KidWalk

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LatteMama is the mother of biter

I’ve heard stories of biters, children that pinch and scratch. I’ve only heard the story from the “victims” side. A mum who is upset by the negligence of a nursery, a father who grabs the arm of his child’s perpetrator at the playground and a grandmother who tells horror stories of siblings quarreling with cousins. I never thought I’d be a mother to one of those terrorists. Instead I somehow thought by raising an only child, I’d be able to keep him unaware of the meaning of violence, or realize his ability to hurt another child. I was wrong. The first time I ever saw him subjected to violence was when we were visiting family in Sweden. His cousins were constantly physically abusing him. At this point he was the victim, and I was the understanding mother who knew that “survival of the fittest” was what his yet to speak cousins had learnt from having siblings.

It was a different story the second time we visited. Instead he was scratching, he was attacking and he was putting terrified children in corners. I was clueless as to why this had started. He hasn’t witnessed violence when he’s with me, he wasn’t in nursery so he couldn’t have been subjected to it there and he doesn’t watch television: so why does he feel the need to clinch his teeth, approach a child with his arm in front of him and strike. I stopped thinking it had anything to do with violence when I was the one who started waking up with bruises and scratch marks on my arms. I interpreted it as his way of showing emotions, showing that he wanted to cuddle, but just didn’t seem to know how. Unfortunately he made the same gesture when he wanted to play with children. We were in a 1 o’clock club once as I heard screaming from a boy, I ran over hoping and praying to myself, not that it wasn’t my son screaming but that he wasn’t the one who had caused the pain. My praires were unanswered, I was left mortified and the other boy was left with a scar showing underneath his tears. Thankfully the childminder of the boy was understanding, she made sure that I understood that children do these things, they don’t mean it, but sometimes they do it.

This isn’t a post with a conclusion, it’s one asking for help, advice and reassurance. It’s a post hoping that mothers out there understand they haven’t done anything wrong, and that they are not the only ones. I’m also hoping that mums of children coming home with scratches are understanding. That’s an advice I can’t follow myself, because I’m the mother of a biter.

Monday Mama #3

This weeks Monday mama is the wonderful Zeinab who is a hard working mum to three children under 7. Zeinab e-mailed us and wanted to tell us her story. Unlike the entrepeneurs, and bloggers we’ve featured on LatteMama Zeinab is a 8-5 working mum, balancing a relationship, a job and three children. Read the story about this weeks LatteMama Zeinab!

Name: Name Zeinab Jasim

Location: Helsingborg , Sweden

A little bit about myself:

I grew up in a small town in Sweden, I was always an academic person and have studies everything from programming, mathematics, German, Arabic, Swedish and I finished it all off with doing a teaching program. I now work for a large company where I get to deal with my own customers who are all based german speaking countries, and have three children ages 6, 3 and 1.

My son has about 57 nicknames. We never ever call him by his real name. All our nicknames are for children are in Arabic, and that’s just too complicated to explain J

One thing I know I shouldn’t let my children do but allow it anyways:

I let them eat, all the time, and what they want. I keep sweets and cakes for Saturdays (like the good LatteMama I am) but there’s a slot of snacking on fruits and ricecakes inbetween meals!

The things I'm happy my children inherited from me:

Everyone says my oldest dauther is the spitting image of me. I love her to death, but it’s scary to know that her moodswings all all from me.

What makes me a LatteMama:

In Sweden every mum who can care about her looks, and go out for a coffee when the baby is just three weeks old is a lattemama. For me it’s a mum who doesn’t loose herself but rather is empowered by motherhood – and that’s what I am.

If I could choose one piece for each one of my children it would be…

Travel Fun

Spilled and Caught

"NO NO NO, You cannot throw that there, throw it in the pushchair but NOT on the bus!"

a 5 year old girl on the bus to her mum who wanted to throw a candy wrap under her seat

Monday Mama #1

Let us introduce you to a fellow LatteMama. Meet Dani the blogger behind the blog A Lime Less Ordinary. Kent-based Dani, also known as Nev for all you online friends and admirers, caught our attention by chronicling her daughters childhood in the sweetest yet most stylish way.

Nev Describes herself in less than 110 words:

“I am a soon to be 30 year old Stay-At-Home Mama to the ridiculously funny and cute (I would say that, wouldn't I ;) ) Matilda Lime who is 14 months old, loud and - according to other mums - always quite fashionable. I am originally from Germany but moved to London in 2006. I met my husband Steve (who also blogs over at Blog7t and papa7t ) in a shady pub in Camden/London in 2004 and we've been together ever since. (For how it all started click here ). We always wanted children albeit the jury is still out on the number”

Nev can tick of the following ones off our LatteMama definitions:

1. a Yummy Mummy/ 2. a stay at home mum/ 6. a happily married mum/ 7. a mum with a baby daddy/ 10. a mother to a fashionable child

Nev considers herself a LatteMama, and she’s got it right. She is interested infashion, culture, photography, food, health, the simple life, nature and lotsmore. Relaxing with a hot mug of tea and a muffin and a book or my laptop in thelocal coffee shops is the idea of heaven for any LatteMama, but we all know asdoes Nev that it’s not easy with inquisitive LatteBabies to live the LatteMama life. Our Monday Mama isn’t new to blogging, it began with a blog over at Tumbl called My small skinny, green wedding but that was soon abandoned and aftergetting pregnant she thought to herself “Well, if ever there was a subject Icould write about, surely it's this”. Her current blog was still not born asthe blog she progressed to was called The Adventures of Lime. After gettingbored of that, she finally arrived at what we now know as A Lime Less Ordinary.

The nickname Lime for the little one came after reading various pregnancy andparenting magazines during the pregnancy with Lime, the stages and sizes of thebabies tend to be compared to fruits. At the first scan of this pregnancy, thebaby’s size was that of a lime. As some mums are excited about their, bump beanor peanut, Nev was looking forward to her Lime, which also became the Mathilda’smiddle name.

The styleof Nev’s blog is a big reason to why we fell in love with A Lime less ordinary

“The layout and look of my blog seems to be forever changing but Ilike it to match the seasons and Lime growing up. I am unsure whether readersfind that annoying or not. The growing number of them seems to suggest theylike it which is just great because I like change..good change."

Nev's way of connecting with other bloggers, and more importantly parents on A Lime Less ordinary.

“Oh, I love a good photo post so you'll find the Wordless Wednesday, Small Style, ThisMoment and the newest Something Pinteresting on our pages. The great thingabout these is they keep your blog going while you maybe write on a bigger postor are stuck with writer's block (like me, most of the time). They also linkyou up with all these amazing mum and dad bloggers all over the world so I can really recommend finding one that suits you (or come up with your own ) and get linked up”

Her futureplans?

In thefuture I hope to write more posts but it is hard to find the time. I'd love tocover topics like our Breastfeeding journey, Lime's birth (can you believe it,14 months on and I still haven't written her Birth Story), Parenting in generaland more about what I like.”

When we asked New what the she let’s Lime get away with, she says it’s playing with her phone. Simultaneously she gives a splendid advice as she now has given thelittle one her old phone without a sim-card. One thing we’re curious to findout from every LatteMama is What do you think your LatteBaby has inherited fromyou that makes you proud? Instead Nev mentions Lime’s social skills which seemsto neither come from mama or papa as they both prefer to stay at home

Instead of asking Nev what her favorite quote is, we’d like to bring you our favoritequote from her instead:

"I am saddened that so many babies and children are being denied a colorful childhood simply by not ever wearing anything otherthan blue (boys) and pink (girls), as well as playing with the 'appropriate'toys.. My little Motto is: Life's too short to wear only blue or pink. Limeshould never feel looked down upon or overlooked because she is not aboy."

As everyLatteMama will know, motherhood can truly change your style and confidence, and Nev agrees as she now feels more confidant about herself and simply doesn’t care what other people might thing.

We leave you with what advice Nev has to mothers, and new mums especially. This issomething we’ll be remembering and hopefully taking aboard a lot more.

“Forget about schedules and routines. To allow yourself to be taken on this amazing journeyby your baby. Let her or him lead you. Follow their cues. Yes, we still hadsleepless or disrupted nights but overall I wasn't even half asstressed and knackered as people predicted. Bringing up your child should be aworld of wonder, happiness and love not a battle of wills. Babies first andonly WANT and NEED is your love and warmth, nothing else. The time they're THISsmall and depended is so very short, don't waste it. Oh and the mantra: This too shall pass”

If Nev could choose anything

from LatteMama for her

Lime it would be these

Roley Poley trousers from

No Added sugar

Internet burnt down the village

A word which reaccured during my pregnancy was: support. It was the deadly final strike to the most occuring question thrown at me during my pregnancy and early months of motherhood; Do you have any support?! I initially didn't know how to reply, until I once again had in got a new midwife during my 32nd week of pregnancy, she and smiled as my frustration because of this question had accumulated, and I had decided to ask for a definition. I said: Support is a funny word isn't it? What do you people mean by it? It didn't take long until the lingo of motherhood was assimilated into my vocabulary, and soon after, the words used by single mothers followed, and now I am certified in the speech of blogging single mom. I am still not sure what is meant when people used the word support. It's often said that it takes a village to raise a child. In this modern world of ours, and in a city like London you can consider yourself very lucky if a nan, a granddad, an uncle or an auntie, -fake or real, is in your vicinity. The village is gone, and is now replaced by the community. An online community in most cases. Google went from online search engine to the hypokondriaks wet dream, forums have gone from being discussion boards to the modern day village.
My situation has changed since I moved back, we are now three women and two boys in the house. In only 24 hours, I'd nurse him, my mother feeds him solids, changes his nappy, gives him his baths, changes his clothes, takes him out on walks, my sister gives him cuddles, plays peek-a-boo and my younger brothers are there for the get down-on-your knees playing which an infant needs but I'm too lazy to do. I realsie this sounds more like a I bought one book which was a timeline of your child first year, not because I had to but because I am old school . truth be told, everything I needed to know was one click away, and if I ever needed to speak to anyone, there were 5 different social netwroks I could log into. I've been through, interviews, online articles, published articles, surveys, forums, communities, blogs and more and its not unitl now that I realise why I did. It wasn'tbecause I was curious, or paranoid or intrigued by the stages of nappy rashes; it was because I had no support. I needed someone who didn't look at me and say; I can't believe your mom - But, instead said, all babies do that. I am back in my mothers house, Its not London, its a small town, where nans and granpapas are not a privilege but a requirement to survive motherhood. I still read blogs, and I still write one in hope that someone will find it useful, but my community won't be raising my child for me now, I have my village.