by Mamawearpapashirt (Singapore) | Feb 13, 2013 | Life Balance, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, World Motherhood
2013 is still fresh out of the oven, and I’m already starting to feel like I’m dragging my feet.
I don’t know about you but I wish things could slow down a little, and that I could breathe out some stress and breathe in more joy…
As a mum, there are many things I want to do.
I wanna play with my kids, and teach them useful things, things that mold their character and resilience.
I want time to work on my dreams, to grow and develop my skills, to read more books and learn from great writers.
I wanna be a perfect wife running a clock-work household.
I wanna have time to sit and sip away, journalling in a cafe, and feel free to be myself again.
If only.
(more…)
June, born and bred on the sunny and sometimes rainy shores of Singapore, is a mother of two - a chatty 4 y.o. girl and a toddler boy who babbles. She works part-time as a communication consultant, and she is deeply passionate about family, writing, faith, and good old-fashioned love. She can be found on her blog, Mamawearpapashirt.
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by Maureen | Feb 1, 2013 | Education, Family, Indonesia, Kids, Life Balance, Motherhood, Parenting, Scoops of Joy, Single Mother, Working Mother, World Motherhood, Younger Children
“Come here, baby…”
He snuggled closer to me, allowing me to inhale a faint smell of his shampoo on his thick, getting-too-long hair.
For a boy who is no longer a baby who can be dead stubborn about his ways sometimes, I am lucky he still wants to snuggle close to his mother.
His working mother that is.
Yes, I returned to the corporate world last December after being a work-from-home mom for almost a year.
While I enjoyed returning to my old job, excited that my previous employer offered it to me, and happy to see my old friends again, there’s part of me that feels guilty – again.
Same old cycle of guilt…the working mom’s guilt. (more…)
by Tara Bergman (USA) | Jan 25, 2013 | Communication, Competition, Education, Family, Humor, Husband, Kids, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, SAHM, School, Tara B., World Motherhood, Younger Children
This past fall, I agreed to coordinate an art competition for my son’s elementary school. The oversight of this program included working with school staff, budget mapping, recruiting volunteers and judges, event planning, marketing, public speaking, and data management. Some may say, “But it’s for kids, right? Small scale?” I suppose. However, I think of kids as our most important shareholders in a way, so the stakes were high in my mind. Oh, and by the way, I’m not actually the “artistic” type. So the project management piece of this was just fine, but the actual getting-kids-jazzed-about-art was something that I hadn’t thought about before signing on. Yet with all of that, what concerned me most was whether I still had my grown up chops. I’m talking about being able to hold my own and remain verbally agile in adult dialogue over a multi-month project.
For the past 7 years, I’ve been a stay-at-home mom with two young boys (by choice, and I love it). So most of my days are spent discussing the merits of dinosaur vs. oval shaped chicken nuggets or perfecting my living room fort building skills. I talk kid-speak constantly. When spending time with adult friends, I’ve accidentally reverted to my mommy-mode and announced I needed a “potty check.” My husband has greeted me with “Hi, Tara,” and I have responded on auto-pilot with “Hey, buddy.” I perpetually walk around with my hair in a wet knot while clothed in semi-clean jeans and a fleece top.
So entering into this project, I was a little nervous. What if I asked a professional photographer if her dinner was “nummy” ? Or what if I ended a talk with the principal by saying, “Sure thing, big guy.” These things just spray out of a stay-at-home parent’s mouth like a geyser. (more…)
Tara is a native Pennsylvanian who moved to the Seattle area in 1998 (sight unseen) with her husband to start their grand life adventure together. Despite the difficult fact that their family is a plane ride away, the couple fell in love with the Pacific Northwest and have put down roots. They have 2 super charged little boys and recently moved out of the Seattle suburbs further east into the country, trading in a Starbucks on every corner for coyotes in the backyard. Tara loves the outdoors (hiking, biking, camping). And, when her family isn't out in nature, they are hunkered down at home with friends, sharing a meal, playing games, and generally having fun. She loves being a stay-at-home mom and sharing her experiences on World Moms Network!
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by specialneedmom2 | Jan 16, 2013 | Canada, Child Care, Life Balance, Younger Children
Childcare. No word conjures such stress and anxiety in the mind of a working mom as “childcare.” There are countless little things that can cause enormous problems. Your child is too sick to attend. Your child care provider is too sick to care for your child. Your child care provider is late. You are running late to pick up your child. Never mind possible personality or caregiving style conflicts.
Stress. Anxiety. Too many problems to solve while juggling too many plates. Eventually one of those plates will drop, and who picks up the pieces?
For me, just the experience of searching for a childcare provider for my oldest child was the single most stressful experience of my life. I spent hours on the phone, calling centres, trying to be put onto their waitlists in hopes of getting a childcare spot. I visited centres and caregivers, asking about programs, schedules, and meals. It was harder to plan than my wedding, and as it turned out, more expensive.
In the Greater Toronto Area parents who hope to have licensed childcare for their child are told to put their child on waitlists – when they are about 3 months PREGNANT with that child. You might have a chance at a spot by the time your twelve month maternity leave is over – that means your wait is at least 18 months. (more…)
Angela is a Special Education teacher who blogs about her super-powered special needs family. She has a 3 year old with Prader-Willi Syndrome and a 5 year old with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Sensory Processing Disorder. The odds of these random genetic events occurring at the same time are astronomical. "When you add our typically developing one year old baby boy to the mix, you have a very busy household!", she explains.
Angela admits to having too many appointments, too many school problems, and being generally too busy as she tries to live life to the fullest. Please visit her family at Half Past Normal for more of their adventures! If you want to connect to chat, you can find her on Twitter @specialneedmom2
If you are interested in Special Education policies and procedures in Ontario – or just some excellent strategies and accommodations – please check out Angela's other site at Special Ed on the Bell Curve.
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by Wall Street Mama (USA) | Jan 12, 2013 | Education, Health, Life Balance, Maternal Health, Pregnancy, Saturday Sidebar, Vacationing, Wedding, World Moms Blog, Younger Children
This week’s Saturday Sidebar Question comes from World Moms Blog writer Alison Lee. She asked our writers,
“What are your wishes for the new year?”
Check out what some of our World Moms had to say…
The Alchemist of India writes:
“I intend to, hope to, take inspiration from Ruth Wong and complete my novel. The publisher is ready, but I am still working with the plot!
As for World Moms Blog, I am hoping to do some work in Social Good.
Maybe if I can get this novel published in 2013, I will consider my wish granted!” (more…)
Wall Street Mama was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago and moved to NJ when she was a teenager. She fell in love with New York City and set her mind to one thing after college – working on Wall Street. She has spent the last 16 years working on the trading floor at three major banks. As an Institutional Salesperson, she is responsible for helping large corporations and money funds invest their short term cash in the fixed income part of the market. She lives in the suburbs of central NJ with her husband of 11 years, their amazing 21 month old boy and their first baby – a very spoiled Maltese. She has baby #2 on the way and is expecting a little girl in June 2012. She is a full time working mother and struggles with “having it all” while wondering if that is even possible.
Wall Street Mama was married at the age of 25 but waited to have children because she felt she was too focused on her career which required a lot of traveling and entertaining. When she was finally ready, she thought she could plan the exact month she was ready to have a child, like everything else she planned in her life. She was shocked and frustrated when things did not go according to her plan. Fast forward four years later, after a miscarriage and several rounds of failed fertility injections, her little miracle was conceived naturally. She never thought in a million years, that she and her husband would be in their late 30’s by the time they had their first child.
Since the financial crisis of 2008, she has endured some of the most difficult years of her life. The stress of trying to conceive was combined with some of life’s biggest challenges. She and her husband, who is a trader, both lost their jobs on Wall Street the exact same month. Her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and she ended up passing away while she was 6 months pregnant. At times it didn’t seem like things would ever get better, but she has learned that life is cyclical and what comes down must again go up.
Leaving her baby boy with a wonderful nanny each day is difficult, but at times it is easier than she would have expected. She still enjoys the seemingly addictive draw of working on Wall Street. The past few years have been dramatically different from the “good days” but she is focused on trying to achieve what she once had before. She is currently working on launching her own blog, Wall Street Mama, in an attempt to guide others who are focused on continuing their career, yet struggle with leaving their little ones at home. She is weathering the ups and downs of the market and motherhood, one day at a time.
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by Sophie Walker (UK) | Jan 11, 2013 | Autism, Babies, Being Thankful, Childhood, Discipline, Domesticity, Education, Family, France, Girls, Hobby, Holiday, Home, Humor, Inspirational, Kids, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Me-Time, Motherhood, Parenting, Running, Sophie Walker, Special Needs, Spirituality, Working Mother, World Motherhood, Younger Children
My mum used to say to me: “Don’t wish your life away.”
Nowadays I sometimes feel as though that’s all I do. To be more specific, I’m organizing my life away.
With four kids, my job, my husband’s job, and the diaries of both our ex-partners to co-ordinate, there are often times when I look up from the calendar and realise I’ve scheduled myself right out of the current school term and into the next-but-one.
This can be particularly painful when I have to re-adapt to not being in warm late summer and that campsite in France but instead in bleak mid-winter suburbia. January is a bad month for making wishes and looking away from the here and now. “I want to be thinner/fitter/better employed/better loved by X month,” we tell ourselves, shading our eyes as we scan the horizon for that magical time when everything will be perfect.
The temptation to hurry past moments of disappointment or frustration is immense, and only human. I feel this keenly as the mother of a child with autism. School is a big issue for us, and the day-to-day of persuading my child to go and, once there, to participate, is exhausting. (more…)
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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