Be Careful What You Answer To!

Parenthood and all it comes with can take a great toll on you. People say that it is especially worse on working parents but I daresay that even a stay-at-home mum/dad has it rough. Probably even worse! Imagine having to listen to a tiny baby day in and day out and then add the house chores that never seem to end. You are practically starved of adult company. You find yourself repeating songs, instructions and phrases throughout the day and when your little one drops for bedtime you feel like the world is finally at peace again.
As humans we are wired to communicate and it starts from birth. Babies will cry to let you know they are hungry, sleepy, wet, bored and anything else they might be feeling. It is of course your duty as the primary caregiver to distinguish one from the other. That leads you to hoping and praying that they start talking soonest.
Time flies and before you know it, your sweet little angel can say more than just "Mama" and "dada". You enjoy teaching them new words and listening to the baby-talk. A short while later sentences are beginning to flow and you like that you can finally listen to full sentences from your munchkin.
Then the questions start flowing. Mum what is this? What does it do? How? Why? Why not this other way? Why won't you buy me that? Who is that? What did they say? Why? You get the drift. Questions that don't end! My boy's questions usually stop when he's asleep because even when he's dressing up for bed or already tucked in and drowsy he'll probably ask what we're having for breakfast the next morning. I relax when he's hanging out with someone else because I know I'll take a break from the Q&A session.
Owing to my regular schedule of unfinished chores (Lord I need a help! Amen!), my work (I work from home) and the parenting, I regularly have my hands full. I sometimes find myself far off in a distant land (hihi!) just whiling the moments away. Sometimes it's a construction site as I plan for my future home (from my lips to your ears Lord) and sometimes it's a quiet island with nobody but me, a large floppy hat, a bikini, sunscreen, a large cold glass of fresh fruit juice (I gotta keep my voice intact even on holiday), the ocean and a great book! This can even happen when I'm doing the dishes or taking a break from the computer screen.  
Being unaware of your surroundings is okay if you're alone. When you have a preschooler like mine, it's a different story. He keeps talking to me throughout my 'moment' and if I don't respond he either pokes or shakes me until I do. Of course I'll get a little irritated and instead of snapping at him (I try to be nice to keep the communication lines open in preparation for teenagehood) I may scrunch up my face and just say, "yeah, okay, mmhmmm" or whichever comes to mind. For some reason it's always in the affirmative.
When I see him running away with a huge grin I know I just made a big mistake. I call him back and ask him what he just asked me and he goes like, "I asked if I could finish the cake and you said yes" or "I asked if I could skip taking a bath today and you said yes". There goes his appetite for supper and those bed sheets will have a rough night!
My son reasons like an adult so changing that answer requires that we have a discussion. We talk about it in detail and agree on an alternative time for that which he wanted to do (if applicable) and then go back to the right schedule with him crossing his arms and inflating his cheeks
. Lord knows this can be frustrating at times!
So among my resolutions this year was to actually listen to my son. Not just to keep myself from trouble but to build his confidence as well. So far, so good. How well do you listen to yours?

The True Meaning of Love

There is a very famous passage in the Bible that usually comes up when people are getting married or are trying to determine if they made the right choice of partner. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and part of verse 8. It goes like this in NIV (New International Version): Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

The first time I laid eyes on my son I thought ‘thank God it paid off!’ because the pain had been really excruciating. The nurses got scared at some point because I couldn’t sit or stand through any of the contractions so I was kneeling on the hospital bed which was rather high, come to think of it!

Once that phase passed and they had stitched me up and cleaned my boy is when I got to take a real look at my son. He looked like me! Honestly, he did. I compared our baby photos to confirm it, hihi! I was so excited at that fact and that’s probably because I’d chosen to be a single mum from the get-go. It would’ve been odd if I was raising a child alone and he looked nothing like me. I already had enough questions to answer you know!

I got to know him and the first night I woke up bleary-eyed. Did I even sleep? With time I learnt that babies have no perception of time. Or rather, their perception is reversed. My mum confirmed that to me when she said the same thing happened with all her children (no, I wasn’t that bad! Or I was and it was payback time) so I stopped fretting about it.

As the years went by (I can’t believe I can actually say that about my son right now!) I realized that I loved him more. I protected him fiercely and anyone who crossed his path was looking for trouble. Thankfully, my mum understood what I was feeling so she has stuck to the role of grandma throughout even when I had to leave my son with her for a while. I once gave my dad (and his dad in a different occurrence) a piece of my mind when he called my son names (or rather, didn't call him his actual name). You should have seen the look on my face and heard the tone in my voice! They both knew to back down.

Right now it’s very evident that we both love each other. Don’t get it wrong though. I didn’t know how to love like this. This little boy taught me how to love by loving me. I think children are born with that one instinct, to give love unconditionally and they never really stop unless something happens along the way to change that. Children know the real meaning of true love.  

Over the next few weeks I plan to break down that Bible passage to show you in detail how true this love is.

Manhood Redefined?

For the longest time men have been considered the stronger gender and they relished that with all they had. Women were constantly reminded of their place and were to be seen but not heard. They were taught their domestic duties wherever they went. There were even finishing schools to turn them into proper ladies! Imagine that! “My daughter just graduated and a proper lady she is!”, mothers would properly swoon.

That brought about women who were good at what they did behind the scenes and when they appeared in public they would still be able to fit right in. Men of course enjoyed this because there was no power struggle. The power was ‘rightfully‘theirs after all.

Someone somewhere got agitated about the fact that women were only ‘allowed’ to become homemakers and housewives yet there was so much more in them that they could take advantage of and achieve. Thus began female empowerment. The girl child was reminded constantly that she could do anything that a man could and even better. Girls started trying to push these limits and as evidenced by the many successful women in the world, they aced it.

So the girl child is now empowered (although there’s still a lot of work to be done on that in the rural areas) and she can go for whatever she wants without any fears (apart from the fear of failure). That can be marked as a success story right there but it has had its own repercussions. The boy child.

I’m so used to hearing ‘girl child’ such that even the phrase ‘boy child’ sounds a little off, don’t you think? We assumed that the boys had it under control and they eased themselves into the position of having and wielding the power without any opposition. They were probably told they should and not ‘they can’. Women were devising their war tactics in the meantime and the men get the shock of their lives when they run into opposition.

These guys were trained to lead physical wars and not this other kind of war that doesn’t even make sense to them. The war was loud and violent at first but became ‘quieter’ over the years. Were these men taught responsibility, love, confidence, how to be a man, how to be a gentleman, how to take care of themselves and those around them and all the social norms that people live by? I’m not sure but maybe they were the power so they didn’t need to. They dictated what was right or not.

Men didn’t change much of their mindset but women had made some very extraordinary steps. They looked at life differently, had the liberty to do what they wanted and went ahead to do it. Does this threaten the man? Maybe but he can’t show it. He’s a man.

#Mydressmychoice has been doing the rounds this week because a woman was stripped in public. That woman was actually wearing trousers but this is how someone said it actually went down.

It wasn’t her dressing but how she spoke to them that angered them. I agree that everyone needs to dress decently and be courteous to people. Another angle here is the men who got so offended that they stripped her. She dared them, yes, but they stripped her. They have the power so no woman is supposed to speak to any man like that, right?

Correct me if I’m wrong but these men had their egos punched. How is it that a slight jab at their confidence got them so riled up that they turned it into a sexist war? Here’s another example but this time not physical.

   

Something went wrong somewhere when we were empowering the girl child. The boy child was left to ‘fend’ for himself and ended up having the wrong idea of manhood, unless you agree that that is the definition of a real man.

It’s a New Experience Every Time

Parenting has taught me quite a lot. Honestly, I’ve learnt much more than I ever would have learned if I would have followed the plan I had for my life. You know, go to campus, get a good job and focus all my energies on my job and career growth. I’d already started with a job at a great organization at 18 but that’s a story for another day. That is not to say that it wasn’t a great plan. Maybe it just wasn’t time yet.

You may think that once you have your first child you will learn all you need to have learnt to last you through all the other children you might have afterwards. It’s only logical that raising one child will give you great experience considering it is a very intensive training, right? Unfortunately, nature has other plans.

Even from infancy every child is different. I’m not referring to the obvious physical differences but to personality and how they respond to situations. Some children are extroverts while others prefer to brood on their own.  Others love food while others wonder why they have to eat all the time. Others find diapers a nuisance while others love the comfort that comes with them.

I only have one child right now but every time I think of getting another one it scares me! I keep imagining the first few months of sleepless nights, the frustration of not knowing what the baby wants yet they are actively communicating and all the diaper changes. That last one doesn’t bother me as such. At least not any more anyway. It sort of grows on you!

Whenever I have to babysit for my sister I become this other person. I worry and fuss over her baby (barely over a year) and we bond quite well. Sometimes he follows me instead of his mum (but that’s probably because we look alike). I think I do an okay job of babysitting but there is a difference between babysitting and having your own. With babysitting I can ‘return to sender’ if it gets too much. I am the sender if the baby is mine so I have nobody to return it to! (Does God count when the baby is screaming their lungs out?)

That’s about the scariest thought in my head: doing it all over again, alone. Thankfully, that’s not something I have to worry about right now because I’m single and not really mingling in those circles so there’s no baby headed this way any time soon.

I do however hope and pray for grace, patience and strength when the time comes. I’m also praying for a reliable and understanding husband who will help me raise all the children (I don't know what the future holds) into good, God-fearing and responsible people. Yes, I do hope to get married even with most of the population wondering what marriage is for.

Parenthood by Grace

I’ve been a mother for 5 years now and it has been quite a ride! I started off very young and inexperienced, very inexperienced in fact. I didn’t know how to change nappies or diapers and my hands would tremble every time I tried to.

I grew up with my little sister barely two years apart and people actually used to think we were twins so I had no babysitting experience whatsoever. My baby’s cries drove me crazy at first and my first reaction was to just shove my boob into his mouth to get him to stop crying. It didn’t always work because he wasn’t always hungry. The troubleshooting by elimination was always hard work but it became easier to distinguish the cries with time. (Thank God!)

Crash course

My mum was around the first two weeks of my baby’s life and then she left and it was time to practice all the training I’d received during that two-week crash course. Boy was it hard! I was constantly tired (that hasn’t changed much) and my face said it all (that's changed a little, hehe!). School and motherhood definitely is crazy! Ask around and all the women doing it will tell you. I pulled through though for the time it lasted.

Through these 5 short years (trust me, it feels very short) I have been tested beyond my wildest expectations. I’ve learned to somehow handle blood (lots of it makes me gag and get goosebumps but my son has hurt himself a million times), my patience has improved, I’m more open to change and new things and I’m both a little scared and more confident all rolled into one. I laugh much more and small things make all the difference to me.

Was it really me?

Whenever I look at my son playing or look at people’s reactions when they are talking to my son I always get amazed at what I see. I see a brilliant little boy with so much life that I wonder how possible it is that I raised him. I know I was a wreck (my friends can tell you) and I couldn’t have done it by myself because he wouldn’t have been who he is right now.

Now I know that God has been there all along. He held my hand when all I wanted was to curl up and cry (sometimes die but more cry than die), He gave me a shoulder to lean on when I wanted to disappear from all the chaos and He chose me to help accomplish His purpose in this little boy’s life! If it wasn’t for your grace Lord I wouldn’t be here today.

That may sound cliché but it’s true. I wouldn’t be the mother that I have become and I wouldn’t be able to say all that I’m saying now. I wouldn’t have my son to make me smile a genuine happy smile every day and a little energy to clean up after him (make that a lot of energy).

I honestly have no regrets (apart from wasting time bashing myself for thinking that I was the worst mother ever) and I know that whatever comes my way, God is in control and He has equipped me to handle it fully.      

Reactions from the world

It was May and I was finally in campus! I'd gotten away from home and I could actually actively begin to enjoy being pregnant without any guilt at 6 months. Walk into class and I was the pregnant girl in a class that was full of 19 and 20 year old students.
They were shocked of course and I can't blame them. My lecturers were shocked at first but I noticed that they treated me differently. I dare say it was respect. They would congratulate me for my baby and it made me glow. That of course gave me more energy to concentrate in class.
Time flew past and the last three months were filled with books, fatigue and lots of cravings! In the background though there were those that didn't approve of my choice, or was it that they didn't approve of the mistake? Some women would stare in disbelief, disgust and sometimes even disappointment at my carrying the pregnancy all over the place.

It honestly felt bad especially because I knew I had made the right choice. I shared my thoughts with my mum and she reminded me to keep my head high at all times. "You made a great decision and no one should put you down for it", mummy said and that renewed my energy. She made a point of visiting me every month and walking around with me everywhere we went. That gave me even greater courage to continue with my journey.
My age-mates of course remained at arm's length because who wants to be associated with a pregnant girl in the first semester of university? I had a handful of friends around and these were the best. No judgement, pure fun, spiritual enrichment and doing my dishes and laundry when my back couldn't take it.
These friends helped me regain my confidence and pushed me ever so lightly back to the Lord that I just found myself seeking Him even more.
If ever you have a pregnant friend, be that kind of friend. Lift them up and massage their legs, pray for them, pray with them, cry with them and try to understand what it is they are going through. Don't forget to laugh with them!

Making the choice...my miracle

When I found out I was pregnant my mind went totally numb. My best friend had taken me for the test and when the results came back she reacted much worse than I did. I think the lab guy was wondering who's urine sample he had tested.
It sunk in later when we got home that this was actually true and I began my trip down guilt and shame lane. How could I have gotten pregnant? (Don't answer that). How was I going to tell my best friend's mum? (I was visiting with them at the time so there's no way I would leave without spilling the beans). How was I going to tell MY OWN mum? My father? Out of the question!
With my best friend's help we told her mum (though I think she did more talking than I did). After that it was time to go home and face Mama. I stayed home pondering what to do, all the time receiving encouragement and advice from my best friend and her mum.
They realized I was taking too long and dilly dallying so my best friend's mum offered to tell my mum for me. That jolted me a little and I decided to tell my mum. I went out and sent her an email. She read it after 2 weeks and she called me for 'coffee' that day.
Needless to say we had no coffee. We met and the torrent of abuse began. Thankfully my mum is not big on abusive words so they weren't so bad.
A week or two before that I'd gone to visit a doctor to ask about abortion and the discussion freaked me out. He was so calm and went like 'Why did you stay this long? It becomes harder to get rid of it as it grows you know' and that pissed me off. How could he be so uncaring and cold about such a sensitive issue?

Fast forward back to my mum. To get out of the whole 'drama' I told her I'd made an appointment with a doctor so it would be 'sorted'. Then after that I wondered what kind of person I was to want to kill someone innocent. I only fought once in Primary School (ok, my mum doesn't know that but it doesn't count anymore, right?) so I wasn't a violent person.
I prayed for courage that night and while making breakfast the next morning I told my mum that I wanted to keep the baby. Why? Because this baby was a part of me. If anything went wrong with an abortion I'm the one who would have to face the bleeding out or death or messing with my reproductive system. My first miracle with this baby happened that day. Mum said 'It'll be hard but I will help you get through it'.
I was due for campus in May and this happened in February or March so we agreed that I would go ahead with school.
I waited patiently for my next phase of life in campus.