Posts Tagged ‘mothers’

Mother’s Day and Mommy Links

May 9th, 2010

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there!

So, far this has been a great weekend. We took a little day trip with some friends yesterday and had a little picnic out at a nearby castle. It was so nice to get out of the city and have some time with great friends. Thaddeus loved the outing too and even took great naps yesterday! Yay!

Today is also off to a great start too. I was laughing to myself this morning as I thought about the things I wanted for Mother’s Day. It was all stuff that sounds sort of basic and trivial. And it was all stuff that I did pretty much every day before having kids and totally took for granted. Here’s my list of what I wanted for Mother’s Day (don’t laugh – or judge me… please).

  1. To take a shower and get dressed first thing in the morning.
    Honestly, I shower sporadically since having a baby, usually only a couple of times a week and almost never first thing in the morning. It’s just hard to find time – it’s hard to shower while Thad is napping because our bathroom is right next to where he sleeps and it will sometimes wake him up. Even if he doesn’t wake up his naps are often only 30 minutes which means that if I shower there’s no time to pick up, do the dishes, do the laundry, or anything else. So, often no shower. Thankfully, this is one mother’s day gift I’ve already gotten. Today I was showered and dressed before breakfast thanks to my sweet hubby taking the baby!
  2. To eat.
    Hehehe – I do normally eat, don’t worry. But, it’s hard to really sit down and have three full meals since having a baby. I usually can eat a distracted breakfast while watching Thad and I try to snack often throughout the day, but I usually don’t really eat a full meal until Thaddeus is in bed for the night. So, today I told Bryan I want to actually have a good breakfast, lunch and dinner… oh and desert too. So, the plan is Dutch Babies with Coconut syrup for breakfast, Pumpkin Curry Soup with Sourdough Crackers for lunch, a big salad with a variety of veggies and nuts and cheese and all kinds of goodness for dinner. And for dessert… homemade Cheesecake! Yummy!
  3. To get caught up on reading some books and blogs.
    I have so many great blogs in my google reader and so many interesting books I want to read and usually no undisturbed time to do either, or at least not very much of either. I’m looking forward to having a little bit of relaxed reading time today.
  4. To edit the pictures in my camera.
    I haven’t been taking as many pictures since having a child as I did before, but the few that I have taken have sat in my camera for weeks now without anything being done to them. I don’t have a lot of time without the baby when I can work on photography lately and I miss it so I’m also really looking forward to getting some of this done.

Well, that’s what I’m hoping for today. I’ll leave you with some Mommy Links to check out:

What do you want this Mother’s Day? What “Mommy Links” have you found interesting or helpful this week?

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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Mother’s Day

May 6th, 2010

This Sunday is Mother’s Day. It will be my first Mother’s Day with a Baby and I’ve really been looking forward to it.

Today as I was quickly flipping through a few blogs I found this video about Mother’s Day on Tall Skinny Kiwi. It really challenged me. I have been looking forward to Mother’s Day as a day to relax, maybe have my husband take the baby for a while, take a nice calming bath, etc. But, this video discusses the history of Mother’s Day being rooted in a Peace movement after the civil war. It mentions a Mother’s Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe. She wrote this just after the civil war to a nation still in desperate need of a deep peace. She called on all mothers, all women really, to “Arise then… women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts!” She asked them to “take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace… Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God – In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient and the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”

It got me thinking about how I might “promote the great and general interests of peace” this Mother’s Day? How can I promote peace within my own heart, within my marriage, within my family, and within my world at large? How can I, in my unique role as a mother and homemaker, join with other mothers to fight on behalf of peace?

Honestly, I don’t really have answers to these questions, but I’m thinking about them. I want to keep my eyes and ears open for ways I can further peace in my community and world. And I want to instill a heart of peace within my son.

From the beginning of my son’s young life I have prayed that he wouldn’t be a fighter, a warrior that just charges ahead at the front lines not thinking of the cost of battle. I have prayed instead that he would be a man of peace. I have prayed that he would be filled with compassion and that he would have a soft heart. I have prayed that when he fights he would do so prayerfully, wisely and intentionally. I have prayed that when he picks up his weapons it would be as a guard, fighting to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

How do you “promote the great and general interests of peace”?

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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God as Nurturing Mother

August 19th, 2009

IMG_5833

Truly Lord, you are a mother
for both they who are in labour
and they who are brought forth
are accepted by you.
- Anselm of Canterbury

But our true Mother Jesus, he alone bears us for joy and for endless life,
blessed may he be. So he carries us within him in love and travail
- Julian of Norwich

Today I stumbled upon these quotes that compare God to a mother and really liked them. This idea of God as mother is definitely something I didn’t grow up hearing much, but it has been something I have thought a lot about since getting pregnant.

One picture that has come to mind often throughout this pregnancy is the picture that just as my baby is growing in my womb I am growing in the womb of God. I am surrounded, held, nurtured, protected by the unseen womb of a loving mothering God.

I think I have often had a difficult time picturing God as loving and nurturing. It is much easier for me to think of God as holy and other, as mysterious and unknown, as strong and powerful, as jealous and just. My usual images and metaphors for God (and the one’s I hear most often) consist of the merciful, but all powerful judge; the forgiving father; and on occasion the tender lover. But, they are all and have all been male images, and even the loving images have a hard edge to them. But, nurturing mother? Well, that’s one image or metaphor for God that hasn’t been a part of my repertoire. But, I wonder if I am missing out on a holistic picture of God because I limit my images of him mostly to male-centered father figures.

The picture of God as a nurturing caring mother feels incredibly powerful for me, especially at this season in my life when I feel immensely vulnerable. There is something entirely soft, warm, and inviting about a mother. I think we all have seasons of our lives when we long to be mothered, we remember our mothers care and kisses when we scraped our knees and burnt our hands and as adults there is still at times that longing to run to our mom’s and have our aches and pains kissed and cared for. The idea that God wants be that for me seems so beautiful to me right now. The idea that God wants to nurture and protect me just as I long to nurture and protect my child feels like an epiphany for me and I pray that God would take me deeper into the truths of his mothering, creating, nurturing nature.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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State of the World’s Mother’s 2009

June 17th, 2009

The last few days I’ve been reading (semi-skimming) Save the Children’s State of the World’s Mothers 2009 Report. It’s a 62 page document comparing different countries in terms of care for Children and Mothers. It’s been a really interesting read so I thought I’d share just a few facts from the research that I found surprising and/or interesting:

-          “Four decades ago, America had the best high school graduation rate in the world, but by 2006 it had slipped to 18th out of 24 industrialized countries. As recently as 1995, the U.S. was still tied for first place in the proportion of young adults with a college degree, but by 2000 it had slipped to 9th and by 2006 to 14th. According to the latest OECD figures, the United States has one of the highest college dropout rates in the industrialized world – 53 percent of Americans who enter college do not finish. Only Italy has a higher college dropout rate (55 percent).”

-          “Worldwide, 75 million children fail to complete primary school, either because they drop out in the early grades or because they never got the change to attend school at all.”

-          “In the United States, nearly 2.5 million – or 68 percent – of all American fourth graders are not reading at grade level.”

-          New Mexico, Nevada, Mississippi, Arizona and Alabama are the five lowest-ranked states in the School Success Index. Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine are the highest scoring.

-          The Complete Mothers’ Index ranks countries based on a number of factors to determine “where mothers fare best and where they face the greatest hardships… The contrast between the top-ranked country, Sweden, and the lowest-ranked country, Niger, is striking. Skilled health personnel are present at virtually every birth in Sweden, while only 33 percent of births are attended in Niger. A typical Swedish woman has nearly 17 years of formal education and will live to be 83 years old, 65 percent are using some modern method of contraception, and only one in 185 will lose a child before his or her fifth birthday. At the opposite end of the spectrum, in Niger, a typical woman has little over 3 years of education and will live to be 56. Only 5 percent of women are using modern contraception, and 1 child in 6 dies before his or her fifth birthday. At this rate, every mother in Niger is likely to suffer the loss of a child.”

-          The United States ranked 27th on the Complete Mothers’ Index. “One of the key indicators used to calculate well-being for mothers is lifetime risk of maternal mortality. The United States’ rate for maternal mortality is 1 in 4,800 – one of the highest in the developed world. Thirty-five out of 43 countries performed better than the United States on this indicator, including all the Western, Northern and Southern European countries (save Estonia and Albania) as well as Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Hungary, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine. A woman in the United States is more than 5 times as likely as a woman in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece or Italy to die from pregnancy-related causes and her risk of maternal death is nearly 10-fold that of a woman in Ireland.”

There’s a lot more info in the report, but those were just a few little things that stood out to me.

These facts are sobering and personally make me wonder what can I and others like me do to change the living conditions of so many women and children around the world…?

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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