by Purnima Ramakrishnan | Sep 11, 2014 | 2014, Childhood, Family, Home, India, Inspirational, Life, Motherhood, Older Children, Parenting, Purnima, Teenagers, The Alchemist, Time, World Moms Blog
“Beware, I will be a teenager in just 5 years!”
All grown-up
We were both shocked to hear this. He said it in a very light vein, and laughed aloud at his own joke. But it struck us like a bolt. He was leaving us clues all around. But I had been ignoring them all the while.
But that statement, one day as a warning to his father to stop teasing him for something silly, really stilled us.
My 8 year old son would be a teenager in just 5 years.
There were these times, when I used to beg him to go and have a shower all by himself, because I was either too tired or just wanted peace for those 2 minutes. But now he refuses to let me help him even with the clothes.
He used to drive me crazy with all his questions! It didn’t matter about what. There was always these – why, what, how! I used to give up and say, ‘I don’t know’ just for a minute’s silence. And then one day in sheer desperation I taught him to get his own answers from an Encyclopedia and then eventually taught him how to do a Google search. So, now I just help him with choosing appropriate links and guiding him with his quest for answers.
But I know when the house is quiet, I have nothing to fear, because he is just ‘working’ or ‘reading.’
There were those times, when he used to come running with math and subtraction and spellings. Now he says I will ask your help when I have doubts and even those instances are becoming few and infrequent.
He bravely bid me goodbye when I went away to Brazil for more than a fortnight. He was still only 8 years old. He called me every night with due consideration for the time difference and made sure it was always during the night when I was back in my hotel. All that time I had hoped that he and his father were thinking about me all the time. But later I came to find out, he had not asked much about me at all, except for casual occurrences. A sign that he wants to show he was growing up and speaking to mom was no big deal.
There were those first steps, first teeth, first boo-boo, first days of kindergarten, and grade school. There were a lot of those cherished firsts—some of which I remember, some I have to refer back to my diaries. However, now there are a lot of fresh new things happening at my place.
There have always been these milestones which we try to capture and remember. And then there are these times, when without your knowledge, your kids are starting to be all grown up and acting ready to leave the nest! And it comes as a shock, because you are still reveling in those milestones, imagining them to have happened just yesterday.
When he was one, I wished, he would grow up and get potty trained soon. At two, I wished he would grow up, so that he could start kindergarten. At three, I wished he would grow up sooner and start school. And I wished and wished. But now he is all grown up at 8 years old and I know he will be a teenager before I know it and have his life starting up.
I liked the time when he was still a baby and cuddled. And I liked it when he was silly and a toddler. I liked kindergarten and alphabets and numbers and sticking out the fingers and counting. Now I also like his new found discovery of finding out that he is all grown up too.
I just have to accept that some day he will be assisting me with things. He will be all grown up. And will have a life of his own. He is a individual with a mind and heart of his own. And no longer an entity of myself. Some day, he will go out college and then to work and start a family.
It is all bittersweet. Sometimes I get lost. I do not know if I have my baby or a big kid. Sometimes he gives me reassurances that I would always be his amma, and then it strikes me that he does not want me to feel lost about his growing up. It is cute, at the same time, it is a moment of revelation.
It is a sign that, time happens!
Time happens, way too fast and it is a rush to just be in the moment and enjoy and revel in it. But I am trying because my son—who was born just yesterday—will be a teenager in just 5 years!
How old are your ‘babies?’ How are you handling their growing up and how are they realizing it?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Purnima, our Indian mother writing from Chennai, India. Her contributions to the World Moms Blog can be found here. She also rambles at The Alchemist’s Blog.
Photo credit to the author.
by Ruth | Sep 4, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Being Thankful, Child Care, Cooking, Cultural Differences, Domesticity, Eye on Culture, Family, Home, Inspirational, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Me-Time, Motherhood, Parenting, Ruth Wong, Singapore, Stress, Womanhood, Working Mother, World Motherhood, Younger Children
More than a month ago, our home was always clean and tidy. There were also nice home-cooked meals (complete with soup) every evening for my family.
Fast forward to today: dust is gathering around the house while home-cooked meals have been reduced to no more than two dishes at any one time. Soup? It would be a bonus to have that once a week.
You see, our live-in helper left us…without notice…after going back to her home town, supposedly, for a two-week break.
She didn’t come back. Didn’t send notice. Didn’t even call. I later learned from friends that this is not uncommon.
At first I was angry. Not only had we wasted money on her return ticket, she also left me stranded without a back up plan.
But as the days go by, a rhythm is slowly but surely developing. I’m beginning to experience the blessings her departure brings.
- Gone are my leisurely breakfasts, escapades to the library and social media time. But I now have greater focus on what I do.
- House chores and cooking are challenges for me but I am slowly getting the hang of things.
- While there are no set days as to when chores get done, since my work takes focus in the early part of the week, I am trying to tackle the bulk of cleaning mid-week. Strangely I sometimes find cleaning rather therapeutic.
- When it comes to cooking, I am learning to exercise creativity. One dish meals are great: simple to cook but nutritious and tasty enough for most fussy taste buds.
- When the laundry is done, he helps remove the clothes from the washing machine, grabs the pegs and passes them to me “as a set” – to quote his exact words. I wonder when he might get bored and stop helping me so I am cherishing every moment.
- Might I add that my husband has also chipped in to do his part now!
I am not sure if I will cave in and get another helper again. At the moment, I am busy but happy. I appreciate the quietness (when my son is at school) and extra space I now have, and I meant that quite literally. The best part is I get my spare room back! That is something I have been wishing for and for which I can’t be more thankful.
I know that for many moms living in other parts of the world, having live-in help is rare. Some may have cleaners come a few times a month but many families manage the bulk of cleaning and household chores alone. Here in Asia, having live-in help is common.
All of this made me really admire fellow moms who have to take care of the whole household and a few kids, not to mention those who are working from home. You are amazing. How do you do it?
Really, I mean it. How do you handle your house chores? Please share some tips! Hopefully some day, I might become an amazing mom like you, who seem to be able to do it all.
This is an original post for World Moms Blog from our blogger and live-in-help-less mother of one, Ruth Wong in Singapore.
The image used in this post is credited to clogozm. It holds a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
Ruth lives in Singapore, a tiny island 137 kilometres north of the equator. After graduating from university, she worked as a medical social worker for a few years before making a switch to HR and worked in various industries such as retail, banking and manufacturing. In spite of the invaluable skills and experiences she had gained during those years, she never felt truly happy or satisfied. It was only when she embarked on a journey to rediscover her strengths and passion that this part of her life was transformed. Today, Ruth is living her dreams as a writer. Ironically, she loves what she does so much that at one point, she even thought that becoming a mom would hinder her career. Thanks to her husband’s gentle persuasions, she now realises what joy she would have missed out had she not changed her mind. She is now a happy WAHM. Ruth launched MomME Circle, a resource site to support and inspire moms to create a life and business they love. She has a personal blog Mommy Café where she writes about her son's growing up and shares her interests such as food and photography.
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by Susie Newday (Israel) | Sep 3, 2014 | 2014, Being Thankful, Inspirational, Israel, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Susie Newday
Sometimes I laugh at myself. Sometimes I scold myself. On occasion, I love myself. Mostly, I just don’t understand myself.
I have a good life. I’m healthy, I have a great husband, 5 amazing kids, a job helping people (which I do wish paid more money, but oh well), a house, a car, hobbies and so much more.
I also see first hand, especially at work, the suffering and the heartache people go through and the resilience and determination they show. Yet for some reason I can’t seem to find the right way to live a consistently grateful life, in my daily actions not just in my head.
I am grateful for my life. Logically, I know that and I really believe that. Yet I can’t seem to translate that into a life of consistent happiness and acceptance of what is.
There are some people who live a life of gratefulness, through good times and bad times. They are people whom I envy because they’re grounded, they have direction and their entire being, not just their logical head, feels their daily consistent gratefulness. I have spent hours and days trying to figure out how to become one of those people. Just when it seems like I might be moving in the right direction, life throws a curveball and hits me in the head.
Yet even then, every so often, that curveball shows me a glimpse of an answer. Like when I wonder if maybe love is the answer. Maybe the key to gratefulness is learning to love yourself, with all your flaws, real and imagined. Because how can you be grateful for anything else if you are not grateful for the wonder that is you, with all its imperfections.
I ponder and think about it, but I’m not sure and for me, loving myself is such a hard task. Because I’m critical and at first glance all that I see is what needs to change. All that is wonderful and good takes second place.
But maybe, just maybe, “gratefulness=love of self” is the equation for a happy fulfilling life.
What do you think? How do you learn to live gratefulness, in your heart and in your being, not just in your head? How do you learn to love yourself?
This is a poem I had written a while back that I happened across and made me think about this whole topic again.
It’s irrational the way the mind and heart are miles apart.
Is it the heart leading the mind or the mind tugging at the heart?
You know you’re a good person,
You know there are things you do well
Yet there’s that voice in your head
Repeatedly making you doubt every step.
You know you have so much to be grateful for
You know you should be living each day at peace
At peace with yourself, your surroundings
Your choices, your mistakes and your life.
But your heart tugs at your happiness
Because it doesn’t believe your mind, eyes and ears.
And your heart contracts and beats dissatisfaction
Pumping envy to every vein, artery and cell.
You know the truth
You know the logical smart choice
But the bridge between knowing and feeling
Can’t seem to be crossed.
So you do more and more
To try to narrow the divide between mind and heart
But doing brings a short lived peace
Till the chasm widens again.
You do to feel
But you miss the point
Doing without gratitude
Just makes you feel even emptier than before.
“Mind and Heart” ©2014 Susie @NewDayNewLesson
Susie Newday is a happily-married American-born Israeli mother of five. She is an oncology nurse, blogger and avid amateur photographer.
Most importantly, Susie is a happily married mother of five amazing kids from age 8-24 and soon to be a mother in law. (Which also makes her a chef, maid, tutor, chauffeur, launderer...) Susie's blog, New Day, New Lesson, is her attempt to help others and herself view the lessons life hands all of us in a positive light. She will also be the first to admit that blogging is great free therapy as well. Susie's hope for the world? Increasing kindness, tolerance and love.
You can also follow her Facebook page New Day, New Lesson where she posts her unique photos with quotes as well as gift ideas.
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by Dee Harlow (Laos) | Aug 14, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Being Thankful, Cultural Differences, Culture, Family, Inspirational, Kids, Lesotho, Life Balance, Living Abroad, Marketing, Motherhood, Siblings, Travel, Twins, Womanhood, World Motherhood, Younger Children
My family and I have just returned home to the United States after living in Laos for the past two years. We’ve been back in the States for 1.5 weeks and the highlight of my day today was a successful trip to a clearance sale at the local used children’s clothing store here in Denver, Colorado.
For $200 U.S. dollars, I bought 50 pieces of clothing for my 4.5-year old boy and girl twins to last them (hopefully) for the next three years, when we will be living in Lesotho.
No, you’re not reading typos (WMB editors are awesome). Yes, that’s $200 for 50 pieces of clothes including: jeans, pants, shorts, collared shirts, t-shirts, cute shirts, dresses, skirts, leggings, pajamas, and swimwear, sizes 5 – 8. All are like new, and many top quality brands, which some of you might recognize: Gymboree, Hanna Andersson, Mini-Boden, Garnet Hill, Gap, Carter’s.
I’ve been shopping for used children’s clothing ever since my kids were born. Heck, they’ve been living mostly in hand-me-downs from relatives and friends and this store’s used clothing.
They’ve been happy. I’ve been happy. And we’ve all received compliments on their cute clothes. I really wouldn’t do it any other way.
Sure, I see loads of advertisements, storefronts and catalogs filled with great stuff I’d love to buy, and can afford to buy. But my practical sensibilities and appreciation of value for money mostly always stops me…
”They grow so fast.”
“It’ll just get dirty or torn up.”
“Hey, those are adult clothing prices!”
As they say, “Waste Not Want Not.” Or, “One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Treasure.”
When I was living and working in Singapore as an investment banker, single, no kids, I was a spendthrift. Not a care in the world, except to ensure I saved for my pension.
I used to give my housekeeper handbags and shoes from the back of my closet that had gotten moldy in the extreme humidity, and she would always be delighted to receive these items that I thought were in state of trash-worthy grossness.
Weeks later, I would compliment her on her great purse or shoes and she would say, “These are the ones you gave me Ma’am.” Seriously. I felt like a fool. All I had to do was wipe them clean and put on a coat of leather polish. Silly, young, spendthrifty me.
Now I make sure our belongings are well cared for so they can last, or so they can be passed on and re-used. In Laos, used items purchased or made in America were highly coveted and sold fast. Everyone from our housekeeper, gardener, guard, colleagues at work and folks on a “buy & sell” Facebook site, gobbled up everything that wasn’t typically available locally or across the border in Thailand. Mostly because it was either cheaper, or better quality.
Consumer products sold throughout Asia tend to be of very low and questionable quality, and often not available at all in Laos.
Coming back to the land of plenty and choices, I still try to maintain the same mindset. Things can be valued for much more fundamental reasons than merely being new, or beyond the marketing image of “need” or status or image.
Sure, we can bring in the extreme perspective of the garbage dump cities all of the world where people and children actually live off of, and even earn a living from garbage. And our gut reaction is to think about how we can help them and change their situation, and feeling with a passion that something must be done about them, when in fact, it starts with us.
If we can change our habits and our mindsets, if we can demand less, if our values can put a limit on the things we accumulate versus things we re-use, then…
Who knows? Who knows what the solution is to uber-consumerism? Everyone all over the world seems to want it. Our demand for it makes it thrive. It’s not completely wrong, yet somehow it doesn’t seem right.
What does seem right to me is $200 for 50, and I’ll stick with it for as long as I can.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by our mother of twins writer, Dee Harlow, currently in transit to live in Lesotho. You can also find her on her blog Wanderlustress.
Photo credit attributed to Mark Frauenfelder. This photo has a Flickr Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike license.
One of Dee’s earliest memories was flying on a trans-Pacific flight from her birthplace in Bangkok, Thailand, to the United States when she was six years old. Ever since then, it has always felt natural for her to criss-cross the globe. So after growing up in the northeast of the US, her life, her work and her curiosity have taken her to over 32 countries. And it was in the 30th country while serving in the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan that she met her husband. Together they embarked on a career in international humanitarian aid working in refugee camps in Darfur, Sudan, and the tsunami torn coast of Aceh, Indonesia.
Dee is now a full-time mother of three-year old twins and continues to criss-cross the globe every two years with her husband who is in the US Foreign Service. They currently live in Vientiane, Laos, and are loving it! You can read about their adventures at Wanderlustress.
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by Elizabeth Atalay | Jul 29, 2014 | 2014, Africa, Ethiopia, Humanitarian, Inspirational, ONE, Social Good, World Moms Blog, World Voice
Twenty years ago Cherry had completed her university degree in business, but was still unemployed. Driving with her family one night past the prostitutes on the streets of Addis Ababa she and her family sparked a discussion that left her wondering about what separated her life from theirs. The street women who flashed them as they passed stayed in Cherry’s mind. She was an educated woman who could not find a job, how were these women supposed to find decent jobs if she couldn’t? She began going out at night to speak with the girls on the street and formed relationships that then became the foundation of “Women At Risk”, an NGO providing rehabilitation and job skills training to provide the women with alternate opportunities.
Today “Women At Risk” partners with Ellilta Products where the gorgeous FashionAble scarves that Nicole Melancon and I first heard of through the ONE Campaign are made. We knew if we had the opportunity while in Ethiopia on our International Reporting Project #EthiopiaNewborns New Media Fellowship trip we would love to visit the facility ourselves. Eden Genet Melke, Ellilta’s Business Development Manager was gracious enough to welcome us to the headquarters, show us around, and share the story of how it all began. Forty to forty-six women a year now go through the program of six months of rehabilitation followed by six months of job training. The program has had a 96% rehabilitation rate of women being able to leave behind their life on the streets and create a new future for themselves, and their children.
Cotton has been grown as a crop in Ethiopia as far back as Queen Sheba, and the history of rich textiles are woven into Ethiopian heritage. Initially the women in the program, most of whom are single mothers, were hesitant to learn weaving. In Ethiopia weaving has traditionally been a man’s trade. Most Ethiopian men in the southern region know how to weave, and the women customarily have done the spinning, but once the women saw their finished products with their names on them, (each scarf comes with a name tag signed by the woman who made it) their sense of pride in what they were able to create emerged.
Here is how the process of transformation takes place
Raw Cotton
Colorful Dye
Dried In The Sun
Spun
Then Woven Into the Beautiful Creations They Become
This is an original post written by Elizabeth Atalay of Documama for World Moms Blog
Elizabeth Atalay and Nicole Melancon were in Ethiopia with The International Reporting Project #EthiopiaNewborns New Media Fellowship reporting on newborn health.
Elizabeth Atalay is a Digital Media Producer, Managing Editor at World Moms Network, and a Social Media Manager. She was a 2015 United Nations Foundation Social Good Fellow, and traveled to Ethiopia as an International Reporting Project New Media Fellow to report on newborn health in 2014. On her personal blog, Documama.org, she uses digital media as a new medium for her background as a documentarian. After having worked on Feature Films and Television series for FOX, NBC, MGM, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and Castle Rock Pictures, she studied documentary filmmaking and anthropology earning a Masters degree in Media Studies from The New School in New York. Since becoming a Digital Media Producer she has worked on social media campaigns for non-profits such as Save The Children, WaterAid, ONE.org, UNICEF, United Nations Foundation, Edesia, World Pulse, American Heart Association, and The Gates Foundation. Her writing has also been featured on ONE.org, Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter.com, EnoughProject.org, GaviAlliance.org, and Worldmomsnetwork.com. Elizabeth has traveled to 70 countries around the world, most recently to Haiti with Artisan Business Network to visit artisans in partnership with Macy’s Heart of Haiti line, which provides sustainable income to Haitian artisans. Elizabeth lives in New England with her husband and four children.
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by Susie Newday (Israel) | Jul 23, 2014 | 2014, Cancer, Death and Dying, Inspirational, Israel, Uncategorized, World Moms Blog
Had she not been a patient of mine and had my eye not been trained to see the telltale insults that cancer leaves on a body, I never would have known that her life was anything but perfect.
There are people like that in the world. People who smile through the worst. People who bring light to others and who know how to appreciate every moment with a vitality most of us lack.
She was one of the special ones. A special person and a patient with whom I connected on a deeper level. I was there to help guide her, but she was there to teach me about gratitude, optimism, tenacity, acceptance, love, courage and happiness.
She was an inspiration and a joy to be around. How I hoped she would be one of the few to beat the odds of metastatic breast cancer. And it looked like she might because she never stopped planning for the future or living her life in the present.
Unlike other patients and friends of hers who closed off the world or shut down when things took a turn for the worse, she never lost her huge infectious smile, energy, positive attitude or sparkle in her eyes.
Except for the last few days, and even then there was no self pity, just strength and determination. She was dying, in pain and in and out of consciousness but still fighting to hold on until her last wishes were fulfilled. She wanted her 8 year old daughter to come and say goodbye to her so her daughter would have some closure and she wanted her month old son, born to a surrogate mother, to be circumcised in Jewish tradition.
And she fought with her body to hold on. She saw her daughter for the last time and as soon as her son was circumcised later that same day, she took her last breath and our world was left a little dimmer as the light and joy that was her was released from her pain.
My only comfort is that she left behind an amazing family. A husband no less special than she, a daughter, a son, a mother, 2 sisters and a brother who all loved her deeply and will make sure that her special light and her precious gifts are not forgotten.
Every person who had the privilege of knowing her will never forget her, because although her years on this earth were short, she lived them to the fullest in a way many of us will never succeed in doing.
In these heartbreaking days in Israel, as we suffer our own private losses as well as national losses we choose to make our own, I think about my patient and the 29 young Israeli soldiers who died in the prime of their lives while fighting terrorists. Their deaths are more than just a grave loss. I think that their deaths are meant to be a “living” reminder for me. A reminder that it’s not how long you live, but rather how you live those years that you are given.
May all the families who are mourning the unfathomable loss of their loved ones somehow find the strength to continue to live life in the way they did.
And now I’m asking you all, how well are you living your years?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by our contributor, Susie Newday in Israel. You can find her on her blog New Day New Lesson.
Photo credit to author.
Susie Newday is a happily-married American-born Israeli mother of five. She is an oncology nurse, blogger and avid amateur photographer.
Most importantly, Susie is a happily married mother of five amazing kids from age 8-24 and soon to be a mother in law. (Which also makes her a chef, maid, tutor, chauffeur, launderer...) Susie's blog, New Day, New Lesson, is her attempt to help others and herself view the lessons life hands all of us in a positive light. She will also be the first to admit that blogging is great free therapy as well. Susie's hope for the world? Increasing kindness, tolerance and love.
You can also follow her Facebook page New Day, New Lesson where she posts her unique photos with quotes as well as gift ideas.
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