by Kristen | Feb 22, 2013 | Communication, Family, Kids, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, Safety, School, Tragedy, World Motherhood, Younger Children
As I pulled up to the car pool line I passed the neighbor’s car as she finished dropping off and headed back home. We gave a quick wave and went on our way.
I dropped Jackson off and watched as he slowly made his way into school without a care in the world. And just when I thought he had long forgotten about me he turned around, cracked a smile and waved. I shed a few tears as I drove off, and reminded myself that letting him go and grow is a good thing! It’s out of my comfort zone at times which can be scary, but it’s good for him, for me, for us.
A few minutes later a text popped up on my cell phone. It was from my neighbor.
“Sometimes I get teary eyed dropping off the kids at school and thinking of Newtown”
“Me too” I replied. Me too. (more…)
Kristen is a stay-at-home to two little boys, Jackson (4 yrs) and Owen (nearly 2 yrs). She was born in New York, but eventually made her way down to Texas. She and her husband, Seth, met in Dallas and were married in December 2005. Nine months into their marriage Seth received a call that he had landed his dream job, one catch, it involved world wide assignment. The adventure took them from Texas to Washington, D.C., on to Bogotá, Colombia and then back to Washington, D.C before bringing them to Bern, Switzerland! Kristen and her family have currently lived in Bern for more than 1 year, where her husband works for the US Department of State. Four moves and 2 children in nearly 6 years of marriage have made for quite the adventure in motherhood! Kristen finds motherhood to be one of the most humbling and character building things she has ever experienced. The responsibility of raising boys with integrity and respect at times feels daunting, but she couldn’t imagine doing anything else!
Kristen is a Speech Language Pathologist but has taken time away from working to focus on her family. Although she enjoys the travel and adventure involved in her husband’s career, she often finds herself feeling far from home and working to make the most of time abroad!
On her blog, Seasons Worth Savoring, Kristen writes about daily life with two little boys, including her experiences as she navigates a foreign culture and walks by faith. In her free time, or rather in her busy time with two boys attached to her legs, Kristen enjoys cooking, photography, antique and thrift store shopping, working on crafts, and blogging.
More Posts
by Jennifer Burden | Feb 21, 2013 | ONE, Social Good, World Voice
When World Moms Blog first became a #ONEMoms community partner, we published a collaborative post by our global contributors on sweet potato recipes. Our moms mixed the root with everything from black beans to walnuts!
Today, we’re back participating in the ONE Blog Hop and helping to spread the word about Sweet Potato Day today! (#sweetpotatolove)
Could you imagine if your community could make a big healthy difference by adding sweet potatoes to the local diet? In many communities this switch can be the difference from a child growing up malnourished or nourished. Or a child needing eye glasses, or not. (more…)
Jennifer Burden is the Founder and CEO of World Moms Network, an award winning website on global motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. World Moms Network writes from over 30 countries, has over 70 contributors and was listed by Forbes as one of the “Best 100 Websites for Women”, named a “must read” by The New York Times, and was recommended by The Times of India.
She was also invited to Uganda to view UNICEF’s family health programs with Shot@Life and was previously named a “Global Influencer Fellow” and “Social Media Fellow” by the UN Foundation. Jennifer was invited to the White House twice, including as a nominated "Changemaker" for the State of the World Women Summit. She also participated in the One Campaign’s first AYA Summit on the topic of women and girl empowerment and organized and spoke on an international panel at the World Bank in Washington, DC on the importance of a universal education for all girls. Her writing has been featured by Baby Center, Huffington Post, ONE.org, the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life, and The Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists.” She is currently a candidate in Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in the Executive Masters of Public Affairs program, where she hopes to further her study of global policies affecting women and girls.
Jennifer can be found on Twitter @JenniferBurden.
More Posts - Website
Follow Me:
by Allison Charleston (USA) | Feb 20, 2013 | Breastfeeding, Health, Uncategorized
We have all heard the slogan “breast is best” but it is not always the easiest. As mothers, we all know that breastfeeding is most natural, and, in theory should be the simplest, most efficient way to feed our babies. However, this is not always the case for every mother and baby pair. As a mom of two boys, Chase who is almost five, and Samuel who was born 5 months ago, I have had both a wonderful experience and a tremendously challenging one nursing my children.
My older son nursed beautifully from the outset. After a scheduled induction and a fairly easy labor I started to breastfeed him within the hour. He latched perfectly right away and there was never any breastfeeding trouble. I was able to feed him this way for his first year of his life and I loved knowing that I was providing him with the most natural source of nutrition that I could and I also loved the bond that we shared while I was nursing. (more…)
Allison is a 35-year-old attorney-turned stay at home mom. This New York City mom lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan with her 2-year-old son, Chase, and her husband, Andy. She is also expecting baby #2!
In her former life, she was an attorney practicing in a mega firm on NYC’s Park Avenue, putting in long hours, working hard and reveling in the fast pace of her life. She loved living in “the city”, and when she could, she took advantage of all it had to offer. But, when Chase was born over 2 years ago, that all changed. These days, the work has changed from writing legal briefs to changing diapers and the hours are longer, but she wouldn’t have it any other way!
Allison is enjoying her adventures as a metropolitan mommy, raising Chase in New York City and has gained strength from her longer-than-she-wanted-to-wait journey getting pregnant with her second child.
More Posts
by Natalia Rankine-Galloway (Morocco) | Feb 19, 2013 | Motherhood, Religion, Safety, Tunisia, USA, World Motherhood
Natalia and her son in Tunis.
As I sat in the Embassy listening to the rocks and chants hitting the wall outside, I couldn’t help but feel as though my maternal instincts had failed me. Why didn’t I know to leave? Why did I stand on the second floor, flippantly observing the gathering crowds, and assume it would just be your standard protest? Shouldn’t I have had some sixth sense, some feeling in my gut that things were going to go from bad to worse?
I knew that the baby was far from danger, picked up by family friends from his daycare miles from the Embassy. The staff had in fact been quite at a loss to understand why I couldn’t pick him up at 2pm. “Protests you say?”
The events of September 14th at the U.S Embassy in Tunis took many people by surprise. Not least of which the Tunisians who were even more taken aback when the order was given to evacuate all non-essential Embassy personnel and all families. (more…)
Natalia was born a stone's throw from the Queen's racetrack in Ascot, UK and has been trying to get a ticket to the races and a fabulous hat to go with it ever since. She was born to a Peruvian mother and an Irish father who kept her on her toes, moving her to Spain, Ireland and back to the UK before settling her in New York for the length of middle and high school. She is still uncertain of what she did to deserve that.
She fled to Boston for college and then Washington, D.C. to marry her wonderful husband, who she met in her freshman year at college. As a military man, he was able to keep her in the migratory lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. Within 5 months of marriage, they were off to Japan where they stayed for a wonderful 2 and one half years before coming home to roost. Baby Xavier was born in New York in 2011 and has not slept since.
A joy and an inspiration, it was Xavier who moved Natalia to entrepreneurship and the launch of CultureBaby. She has loved forging her own path and is excited for the next step for her family and CultureBaby.
Natalia believes in the potential for peace that all children carry within them and the importance of raising them as global citizens. She loves language, history, art and culture as well as Vietnamese Pho, Argentinian Malbec, English winters, Spanish summers and Japanese department stores...and she still hopes one day to catch the number 9 race with Queen Liz.
You can find her personal blog, The Culture Mum Chronicles.
More Posts
by Meredith (USA) | Feb 18, 2013 | Motherhood, Parenting, Uncategorized, USA, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
Last month, I “unfriended” someone on Facebook for the first time. In fact, I had to Google how to unfriend someone. It was December 21, one week after the horrific massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. Like most people in America and around the world, I was shaken to my core from the events which transpired on December 14, 2012.
Not only could I not fathom what must have been going through the teacher’s minds on that terrible day (even though I was a teacher myself), but I could not get over the twenty first graders who were murdered. I could not even look at my own first grader for weeks afterwards without getting teary eyed thinking of the parents who would not get to hug and kiss their first graders goodnight.
That is why, when I logged on to my Facebook newsfeed and saw three of a Facebook friend’s children, ages 6, 4 and 2, holding semi automatic rifles under a caption which read “This is how we do Christmas in Texas” one week after the Connecticut shootings, that I could no longer have that person as a friend on Facebook. A line had been crossed, and I could not look away.
Some may say I made a rash decision and I should not “unfriend” someone because of one post, but that post in particular was so upsetting to me that there was no other possible action I could take. I just knew I didn’t want to see it on my newsfeed again. I understand that people have guns to hunt and I respect that, but I do not and most likely will never feel that guns in the hands of young children, even as a joke, will ever be okay with me. Yes, even after being escorted all over Lagos by armed guards and being around guns on a regular basis, I do not feel that guns in the hands of children are ever okay. (more…)
Meredith finds it difficult to tell anyone where she is from exactly! She grew up in several states, but mainly Illinois. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana which is also where she met her husband. She taught kindergarten for seven years before she adopted her son from Guatemala and then gave birth to her daughter two years leter. She moved to Lagos, Nigeria with her husband and two children in July 2009 for her husband's work. She and her family moved back to the U.S.this summer(August 2012) and are adjusting to life back in the U.S. You can read more about her life in Lagos and her adjustment to being back on her blog: We Found Happiness.
More Posts
