Welcome to the Sunday Surf, a tour of the
best blogposts I've read throughout the week.

Mikko specifically wanted me to show off the food in his mouth with this photo.
You're welcome.
Time for some weekend reading!
I’d never heard the 5-Second Rule applied to anything but eating food that’s dropped on the ground, but this makes so much sense:
The rule is this: “If you can think of it in five seconds, I can think of it in five seconds.” That is, don’t give obvious advice or ask really silly questions about something a friend has told you until you’ve given it more than five seconds of thought.
If the only thing someone can think to kneejerkily ask about homeschooling is “But what about socialization?” maybe you could ask that person to give it more than five seconds of thought … since as a homeschooler, I certainly have!
So. Incredibly. Impressed. I am never this articulate when someone’s being a snot to me!
Ladies and gentlemen, I was hot under the collar at this point, but I wanted to be nice. “I understand fully what age appropriate means”, I said, “and I am sorry that you have an issue with my children attending mass. It is in no way inappropriate for them to attend with me, and I will continue to listen to their needs and attend mass as long as it works for our family.”
On setting limits when breastfeeding isn’t working well anymore for the mother.
Balanced interpretation of Aletha Solter’s work (author of
The Aware Baby, which encourages letting babies and children whose other needs are met to cry in arms to release stress).
When I first heard of her position, I was nervous because it seemed too close to encouraging crying-it-out and discouraging breastfeeding (or I feared that’s what people would make of it, which as you point out, can be the case). However, the flip side is it has given me chances to examine what makes me so uncomfortable about my children expressing emotion and realizing that I don’t always need to respond with the breast. For instance, now I often hug or offer verbal comfort first, talk through the situation, and let my toddler ask for the breast if that’s what he needs instead, rather than assume he wants to nurse, as if having him nurse is the fastest way to shut him up and turn off the crying. The younger the child, of course, the less talking-through can happen or be useful, but reading her work did offer me some reassurance and lead me to this self-reflection of when I was using the breast perhaps inappropriately.
However, my little ones have always nursed a LOT, including comfort nursing, so I think any reading of the book should be taken with common sense and compassion in mind, even as some of her lessons might be beneficial.
As Olive approaches 2 years old, and as I look back on two years of nursing her, and as I look forward to what is bound to be at least a little more time of continuing to nurse her, I am struck by how easy it has been to decide to keep going.
Before I had a kid, any breastfeeding I saw was unusual, and nursing toddlers seemed so big to me. But when it was my kid, he just looked like — my kid. Who needed nummies just like when he was a newborn, until he eventually didn’t anymore. I do like for it to be gentle and nonjudgmental like that, where people know it’s just a child seeking comfort and nutrition and a mother responding. I stopped feeling comfortable in public at some point, though, so I know there was a time when I decided it was best to keep it private, that I knew there were strangers (or not strangers) who would judge us. My second nursling is 20 months, and he just seems so much like a baby to me still — it’s hard to imagine that nursing him is odd to anybody.
Guest posting:
I'm happy to share my post on
"Side-lying nursing: A breastfeeding tutorial to give you more sleep" at African Babies Don't Cry!
At LaurenWayne.com:

One way I earn (a little bit of) money as a blogger is through affiliate sales, an aspect that's increased a lot in the past couple years as I've refined my affiliate techniques. I'm sharing some of
my go-to tips for affiliate marketing as well as recommending
my top-earning affiliate programs to you to join.
Carnival news:
Calling for submissions for March 2013 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Tough Conversations
Theme: Tough Conversations: How do you address challenging topics with your kids (death, race, sex, injustice, etc.)? Recall a tough conversation you had, share your thoughts or tips on how parents can handle these challenges with grace, or find your own way to tackle this topic.
Deadline: Tuesday, March 5. Fill out the webform and email your submission to us by 11:59 p.m. Pacific time: CarNatPar {at} NaturalParentsNetwork.com
Six Ingredient Challenge:

I hope you're enjoying reading along with the six-week
Six Ingredient Challenge! How's it going for you so far? If you haven't started yet,
feel free to join anytime!
Posts so far:
Start formulating your answer to the
fourth writing prompt, and publish it on your blog by Feb. 28 (or save it to paste in the comments when we post our responses then). You can also
read the interesting responses to our third writing prompt from the linky! No matter how far along we are, we invite you to
sign up and join in now — we're excited about the conversations we're having!
Giveaways:
I've got two big ol' giveaways going on right now, both for $100 CVS gift cards!
Staying well during sick days + $100 giveaway from Children's Mucinex! {3.31; US}
 |
Being sniffly doesn't have to mean being miserable. |
7 ways to turn sick days into fun days + $100 CVS gift card giveaway {3.31; US}
Enter with one easy comment on each post for a chance to win one of two $100 gift cards to CVS. It's nice to have a little extra spending money during cold & flu season!
Surf with us:

We love following along with fellow Sunday Surfers. If you have your own post of reading links to share, please link up your post on
Hobo Mama or on
Authentic Parenting. The linky will go live every Sunday, and you can link up any day that week. You only need to
add your post to one of the sites, and the linky will automatically show up on both sites.
You can get the
Sunday Surf button by
Jenna Designs and some code to add to your post from my
Sunday Surf page.
Check out
previous editions for good reading, and you can find more shared items during the week at
my Tumblr blog, Hobo Mama's Shared Items.
This linky list is now closed.
1 comments:
The nickmom cartoon made me lol! they are awesome!
I love Amy- so much class!
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