by Ecoziva (Brazil) | Apr 29, 2016 | 2016, Brazil, Death and Dying, Environment, Friendship, Life, Relationships, South America, World Motherhood
I believe that everyone, in some way or another, has a second (or more) set of “parents”. This is a broad definition of parents I am using here – they may be people who cared for you when your biological parents were having problems, such as grandparents or aunts and uncles, or even godparents as is the custom in some places. They could be people who took you to the movies or to fancy restaurants if the money in your family was tight. They could be people close to you whom to others might seem commonplace but to you were heroes. They could be teachers, formally or not. The common characteristic among these people is that they were role models for you and had a big (positive) impact on your life in one or more ways.
I was lucky enough to have several such wonderful people in my life during childhood and adolescence, but one couple stands out.
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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 Ewa Samples | Jun 20, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Environment, Family, Health, Human Rights, Humanity, Inspirational, Motherhood, Parenting, Polish Mom Photographer, Safety, USA, World Motherhood
Four years ago I bought my last body lotion and body wash. Two years ago, for several months I went “no-poo”. Around that time I also threw all my deodorants in a trash can.
The only thing I have gotten back to is the shampoo. I do, though, try to make it myself every now and then. The rest of the cosmetics are not very welcome on my bathroom shelf, unless I make them myself.
Because of that, I normally try to stay on top of situations in which I may run out of something (and also because I simply refuse to use the toiletries that are on my husband’s shelf in the bathroom). Funny thing is that he has way more “beauty products” than I do, and he does not have a lot of them, compared to most people.
… but one day it happened, I ran out of my shampoo…
Luckily it was a shopping day. Happy that I didn’t actually have to make an extra trip to the grocery store just to get a shampoo, with my greasy hair tied in a ponytail, I left the house. Because it was pretty late, and we were pretty exhausted from a busy day, we had decided we were going to stop by only one store, not two, like we normally do. (more…)
Ewa was born, and raised in Poland. She graduated University with a master's degree in Mass-Media Education. This daring mom hitchhiked from Berlin, Germany through Switzerland and France to Barcelona, Spain and back again!
She left Poland to become an Au Pair in California and looked after twins of gay parents for almost 2 years. There, she met her future husband through Couch Surfing, an international non-profit network that connects travelers with locals.
Today she enjoys her life one picture at a time. She runs a photography business in sunny California and document her daughters life one picture at a time.
You can find this artistic mom on her blog, Ewa Samples Photography, on Twitter @EwaSamples or on Facebook!
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by Carol (Canada) | Oct 24, 2012 | Babies, Canada, Child Care, Health, Parenting
Of all of my parenting decisions, my choice to use cloth diapers raises the most eyebrows.
People tend to treat it like an admirable but inconvenient decision that they would never seriously consider themselves, like converting your car to run on vegetable oil or biking everywhere instead of driving.
They see it as difficult, and a little weird.
This bothers me, because I think my choice is more convenient, not less.
I use a diaper service, Happy Nappy, and since they bring my diapers to my door and take them away from me on a weekly basis, you could argue that my choice is actually lazier than using disposables, since I never have to go shopping for diapers. I don’t deal with any more poop than a parent who uses disposables. In fact, since I find that disposables have a deplorable tendency to leak poop down my baby’s leg, I actually deal with more poop when he’s in disposables.
Their cost is comparable to disposables – around $25 a week – and service becomes free after you’ve been with them for 30 months, because kids usually potty train earlier in cloth diapers. So either my kid will be potty trained by 30 months, or I get free diapers. That makes it a cheaper choice, even with the convenience of a diaper service.
So here I am, making a cheaper and more convenient choice, but people respond as though I was hand-knitting my entire family’s wardrobe or something. (more…)
Carol from If By Yes has lived in four different Canadian provinces as well as the Caribbean. Now she lives in Vancouver, working a full time job at a vet clinic, training dogs on the side, and raising her son and daughter to be good citizens of the world.
Carol is known for wearing inside-out underwear, microwaving yoghurt, killing house plants, over-thinking the mundane, and pointing out grammatical errors in "Twilight". When not trying to wrestle her son down for a nap, Carol loves to read and write.
Carol can also be found on her blog, If By Yes, and on Twitter @IfByYesTweets
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by Jill Barth | Oct 3, 2011 | Being Thankful, Food, Natural Disaster, USA
Hot and dry.
Words don’t grab it. Roasty days, kids with sweaty foreheads and dirty nails. Grass brown and parched enough to skewer a birthday balloon. Sun, grand and proud and framed in abundant blue. Pools become priceless, sprinklers work like heck. Kids and land and plants are wildly thirsty.
School kids must bring water bottles, parents assured that at least: we won’t let them dehydrate. A Midwestern parent says a prayer of thanks because even though it’s dry and hot, we’ve got access to water and our kids are safe.
Farmers worry on low yields. What they worry on, so should you. Today, the average U.S. farmer feeds 155 people.* A scorching drought spells trouble for each of those folks and families. High prices, high demand – it’s all a part of what happens when there isn’t enough. (more…)
Jill Barth lives in Illinois with her husband and three kids. She reminds you to breathe. She is a freelance writer and consultant. Also, she is the green content Team Leader and columnist at elephantjournal.com and reads fiction for Delmarva Review.
Jill's writing can be found on her blog, Small Things Honored.
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by Ecoziva (Brazil) | Aug 18, 2011 | Brazil, Childhood, Education, Humanity
A teacher once told me a story about a little girl who was refusing to drink water at home because she had learned at school how scarce this resource was becoming on our planet. “We’re doing it all wrong”, sighed my friend.
Animals, plants and other organisms are getting extinct at alarming rates, habitats are being destroyed, the planet’s average temperature is rising, the seas are overfished, pollutants have reached even the most pristine locations.
I could write dozens of posts on each of these and other environmental issues, with gruesome details that make my hair stand on end. Yet, in the midst of so many problems, how can we teach children to respect the environment without making them outright scared?
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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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