5 of my favourite roles as a mother

It’s been a while but I here I am.  After all, winners never quit and I ain’t no quitter 🙂 I wrote exams this week on Child and Adolescent Development.  I  had to smile as I went through the text book.  It brought back so many memories of when my son was a baby.  It was actually pretty cool to see how far we had come together.

Motherhood is a challenge like no other but, for me,  it is the most fulfilling role I get to play every day.  The day I found out I was pregnant was a surprise of note but the best surprise ever.  I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful pregnancy.  None of the usual aches and pains I had heard about and no morning sickness.    I loved speaking to my son throughout the day and, in my last trimester, I would read Winnie the Pooh to him.  We actually still read that book from time to time and it has become one of his favourites.

Then he arrived.  I was scared, hormonal but very thrilled to finally meet him.  He was a beautiful baby.  He didn’t sleep much which drove me nuts but I was glad he had finally arrived.

The Observer

Watching him become the person that he is today has been an inspiring and, sometimes nerve-wracking, pleasure.  At 2.5 months or so, it’s like a light suddenly switched on and he really came alive.  He had discovered his 3-year-old cousin who was clearly way better at entertaining and stimulating him than I was.  He just lit up whenever he saw him.  The bond that they formed during that time is still as strong as ever.  We only get to see him about 2-3 times a year and the two still enjoy each others company.  It was so cute to hear them last  Christmas when it was time to say goodbye.  His cousin told him how much he missed him because nobody “got him” the way my son did.

#cousins #groundedafrican #affrican #pigglywiggly #adobe motherhood #parenting #parenthood
Cousins having fun making candles

At 6 months the munchkin was crawling and started surfing the furniture.  I would come home from work and just watch him explore.  Of course, once he started surfing the furniture, standing was easy but getting back to a sitting position was a bit of a challenge.  No problem for my kid, he spent about half an hour one night just practising how to lower himself without getting hurt.  I was blown away when I realised what he was doing.  At 14 months he decided he wanted to jump with 2 feet off the floor.  He could do it on the bed but not on a hard floor.  He practised every day.  Then one day we went down to the farm and there was a trampoline.  Well…he was such a comical site jumping and keeping his legs up mid-jump.  He looked like a little frog.  The look of sheer delight on his face though…priceless! He still sets himself goals and manages to achieve them.   They are more challenging now like coming first in class but I am just glad to see that the behaviour has stuck.  There have been many more moments like these along the way and I look forward to the many moments to come.

The Caregiver

There is nothing more fulfilling as a mother than being able to look after your child/children.  I have never enjoyed cooking but it has become a labour of love for my child.  The best times are when we cook or bake together.  I don’t know which was more shocking to my own mother, the day I called to say I was pregnant or the day I called to ask for her bacon and egg tart recipe.  My mother is the best baker ever by the way and I think I may have inherited that gene (yay!).   He has a great sense of style and is just really starting to discover himself so taking him shopping is quite fun.  He also has a good eye for what will look good on me so he makes a great shopping companion.  When he is sick, which thankfully is very rare, I get to nurse him back to health.  At night we get to cuddle and read a story before I kiss him goodnight.  He looks forward to our bedtime ritual every night. I probably only have another 2 or so years of it before he tells me he is too old for it so I cherish every opportunity that we have.

#motherhood #african #groundedafrican #juniorchef #minichef #parenthood
My mini chef at work

The Teacher

Every day is an opportunity to teach him something new even if it’s a new word.  Fortunately, he is a curious soul like his mom so he enjoys learning and being challenged.  Experience is also part of learning so I have tried to incorporate new experiences in whenever I can and when money allows.  I remember reading in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, that one the differences between children from wealthier families compared to poorer kids is the way in which they spent their holidays.  He had noted that the average test scores of children regardless of background at the end of a school term were about the same.  However, when testing them again at the beginning of the next term, children from wealthier backgrounds tended to score higher.  He surmised that one of the reasons for this is that wealthier kids tended to have experiences that cemented the knowledge they gained in class over the holidays while poorer kids tended not too as they were more likely to spend their time playing with friends at home. I can’t afford to give him a whole horde of different experiences every holiday but I can take him to museums,  the aquarium, little road trips and the like to continuously bring to life what he learns and try and add to his knowledge and life experience.  It’s also a great way to spend sometime together outside of our normal day to day setting.

#groundedafrican #african #funinthe sun #funwithmum #horseriding #fancydress #motherhood #parenthood #parenting
Entertainment time

The Supporter

I am fortunate in that my son enjoys participating in various sporting activities.  Of course, it means my weekends get interrupted regularly but I don’t mind.  He is having the time of his life and not sitting on a couch all day mindlessly watching cartoons or something.

#parenting #parenthood #soccerfun #proudlysouthafrican #african #groundedafrican #motherhood
Soccer fanatic

 

The Psychologist/Confidante/Life Coach

For the first seven years of his life, it largely was just the two of us.  We did everything together and, because we didn’t live near any other kids for most of that time, I was his best friend.  Trust has been a very very important part of our relationship and I have had to work hard to ensure that he always feels safe enough to tell me about the things that bother him and the things that make him happy.  When he was younger and still battling to process and articulate his feelings, at the end of story time, we would share what made us happy/mad/sad/scared that day.  Through this and other exercises, I eventually figured out the sources of his tantrums and brought them to a halt. He has shared most of his little secrets with me although I think there are some that I think he has held back on.  As long as they didn’t appear to have anything to do with his safety or peace of mind, I have respected his need to hold onto them. Lastly, there’s the role of life coach. Guiding his choices on who to hang out with, what sports to play and how to handle conflicts with other children or his teachers (as is prone to happen as he is very outspoken), has been a learning experience for me too.
There so many other hats I have to wear disciplinarian, spiritual coach, mentor and more. Each one of these roles is no more important than the next and all are tied together beneath a cloak of endless unconditional love. All parents even if their children are of the animal variety rather than human can attest to this being the most fulfilling love one can give and receive in return.

We are officially half way to legal adulthood. I am sure that the road will still have lots of twists and turns. God-willing, I will get to watch him grow into a man. I am looking forward to the journey.

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Until next time…

The search for enlightenment

Hey there,

It’s been a while since I last wrote.   Apologies. I have been doing more reading than writing of late.  I think my curiosity just needed some feeding 🙂  It was feeling a bit starved and out of sorts.  Anyway, the other day I came across the following line in “A year of miracles” by Marianne Williamson…

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I was fascinated.  So much so that this statement has been rolling around in my head for days now.    I have also been engaged in an argument with a friend about what education really is.  It’s like the universe really wants me to give this some thought.  Who am I to say no.  So here goes…

According to the Oxford dictionary, “enlighten” means to “Give (someone) greater knowledge and understanding about a subject or situation”  and to “educate” means to  “Give intellectual, moral, and social instruction to (someone), typically at a school or university.”   Enlightenment is clearly a deeper state of learning than education.  Okay…

I guess for many, education is costly and feels unattainable.  It largely teaches you skills and to think critically.  Einstein said that “Education is not the learning of facts, but training the mind to think.”  Society places a high value on those qualifications that you attain through education so they are very aspirational for many.  The reality is though that you can walk out of university with tons of knowledge but very little wisdom.  I should know.  That definitely describes me on the day I walked out of tech with my food tech diploma in hand.  Once I got to start using some of my skills (I say some because I have never worked a day in my life as a Food Technologist) , and after many conversations with a few older and wiser people, I came to understand that there was more to life and I didn’t really have a clue.  I also realised that the successful and wise people knew things that I could only learn from talking to them or, reading books that they have written or,  watching interviews with them on YouTube or TV.  They don’t know it all but they definitely know more than me and they never stop learning.  Thankfully, they are also more than happy to share their knowledge and pearls of wisdom.

So wisdom clearly has that extra layer.  Wisdom is having the knowledge and knowing where, when and how to use your knowledge effectively to create a win-win situation for all involved.   You don’t need a university education to have wisdom.  In fact, you don’t need a university education to be successful. I’m not saying don’t get one, but there are many examples of true entrepreneurs who never bothered and are worth billions today.  The late Steve Jobs and Richard Branson come to mind.  It’s still not enlightenment though.  Enlightenment is on another level.

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Yesterday I happened upon a video of Oprah Winfrey being interviewed by Stanford students.  You can watch it here.  Light bulbs started flashing in my head…I felt like I had a better grasp of  what enlightenment is.  The video is long (aprox. an hour) but worth the watch.  Oprah, the late Maya Angelou and the Deepack Chopra are examples of people, who I believe, seek enlightenment.  They all have several traits in common:

  • They are authentic.
  • They practice gratitude.
  • They have used their life experiences to gain wisdom.  (They have definitely not walked through life with their blinkers on)
  • They believe in a Higher Power.  They listen to – and surrender to It.  They are fearless because of their faith.
  • They have learnt to let go of that which is not working for them and have learned to embrace what does,  even if it flies in the face of convention.
  • They are not attached to their filters of the world.
  • They often self-reflect in order to keep growing and learning.
  • Most importantly (to me at least), they have found their purpose and are constantly finding new ways to help others achieve the same.

I could go on and on but I am sure you get the point.  I suspect that ultimately, we are all working towards achieving a level of enlightenment in our own way.   The path does appear to be relatively linear i.e knowledge to wisdom to enlightenment, well at least for adults.  Children appear to be pretty enlightened already and then we cloak them with knowledge and filters that dims their little lights for a few years. 😦

All best of on your search for enlightenment.  I will leave you with one last quote that really resonated with me while researching this topic.

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If you are reading this is, it probably means you have made it to the end. 🙂  If you enjoyed it, please like and share. Oh and don’t forget to follow me if you would like to see more in the future. 

Thanks!

 

 

 

How I quit smoking

It’s February 23rd, 2013.  It’s about 1 pm.  I am standing outside and smoking what will prove to be my last cigarette.  I remember feeling a spot of fear in the pit of my stomach.  I had just finished reading “Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking” by, you guessed it, Allen Carr.😁 I thought back to a month before when I stood in Exclusive Books at the airport and contemplated whether I should give up or not. There were so many very good reasons why I should stop and yet I hesitated.  I loved smoking!  I bought the book anyway.

Nonetheless, here I stood, savouring my last cigarette as instructed by Allen Carr.  I would love to tell you that it was the book itself that made me quit, but, I realise now, that it was me. The book, however, did give me many reasons to really think about why I smoked, what would happen psychologically if I stopped and, how I survived life’s joys and stresses before I lit my first cigarette.

Not long after I got home on the Friday evening, I started reading it with the intention of quitting when I was done. By 1 pm that Saturday, I made the decision to stop for good. I smoked that last cigarette and have never looked back.  Let me not lie to you, the first 3 days were hard! In fact, on day 3 I felt like a junkie in a rehab centre for about an hour or two. I just lay on the couch and rocked back and forth.  It felt like I was going to die. My little munchkin was a trooper and just let me be. At the end of the day, nicotine is addictive and like all other addictions, there is a physical and psychological component to it. You must overcome both. The good news is that it is perfectly doable. It’s been 4 years, 6 months and 1 week since that day and I haven’t looked back. I will not lie, I miss the habit but not enough to light another cigarette.  I am done.

There are several reasons why I believe I was successful.

“Acceptance is the first step to commitment” Benjamin P. Hardy

1. I had accepted that smoking was bad for me and that I wanted to stop when I started reading the book.  Like other smokers, I had previously scoffed at the warnings of impending death and told myself that I would die anyway.  Watching my son grow though made me realise that I wanted to live to watch him become a man and hopefully enjoy a grandkid or two as well. I was also tired of smelling like an ashtray.

2. I approached the book and the process with an open mind. It helped me work through the how’s and why’s of my smoking habit and nicotine addiction. For me it was important that I separate out the two in my mind as they needed to each be acknowledged, understood and dealt with differently.

3. Once I understood the difference between the habit and the addiction and accepted it,  I was able to internalise what I call “mental hooks” to hold onto when my resolve wavered.

“Commitment is a prerequisite to making proactive and purposeful change” Benjamin P. Hardy

4. I was then ready to commit to quitting smoking which I did. Fully. The thing about addiction though is that you have to wake up every day and commit to not starting the habit again. Fortunately, just like learning to drive or riding a bicycle, you become “unconsciously competent” at it after a few weeks. Ultimately,  I was fully committed to the decision to change my behaviour and that made all the difference.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what method you use to effect change in a particular area in your life. What does matter is your level of commitment to it?  There’s a great article on Medium about this. You can read it here.

My next challenge is losing 30kg. I will keep you posted on my journey. This is going to be a much longer road but I am finally ready for it and I am committed to it.

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