BELGIUM: Rino

BELGIUM: Rino

Rino_K10KWe have a cat. A lot of people have a cat. Ours is named Rino. As in rhinoceros, minus the “h” and the horn.

Looking back, I got him when he was still a little too small, so he definitely sees me as his cat-mom. He slept in the Big Bedroom during the first months of his life, with me stroking him upon every little yelp. When he wants to cuddle, he tucks his head in my armpit, as if he wants to get nursed. He’s the cuddliest cat I know. And the best frog catcher as well.

Rino is get-out-of-jail-free card. He radiates reassurance. Peace of mind. When I’m overwhelmed by motherhood, he can convince me to allow the children to come back downstairs after their time-out. He reminds me I prefer talking above time-outs.

When the kids are finally asleep, he crashes the couch with me. There’s nothing like the sound and feel of a purring cat to take the daily stress away. Did I mention he’s fat and orange? The perfect blanket. Matches most of my cloths too.

When our son is having a bad morning, he usually refuses to put on his cloths. He goes on strike on the couch, with his head beneath the cushions. We aren’t able to get through to him nor make eye contact. His sister will try, but she always manages to make things worse. Not her fault, and she earns her credits for trying the impossible.

And then Rino comes pawing in. Takes a few bites from his food and then goes straight for his ‘big brother’. The minute I tell my son who is coming for him, we see his face again. Eleven minutes, fifty three strokes and fourteen cuddles later, he will be dressed and heading for breakfast. The same goes for homework, violin practice and heart break: Rino will drag him through.

When our adopted daughter first met Rino, she nearly jumped to the ceiling. She only knew cats as thieves that should be chased from the orphanage’s kitchen, so she hissed and motioned to get him out, hiding behind my skirts. She didn’t develop a liking for stuffed animals either, with a brother sneaking up on her with those. He didn’t particularly like his new little sister those first months and couldn’t stop scaring her away, so we ended up hiding all the stuffed tigers and cats from them both.

Two years later, their bond has grown. They do continue teasing each other. They fight like little demons over who gets to open the curtains in the morning but an hour later in school the little one will call for her brother when she’s running from kissing boys. They always end up wanting to play with the exact same box of Legos that was untouched for weeks before, but just as frequently, they will team up against me, especially when candy is at stake. I was told that is universal proof they’ve developed a sibling bond.

The same goes for Rino. Our daughter considers him part of the family now. She demands we talk about him with first ànd last name, our family name, and she doesn’t believe it’s fair he’s not allowed to go to the zoo with us. He would love the big cats, you know. I’m glad Rino is visibly terrified inside moving vehicles so in the end our daughter’s more or less convinced he wouldn’t really like joining us.

A few weeks ago, my daughter asked how Rino came to our family. Did he come willing? Or was he taken from his mommy?  After we hesitantly told her it was the latter, she immediately went to find him and whispered in his ear, “You’re just like me!” Ever since, she considers him her little brother even more.

He has become her mirror, in a way. Whenever she’s fantasizing about what she would like to tell her birth mother, he’s a major part of her story. She would like to send her birth mother pictures and drawings of Rino, but not of herself. Pictures of Rino sleeping in the bird house, of Rino coming from the woods when he hears our car approaching, of Rino sleeping with his paws in the air and head to the side, like a wrongly assembled toy.  She wants to tell her all about him.

But most of all, she wants to tell her birth mother that we are such great and loving parents.

For Rino, of course.

Do you have pets that enrich your family? Do they help your children cope with life’s sharp edges? Feel free to share about their funny and serious contributions in your daily life!

This is an original post to World Moms Blog by K10K from The Penguin and The Panther.

The picture in this post is credited to the author.

Katinka

If you ask her about her daytime job, Katinka will tell you all about the challenge of studying the fate of radioactive substances in the deep subsurface. Her most demanding and rewarding job however is raising four kids together with five other parents, each with their own quirks, wishes and (dis)abilities. As parenting and especially co-parenting involves a lot of letting go, she finds herself singing the theme song to Frozen over and over again, even when the kids are not even there...

More Posts

GUEST POST: Unsolicited Parenting Advice in Belgium

GUEST POST: Unsolicited Parenting Advice in Belgium

Penguin&PantherSometimes I’m really weary of explaining. To grannies in the supermarket. To teenage girls at the playground. To fellow mums at school.

My daughter is clearly adopted, yes. She’s from Ethiopia, yes. She’s had a rough start, yes. She’s lost part of her eyesight, yes. And she’s got some countless more issues, yes.

But she’s still a four year old. And I’m her mother. I’m raising her my way. Just like I’m raising her big brother, who is blond and looks a bit too much like me.

The big difference between raising my daughter and raising my son, is that people seem to feel a kind of responsibility towards my girl. It feels like adopted children are in a way public.

I do understand how we stand out, in our not so worldly little town. We are getting used to the extra attention she brings with her, although I admit I have been thinking to teach her to growl when a stranger touches her hair and skin unasked.

We were prepared for all this. We knew we were going to feel like we have arrows flashing around our heads when taking her out. Now that she’s been with us for two years, we’ve all grown a thick skin, filled with humor. We have a series of catchy replies to go with all the ridiculous questions. The next one who dares to ask me what we feed her, will be answered ‘grass’, without even a blink.

But I still can’t really cope with all the unwanted ‘advice’ we get about raising her. When my son was little, I never ever had some stranger giving him candy or cookies. I never had to explain myself in the supermarket when I refused to let him take everything he wished for. And I certainly didn’t have to listen to people telling me how neglectful I was for letting him cry out a tantrum.

With my daughter, I do have those encounters. This one time in the supermarket, I was truly abashed. I had just taken away some nasty sugar bombs from my daughter’s hands and put them back, much against the little miss’s wishes. An elderly lady came over, took the candy and handed them over to my girl again. I was confused, believing she misunderstood. So I explained I didn’t want to buy that rubbish for her. At that moment she cursed me for being so horrible towards that poor little black girl that has been hungry all her life. She put the candy in my cart, ordered me to buy it, and took off while nodding her head.

At such encounters – yes, plural – I have the urge to scream.

For one thing. She’s NOT a poor little girl. She’s in most ways an ordinary four year old preschooler. She can throw the worst tantrums I ever witnessed, just because I can’t peel an apple while driving my car or because I can’t make the Easter bunny magically appear in August. The last one was about having only six colors of nail polish to choose from. Poor girl indeed.

But most importantly, I’M THE ONE raising that ‘poor little girl’. Of course we are aware of her issues, mostly the ones regarding attachment and anxieties. We try to give her everything she needs, truck loads of patience and care which unfortunately aren’t always replenished in time. But she doesn’t need everything she wants. Just like any other child doesn’t. Unless you plan to end up with a spoiled brat that demands a yellow sports car at age eighteen.

Spoiling her will not make right all the things she missed out in the first two years of her life. Maybe that sounds harsh and loveless, but I can assure you it isn’t meant that way. I cry with her when she mourns her lost heritage, when she is homesick. I’ve swallowed away rivers of tears all those times I had to explain her history to medical doctors and hospital professors.

But I can’t raise my daughter based on pity alone.

This is a first-time, guest contribution to World Moms Blog from our friend and mother of The Penguin and the Panther in Belgium, Katinka. Her Flemish blog is in transition over to an English-only blog. Stay posted to World Moms Blog for more from Katinka.

The photograph of the author’s daughter used in this post is credited to the author.

World Moms Blog

World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children. World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.

More Posts

SOCIAL GOOD: ONEMoms & Three Goats in Harlem

SOCIAL GOOD: ONEMoms & Three Goats in Harlem

Maya Haille & Marcus Samuelson host the launch of the Three Goats Foundation at Ginny's Supper Club in Harlem, NYC on April 7th, 2013.

Model Maya Haille & chef Marcus Samuelsson host the launch of the Three Goats Foundation at Ginny’s Supper Club in Harlem, NYC on April 7th, 2013.

Last autumn, the ONE Campaign, co-founded by Bono with the mission to eradicate extreme poverty, took a delegation to Ethiopia.  Included in the delegation was a fashion model, Maya Haille, whose family is from Ethiopia, and she is also married to the famed Ethiopian NYC chef, Marcus Samuelsson.

Maya’s journey to help the people of Ethiopia has been heartfelt.  When she and Marcus once delivered supplies to a village there, the people thanked them by giving them 3 goats.  What were NYC folk to do with 3 goats?

Maya said, “Although I can’t take the goats home, I can tell the story.”  So, on April , 2013, Maya and Marcus invited their friends, family and the public to Marcus’ restaurant, “Ginny’s Supper Club” in Harlem to launch their foundation, “Three Goats” to aid the people in their beloved Ethiopia.  I was in attendance at the fundraiser, which brought in over $80,000 to aid women!

I caught up with the amazing woman behind #ONEMoms community relations, Jeannine Harvey, and together with Maggy Keet from Three Many Cooks, we cabbed it to Harlem for the women of Ethiopia.  Maggy is no newcomer to social good — she had previously spent 9 months in Tanzania, where she helped build a maternal health unit for the ministry of health there.  Maggie’s group raised $100,000 for the building — incredible!

The Three Goats event was filled with gorgeous African music and dancing, Chef Marcus’ scrumptious food, including goat and his renowned Swedish meatballs. Yes, you read right — Marcus and his sister grew up in Sweden.  When in Ethiopia, their mother suffered from tuberculosis and had to travel far by foot with her children for her treatment. One day while on this route, she didn’t make it, and her children were later adopted to Swedish parents.

The event included amazing auction items, which guests paid hundreds and thousands of dollars for including, tickets for the Jimmy Fallon show, a high profile photography session, cosmetics, FashionABLE scarves and more.

FashionaABLE is an amazing company that we have mentioned before on World Moms Blog. We first learned of it from the #ONEMoms trip to Ethiopia.  Founded by Barrett Ward, who was also in attendance at the 3 Goats event, the company brings women off the streets from prostitution in Ethiopia and empowers them to design and make scarves and helps them find alternative outlets for sale. Examples of places that carry the scarves are FashionABLE’s own website, the ONE Campaign and Harabu House. They are one of my favorite gifts to give!< Left: Jennifer Burden of World Moms Blog with Maggy Keet of Three Many Cooks and Jeannine Harvey of ONE. Center: with model Maya Haille. Right: With Barrett and Rachel Ward of Live FashionABLE. April 7, 2013 at the launch of the Three Goats Foundation in Harlem, NYC. Left: Jennifer Burden of World Moms Blog with Maggy Keet of Three Many Cooks and Jeannine Harvey of ONE. Center: with model Maya Haille. Right: With Barrett and Rachel Ward of Live FashionABLE. April 7, 2013 at the launch of the Three Goats Foundation in Harlem, NYC.[/caption]

It was a great night out for a great cause, and I was thrilled to witness the launch of Three Goats to help women in Ethiopia.  I look forward to following the additional good to come from the new foundation!

Do you have a foundation that’s near and dear to your heart?  Come share it, here, in the comments! 

This is an original post to World Moms Blog, by founder, Jennifer Burden of New Jersey, USA. 

Photo credits to the author. 

Jennifer Burden

Jennifer Burden is the Founder and CEO of World Moms Network, an award winning website on global motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. World Moms Network writes from over 30 countries, has over 70 contributors and was listed by Forbes as one of the “Best 100 Websites for Women”, named a “must read” by The New York Times, and was recommended by The Times of India. She was also invited to Uganda to view UNICEF’s family health programs with Shot@Life and was previously named a “Global Influencer Fellow” and “Social Media Fellow” by the UN Foundation. Jennifer was invited to the White House twice, including as a nominated "Changemaker" for the State of the World Women Summit. She also participated in the One Campaign’s first AYA Summit on the topic of women and girl empowerment and organized and spoke on an international panel at the World Bank in Washington, DC on the importance of a universal education for all girls. Her writing has been featured by Baby Center, Huffington Post, ONE.org, the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life, and The Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists.” She is currently a candidate in Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in the Executive Masters of Public Affairs program, where she hopes to further her study of global policies affecting women and girls. Jennifer can be found on Twitter @JenniferBurden.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:
Twitter

MEET ANDI GITOW: Senior Television Producer for the United Nations

MEET ANDI GITOW: Senior Television Producer for the United Nations

As we continue to explore the world of women and moms across the globe, occasionally World Moms Blog will bring you exclusive interviews with people outside of our contributor base. These interviews will focus on people and organizations that are moving and shaking the world and in the process, are bringing greater awareness to women everywhere.

World Moms Blog Founder and Editor, Jennifer Burden, met Andi Gitow at the September Social Good Summit in New York City. Jen could tell Andi was someone that had a role worth sharing with World Moms. Below is a recap of a recent phone interview WMB Senior Editor, Kyla P’an, conducted with Andi :

WMB: World Moms Blog is a blog that focuses on motherhood around the globe, on social good, and on human rights. Can you tell us about an aspect of your work at the UN that overlaps one or any of these topics?

 Andi Gitow: My work and films largely focus on human rights and the causes and long lasting legacy of violence. This includes the use of rape and sexual crimes as a weapon of war. I have covered stories on human rights violations and conflict and healing in Bosnia, Liberia, and Darfur.  Other issues we have covered include maternal health and the risks mothers face in the developing world. I have found in my coverage that human rights and women’s’ rights regularly overlap.

  (more…)

Kyla P'an (Portugal)

Kyla was born in suburban Philadelphia but spent most of her time growing up in New England. She took her first big, solo-trip at age 14, when she traveled to visit a friend on a small Greek island. Since then, travels have included: three months on the European rails, three years studying and working in Japan, and nine months taking the slow route back from Japan to the US when she was done. In addition to her work as Managing Editor of World Moms Network, Kyla is a freelance writer, copy editor, recovering triathlete and occasional blogger. Until recently, she and her husband resided outside of Boston, Massachusetts, where they were raising two spunky kids, two frisky cats, a snail, a fish and a snake. They now live outside of Lisbon, Portugal with two spunky teens and three frisky cats. You can read more about Kyla’s outlook on the world and parenting on her personal blogs, Growing Muses And Muses Where We Go

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:
Twitter

Social Good: Following ONEMoms To Ethiopia!

Social Good: Following ONEMoms To Ethiopia!

 

We are in Ethiopia this week, virtually following along with the ONEMoms team as they traverse the country gathering material to share with the world.  “ONE.org is a non-partisan advocacy organization dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. Backed by more than 3 million members, ONE .org works with government leaders to support proven and cost efficient solutions to save lives and help build sustainable futures.”-ONE.org

Photo Credit: Rana DiOrio

World Moms Blog is excited recently to have become a community partner of ONEMoms and we’d like to bring you along as we  follow their trip of 12 ONE Moms traveling through Ethiopia from October 6th through October 13th.

The diverse group of ONEMoms includes a  Supermodel/Activist, a Book Publisher, a Pig Farmer, Mom Bloggers, Food Writers, a Lawyer, a Scientist and a designer.  Their goal is to meet up with Ethiopian women, agriculturalists and health care workers, and in doing so engage us in a global dialog on the important issues faced in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is a fascinating country, and the only country in Africa that was never colonized.  The Italian government’s long ago attempt to do so apparently left hints of Italian influence behind.  It is the most populous land locked country in the world, and home to over 80 languages.

(more…)

Elizabeth Atalay

Elizabeth Atalay is a Digital Media Producer, Managing Editor at World Moms Network, and a Social Media Manager. She was a 2015 United Nations Foundation Social Good Fellow, and traveled to Ethiopia as an International Reporting Project New Media Fellow to report on newborn health in 2014. On her personal blog, Documama.org, she uses digital media as a new medium for her background as a documentarian. After having worked on Feature Films and Television series for FOX, NBC, MGM, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and Castle Rock Pictures, she studied documentary filmmaking and anthropology earning a Masters degree in Media Studies from The New School in New York. Since becoming a Digital Media Producer she has worked on social media campaigns for non-profits such as Save The Children, WaterAid, ONE.org, UNICEF, United Nations Foundation, Edesia, World Pulse, American Heart Association, and The Gates Foundation. Her writing has also been featured on ONE.org, Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter.com, EnoughProject.org, GaviAlliance.org, and Worldmomsnetwork.com. Elizabeth has traveled to 70 countries around the world, most recently to Haiti with Artisan Business Network to visit artisans in partnership with Macy’s Heart of Haiti line, which provides sustainable income to Haitian artisans. Elizabeth lives in New England with her husband and four children.

More Posts