February Best Posts and Linky

February was another great month for writing for South African Mom Bloggers. Please make sure you link up your favourite posts for this month at the end, because I’m sure I have missed a lot!

 

Valentine’s

Jolene has some great educational ideas for kids with her Valentine’s Day Trays.

Cindy wrote about the importance of Dating Your Man.

Relationships that can survive looking at each other with blood shot eyes and strained words about whose turn it is to look make the next bottle/changed the explosive nappy/clean up this round of vomit are probably pretty good…

Well I just want to let you know that I’ve been there.  I hear you.  I feel you…

In the MIDST of these hardships/trails/frustrations that we feel as we become parents or continue to parent – it is VITAL that we schedule time to spend with the person that actually matters most in your family…  Your husband/spouse/partner.

Tana had such a good post about how the romantic plans went down the tubes with the realities of life and kids, and then at the last minute they decided to still go out. The Important Things In Life.

However, just as the day was nearing its nerve-grinding end, I was busy washing some of the babies bottles, thinking about our rather horrible day, and it suddenly struck me how easy giving up was, and how hard fighting to actually make the good things happen, can be. But how worthwhile it always somehow is in the end.

So I guess I swallowed some of that pride and decided to put the icky-ness, tiredness and anger aside and push forwards….

Well, let me just tell you, the mood in the house quickly changed to a rush of mad excitement….

So, so glad we didn’t give up, and so glad that life and that darn pride of ours didn’t win out…

Parenting

Hayley wrote a touching post about her fears of how her love would change when she has her second child. She quoted another author about the changing relationship:

But something else is replacing those wonderful times we shared, just we two. There are new times – only now, we are three. I watch the love between you grow, the way you look at each other, touch each other.I watch how he adores you – as I have for so long. I see how excited you are by each of his new accomplishments. And I begin to realize that I haven’t taken something from you, I’ve given something to you. I notice that I am no longer afraid to share my love openly with both of you.

Shan wrote in Is One Child Enough? about her own experiences as an only child and how she wants her girl to have a sibling.

I never had siblings to fight with and I always got the last piece of chocolate cake but was that enough?

No, not for me…

Chevonne explores the Hearing Loss Rollercoaster

It is so frustrating, this “in-between” hearing world. There are days when I wish I could climb into his ears and hear the way he hears. Some days I question my own parenting, my response to professionals and wonder if I am being “over the top”. After all, you don’t know what you’ve missed or miss-heard if you’ve not heard it in the first place?

Elsabe writes 10 Things I’ve learnt from Parenthood – a great collection of advice. I liked “Each Child is Different”: Observe your child and learn from them, you will be surprised at the ways you can learn to raise them.

Catherine has written such a practical The Best Advice I Ever Got after her child returned home in dirty clothes, enjoying her play time so much.

“Have 2 wardrobes for Ladybug.  A school wardrobe and a home wardrobe”

Laura writes about the cliche we give moms going through a hard time This Too Shall Pass.

Usually people share those pearls of wisdom when you are exhausted because you managed to close your eyes for a total of 20 minutes the night before or you have just wrestled your toddler into the car or your teen has just slammed the door in your face, again! Instead of listening or accepting those words you imagine beating that person with a rolling pin or letting them try get the toddler to eat his dinner, then they will see just how quickly things will not pass.

She ends off with a relevant poem about how these things really do pass…

It is a dry white season but seasons come to pass

Claire writes about Avoid Burnout With a Day of Rest.

So email, blogs, social media, Skype…they all waited a full 24 hours without me *gasp*. And nothing burned down or collapsed in my absence, no one had a nervous breakdown because they couldn’t get a hold of me. To my knowledge, I lost no customers or business or money.

The repercussions of that one day off were phenomenal; several were quite personal and close to home. But also professionally:  the next day WOW, my creativity had jumped off the charts, my productivity was something else too. I did more in that one day than I would have done in three.

An encouraging post from Tana – Not Just Somebody’s Mother

I really wish I could compartmentalize. My life, my thoughts. Everything really, all in little neatly labeled boxes. But instead I’m left with too many thoughts and plans flooding my head, my hands and feet following infinity loops around the house. This leaves me tired. No, more like exhausted, mostly from the intensity of it all. And I am starting to realise that this may be part of this particular journey of mine for longer than I expected it to be…

She then recounts a conversation in which someone asks what she does: “Well, I am a mother.” This is followed by the other persons blank stare and a awkward aaah that quickly wraps things up.

So today, more than any other day, I just need to reassure myself of this one very important fact, all of us mommies, we are all, more than just somebody’s mom. We are all valuable human beings in ourselves, with a value to this world.

Mommy Wars

Maz writes about her frustration of being expected to breastfeed My Boobs Are My Business .

Psychological health is just as important as physical health. I wish mothers would unite over this issue. We all do our best and need support for feeding our babies however we choose to do so. We are all mothers first.

Maz also has a post on the subject of vaccinations here: An Open Letter to Anti Vaccine Parents. I see she has over a hundred comments – it’s quite a heated debate.

Another post published this month on the same topic is also worth reading (an American girl I follow – used to be Single Infertile Female) but she now has an adopted little girl.  Stop Bullying Anti-Vaxxers! It isn’t Helping!

Also I love this post A Guide to make sure your friendships stand the test of time.

I’ve realized too how short life is. So instead of focusing on all the negative and moaning because “we just don’t get each other anymore”, we need to love each other even harder through the change and push through the tough times. We need to find it in our hearts to forgive each other if we have let silly things get in the way. Maybe it means going back to your PERSON and saying “I’m sorry I lost faith in our friendship, I’m sorry I gave upon you!” I have learnt we need to be more understanding, more flexible, more loving, but most importantly we need to give each other the freedom to be who we are now and who we have always been to one another. That my friends, is the deepest and most satisfying friendship you will ever know.

 Affirmations

I liked the tips from Claire on The Art of Affirmations, especially this one she used for herself to get her business going:

“There are always people looking for my services, my services are always in demand and I can pick and choose what I want to do. All is well in my world”

Humour

Chevonne wrote about the time when her kid pushed her mattress off the bed in Mid-Week Meltdown.

I ignored it all, closed my eyes and said goodnight. The bedroom looked like a war zone!…He crawled under the covers with me and I held him tightly, asked if he was feeling better, wiped the tears from his face and this is how we fell asleep.

Loved this post and parents with young kids will so identify with 99 Reasons Why My Four Year Old is Freaking Out.

Bloggers also had something to say about the 50 Shades movie. Funny takes from Cindy: 7 Things Guaranteed to Get You Hotter than 50 Shades of Grey. Another SA blogger, although not a mom, had me laughing with 50 Shades of Kak.

A cute post from Eleanor about how her son is mastering the English language complete with illustrations, should you wish to understand him: My Son versus the Eng language.

Politics

Zayaan wrote about The Day I got Robbed which, although a traumatic experience, is an uplifting post because of her thankfulness for being alive. She is also grateful to the police.

You know, the SAPS get so much flack but when they do a stellar job nobody says a thing. The fact that they caught two of the guys AND I got all my stuff back is something damn near a miracle! They were professional and on the ball and I was treated with such courtesy. I kinda felt sorry for them though. They really are doing the best job they can with the little resources they have. The station is dilapidated, the paint is literally peeling off the walls and I don’t think they’re even using Windows XP. The program that they were running was basically MS-DOS and The Husband and I gave each other looks that basically said “No wonder everything takes 10 years to do.”

Some really good load shedding tips can be found in this post from Abieda.

Then of course we had that awful event in parliament. Nicky writes:  Broken and Ashamed? Not me, not again!

Over the last two weeks many South Africans have sat and watched with abject horror at the political scene from the State of the Nation opening.  I was more interested in the reaction on the different social media platforms and the general consensus was that South Africans were ashamed, ashamed of the countries leadership and more disturbingly, ashamed of being South African….

I watched a very interesting segment of the State of the Nation Address last night and I felt the hope, it peaked its tiny head through the door and I put my foot in it to stop it from closing! The DA parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane stood up and said to our president “You are a broken man, presiding over a broken society. You are willing to break every democratic institution to try and fix the legal predicament you find yourself in. You are willing to break Parliament if it means escaping accountability for the wrongs you have done” I’m not going to go into his full speech but he is so right. We are a broken society and only way to fix ourselves is if we stand together and take a stand because we have nothing to be ashamed of!

Body Image

This post was so encouraging – 5 Reasons Why I’m not Rushing to Lose the Preggie Weight and You Shouldn’t Too! The reason why is that is written by “Diary of a Fit SA Mommy” who posts lots of fitness tips, so this was good to cut us unfit mommies some slack!

Blogging

Great post by Gaelyn on Tips for reading and supporting your favourite blog. This one is for your friends who don’t know how to subscribe! lol! Laura has been doing a lot of useul blog advice posts on Blog Share Connect and also gathered some useful posts in {Blogging 101} 7 Resources to Help You Blog Better.

 Poetry

Chevonne writes about Judgement for a friend who has a deaf daughter.

I feel your eyes
Your stares
Your judgement
I hear your whispers
Your disgust
Your judgement
This mother, this woman
How dare she invade public space with her “unruly” child?….

Your stares, your words
Your judgement I say
Has no place in her angel’s face
This child has brushed deaths doorstep
She’s found her voice through her mother’s ears

Ursula writes Friendship’s Blue Balloon. I think we can identify with this one when distance has separated us from our friends.

Hands forgot to hold

immeasurable treasure

lost

it looks down, and

from that vantage

I grow smaller

melting into a field of green

distance obliterating me

 

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Add your favourite posts to the link up. They can be your own, or someone else’s. Please comment on at least three other links.