by specialneedmom2 | Nov 1, 2013 | Being Thankful, Canada, Family, Health, Husband, Kids, Life Lesson, Moving, Parenting, Special Needs, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Parents watch their child grow and exclaim that ‘Time flies!’ Or, on those endless afternoons where the cranky and over tired toddler simply will not nap, time drags on for an eternity.
As former residents of a major city and newcomers to Smalltown, Ontario, we’re adjusting to a different type of time – time without traffic.
Oh sure, we have traffic. Cars, trucks and boats (on trailers) go up and down the streets. And a friend told me about parents of kids at a school in the next town over picking up their kids on snowmobiles, but it’s a different kind of traffic than the choking gridlock that paralyses the Greater Toronto Area on a daily basis.
Our family is adjusting to life without traffic and on a more reasonable timeline, which only highlights how ridiculous our city life was. Two working parents with two kids in two different daycare facilities meant that we had to leave our home by 6:20 am every weekday to make the prerequisite drops just before squeaking into work just on time.
This meant the kids had to be up by 5:30 am to eat breakfast and stumble into clothes for the day. The birds weren’t even up! No wonder my oldest had serious behaviour issues – poor guy was exhausted.
Now as our family has grown to three children ages 6 and under, we’ve streamlined our efforts. One parent stays home, the other goes to work. Oh, and the oldest still has to be at school shortly after 8:00 am. Adding two children with special needs – with different therapist appointments and medical visits, and you have one busy family with serious time management issues. We’d have to drive for about 45 minutes (one way) to make those medical appointments (which were in the same city as we were; only traffic slowed you down to a crawl). So our family got used to leaving to go anywhere about an hour early.
Life in Smalltown, Ontario sure is different. If I drove for 45 minutes here I’d be in another township (or two)! Hubby and I find we do more in less time, and actually enjoy our drive through the town’s streets. A recent major shopping trip (one of those big box adventures, that required you to pick up stuff at other stores because it’s on sale) found Hubby and I sitting down for lunch with our toddler, wondering what to do with the rest of the day. We’d done a month’s worth of shopping in less than three hours, and been at three different stores too!
This is in sharp contrast to our city life, where lunch is a slice of pizza gobbled by kids strapped in car seats as a parent races to the next appointment or errand, all in an effort to save time. I’m not even going to talk about quality of life here. Check out my post, the Busy, Busy Month of May for more on this one. But back to time.
My daily commute is a perfect example of how time creeps away. Last year, for the first time in ten years my commute was under 20 minutes – without traffic. For ten years I’d been driving for an hour or more to work, and an hour or more from work. Around two hours each day, spent in my car. For ten years.
It makes me sick thinking about how much time was wasted, sitting and waiting for the car in front of me to move. Never mind the delays of an accident or construction – even my little 20 minute commute would balloon to over an hour if there was construction. (Which, as GTA residents will tell you, is nearly constant in summer time.) So as a family that has dealt with time-sucking gridlock, we love the freedom and new found time life in Smalltown brings. The kids are happy, parents are happy, we’re all relaxed and so much less stressed.
Some of the things we’ve been doing include:
- Spending time outdoors: Playing in the backyard kiddie pool after school! Playing in the backyard BEFORE school (unheard of!) Enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, instead of watching videos constantly. In the winter we’ll be outside playing in the snow.
- Visiting local Farmer’s Markets, Pow Wows and festivals.
- Becoming active in the community – the library, museum, YMCA and Sports Complex and Ontario Early Years Centre are only a short walk away.
I just signed up the oldest for Boy Scouts (Beavers, actually for his age group) and my daughter for dance classes – all on weeknights, and all only a short drive or walk away. I wouldn’t even dream of this in the city. We’re doing more, with less.
In short, we’re living life, on our own time.
What do you do to save time or make the best use of your time in your day?
Angela blogs about her super-powered, special needs family at halfpastnormal. They’re recently moved from Toronto, Canada to a small town in Ontario.
Toronto traffic jam photo credit to James D. Schwartz. This photo has a creative commons attribute license.
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 Kyla P'an (Portugal) | Oct 25, 2013 | 2013, Being Thankful, Childhood, Communication, Domesticity, Education, Entertainment, Home, Humor, Kids, Life Lesson, Me-Time, Motherhood, Parenting, Relationships, School, Stress, Traditions, USA, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Last week my 7-year-old daughter invited a friend over for a playdate after school. My daughter and this child aren’t close friends, in fact, they aren’t even in the same class at school but they did play on the same town soccer team last year and the child has invited my daughter over a few times—including to her 7th birthday party—so we were due to reciprocate.
This particular little girl comes from a family of four children. She lives nearby in a large house in a posh sub-division and with four kids in her home, they have a lot of toys and things to play with.
Furthermore, her mom is one of those Alpha moms, who runs various nominated volunteer positions at school and who always seems to have her stuff together: pressed and polished at morning drop-off and calm and controlled when you see her in the pick-up line at the end of the day. You know the sort. (more…)
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 Katinka | Oct 21, 2013 | Adoptive Parents, Being Thankful, Belgium, Birth Parents, Childhood, Cultural Differences, Domesticity, Family, International, Interviews, Kids, Penguin and Panther, Relationships, Siblings, Special Needs, Uncategorized, Working Mother, World Moms Blog Writer Interview, Writing, Younger Children
Where in the world do you live? And, are you from there?
I was born, raised and proudly remain stuck in the Belgian mud. I would sometimes dream about moving abroad, but it turns out I’m quite happy staying right here. I do like to travel several times a year, mostly for work.
What language(s) do you speak?
My mother tongue is Flemish (which is basically the same as Dutch), but with Belgium being a trilingual country, I also speak French and I can understand German. Obviously, I also speak – and write – English. About ten years ago I also decided to learn Indonesian, but all I remember of it now are the words kamar kecil, which means I can actually ask where the bathroom is if I would make it to Indonesia one day.
In addition, I would love to learn how to read and write music, and to understand Amharic, the first language of our daughter.
When did you first become a mother?
This is a tricky one, because in my experience, I can call on two firsts. Two totally different ways of expecting a child, of becoming a mother, both wonderful and intense. In 2006, I first became a mother when our son was born, the one I love to call our cuddly Penguin. Five years later, in 2011, I first became an adoptive mother when we brought our two-year-old daughter home, our darling Panther.
Is your work, stay-at-home mom, other work at home or do you work outside the home?
Apart from being a full time mom, full time housekeeper and full time wannabe writer, I also have a full time job outside my home. Some might even say I’m building an exciting career as a geomicrobiologist, enabling me to go on missions abroad and to research amazing subjects, but they should know that my favorite moments are without doubt coming home, be it after a working day or a business trip.
Why do you blog/write?
I started blogging (in Flemish) during our adoption procedure, merely as a way to keep friends and relatives posted on any news we would get in those long years. Along the way, blogging became a kind of therapy, enabling me to vent frustrations and personal struggles, or to focus on optimism and fun facts. I also learned just how much I loved to write.
I kept on blogging until our daughter was home for two years. I recently decided to stop, mostly for the privacy of my children and because I felt like I was getting ‘addicted’ to blogging. It was a hard decision, disappointing to quite some readers who liked the plain honesty in my writing. But, as a go-between, I decided to start a low frequency, anonymous, English blog about life with my Penguin and Panther, and to contribute to WMB every once in a while. And in the extra spare time I have now, my newest endeavor is to write children’s books, which has long been a dream of mine.
How would you say that you are different from other mothers?
As a typically modest Belgian, I truly find it awkward to differentiate myself that way. I don’t believe I have something special about me as a mother, or a person for one. But since I have to, well, I guess I would be different from other mothers because my kids come in two opposite colors and with some extra needs. Our blond haired Penguin is an overly sensitive philosopher who understands more than is good for him, while our curly Ethiopian Panther deals with attachment, anxiety and health issues. They leave me both exhausted and enriched every single evening, but I guess that’s no difference to other mothers…
What do you view as the challenges of raising a child in today’s world?
I don’t even know where to begin! Every day is a challenge, when raising children, isn’t it? One of my major concerns though, is to let our children remain children as long as possible. I strive to keep a delicate balance between guarding my children innocence and purity, and still teaching them about the need for respect and care for the less fortunate or for our struggling environment. With today’s society going so fast, having everything within reach, leaving nothing to the imagination, I try to create an island of simplicity and ‘slowness’ for our children (and ourselves!) at home, where they can develop at their own pace. But when time comes, I still want them to be able to catch one of society’s speed boats that are racing by our island…
How did you find World Moms Blog?
I just bumped upon WMB through a cartoon someone shared. I think. My kids often beat me at ‘Memory’, so I can’t be sure about it. But I do remember I started reading and reading and couldn’t stop for another hour.
This is an original interview of our new writer in Belgium, K10K – pronounce it as Ka-ten-ka and you will come quite close to her real name – from The Penguin and The Panther
The image used in this post is credited to the author.
If you ask her about her daytime job, Katinka will tell you all about the challenge of studying the fate of radioactive substances in the deep subsurface. Her most demanding and rewarding job however is raising four kids together with five other parents, each with their own quirks, wishes and (dis)abilities. As parenting and especially co-parenting involves a lot of letting go, she finds herself singing the theme song to Frozen over and over again, even when the kids are not even there...
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by Ecoziva (Brazil) | Oct 14, 2013 | 2013, Babies, Being Thankful, Brazil, Child Care, Childhood, Culture, Domesticity, Eye on Culture, Family, Health, Home, Inspirational, Life Balance, Maternal Health, Me-Time, Motherhood, Parenting, Religion, Spirituality, Traditions, Working Mother, World Motherhood, Younger Children
My maternity leave is now coming to an end, but throughout it a typical week day has meant about 12-14 hours alone with the kids.
I usually wake up at 5:20 a.m. and my husband leaves with our eldest around six. I spend my mornings with our 2 ½ year old girl and our six month old baby boy. Our son returns from school approximately 1:30 p.m. Sometimes my husband returns early, but he usually gets home between 6 and 8 p.m. depending on traffic, his schedule, etc.
I love my kids dearly. Yet any mother knows that such a routine is not easy. On the typical day, by 6 p.m. my patience starts to wane. By nature I have a calm personality, but if there is screaming on my side, 90% of the time it will be after 6 p.m.
I once heard that 6 p.m. is one of the most difficult times of the day. On an individual level it is the time when stress peaks and on a collective level it is the time when most crime, car accidents and other such things happen. I don’t know if there is data backing that, but in a way it does make sense.
In my case, it is around 6 p.m. that the less-than-noble feelings will start to take over my mind, such as resentment, self-pity and repetitive worrying about pending work (although I have been legally on leave and have not been teaching, I did choose to maintain some activities from home). Other days I wish I could just stop working and truly be a full-time mother.
One thing that has helped is practicing acceptance and gratitude: A student sent me her research project two weeks ago and I haven’t even managed to open the file. Sorry, I am doing the best I can. My daughter has been screaming for 15 minutes in a temper tantrum. How great that she is healthy and her lungs are working! The kitchen sink is piled with dishes and the whole house is a mess. Things will get better as the kids grow older.
Of course it is easier said than done and one thing I try to do every day is to pray that my patience lasts past the kids’ bedtime.
I recently thought about how in the past it was a custom here in Brazil – a mostly catholic country – for the radios to play the Ave Maria in Latin at 6 p.m. In the small town I lived in when I was little, the Catholic church’s bells also tolled at six.
I haven’t been much of a radio listener for the past few years so I went on the web to check if the custom was still present. I learned it is a practice that has been carried out here in Brazil for the last 54 years. It comes from an old Portuguese tradition that in turn derives from the Angelus [*] – a Christian devotion recited at 6 a.m., midday and 6 p.m., which refers to Mary and the Annunciation. In simple terms, it is a time of prayer and meditation.
While reading about the 6 p.m. devotion and thinking about the emotional condition of mothers who spend the whole day alone with their children, I realized that it was the kind of practice that makes sense in the context of motherhood. After all, regardless of religion or debates on the specifics of Mary’s story, in a greater context she can be seen as a symbol of an inspiring and caring mother.
With that in mind, this week I am experimenting with short “Mary meditations” around 6 p.m. to see if it helps extend and deepen my patience and acceptance.
And you? What strategies do you use to help you face the challenges of the day-to-day motherhood routine?
[*] If there are any Catholics out there reading this and I am explaining this wrong please correct me! I was sort of raised Catholic in a Catholic country but I’m not actually Catholic, so I don’t have in-depth knowledge of the Angelus.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our devoted writer and mother of three in Brazil, EcoZiva.
The photo used in this post was taken by the author.
Eco, from the greek oikos means home; Ziva has many meanings and roots, including Hebrew (brilliance, light), Slovenian (goddess of life) and Sanskrit (blessing). In Brazil, where EcoZiva has lived for most of her life, giving birth is often termed “giving the light”; thus, she thought, a mother is “home to light” during the nine months of pregnancy, and so the penname EcoZiva came to be for World Moms Blog.
Born in the USA in a multi-ethnic extended family, EcoZiva is married and the mother of two boys (aged 12 and three) and a five-year-old girl and a three yearboy. She is trained as a biologist and presently an university researcher/professor, but also a volunteer at the local environmental movement.
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by Meredith (USA) | Oct 11, 2013 | Body Image, Childhood, Cooking, Domesticity, Exercise, Family, Food, Health, Kids, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Nutrition, Parenting, World Motherhood, Younger Children
When I was growing up, I had a mother who loved to cook and bake. It wasn’t unusual for me to wake up smelling homemade cinnamon bread just out of the oven, and come home from school smelling homemade rolls for dinner.
In my family, if you didn’t eat everything mom made on your plate, she worried there was something wrong with you.
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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.
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by Tinne from Tantrums and Tomatoes | Sep 30, 2013 | Babies, Belgium, Family, Kids, Life Balance, Milestones, Parenting, Pregnancy, Relationships, Siblings, Tantrum and Tomatoes, Womanhood, World Mom Feature, World Motherhood, Younger Children
I suppose it is inevitable. After all, people are what they are, they can’t change themselves. And although curiosity was apparently the mastermind behind the murder of someone’s cat, there are many curious people out there.
And curious people ask questions.
Sometimes stupid questions, sometimes profound questions, sometime questions which aren’t really questions but more a judgement on one of your actions and/or beliefs.
And sometimes people ask questions on matters which are none of their damn business.
One of those questions is the oft asked : “When are you having another?” or – since I have two girls: “When are you going to have a boy?”.
The answer usually runs along the lines of : “Oh not just yet! I have enough on my plate with just these two!” or “A boy? With these two… (at which I point at my girls doing whatever they are doing) the poor thing would just get traumatized.”
But I rarely tell the truth: No, never. No we are not trying for another baby. No we are not planning to “gift” our girls with a baby brother.
Perhaps it is due to the fact that I had my two girls in such a short space of time (When n°2 was born n°1 was a mere 16 months old) but I am most definitely done having children.
There are many reasons, finances being but one of them. No, we are not in financial trouble, but face it: raising a child is wickedly expensive. For the past three years we’ve spent a small fortune on day care and let’s not even talk about the price of diapers shall we… Had I been better informed I might seriously have considered buying stock options in Pampers or Huggies. With both kids in school we get a bit of financial breathing space, we can afford to finish our home.
But the main reason is balance.
When you are a mother, whether you have a job or are a stay at home mom, life is nothing less than a big balancing act on a loose rope above a pit filled with hungry tigers and fire.
Our balance is OK, right now. We are not in immediate danger of falling off the rope. Both kids attend school full-time, they are too young to have ‘real’ hobbies yet so no rush, rush, rush on Saturday morning – as yet (Please note: I do not count running after each other screaming bloody murder as a hobby).
Because of their relative closeness in age their feeding schedules (if I may be so blunt) are relatively in sync, meaning I don’t have to provide three or four individual breakfasts, lunches and dinners anymore each day. Lately they’ve started playing proper games together, in which each is an equal player and which do not require constant parental interference, just distant supervision.
We can start going on proper outings without dragging half the nursery and a whole plethora of baby food along, just a change of clothes, some cookies and a water bottle will get us through.
So in short: after four years of clutching desperately at that rope we’ve arrived at a spot where we can breathe freely, where we can relax for just a second, where there is time to be “us” and “just me” again.
The realization that we were as we should be came when we gave away the double stroller without an inch of pain or regret. Just happiness that there would finally be some more room in the garage.
Our family has found its balance and it feels wonderful.
When did you realize your family was as it should be?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer in Belgium and mother of just two…Tinne from Tantrums and Tomatoes.
Born in Belgium on the fourth of July in a time before the invention of the smart phone Tinne is a working mother of two adorably mischievous little girls, the wife of her high school sweetheart and the owner of a black cat called Atilla.
Since she likes to cook her blog is mainly devoted to food and because she is Belgian she has an absurd sense of humour and is frequently snarky. When she is not devoting all her attention to the internet, she likes to read, write and eat chocolate. Her greatest nemesis is laundry.
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