop back to last week’s posts and browse through them all.

Tone of Voice – Taming The Goblin
I Love You a Little Bit Purple – Art Mama Says
How To Be A More Patient Parent – Picklebums
Bedtime Stories – Happy Whimsical Hearts
Beautiful Mess – Like Mama Like Daughter

If you’ve been featured, please help yourself to an “I’ve been featured at The Sunday Parenting Party” button from my sidebar. Thanks again for linking up and I can’t wait to read this week’s posts.

Finding a Reason to Celebrate Every Day

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Ness

Do you keep a daily journal? This year I’ve started recording little moments from our days in a “one a day” diary. Just a line or two each day, somewhere to record the hilarity that spills from R’s mouth on a daily basis that I never want to forget, or a milestone he has reached. It’s a wonderful way to end my day, to sit and reflect on the day and find one special moment, that one thing that makes me catch my breath a little. A moment that sparkles amidst the daily routine.

Some days this is easy. Our day has flowed contentedly, R and I have been connected and harmonious. We’ve played and made art and learned and explored. There have been cuddles and “I love you’s”. Forts have been built. Stories have been read (over and over and over again). Those days are wonderful treasures, but there are other days when I have to search more deeply for the “moments”. The days when I think to myself “but we didn’t do anything today”. The days when the house is in chaos and just when I clear up one mess, I turn around and find another discarded activity. The days when the meals I prepare with love are met with silence or simply rejected outright, before they are even tasted. The days when my patience is worn thin and coming from a place of love takes all the will power I can muster. The days when it is all too hard.

Those are the days that in some ways, fill me with even more gratitude and love than the easy days. The daily journaling has given me a shift in perspective. I seek and search and am determined to find that one precious moment, and just when I think there is none, a light comes on and I can see many. The discarded broken chalk is not a mess for me to clean up – it is beautiful and bright. Creativity and play and life has been happening here. That is a moment right there. The never ending mountains of washing are not a chore, they are evidence of messy play and digging in the garden and painting and trips to the park. That is another moment. Life is happening and I am blessed. Every day there is a reason to celebrate.

Sometimes we can get so caught up in our routines, and the rush of our lives, that things don’t seem to change from day to day, but when we finally stop to look back, everything has changed, and we never even noticed it happening. The daily journaling has made me more mindful. I find myself stopping throughout the day and saying to myself “remember this”. This moment right now is your reason to celebrate.

Do you struggle to find the special moments? Is it sometimes difficult to find the gift of an ordinary day? Shawn of Awesomely Awake had exactly that in mind when she created her latest e-course Cherish the Wow. Shawn is such an inspiration to me – her Abundant Mama e-course and her e-book The Playful Family have helped me celebrate the beauty in every day.

I was so honoured when Shawn asked me to contribute to her Cherish the Wow eCourse. I will be sharing one of my very special “wow” moments.

The Cherish the Wow e-course runs for 5 weeks and begins on March 18.

When you sign up for the Cherish the Wow e-course, you will receive:

10 Mindful Journaling Prompts.

10 Mindful Living Assignments anyone can do, anywhere.

10 WOW moments shared by mothers from around the world (including yours truly).

It is just $20 to join the course, and as Shawn says “all you’ll need for this course are an open mind & heart and a journal. The rest will arrive in your email twice a week.”

Photo credit for the first two photos in this post “D Sharon Pruitt” Thank you D Sharon Pruitt for sharing your beautiful Creative Commons photos!

If this is your first time visiting One Perfect Day – welcome! If you like what you have found, please join us on Facebook or follow us on Pinterest or Twitter where you will find lots of ideas for kids activities, thoughts on parenting, family recipes, home organisation ideas and more.

Now to this week’s Sunday Parenting Party. 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.

This post contains affiliate links.

I want to be the Mum Who Climbs Trees

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Ness

Photo shared with kind permission of Taming The Goblin

Who in your life inspires you to be a better parent? I recently came across the photo you see above. This beautiful shows The Monko, who writes one of my favourite blogs Taming The Goblin (she’s also one of my lovely co-hosts of The Sunday Parenting Party), and her son, Goblin. When I saw that photo I immediately thought “I want to be the Mum who climbs trees.” I thought “What an awesome memory for Goblin. What kind of memories am I creating for my own son? How will he remember me?” Sometimes I think I hold back too much, observe rather than participate. I don’t want to be that Mum. I want to be right there in the moment, climbing that tree. I used to be much more like that, racing down the slides and swinging on the swings at the park, but lately, I’ve been sitting on the sidelines. Maybe I’m just tired, maybe I just need to give myself a break, but seeing that photo woke me up a little. It was exactly what I needed. It’s all about grabbing the moment while it’s there, without hesitation, without looking for reasons to stop yourself. Have fun. It’s not complicated.

Now it’s time for this week’s Sunday Parenting Party. Thanks to everyone who linked up last week. Here are a few of my favourites.

Two into three don’t go: Is it ‘cruel’ to have only one child?
Magical Moments: (AKA) The Gift of an Ordinary Day
Drop Everything and Swing: Snapshot of Parenting with Purpose

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.

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Positive Parenting and Embracing the Moment at The Sunday Parenting Party

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Ness

Welcome to another week of The Sunday Parenting Party. OK, so it’s actually Monday. Let’s just call it the Monday Parenting Party this week. Thank you to everyone who linked up last week. Which posts did you find most inspiring?

Today I’m featuring three posts from last week which echo the positive parenting sentiments that I often write about here at One Perfect Day.

If you’re not already familiar with The Single Crunch, and you are interested in attachment parenting, then you really need to pop over there and take a look around. Last week, The Single Crunch shared “On Connection, Control and Getting it Right for Once.” If you’re a regular reader here at One Perfect Day, you’ll know I am always talking about coming from a place of love, and looking at ourselves as parents when it comes to positively dealing with challenging behaviour from our kids. This post from the Single Crunch sums it up perfectly.

Fireflies and Mudpies shared The Good Old Days – a post about embracing the here and now, being in the moment and realising that these are the days we will one day look back on fondly. Enjoy them now.

Kat at Mummyology shared 5 Favourite Blogs for Positive Parenting. All of the blogs that Kat has listed are on my daily reading list and this is a wonderful resource if you’re looking to find out more about positive parenting.

Now to this week’s linky.

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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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