It’s Mat Leave Monday! Today I’m going to put a call out to everyone else to share your maternity leave stories with me. I’ve been talking about myself and my own maternity leave for months, I’m sure it’s wearing a little thin. So let’s see if we can get some other people involved.
To that end I will be hosting the Carnival of Maternity Leave here from August 3 – 15, 2009. It will be the last two weeks of my maternity leave, and I’d like to see this blog series out in style. During the carnival I will highlight and link to posts about maternity leave from your blog, or if you don’t have a blog you can forward posts to me and I will use them as guest posts. I am totally stealing the format Annie from PhD in Parenting used for her Carnival of Play back in April, since that was way cool. As is Annie. Seriously, check out her blog if you haven’t already.
Back to my carnival. Your topic can be anything related to maternity leave, adoption leave, paternity leave or parental leave. Here are some ideas:
This sounds like a lot of work. What’s in it for you? I am assembling a maternity leave survival kit for one lucky participant. It’s a work in progress, but I plan to include fun and exciting items such as:
We’ll have to see if I finish the blanket. 
So how does one participate? Comment on this post and let me know that you’re in, then get to writing. Feel free to copy the code and use my snazzy button:
When you’re done send me a link to your post, or the post itself if you’d like me to put it up here, at amber [at] strocel [dot] com anytime before August 10. I will be in touch to let you know when I will feature your post, and to provide details of how to link back up to me.
Sound like fun? I hope so. Please join in!
I’m in
Victoria has played along already at: http://victoriajh.blogspot.com/2009/07/maternity-leave.html
I am totally in. My mat leave ends at the end of July so I have been thinking about a post about that anyway. Great timing!
I suppose I could be in, except I’m not on maternity leave anymore. I am technically jobless. So, what if I could talk about my leave and not be entered to win the prize? The chocolate really tempts me, but I suppose someone who is ACTUALLY on maternity leave is more deserving…
To clarify, for anyone waffling about participating:
You totally don’t have to be on maternity leave to participate or win the package. In fact, you don’t have to have even ever been on maternity leave. You could be a childless 17-year-old high school boy as long as you’re on topic and have something to say. So please, do join in!
And if you can’t use all the stuff in the prize pack, I’d suggest you give it away as a baby gift. Or sell it to fund your Etsy addiction. It’s all up to you.
I’m in!
I’ll probably write about sharing my leave with my husband. But we’ll see what else comes to mind…
I’d love to participate!
Great idea! I`m in.
I’d love to participate. Lots of thoughts. I had short leaves — 8 & 6
Awesome idea Amber. I’m all over it. Gonna pencil this into my notebook. Ah, it’s so good to be GIVEN a topic to write about sometimes… BTW – I LOVE your snazzy buton. It’s the snazziest! No, really, I love it – I do!
Great idea! love it…
I’ll link to my existing post about my husband being on parental leave for 9 months while I’m also off and write a new one about going on leave and quitting work at the same time…
Sounds fun! I’m in!
I’m in. Sure will be fun to write about the first 7 weeks on my mat leave when my husband also took paternity leave and re-built the engine on his MG.
hmmm …. since i was technically jobless when i gave birth i really didn’t have a maternity leave
but …. since i often hammer on about people who don’t take housework/maintenance as a real job maybe i did have a job then
…. and my mum came to stay for 3 months after the wee guy was born and essentially took over my previous housework job so all i had to do was eat, breastfeed and run to the hospital every so often
yes, i had mat leave after all!
now i gotta go write about it i guess ….
I would like to play in this carnival! Please remind me of deadlines…I’m not so good with that stuff and ..I will use your snazzy snazzy shabbychic button!
Oh, I’m in. I’ve got a doozy of a story of a phone call I had with HR to discuss when I was coming back.
Okay, I’m in. I will also need deadline reminders, as I work best under pressure and probably won’t write until the day or two before.
Awesome! I have a post about paid maternity leave percolating as part of my posts on the Senate report on child care. I’ll hold it off until the carnival. Fun!!
I’m in, too. Here’s my blog post:
http://jilljs.blogspot.com/2009/07/carnival-of-maternity-leave.html
I will write one.
Although I am no longer on maternity leave, I certainly remember what that was like and wrote about it in a recent post. I would love to share my experience with other moms about to embark on that journey!
Sure, I’m in!
I’m going to try my best to get a post for you…if you get an email with a link before the 10th you’ll know I managed
I’m in, only saw this today so will try to write a post sometime today when daughter is having a nap.