Tag: group-writing-project

Categories
Contests

October Group Writing Project

This writing project has ended. Please view the full list of wonderful entries at the October GWP Finale, and subscribe to MamaBlogga to find out about the next group writing project!

After the four previous successful Group Writing Projects, we’re gonna do it again. It’s time for the October MamaBlogga Group Writing Project!

The theme for the October Group Writing Project is “The best things about this age.” We’re writing about our favorite things about our children at any age—where they are now, where they’ve been in the past, what you hope for the future. Feel free to go in any direction that appeals to you. Even if you don’t choose to participate, you can encourage others to participate!

  • Your post can take any form as long as it reflects this theme—this includes anything from serious to sarcastic, addressed to your child, your future child, your pet, etc.
  • You can participate with a blog post, a podcast, a video, a page on your website, etc., etc. If you don’t have a website, contact me and I’ll be happy to publish your entry here on MamaBlogga.
  • Only NEW posts (i.e., posts have not been published prior to 7 October 2007) are eligible. Posts must be submitted through the submission form before Monday, 15 October 2007.

Why participate?
There are lots of reasons to participate! All entries that meet the guidelines will be listed and linked to here on MamaBlogga. This an opportunity for you to discover new blogs (and for others to discover yours!). Last week, I came up with five ways to get the most out of the GWP.

And, of course, there is one more incentive: one lucky post author, drawn at random, will receive a $30 gift certificate to Amazon.com (to be announced Monday, 15 October 2007).

Finally, we’d appreciate it if you linked to this post or to the guidelines/submission form on your entry post so that others can learn about the project and participate.

As a side note, I didn’t settle on the topic for this GWP until this morning, so I didn’t get to send out the topic to previous participants early. If you want or need longer, we can change the final deadline (and, therefore, announcement date) of the project.

Now get writing!

Categories
Contests

September Group Writing Project Finale

With thirty-eight awesome entries (including one late one!), I’m happy to say that the September Group Writing Project has been excellent! I can’t say enough about the wonderful entries that we’ve read over the last week. Without making you wait a moment more, here is the final list of entries:

All of these great entries clearly took time and consideration. Read through them and find inspiration from mothers in all walks of life.

Now, feel free to spread the link love by copying the above list (instructions) and posting it to your own blog. Believe me—they all deserve it.

The Winna!
Chosen at random, I swear, the winner of our prize, a $30 Amazon.com gift certificate, is <drum roll>…

Motherhood is… by Papaya Mom

Congratulations, Papaya Mom, on not only winning the gift certificate (again, she was chosen at random!) but also on writing a wonderful entry! The gift certificate will be winging its way to you soon!

Still working on your entry? Even though we’ve awarded our prize, we’ll continue to accept, read, link to and comment on submissions through next week.

Categories
Contests

September GWP Day Five

Today concludes the September Group Writing Project. It’s been wonderful reading all your definitions of motherhood! For our last day, we have six seven more entries, bringing the total number of entries to 36 37, (which is just a few entries short of our all-time high).

Once again, we have some truly excellent entries today, so be sure to check them all out!

Thanks to everyone who has participated thusfar, and especially to those who’ve taken the effort to read and comment on all of these entries—some of you even before I could!

The official announcement will be on Monday, so stay tuned.

There’s still a couple hours left—if you hurry, you can still submit your entries!

* Tiffany, I tried to comment on your entry, but despite at least seven tries, I could never get the CAPTCHA right. But I wanted to say thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and for participating!

Categories
Fulfillment Contests

Motherhood isn’t . . .

Motherhood is not, at its heart, about getting things done. To be sure, there are a lot of things that mother needs—or thinks she needs—to get done. Meal preparation, homework assistance, chauffeur service, vacuuming, and dishes—not to mention employment, a necessity for many mothers—absorb so much of a mother’s time that it’s very easy to let getting stuff done preoccupy our thoughts, our plans and our lives.

Preoccupy is the perfect word here. Our thoughts and our schedules are pre-occupied—they’re already filled And what are they filled with? So often, it’s just so much minutiae.

It’s minutiae that I often let get in the way of true motherhood. Cleaning is important, but not more important than enjoying my son. Cooking is important—we all gotta eat!—but not more important than being patient with my son. Even if he does have to be constantly underfoot while I’m in the kitchen.

It’s my attitude of “just let me finish what I need to do, and then I’ll be right with you (if I don’t have something else more pressing to do)” that gets in the way of all my positive mother attributes. (And I’m almost positive that I have some.)

Motherhood isn’t about getting it all done. There are no gold stars for keeping your floors spotless and your sink dish-free. A pristine home; a socially-, athletically-, and musically-active child; a four-course gourmet meal,—even a productive career—are all good things. But they shouldn’t be the sum total of motherhood, or even, ideally, the bulk of it.

Motherhood is not, at its heart, about doing. Motherhood is about being. Because motherhood isn’t just something you do; it’s who you are.

Categories
Contests

September GWP Day Four

Are we winding down for the September Group Writing Project? We only have four five new entries for today (bringing the total to 29 30).

Oh well, low numbers, high quality!

Don’t forget to submit your entries! Tomorrow is the deadline!

Motherhood is . . . sacrifice. It’s change. It’s accommodating your child in so many innumerable ways.

It’s relearning how to do absolutely everything from going to the bathroom to showering to grocery shopping to working to thinking about yourself.

It’s knowing your child’s limits and doing your best never to push them.

It’s knowing your limits and doing your best not to let your kids push them.

But mostly it’s the mom who has to give, because she can and because she has so much more to give.

Motherhood is giving.

Categories
Contests

September GWP Day Three

Seven more excellent definitions of motherhood bring out total count of entries for the September Group Writing Project to 25! As always, these entries are of the highest caliber. I’m so floored by many of your experiences (and some of them I feel as though we must be the same person—or, as a friend and I used to say, “we’re one pea in two pods!”). So please, read, comment and connect with other mothers once again!

And don’t forget to submit your posts—that deadline is coming right up!

Motherhood is . . . too much for me today. Just when I feel like I’m really beginning to get it, as though this is how my life should be, I have one of these days where I can’t stand for him to ignore me for the fourth time in a row, and every syllable from his mouth is a whine (met by my own, I’m sure!), and all he wants to do in the world is mess with anything that’s in my hands.

These days crush my sense of self; my self righteous indignation that I can’t just work on the computer for ten minutes while he eats, my desire to do something that isn’t watching his every movement, my need to get something accomplished are all crushed by his pitiful cries. He leans his head against the back of the chair and lets the tears fall unfettered.

I can’t leave him there to sob alone. I can’t let him think I don’t love him. Of course I love him. “I love you,” I tell him as I get him settled with dinner, “But. . . .” I stop myself. No. There’s no exception to my love. “No,” I finally finish for him. “I just love you.”

Some days, motherhood is hiding in the other room, listening to your baby noisily smack his lips and hoping that he’s eating just a little of the hot dog along with the ketchup.