by World Moms Blog | Apr 2, 2015 | 2015, Awareness, Being Thankful, Boys, Celebrations, Childhood, Culture, Guest Post, Health, Identity, India, Inspirational, Life, Life Lesson, Milestones, Motherhood, Priorities, Time, World Motherhood, Younger Children
One moment everything seemed fine and the next I was creating a little puddle of tears on my Yogasana mat.
I emerged from the yogasana pose to find unexpected sobs bursting through my throat, catching me completely unawares. A little part of my mind wondered what this was all about. And then I realized this was probably because of a niggling dissonance within, a reaction to a new milestone in my son’s growth that had not yet been completely accepted or acknowledged. This is what had led to the sudden grey cloud near the heart, that burst through as tears.
This morning, as Abhishek, my son, was having his breakfast before leaving for school, he called out to me saying that there seemed to be a gap between his two lower incisors. I touched a tooth and immediately found it was loose. The milk tooth would soon fall. We grinned and Abhi told me about how Kirti, his school mate, already had two teeth missing. I thought of a couple of his other friends, senior to him by a year, wearing gap-toothed smiles with part-embarrassment, part -pride. Now he would be a part of that gang too.
As we waited at the bus-stop for his school bus, we talked of the concept of the tooth-fairy. We both agreed that the concept was “cute”. I bid him bye, returned home and resumed my morning chores.
But somewhere in the heart, deep, deep down, the unarticulated thought had arrived – our little baby is about to lose his baby teeth. How did the years fly by so fast? And that would have been the genesis of the tears.
The innocence and unsullied grace of childhood are truly magical and seem long-lasting. But the pace of change and growth can actually be so rapid, that the heart can seem overwhelmed. Scarcely does a new milestone–a habit, a skill, or a new activity–set in, than the “Finish” line for that zooms forward, and before one knows it, it is time to say goodbye to yet another phase of one’s child’s growing years.
So much to cherish and so little time! It seems like it was only yesterday that I was rhapsodizing over Abhishek’s four new, shiny little teeth and feeling nostalgic about toothless, gummy smiles. And now it’s time for those very teeth to go!
“So what?”, one may wonder. A purely practical approach to this whole thing would be that his physical growth is going on fine and that I ought to be feeling reassured!
But to me it seems to be much more than that. His shaky little tooth tells me a lot of things. It reminds me that he is growing up quickly and that the only mandate I have been given from the Universe is to give him love, pure and unadulterated, intense and in every moment. It shows me the passage of the seasons of time – the travails of toddler-hood have given way to heart-touchingly earnest attempts at responsibility for this sweet-yet-solemn almost-six-year-old.
But most of all, the tooth reminds me that “this too shall pass!”
So must change be heralded by tears? Not at all. Something tells me that some of the tears were tears of regret, for all those “Not now please, I am busy” moments, when I allowed temporary realities to hijack my energies away from the greater priority of sharing my time and care with him.
Those moments are irretrievable and all I can hope is that this tooth has taught me a valuable learning. And then there were a few tears of concerns: am I ready to guide him right as he reaches a new phase of growth? As ready as I will ever be, I guess.
And then there were tears of joy: my little one, darling creature of the Universe, is growing up.
Motherhood seems like a permanent stage of “Work in Progress”. There is no “Finished Product”, just a heart that smiles, cries, is pulled and stretched and learns to give some more.
This is an original guest post from Piya Mukherjee in Mumbai, India; Mother, Corporate Trainer, Director.
The image used in this post is attributed to Stephanie Sicore of Young@Art. It holds a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children.
World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.
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by Sophie Walker (UK) | Mar 23, 2015 | Celebrations, Gratefulness, Sophie Walker, UK, Weather, World Motherhood
There are clouds over London again. But if you stop and look up and squint, you will see a tell-tale pearlescent lining that was not there before.
The trees along this street stand tall and bristle-dark as they have through the winter months. But if you stop and look up and squint, you will see small, white buds that were not there before.
When the mornings come now, they arrive a little earlier on a bobbing melody of birds.
The children wake more easily now, and swing their bare legs out of bed without a wince.
Outside, the people at the bus-stop at the end of the road turn to each other and smile and nod before they board the fat red double-decker that bears them away to the city.
I feel a lightness in me that has been absent for a while.
At home, I unlatch windows that have stiffened and swollen over the last few months. They groan, then give, suddenly, in my hand, and swing open. The outside air rushes in. It smells different.
In the back garden, my birthday rose is turning green.
I stand quietly then smile and give thanks.
Other people’s words come to me. I think of e.e. cummings’ poem in Just, which sings of a world that is “mud-luscious” and “puddle-wonderful.” I think of Philip Larkin’s Trees and its whisper: “Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.” And I think of Gerard Manley Hopkins asking: “What is all this juice and all this joy?”
What is it? It’s Spring. The seasons have turned, at last.
How will you celebrate?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Sophie Walker of the United Kingdom. Photo credit: Karen Arnold. This picture has a public domain license.
Writer, mother, runner: Sophie works for an international news agency and has written about economics, politics, trade, war, diplomacy and finance from datelines as diverse as Paris, Washington, Hong Kong, Kabul, Baghdad and Islamabad. She now lives in London with her husband, two daughters and two step-sons.
Sophie's elder daughter Grace was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome several years ago. Grace is a bright, artistic girl who nonetheless struggles to fit into a world she often finds hard to understand. Sophie and Grace have come across great kindness but more often been shocked by how little people know and understand about autism and by how difficult it is to get Grace the help she needs.
Sophie writes about Grace’s daily challenges, and those of the grueling training regimes she sets herself to run long-distance events in order to raise awareness and funds for Britain’s National Autistic Society so that Grace and children like her can blossom. Her book "Grace Under Pressure: Going The Distance as an Asperger's Mum" was published by Little, Brown (Piatkus) in 2012. Her blog is called Grace Under Pressure.
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by Kyla P'an (Portugal) | Feb 19, 2015 | 2015, Awareness, Being Thankful, Celebrations, Childhood, China, Culture, Education, Eye on Culture, Family, Husband, International, Kids, Life, Life Lesson, Marriage, Motherhood, Multicultural, Parenting, Relationships, Traditions, USA, World Events, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Solar year, 2015—celebrated in most of the Western world— is small potatoes compared to its lunar counterpart starting today: The Year of the Goat, 4713.
Today, in many countries across Asia, people are celebrating Chinese New Year [CNY]. It marks the first day of the lunar year, which begins with the second new moon after the Winter Solstice.
CNY is the most important holiday for Chinese people world-wide and is celebrated in countries with significant Chinese populations (Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Mauritius).
Even right here in America, in ways both big and small, Chinese families are celebrating the Year of the Goat too.
My husband, a first generation Chinese-American, brought his Chinese culture into our home and together we have established our own family traditions.
Both our 8 and 5 year old children attend Chinese Language School so our celebrations typically begin there. This year, each of our kids performed in a class skit—one doing a New Year’s song and the other both a song and dance.
Their Chinese school rents out a local auditorium and the celebration goes on for four hours, complete with traditional paper decorations, red lanterns and Chinese snacks of spring rolls, scallion pancakes and fortune cookies (the latter of which I’m pretty sure is a wholly American invention).
And though the four-hour Chinese school celebration feels long and drawn out, it’s nothing compared to the 15-day celebration going on over in Asia.
We live just outside of Boston, a city boasting a large Chinatown. If we’re really motivated, we can fight the crowds and view Lion Dancers, firecrackers in the street and dine on authentic Chinese fare surrounded by thousands of people.
This year, however, our city is buried under record amounts of snow (96.7in/2.5m) so we won’t be making any such pilgrimage.
Sometimes we have friends over and make homemade wontons, a symbolic food representing a pouch of coins, or Hot Pot. Other years we just make sure we eat some kind of Chinese food (either at home or in a restaurant).
We also make sure we always give our kids Hong Bao, little, red envelopes filled with “lucky” money. Since our kids don’t get an allowance, this feels special to them. We never give them very much because it’s the gesture that counts but if they happen to be lucky enough to visit their great-grandmother around Chinese New Year, they might get upwards of $50.
I know these little traditions are modest compared to mainland China but we hope that in our small way we are instilling in our children a some sense of the deep culture they are part of.
恭禧發財
Gong Xi Fa Cai!
How do you hold on to your cultural heritage? What are some traditions you’ve incorporated into your own family?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our managing editor and mother of two in Boston, Massachusetts, Kyla P’an.
The image used in this post was taken by the author.
Kyla was born in suburban Philadelphia but spent most of her time growing up in New England. She took her first big, solo-trip at age 14, when she traveled to visit a friend on a small Greek island. Since then, travels have included: three months on the European rails, three years studying and working in Japan, and nine months taking the slow route back from Japan to the US when she was done. In addition to her work as Managing Editor of World Moms Network, Kyla is a freelance writer, copy editor, recovering triathlete and occasional blogger. Until recently, she and her husband resided outside of Boston, Massachusetts, where they were raising two spunky kids, two frisky cats, a snail, a fish and a snake. They now live outside of Lisbon, Portugal with two spunky teens and three frisky cats. You can read more about Kyla’s outlook on the world and parenting on her personal blogs, Growing Muses And Muses Where We Go
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by Kirsten Doyle (Canada) | Jan 5, 2015 | Canada, Celebrations, Family
Christmas and autism are two things that don’t always go well together, because Christmas involves so many of the things that are anathema to people with autism: flashing lights, loud noises, crowds, changes to routine, the displacement of household furniture to make way for the tree. Since autism elbowed its way into my house, Christmas has been a mixture of stress and tentative enjoyment.
This year, our festive season was a little unusual. Both me and my husband were sick for most of December, and for the first time, the four of us were going to be celebrating Christmas all by ourselves. No friends, no extended family, no in-laws. Just us. I wasn’t too sure how everything would work out. The combination of autism, illness and no guests made me think that the whole Christmas thing would be a wash.
To my surprise, we ended up having the most chilled-out, magical Christmas we’ve had in a long time. When I stopped to think about why this was, I realized that what I had seen as obstacles had in fact been opportunities to do things differently – and the differences worked.
Here are some of the things that made Christmas great, in no particular order.
1. We didn’t do the Santa picture. The Santa picture is kind of a family tradition. Once a year, the kids get all dressed up in fancy outfits, and we go to the mall or some other place where Santa pictures are being taken. It’s usually a terrible ordeal that involves lots of crowds and waiting. This year, with both my husband and I being sick, Santa pictures just didn’t feature on our list of priorities, and so our family was spared an entire day of angst. We still plan to honour the family tradition and get our Santa picture, but it will be just us and a friend dressed in a Santa suit. No crowds. No lineups. No overpriced prints. No stress.
2. We didn’t stress about the shopping. In spite of my annual promises to myself, I am a last-minute Christmas shopper. This year I was filled with good intentions to get my shopping done at least two weeks before Christmas, but being sick put a spanner into that particular plan. The fact that I was stuck doing my Christmas shopping the weekend before Christmas did result in some stress, but I decided to just not care. I braved some shopping crowds, but I did not commit to getting everything for everybody. I got what I could and bought the rest from Amazon. I didn’t mind that the gifts I ordered probably wouldn’t arrive before Christmas, although in the end they did. In future years, online shopping will feature more prominently in my pre-Christmas preparations.
3. I let the kids help with the decorating. And by that I mean that I really let them help. Usually I hover anxiously around the Christmas tree micromanaging the proceedings and worrying that the tree will be knocked down. This year, I put the tinsel and lights on the tree and perched the angel on top, and then I left the rest to the kids. James hung the decorations on the tree while George put lights up around the living room. James wanted tinsel in his bedroom; George wanted lights in his. I didn’t trail behind them making sure everything was done to my liking. I left them alone to do it to their liking.
4. We totally got into the whole Santa thing. I mean, in prior years, we’ve talked about the nice list, and Santa leaving gifts under the tree, and that’s pretty much been that. This year, we really got into it. On Christmas Eve, James and I kept the NORAD site open so we could track Santa’s progress around the globe, and at bedtime, James meticulously arranged milk and treats for Santa and his reindeer. Once the kids were asleep, I managed to arrange the gifts under the tree without being busted. I even left the empty plate and milk glass on the tray for James to discover in the morning. George didn’t really get into the Santa thing, but it was a touch of magic for James.
5. There were no expectations surrounding Christmas dinner. In previous years, Christmas dinner has been a delicious but stressy affair with the four of us, my mother-law, and my brother-in-law and his family. There’s been a well-meaning but misguided expectation for the kids to get all dressed up for dinner and to sit quietly at the table for the duration of the meal. I’ve invariably spent most of these meals getting children to sit down, cajoling them to eat what’s on their plate and keeping their fingers away from other people’s plates. By the end of dinner, I have been exhausted and the kids have been wound up beyond belief. This year, it was just us. I cooked the fancy Christmas dinner and decorated the table, but the kids were allowed to wear their comfy clothes and be themselves, and the usual air of formality wasn’t there. Everyone was visibly more relaxed, and although I was still exhausted after dinner, it was a contented kind of exhaustion.
6. We didn’t try to schedule what was going to happen when. Christmas is busier for us than it is for most people, largely because of the time I decided to pop out a baby on Christmas Day. Most years, I have a stipulation that we will celebrate Christmas in the morning, and give over the afternoon to James’s birthday. That, of course, puts a lot of pressure on us to get all the Christmas stuff done before noon, and with my husband and I not feeling well, we just didn’t have the energy to rush things. So things just happened when they happened, and that worked out fine. We had a leisurely Christmas, and James enjoyed opening his birthday presents and blowing out his candles. The two celebrations kind of melted into each other, and it was perfect.
I think the biggest lesson I learned this year is that I should just chill out and go with the flow, and enjoy whatever moments end up happening.
How do your kids like the holiday season? How much planning do you do?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Kirsten Doyle of Running For Autism. Photo credit to the author.
Kirsten Doyle was born in South Africa. After completing university, she drifted for a while and finally washed up in Canada in 2000. She is Mom to two boys who have reached the stage of eating everything in sight (but still remaining skinny).
Kirsten was a computer programmer for a while before migrating into I.T. project management. Eventually she tossed in the corporate life entirely in order to be a self-employed writer and editor. She is now living her best life writing about mental health and addictions, and posting videos to two YouTube channels.
When Kirsten is not wrestling with her kids or writing up a storm, she can be seen on Toronto's streets putting many miles onto her running shoes. Every year, she runs a half-marathon to benefit children with autism, inspired by her older son who lives life on the autism spectrum.
Final piece of information: Kirsten is lucky enough to be married to the funniest guy in the world.
Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Be sure to check out her YouTube channels at My Gen X Life and Word Salad With Coffee!
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