Today marks the start of the fifth and final week of the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop! One last week of prompts to inspire your poetry.
We're each writing at least
one parenting-themed poem a week on an overarching parenting theme, which I post on Mondays. On Fridays, I post a linkup so we can all share what we've been working on, and then we enjoy reading each other's work. It's been inspiring for all of us!
I also post daily prompts for the week in advance, both to give you more of an idea of what the theme represents, and for any overachievers who want to write
more than one poem a week! Remember, anyone who writes and posts a poem for each day of the challenge automatically wins a signed prize copy of
Poetry of a Hobo Mama, and anyone who writes and posts at least weekly will be entered into a drawing for one.
For full details and to grab a badge,
see the intro post.
You can
enjoy last week's poems here and link up your own if you haven't already! It was a beautiful week of poems on Trust.
Now it's time to get writing for this week! Ready?
The fifth week's theme is
Enjoy
Welcome to the Sunday Surf, a tour of the
best blogposts I've read throughout the week.
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| I'd like to see you be this nonchalant about such stylish headgear. |
A few links on body image this week:
It is a strange state, indeed: neither pregnant, nor out of shape, but showing a visible history of pregnancy. In spite of weighing more and looking different, I was never healthier than when I was pregnant and just after, in large part to the dynamic shift in lifestyle toward eating well and moving more. But we don’t connect health to physical appeal per se, as any healthy person who isn’t thin can tell you. And when a body shows signs of use beyond the sexual or athletic, we don’t seem to know how to respond to it.
In fairness, it’s worth noting that all this is just as shocking to the woman it’s happening to. Pregnancy is an intense transformation, childbirth an even more intense act. The recovery time is complicated and multi-layered. And what we are left with is a body that has created a child and often nourished it for a period of time afterward too. It’s easy to be proud of the act, but we follow that nod with an intense effort toward eradicating all signs of it.
When our children start hearing messages about body image starting in preschool or earlier, how do we instill a positive outlook?
So what do we do? What can we do? In a world where a Victoria’s Secret commercial asks, “What is Sexy?” and proceeds to answer its question with images of women who are all tall and thin with long legs and breasts that are somehow both large and perky, how do we teach our children that sexy is different things to different people, and that more importantly, sexy isn’t the only thing matters? Is it even possible to raise children, girls especially, who grow into adults who feel good about their bodies, even if they don’t fit the “ideal” image that is thrust in their face at every turn?
We're sharing our poems from the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop:
Week 4:
Trust
This week — our next to last! — we're considering the move into our confidence and rhythm as parents even as we navigate the uncertain waters of discipline, spirituality, and seeking answers to big questions.
If you have a poem or poems posted on your blog,
link up below, or paste your poem(s) in the comments!
We continue to be delighted with the inspiration and wisdom our Carnival of Natural Parenting participants share, and we hope you'll join us for the next carnival in May 2013! (Check out
April 2013,
March 2013,
January 2013,
December 2012,
November,
October,
September,
August,
July,
June,
May,
April,
March,
February,
January, and a summary of all our
2011 posts if you missed any.)
Your co-hosts are
Lauren at Hobo Mama and
Dionna at Code Name: Mama.
Here are the submission details for May 2013:
Theme: Emergency Preparedness: Have you ever lived through a natural (or man-made) disaster? Has your family stocked up on supplies to prepare for a future emergency? Could your family sustain itself through a long-term disaster? Share your stories and tips this month.
Deadline:
Tuesday, May 7. Fill out the
webform (at the link or at the bottom) and email your submission to us by 11:59 p.m. Pacific time: CarNatPar {at} NaturalParentsNetwork.com
Carnival date: Tuesday, May 14. Before you post, we will send you an email with a little blurb in html to paste into your submission that will introduce the carnival. You will publish your post on May 14 and email us the link if you haven't done so already. Once everyone's posts are published on May 14 by noon Eastern time, we will send out a finalized list of all the participants' links to generate lots of link love for your site! We'll include full instructions in the email we send before the posting date.
Today starts the fourth week of the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop!
We're each writing at least
one parenting-themed poem a week on an overarching parenting theme, which I post on Mondays. On Fridays, I post a linkup so we can all share what we've been working on, and then we enjoy reading each other's work. It's been inspiring for all of us!
I also post daily prompts for the week in advance, both to give you more of an idea of what the theme represents, and for any overachievers who want to write
more than one poem a week! Remember, anyone who writes and posts a poem for each day of the challenge automatically wins a signed prize copy of
Poetry of a Hobo Mama, and anyone who writes and posts at least weekly will be entered into a drawing for one.
For full details and to grab a badge,
see the intro post.
You can
enjoy last week's poems here and link up your own if you haven't already! It was a beautiful week of poems on Hope.
Now it's time to get writing for this week! Ready?
The fourth week's theme is
Trust
We're sharing our poems from the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop:
Week 3:
Hope
This week we're considering babyhood from a natural parenting perspective and examining our changing identity as parents.
If you have a poem or poems posted on your blog,
link up below, or paste your poem(s) in the comments!
Recently,
Natural Parents Network launched a
Flickr Photo Pool and corresponding Photo Contest with over
$1000 in photography-related prizes up for grabs for our readers!
Many of you lovely NPN readers have already submitted photos of your beautiful families, showing us what natural parenting really looks like for you in many forms. We are loving the many images that have been added and the opportunity to see the diverse faces of our readers and fellow natural parents. There are almost 500 images added already to the Flickr Pool, and it is turning out to be a very fun way to see and share images of other parents and families like yours!
The April 30 deadline is fast approaching!
Don't forget to enter for your chance to win a fabulous prize package.
Happy Tax Day to my fellow US taxpayers!
Today is still surprisingly auspicious, since it marks the third week of the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop!
We're each writing at least
one parenting-themed poem a week on an overarching parenting theme, which I post on Mondays. On Fridays, I post a linkup so we can all share what we've been working on, and then we enjoy reading each other's work. It's been inspiring for all of us!
I also post daily prompts for the week in advance, both to give you more of an idea of what the theme represents, and for any overachievers who want to write
more than one poem a week! Remember, anyone who writes and posts a poem for each day of the challenge automatically wins a signed prize copy of
Poetry of a Hobo Mama, and anyone who writes and posts at least weekly will be entered into a drawing for one.
For full details and to grab a badge,
see the intro post.
You can
enjoy last week's poems here and link up your own if you haven't already! It was a beautiful week of poems on Emerge.
Now it's time to get writing for this week! Ready?
The third week's theme is
Hope
Welcome to the Sunday Surf, a tour of the
best blogposts I've read throughout the week.
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| Giving Batman a lift in the mei tai! (Photo by Mikko) |
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| It was Free Cone Day! |
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| And then my Batboys enjoyed the mall play area/family lounge. Cheap outing! |
I have links!
Easy and playful ways to encourage writing
A reminder of the point of gentle parenting: connection.
I found out information on the autoimmune protocol of eating when
researching dietary ways to help my acne. There’s NO WAY I’m going on it at this point, because, my gosh — no grains, no eggs, no nuts, no dairy, no nightshades, no alcohol, no ibuprofen, no SPICES (so … bland meat and veggies — joy) — but I thought it was interesting information and that the restricted foods are worth looking at for people having autoimmune responses, especially severe conditions.
Insightful and frustrating conversation with a dietitian.
And that is what floored me. A dietitian who makes her living advising people on what is healthy for them is so convinced that people will not actually eat health foods (and are basically too stupid to be taught how important real food is) that she will only give real food an honourable mention before moving on to recommend the processed stuff.
We're sharing our poems from the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop:
Week 2:
Emerge
This week we're singing our labors and births and reliving the hazy newborn days.
If you have a poem or poems posted on your blog,
link up below, or paste your poem(s) in the comments!
Join us for the #NatParNet Twitter Party
Monday, April 15, at 10 p.m. EDT
We are happy to announce that our very first
Natural Parents Network Twitter party will be held Monday, April 15th (yes, tax day!) at 7 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. CDT, 10 p.m. EDT).
Are you interested in learning more about natural parenting? Do you already consider yourself a natural parent? What is
natural parenting? Chat about our favorite topic with Dionna and me —
NPN's cofounders — and a few other of our fabulous NPN volunteers at our first Twitter party, this April 15.
Dionna and I will be
answering YOUR questions about NPN and natural parenting, and there will be a chance to
win prizes from our sponsors!
Our #NatParNet Twitter parties will inform, empower and inspire.
We invite you to join
@NatParNet in our new monthly chats on Twitter. The first of our monthly one-hour online chats will take place at 10 p.m. EDT on Monday, April 15, 2013.
- Connect with like-minded parents.
- Learn more about attachment parenting and natural family living.
- Make new friends and discuss topics that are relevant to your family.
How to participate in our monthly chats:
Welcome to the April 2013 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Family Recipes
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants are sharing their recipes, their stories, their pictures, and their memories.
When Sam was growing up, his mother made
French crêpes (or
Swedish pancakes, as they also called them) for his family on special occasions:
New Year's Day breakfast, birthdays, report cards, and other holidays and festivities. When I joined the family, I quickly embraced the crepe love and enjoyed my visits to the family estate that included one of these ritual breakfasts. (And it didn't take much prodding of my dear mother-in-law for
every visit to include one!)
The matriarch holds court over her plug-in crepe pan and pours out one careful measure of batter at a time, until one after another golden-brown flapjack is flipped off the pan and onto a carrying plate, to be
claimed immediately by the next relative in line to devour one. The dining table is crammed with toppings — jams, jellies, berries, bananas, butter, cinnamon sugar, all sorts of syrups, fried Polish sausage, sauteed mushrooms, cheese, Nutella, powdered sugar, and probably more I'm forgetting! — and the
sensuous pagan ritual crepe preparation and eating begins. And, let me tell you, we can all pack 'em away! Sam used to keep track in his diary each year of how many more crepes he ate as compared with the previous New Year's (and that was about all he recorded in his diary — you know, the important things). I don't want to brag for him, but I think he
got up to 14.
Today starts the second week of the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop!
We're each writing at least
one parenting-themed poem a week on an overarching parenting theme, which I post on Mondays. On Fridays, I post a linkup so we can all share what we've been working on, and then we enjoy reading each other's work.
I also post daily prompts for the week in advance, both to give you more of an idea of what the theme represents, and for any overachievers who want to write
more than one poem a week! Remember, anyone who writes and posts a poem for each day of the challenge automatically wins a signed prize copy of
Poetry of a Hobo Mama, and anyone who writes and posts at least weekly will be entered into a drawing for one.
For full details and to grab a badge,
see the intro post.
You can
enjoy last week's poems here and link up your own if you haven't already! It was a beautiful week of poems on Prepare.
Now it's time to get writing for this week! Ready?
The second week's theme is
Emerge
We're sharing our poems from the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop:
Week 1:
Prepare
This week we're considering the planning and waiting that goes into considering parenting: fertility, conception, loss, frustration, anticipation, and hope.
If you have a poem or poems posted on your blog,
link up below, or paste your poem(s) in the comments!
I'm Lauren Wayne, writer and natural parent. I embrace attached parenting with an emphasis toward green living. 
