by Mirjam | May 4, 2015 | Life, Life Lesson, Nature, Netherlands
In my part of the world there are seasons. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Each of the seasons carries drastic weather and environmental changes. The changing of the seasons has a huge impact on our daily lives. We dress in different clothes, eat different foods, change the way we spend our days and feel different. Festivities and activities are tied to the distinct seasons, and they hold special meanings.
When I think about winter I think about skating, hot chocolate, Christmas and snow. In a less obvious way, Winter makes me think of family and cozyness. The feeling of tucking my child in at night when it’s dark and cold outside, is completely different from taking my child to bed in the summer.
We plant bulbs in Fall and wait for them to bloom in Spring, We collect colorful leaves and harvest apples in the Fall. We visit the beach and turn on the barbecue when it’s summertime. We dress in multiple layers of warm clothing when it’s Winter. Life continues within the cycle of these seasons.
I have always liked the seasons.
It’s like an ongoing song or poem that keeps changing and repeating my favorite lines, repeating verse after verse with similarities that are never exactly the same.
The seasons are my mantra for life. Reminding me to expect change, to laugh a little louder and enjoy the sunshine more fully, because hardship will come. But adversity will pass, and eventually little seedlings will stick their heads through the dirt and start to make their way to the sun. There will always be renewal, growth and hope.
Right now it is Spring here. Spring is my favorite season. It’s a season of increase, growth, warmth, hope and promise. It’s a joyous season. It will be followed by a season of abundance. With lots of light, warmth and the harvesting of the fruits of our labour. After summer there will be decrease and splendor at the same time. An outburst of color and creativity will accompany the transition to a season of absence, lack, stilness and patience. At the end of this cold withered season Spring will start again.
It’s the perfect metaphor for life.
Seasons change… and then they pass.
Seasons change… and then they pass.
What is your favourite season? What season is it right now in your part of the world?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Mirjam of the Netherlands.
Mirjam was born in warm, sunny Surinam, but raised in the cold, rainy Netherlands.
She´s the mom of three rambunctious beauties and has been married for over two decades to the love of her life.
Every day she´s challenged by combining the best and worst of two cultures at home.
She used to be an elementary school teacher but is now a stay at home Mom. In her free time she loves to pick up her photo camera.
Mirjam has had a life long battle with depression and is not afraid to talk about it.
She enjoys being a blogger, an amateur photographer, and loves being creative in many ways.
But most of all she loves live and laughter, even though sometimes she is the joke herself.
You can find Mirjam (sporadically) at her blog Apples and Roses where she blogs about her battle with depression and finding beauty in the simplest of things. You can also find Mirjam on Twitter and Instagram.
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by Maureen | Apr 30, 2015 | 2015, Being Thankful, Cultural Differences, Divorce, Education, Family, Gratefulness, Humanity, Identity, Indonesia, Inspirational, Kids, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, Poverty, Responsibility, Responsibility, Scoops of Joy, Single Mother, Transportation, Travel, Vacationing, Working Mother, World Motherhood, Younger Children
When it was time for my son to start school, I knew I wanted him to go to private school and thankfully, he was accepted into one of the international schools near our house.
Private school has its pluses and unfortunately its negatives too.
My son’s classmates are from the upper-middle class, those whose spring breaks were spent going to Japan or Hong Kong to visit Disney Land. The same kids who also have their own iPads and the latest cell phones.
I realized this might cause a challenge for us—with me being a single mom, who had just recently returned to the corporate world—but I try not to let their different lifestyles make my son feel that he’s different.
So that’s why, on Easter weekend, I took him on a mini-getaway to my new job.
We did not take a taxi to get to my office, which is in a hotel. Instead, we rode the train like I do daily. I wanted to show him this is what his mother has to do to get to and from work. He got to see views that he won’t see from inside a nice air conditioned taxi or private car.
He loved staying in the hotel, just like most kids do, so we had a blast. But on our way home Sunday afternoon, the train was full. Not as full as it normally would be on a week day, still, we had to stand. We were leaning against the wall that separates the engine and the passengers. With the train swaying, it didn’t take long before my son told me he wished he could sit down.
Part of my mama bear instinct wanted to give him a seat but part of my tough love was to allow him to feel and experience how not everyone is blessed with a comfortable life.
I hope by showing him what I have to go through on a daily basis it will help him realize that I am working hard, that as the sole bread winner, I am providing for him. Yes, his father pays for school but outside of that, he is my responsibility and I’m doing my best to take care of him.
Yes, I told him I would love to be able to take him to Disney Land someday but for now, we have other priorities. Bills to pay, medicines to get for my parents, uniforms to alter, the list goes on.
Through our short train ride, my son was exposed to life “outside the fence”. What he saw through the windows of the train: makeshift shacks, houses built only inches away from the train tracks, kids playing soccer barefooted with garbage piling up around them. Hard life. The other side of glamorous Jakarta living.
We discuss this. He asked me why these people are living in such poor conditions. My heart ached having to explain that some people are not as fortunate as we are and that poverty is real.
We have a house to live in, a roof over our heads, while others came to the big city to chase their dreams and never made it. That’s why it is important for him to get his education so he can make a living for himself, one that hopefully he will love. I told him it is easy to look up and want what other people have but we need to be in the now, to be grateful for what we already have. To remember that there are those who need our help, who are struggling just to eat.
My wish is for my son to understand this, to grow up being grateful for what we have and to have a heart that is kind and willing to help others.
How do you explain poverty to your children?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer and single-mom to one in Jakarta, Tatter Scoops.
The image used in this post is attributed to Hideki Yoshida. It carries a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
by Salma (Canada) | Apr 24, 2015 | 2015, Awareness, Canada, Exercise, Family, Food, Health, Husband, Life Lesson, Nutrition, Salma, World Motherhood
My husband’s affair began after he received some really bad news from his Doctor. These things happen. I had the proof! Crumpled receipts from fancy restaurants and out of the way cafes; unanswered calls; and worst of all, excessive gym workouts after a long day at work.
At first I was angry, and I wanted to confront him, but I thought it might be better to see how far he would go. It was easy, and I can’t think of how long I played his game. I do know that it took every fiber of my being to not lash out and demand the truth. Instead, I forced something – I don’t know what it was – back inside of me…smoothed it out and kept on going. (more…)
An Imperfect Stepford Wife is what Salma describes herself as because she simply cannot get it right. She loves decorating, travelling, parenting,learning, writing, reading and cooking, She also delights in all things mischievous, simply because it drives her hubby crazy.
Salma has 2 daughters and a baby boy. The death of her first son in 2009 was very difficult, however, after the birth of her Rainbow baby in 2010 (one day after her birthday) she has made a commitment to laugh more and channel the innocence of youth through her children. She has blogged about her loss, her pregnancy with Rainbow, and Islamic life.
After relocating to Alberta with her husband in 2011 she has found new challenges and rewards- like buying their first house, and finding a rewarding career.
Her roots are tied to Jamaica, while her hubby is from Yemen. Their routes, however, have led them to Egypt and Canada, which is most interesting because their lives are filled with cultural and language barriers. Even though she earned a degree in Criminology, Salma's true passion is Social Work. She truly appreciates the beauty of the human race. She writes critical essays on topics such as feminism and the law, cultural relativity and the role of women in Islam and "the veil".
Salma works full-time, however, she believes that unless the imagination of a child is nourished, it will go to waste. She follows the philosophy of un-schooling and always finds time to teach and explore with her children. From this stance, she pushes her children to be passionate about every aspect of life, and to strive to be life-long learners and teachers. You can read about her at Chasing Rainbow.
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by Michelle Pannell | Apr 7, 2015 | Gratefulness, Happiness, Life Lesson, UK
I love reading other people’s blogs and sometimes a post just stays with me and I go back to it a number of times because it is worth reading over and over again. Last August I read a post by Glennon at Momastery and she summed up my stance on life in such a fabulous post, one that quickly went viral.
Go and have a read if you like and then come back, or alternatively, here is the low-down. Glennon starts by saying she posted a picture of herself in her kitchen on Facebook and very quickly people started to comment on her status with offers of help. Help to update her kitchen, pictures for inspiration and advice of how she might move away from her kitchen of clutter, mismatched appliances and 80’s style work surfaces.
Guess what happened? Within minutes Glennon had moved from her place of contentment and was converting a shiny new kitchen, one that did not make her look lazy and dated. She then talks of going to bed that night and remembering a quote from Thoreau’s Walden: “I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes and not a new wearer of the clothes.”
In her words “Walden reminds me that when I feel lacking – I don’t need new things, I need new eyes with which to see the things I already have.” Of course the next morning as she walked into her kitchen her eyes were aligned very differently and instead of a craft covered refrigerator and overflowing sink she saw plenty of chilled food that could sustain her family and easy access to clean drinking water, things that much of the world cannot take for granted.
I can’t urge you enough, dear friends, to choose to be grateful for what you have in life. Of course your life is not perfect, no-one’s is but there is always joy to be had in every day. Around the same time as I started to write my personal blog seven years ago I adopted the stance that we all choose how our day would go. I had baby twins and a toddler and life was full-on, I could feel myself spiralling into late-onset post-natal depression and I knew I had to make some changes to help me.
The big change was to choose to be happy, happy with what I had in life, happy that I had been blessed with three small demanding children and happy that my life lay ahead of me and that I had the freedom to choose how it might look.
This choice, combined with continual talking about how I felt, led to me feeling so much better, and the depression started lifting. I know I was lucky, it is not always that easy to rise out of the blackness, but my faith and belief in God’s goodness really helped me.
In 2011 I started a new series on my blog called Reasons to be Cheerful and this is an excerpt from the launch page – “Do you know what I believe are two of the fundamental keys to happiness? One, is to choose to be happy and the other is to want what you already have! Endless seeking of things, money, status, time or anything else will never fulfil you! This is where the gratitude comes in….“ And over time I just felt my contentment grow.
For me as a Christian it is important that I express my gratitude as the bible tells me ‘to give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever’ (Psalm 106:1) but you do not have to share my faith to believe in the power and necessity of practising the principle of gratitude. I am living proof that gratitude makes a massive difference in your life. With practise when you choose to look for the good and see where you can be thankful rather than focusing on the bad you will find your mood, your health, your outlook on life and your contentment lift. It is a precious gift indeed to feel content.
So I urge you next time you see someone else’s shiny new kitchen and you start to think that yours needs an update, try and delve a little deeper and see what it is you are really missing, as its unlikely to be kitchen units. What has caused this dissatisfaction? Then once you have pondered this, turn it around and share your #3GoodThings for that day and watch the low feeling disappear as you revel in all the goodness and beauty you already have in your life.
As my lovely friend Karin always says “Not every day is good but there is good in every day.”
What are you grateful for? How do you seek happiness when things are not going well?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Michelle Pannell of Mummy from the Heart. Photo credit to the author.
Michelle’s tales of everyday life and imperfect parenting of a 13-year-old boy and 9-year-old twin girls and her positive Christian outlook on life have made her name known in the UK parenting blogosphere. Her blog, Mummy from the Heart, has struck a chord with and is read by thousands of women across the world.
Michelle loves life and enjoys keeping it simple. Time with her family, friends and God are what make her happiest, along with a spot of blogging and tweeting, too! Michelle readily left behind the corporate arena but draws on her 25 years of career experience from the fields of hotel, recruitment and HR management in her current voluntary roles at a school, Christian conference centre, night shelter and food bank.
As a ONE ambassador, in 2012 Michelle was selected to travel on a delegation to Ethiopia with the organisation to report on global poverty and health. Then in 2014 she was invited to Washington, DC, where she attended the AYA Summit for girls and women worldwide. When asked about her ambassadorship with the ONE Campaign, she stated, "I feel humbled to be able to act as an advocate and campaigner for those living in poverty."
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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.
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by Tina Marie Ernspiker | Mar 27, 2015 | 2015, Expat Life, Home, Kids, Life Lesson, Living Abroad, Mexico, Moving, Parenting, World Motherhood, Younger Children
As a wife of one and a mom of four, it seems like I am always learning and discovering! I know I am not alone. Let’s just admit it: The world is a big place, life is a lesson, and children can be the best teachers. Normally my series, Life Lessons with Mexico Mom, is hosted on Los Gringos Locos, but today I am posting here on World Moms Blog.
This week’s life lessons are all about bugs. Spiders, cockroaches, bees, and scorpions…oh my! Yikes! Our new home in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico was vacant for three years before we moved in last month. The bugs were having a field day, then we arrived. They officially declared our move an invasion and initiated a full scale assault. Our comeback was fumigating with a strong pesticide. Here are my insights and experiences as a Mexico Mom, living with bugs:
Life Lesson 59: I hate Mexican cockroaches just as much as U.S. cockroaches. I don’t know exactly what it is about cockroaches but I hate these creepy, crawly critters. They give me the chills. Maybe it’s because they are associated with rotten food. At least in my mind, I associate them with rotten food. They skittle about and come in all sizes. We have some big ones in Mexico!
Life Lesson 60: Bees go to light just like moths. We have bees on our roof beneath the clay tiles. Someone obviously tried to smoke the hive and get rid of them but it didn’t work. At night the bees go to light. The street light over our balcony, our bedroom light, and our bathroom light. Mr. Curious, aka Tristan, stepped on one and got stung. He is not allergic so no serious damage was done 🙁
Life Lesson 61: Scorpions are part of the Arachnid class just like spiders. They both have eight appendages. We have seen three scorpions in our house. They were taking a leisurely stroll, till they met the bottom of a shoe. One was smaller then my pinkie nail. We also have our share of spiders. The best one being the giant Black Widow you see in the photos. We watched her die. Her struggle was sad but I can’t imagine what she could have done to one of the kids. I dislike spiders almost as much as cockroaches!
What life lessons did you learn this past week? Please share it with us below. We want to hear your thoughts from around the world!
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Tina Marie Ernspiker. Tina can be found blogging over at Los Gringos Locos. She is also on Facebook and Twitter.
Photo credits to the author.
In my part of the world there are seasons. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Each of the seasons carries drastic weather and environmental changes. The changing of the seasons has a huge impact on our daily lives. We dress in different clothes, eat different foods, change the way we spend our days and feel different. Festivities and activities are tied to the distinct seasons, and they hold special meanings.
