A video essay about motherhood

A video essay about motherhood by Katherine Center.


Thanks to Yarns of the Heart for posting this.

*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

50 inspiring links: love, creativity and parenting

Weekend Links: Valentine’s Day! at Simple Kids
Blog Favorites: Asian New Year and Valentine’s Day at mama smiles
Heart to Heart: Back to Back Valentine's Day Crafts and Some Companion Books at Chronicle of an Infant Bibliophile
Valentine Crafts! at The Crafty Crow
More Valentine Crafts! at The Crafty Crow
Valentine Crafts for Kids at The Crafty Crow
Kid's Valentine's Day Roundup at One Pretty Thing
Valentine’s Day Crafts at the long thread
Really Easy Kids' Valentines at Alpha Mom
Simple Handmade Valentine's Day Cards at Alpha Mom
Weekend Make and Takes: Valentine’s Day at makes and takes
Weekend Make and Takes: Football, Hearts & Chinese New Year at makes and takes
Valentine’s Day Crafts from the Past at makes and takes
Valentine's Projects from the Past at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman
Valentine's Past at Frugal Family Fun Blog
Valentine Review at 5 Orange Potatoes
Land Art at 5 Orange Potatoes
Free Crochet Heart Pattern at Planet M Files
Crafting With Love: A Fabric Wreath Tutorial at GardenMama
Decoupage Rose Votives at Crafts by Amanda
Be Mine Valentine Heart Wall Hanging at Crafts by Amanda
heart strings at Little Birdie Secrets
Valentine Garland at Oh So Crafty
Valentine Plaques at Ordinary Life Magic
Beginning Needle Felting with Kids at The Magic Onions
Crazy Log Cabin Quilting at Acorn Pies
Cozy at Acorn Pies
Cosy Winter Tea-parties at Home Baked
The February Home Baked Challenge theme is Love at Home Baked
How to Really Love a Child at Shivaya Naturals
Creative Joy at Shivaya Naturals
Creating Their Story at Shivaya Naturals
But No One Taught Her Math! at Pepper Paints
little teachers at The Blankie Chronicles
Are you having enough fun with boxes? at grit's day
The art of creativity at You know how we're an art family
Living in Colour at Playing by the book
Gnome Home at Raising Rainbows
5 Things at Bohemian Single Mom
How to Have a Creativity Day at christine kane's blog
Heart at Thinking Aloud
the simple things at Soul Aperture
{i'm not gonna write you a love song} at Journey Wildly
Carnival of Unschooled Life - February 2010 Edition at The Expanding Life
January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Parenting resolutions at hobo mama
Idle parenting means happy children by Tom Hodgkinson
Fun for Nothin' on Flickr
imagine childhood: your nature walk on Flickr
Creative Every Day Theme for February: Home
52 Projects

*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

See more reds at Ruby Tuesday
See more Love Thursdays at Chookooloonks

Inspiring links

Nicola at which name? has put together a fantastic list of inspired internet links from January 2010. Categories include needle crafts, other crafts, food, parenting & home, frugality & eco-living and other inspired links.

*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

A thank you, a reminder and 50 inspiring links

Thank you to Like a Starfish for the lovely words about sunnydaytodaymama in Happy New Year!

A reminder that this is the last week to enter the Why Love Matters Giveaway at sunnydaytodaymama and be included in a random draw to win a copy of Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain by Sue Gerhardt. The closing date for entries is Friday 8th January 2010 at midnight GMT and the winner will be announced on Monday 11th January 2010.



50 inspiring links that I've enjoyed recently:

Play - Journalling through Photos

Corner View: Books - Journalling through Photos

Nature Table - Pepper Paints

Changes - Free to learn an lovin it

Messy Messy Morning - Ingrid Liddle is Kind of Cute

More mud encounters - Free Flowing Ways

It's OK - I've got it covered! - Corridor Living

Color outside the lines - Sevin Family

Here's one mother who couldn't care less - grit's day

Hoop and stick - grit's day

With Hearts of Gratitude - Shivaya Naturals

In Search of Mama's Milk - Flow of Love

We’ve found our parenting style! - Our Life On Planet Earth

Peaceful Parenting resources - Our Life On Planet Earth

45 Ways to Say "Yes" to Your Child - The Sparkling Martins

Musings on the "normal" raising of babies - I'm Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write.

Deep Learning: Letting it Stew - radio free school

Carnival of Unschooled Life — December 2009 Edition - The Expanding Life

Doing What We Do - mama smiles

Cardboard, Tape, and Rags - mama smiles

Top 9 Posts of 2009 Round Up - Frugal Family Fun Blog

Early Christmas Present - My Bilingual Boys

Fantastic Fiction for Kids – Baking - Playing by the book

Art! Wax resist painting revisited… - Playing by the book

A Mix Of Everything - The Artist And The Teacher

Ch {A} lk - Simple Beauty

Toys. Who needs them? - tinygreenpeople

Everyday is magical - Operation You

Birdsong and Silly Walks - muddy bare feet

Weekend Bonus Post for Historic House Lovers - What Do We Do All Day?

Five Great Things About This Picture - Tinkering School

A Silly+Tasty+Kooky+Pretty+Utterly Outrageous+Pink and Blue Cupcake Kind of Post! - The Quintessential Magpie

Mosaic Monday - Riet's Photoblog

Mosaic Monday: Passionfruit - Journalling through Photos

Yellowstone Mosaic Monday - Traveling with Eileen

Making Photo Mosaics: A Tutorial - Little Red House

Jenny's Projects: teacup candles

Outdoor Winter Day Activities: Fifty Things To do on Cold Days

A Sydney Christmas - Summertime - Sydney Eye

2010 - Spirithelpers

All the possibilities of a new year. - Can't Get There From Here

Photo a Day - January 1st and 2nd - Feel The Rhythm Inside

Creative Every Day Challenge



Introducing the Home Baked Challenge! - Home Baked



"Gift of Jewels" Giveaways at Necessary Room. You can enter as many of the giveaways as you wish by leaving a comment on the featured post. The randomly selected winners will be announced on 7th January 2010. Entries will remain open until 6th January 2010.

Blog for victory! or Your fellow home edders need you but it doesn't have quite the same ring to it! - What are we doing tomorrow?

Blog For Victory!! is a new blogroll intended to celebrate the diversity in home education in the UK and the passion we share for defending it.



If you haven't already done so, please consider signing the petition to the Prime Minister to uphold that parents have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of their child. If you are outside the UK there is also a Global Petition to support home educators (homeschoolers) in England.

English Home Educators Under Threat: Time for a Stand of Principled Non-compliance? (PDF file)

How to take back your education, by America's leading educator John Taylor Gatto

Inspiration from Abraham-Hicks



*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

50 festive links and a song

A winter solstice message in {here comes the sun} at journey wildly.

Photographs of children and snowflakes in Blizzard Today… at Life with Kaishon.

Beautiful Frost pictures at Free Flowing Ways.

The Seasonal Event of the Year™ in A tale of Christmas Present at Like a Starfish.

A collection of Salvation Army Band toy soldiers in Favorite Christmas Decorations! at The Quintessential Magpie.

A charming photostory called Snowman Tea at the road goes ever ever on.

A brand new hat in Winter Weather Brings...Hats for Babies! at Motherhood Moments.

A mosaic of My Snow Birds at Viewing nature with Eileen.

More birds in Time to Flock Together at soeurs du jour.

A book review in Urban Picture Books: Anna's Wish at What Do We Do All Day?

A recipe for Cranberry Mincemeat at Corridor Living.

A series about the Twelve Days Of Yule at On Bradstreet.

Some thoughts on Christmas at grit's day in a series called Grit's guide to Christmas for mean parents.

Mama Liddle contemplates Is There a Santa?

More on Santa in A Foundation of Trust at API Speaks.

Eclectic gift wrapping in I'm dreaming of a .... wrapping paper-free Christmas at Going to Graceland.

Ideas for a Simple Joyful Christmas... at Our Unschooled Family.

Solstice Ideas at serendipity.

A Winter Solstice Story at living our own lives.

A Mountain Mama writes about Christmas in Our Cabin.

Truly Celebrating... at Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op.

Memories of Me and the metal Christmas Tree! in Monday Memories: The Fortieth! at Planet M Files.

Giveaways in the "Gift of Jewels" project at Necessary Room (entries remain open until 6th January 2010).

Win a set of 5 bookmarks to celebrate the New Year in Ruby Tuesday Giveaway for the Holidays! at Work of the Poet (link to your Ruby Tuesday post by midnight EST on Tuesday 22nd December).

Lots of festive links in And The Stockings Were Hung at Shivaya Naturals.

Festive crafts:
12 Days of Handmade Holidays -- Round Up - Frugal Family Fun Blog
Gifts Kids Can Make -- Chocolate Nut Bark - Frugal Family Fun Blog
5 Little Snowmen Play Set - Frugal Family Fun Blog
Green Christmas Crafts - No Time for Flashcards
Super Simple Snowflake/Star Ornaments! - No Time for Flashcards
Festive Baking - Home Baked
Christmas craft and tutorial links - Home Baked
Cinnamon-applesauce ornaments - 5 Orange Potatoes
Newspaper chain countdown - 5 Orange Potatoes
Paper Cup Angels - The Ramblings of a Crazy Woman
Snow Fun-Painting Alternative Snowmen - Marghanita
Snowflake T-shirts - Pepper Paints
Yarn Ornaments - Someday Crafts
Button Snowflakes - handmade beginnings
Holiday Countdown: Felty Button Tree - scrumdilly-do!
Frugal Fun: Pine Cone Christmas Tree - Pocketful of Posies
Holiday Craft: Kids Table Bead Jars - 4 Crazy Kings
Fun Christmas Trees To Make - The Crafty Crow
Gifts That Kids Can Make - The Crafty Crow
Big List of Toddler Art Gift Ideas - The Crafty Crow
40 Gifts Parents Can Make For Their Children - The Crafty Crow
36 Green Gift Wrapping Ideas - Wise Bread
Making Your Own Holiday Gift Wrapping by Robyn Coburn - Natural Life Magazine, November/December 2009
Yule Food and Decorations - Gaiatribe
Winter Solstice Celebrations for Families and Households - Circle Sanctuary



*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

Baby Mamas

An ode to babywearing. This video was originally blogged at Marvelous Kiddo.

*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

Chatting with Canana

Today I am inspired by modern technology. One of my reasons for starting a blog (one of several reasons) was to let family and friends know what we've been up to. So I'm delighted that Sunnyboy's grandma in Canada reads this blog. It's lovely to know that she's able to see Sunnyboy growing up even from so far away. (Sorry I haven't posted any Today's Flowers recently Canana. I know you also enjoy seeing the flowers here in the UK but there aren't many in our garden at this time of year!) Even more lovely was that yesterday evening Nozy set up his webcam so that Sunnyboy and Canana could see each other and talk for the first time. How amazing to be three thousand miles away and to be able to wave and chat to each other! I hope that Sunnyboy and Canana will be able to chat together again. For now here are some short videos of Sunnyboy that Nozy took recently.









*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

Inspiration at the library and Guess How Much I Love You in the Autumn

Our city's main public library closed for refurbishments nearly three years ago so we had been walking to a small library further from the centre of town. Having pretty much read all the books we wanted to there, it was very exciting when the big library finally reopened at the end of September. It's great to get to call in at the library regularly again while we are in town and to have such a large selection of books to choose from once more. One of the library books we've borrowed at the moment is Guess How Much I Love You in the Autumn by Sam McBratney (with illustrations by Anita Jeram).




'Then a big brown box came rolling by, blown by the autumn wind. Little Nutbrown Hare caught up with the box when it got stuck in a bush.
What a fine big box!
It was great for jumping over...
jumping on...
and jumping in.'

Here are the rest of the library books we have out on loan and I'm looking forward to lots more library inspiration to come.



Find out more about Book Sharing Monday at Serendipity.

*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

Blog favourites

Some recent 'blog favourites' and links I've enjoyed:

Blog Favorites: Autumn
Autumn Activities
Some inspiration for the weekend
Food on Fridays and Creamy Harvest Soup
Montessori Pearls Of Wisdom
Carnival of Unschooled Life — October 2009 Edition
Attachment Parenting Month 2009 Blog Carnival of Growth
September Goodies
September in review

*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

In My Arms

*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

Close Enough to Kiss

International Babywearing Week
September 21-28, 2009



Press release for International Babywearing Week 2009




Sunnyboy carrying his doll in a homemade gauze wrap
December 2007

*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

Home Education Blog Carnival

For today's Inspirational Monday please head over to muddy bare feet, where Debs is hosting a Home Education Blog Carnival with links to lots and lots of inspiring and informative posts by home educators. If you are home educating or interested in learning more about home education then don't miss it! A huge thank you to Debs for all her hard work in putting together such a wonderful carnival celebrating International Freedom in Education Day 09.

*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

Children's Work

'Our children deserve the opportunity to be part of – and learn from – the daily lives of their families and communities.'
Learning is Children's Work
by Wendy Priesnitz
Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier (The Alternate Press, 2009)





This week I'll be posting new pictures of Sunnyboy at work, but for now here are some older pictures of Sunnyboy going behind the counter for the first time. We usually work upstairs in the stock room or on the shop floor stocking shelves, and now Sunnyboy does a shift serving behind the counter with one of our co-workers most days at work too.




May 2009

*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

Unschooling on zenhabits

'...learn about what interests you, gets you curious, gets you excited. Figure out where to get the information you need. Read about it, talk to someone about it, find out about it. Try it. Do it, make mistakes. Figure out how to correct the mistakes. Figure out how to solve the problems you encounter. Repeat.

In other words, find problems that interest you, and figure out how to solve them.

Sometimes, you’ll have to solve problems that aren’t so interesting, just to solve problems that do interest you. That’s OK. That’s how things work.

And here’s a secret: we already know how to do this. From birth. This method of learning is innate in all of us. It’s built in.'

Education Needs to Be Turned on Its Head
by Leo Babauta,
zenhabits


*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

It's worth waiting for

I'm dreaming big.



'There will be a time, not so far from now, that you will look back on this phase of your life and instead of condemning it or beating up on it... Instead of blaming or guilting, you will feel appreciation for it, because you will understand that a renewed desire for life was born out of this time period that will bring you to physical heights that you could not have achieved without the contrast that gave birth to this desire.'
- Abraham, excerpted from the workshop in Boston, MA on Saturday October 4th 1997

*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

Miracles

'When the contrast gets greater, the desire gets greater too, and that's what miracles are from. A miracle is nothing more than a terrible situation that has caused strong desire and then somehow an alignment of Energy with the desire. Every day life creativity, that's all that it is.'
- Abraham, excerpted from the workshop in Chicago, IL on Sunday November 2nd 1997

'You are magnificent beings, in the perfect place at the perfect time, unfolding perfectly, never getting it done, and never getting it wrong. Be more playful about all of it. "Today, no matter where I'm going, no matter what I am doing, and no matter who I'm doing it with -- it is my dominant intent to look for that which I'm wanting to see. I'm wanting to find thoughts and words and actions that feel good while I'm finding them. For in doing so, I am, in the moment, practicing the art of allowing all that I've been telling the Universe I'm wanting, for all of the days of my existence.'
-Abraham, excerpted from the workshop in Asheville, NC on Sunday October 29th 2000

'Let what you're living right here and now in this environment be the process that evokes the desire that summons the Life Force that provides the creation of anything. Whatever you have the ability to conceive, this Universe has the ability to provide. Anything, without exception. So your work is on the conjuring of the idea, period. The Universe has the stuff to deliver the goods, and will.'
- Abraham, excerpted from the workshop in Phoenix, AZ on Saturday April 4th 1998

*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

Inspirational video for parents

'We are in this together and together we create miracles.'


Life Positive by Design


*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

Groove in the vastness

Abraham-Hicks and Louise Hay groove in the vastness.

"Groove in the vastness of it all and allow life to float things towards you. All you have to do is breathe and relax, be grateful, enjoy life, love yourself and multitudes of goodies will come your way. And so it is!"
Louise Hay



More great stuff from Abraham that I've been listening to, and been inspired by, this week:









*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

London Unschooling Conference

On Saturday we went to the 1st Annual London Unschooling Conference.



Before we left:
Sunnyboy - "Are we going to a charity shop?"
Me - "No, we're going on the train to London for the Unschooling Conference."
Sunnyboy - "Is there a charity shop next to it?"

It was so wonderful to meet other unschoolers and Dayna Martin's 'Introduction to Unschooling' keynote speech was very inspiring, as were her circle talks 'Common Unschooling Challenges' and 'From Control to Connection'. I got a copy of Dayna's new book Radical Unschooling - A Revolution Has Begun and, although I've only read the first few pages so far, here's a quote I love already,

'Yes, this might sound strange at first, but as the old saying goes, Don't believe everything you think. Children do not need to be forced to learn, ever. They never need to be punished, or motivated by grades to learn what they need in life to be successful and happy. Children never need to jump through the hoops, like most kids in our culture do, to get from point A to point B. Open your eyes and see how brainwashed we truly are in our culture about what we think education and parenting are. It's time to embrace the paradigm shift and evolve as a parent. Your children deserve it!'

I also went to Sandra Dodd's talk about 'Unforeseen Benefits of Unschooling', a fascinating talk by Sophia Woodley on 'Unschooling in British History' and there was a group discussion of the Badman Report at the end of the conference.

Sunnyboy had a great time with his Nana (who came with us), playing with all the lovely toys set up in the playroom and making friends with the other children there. He also enjoyed climbing up and down the stairs to visit me during the circle talks held outside on the pavement (we live in a ground floor flat so stairs have always been fascinating to Sunnyboy).

In bed at the end of the day:
Sunnyboy - "I need to tell you something mama. I like the train set at the, um, um, you tell me mama."
Me - "at the unschooling conference?"
Sunnyboy - "Yes, that's it. I like the train set at the unschooling conference."


*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.

Classrooms of the Heart

"When you take the free will out of education, that turns it into schooling."

"Our form of schooling creates an abundance of social pathologies and contradicts the way children actually learn- sacrificing human potential to an obsession with hierarchy, order, routine, surveillance, and the creation of lifelong dependence on "expert" authority."

"I’ve concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves."

This short documentary profiles the visionary school teacher John Taylor Gatto.



BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1992).
The Exhausted School (1993).
A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling (2000).
The Underground History of American Education (2001). (Complete Text online)
Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling (2008).

The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher - originally published in Whole Earth Review, Fall 1991
Against School - originally published in Harper's Magazine, September 2003
Childhood's End (an edited excerpt from Weapons of Mass Instruction) - Ode Magazine, October 2008

Audio Clip: “The Paradox of Extended Childhood” ~ a Gatto Lecture at Cambridge, Massachusetts
Audio Clip: John Gatto on Public Education


*Operation You is the home of Inspirational Monday. You can get more inspiration there and are invited to stop by and post your links of inspiration.