Mama Congo Turns One!

Mama Congo is One Year Old Today!

To celebrate, here's a walk down memory lane.

Sarah's Top 5: 

#1.  The day Mama Congo launched, I was juggling a bunch of teenagers in Kenya and trying to keep myself from leaking. And thus, my first post: Milk Share: UN Style.

#2.  I really love the image Jill describes here when she found Mama Vida and Mama YouYou raiding the star fruit tree. Role Mamas, indeed. You will never catch me up a tree, which is why I employ someone braver than I.

#3.  Ah yes. Remember that extended breastfeeding debate? It's fun to look back on this post and remember a time when nursing Ani was Mama approved. These days Mama YouYou shakes her head at Ani when she whines to nurse and says, "Tu n'as pas pas honte?!" or "Have you no shame?!" By Congolese standards she's now too old. And really, by this age she should be helping to fetch water and carrying small things on her head.

#4.  I really think these posts by Jill need to go viral. Since baby wearing is all the rage, why not follow this DIY and use just one simple piece of fabric. And, of course, I love the baby model. The photos are so great, one even made our Christmas card. Wear Your Baby: Part 1 and Part Deux: The Front Sling.

#5.  With over 1,000 views, this might be our most viewed and searched-for post. I'm re-posting it here in hopes that Woodward's will see it again and become an official Mama Congo sponsor. (Hey, they commented, which pretty much made our week.) Gripe Water or How We've Kept our Sanity.

Jill's Top 5:

#1.  Here's my first post.  Five months into our Congo tenure, I was still grappling with the fact that being "mama" wasn't so unique anymore.



#2.  Sarah's simple story of some bridesmaid dresses received a primetime-worthy twist when the Congolese military got involved:

#3.  This post got a lot of attention - and rightfully so.  It was the beginning of Mama Congo's adventures in Congolese childbirth:




#4.  I remember laughing until I cried while adding photos to Sarah's Whac-A-Mole post.  Best line ever:

That was some expert parenting you just witnessed. Did you see those moves about 7 hours in when these kids were seconds away from simultaneous meltdowns and we balanced 4 meal trays, 2 babies and 5 petit sachets of French cheese on our laps?"

#5.  And, for my last pick, I'm having a really hard time deciding between two radically different posts: Nude Pumps or How to Be Devastated.  I'm going to go with the depressing one, though.  Working on that piece felt like therapy and evolved into one of the best little essays I've ever written.  I'm wondering if I can somehow use it for grad school applications...  

So.  Happy Day, Mama Congo!  Hip Hip Hooray!

Long live the Pink Arrow.

Tweet

Flying with Toddlers: Whac-a-Mole with Wings

For some reason there's been a lot in the news lately about babies on planes. Remember these flying parents of newborn twins who famously handed out goodie bags to fellow passengers?

Please. Everyone (well everyone with children older than infancy) knows that little babies are a piece of cake on a plane. You feed them and they sleep. And if not, well their lungs are too small to make much noise. The roar of a jet engine easily drowns out any screaming newborn. Oh, and they can't yet walk.

Dear Goodie Bag Parents: It's easy now. In a few years you're going to need to pass out cash. Also, you had time to make goodie bags and type cute little notes? And I'm really jealous that your assigned seat number ahead of the flight matched the one you were actually given when you boarded. (In reality, flying with children is more like this: Wrestling 23 pounds of human and maintaining the alertness of a ninja for 12 hours).

Adam and I have entered the world of flying with a toddler and a 2-year-old. This can best be described as playing (read: suffering through) a 24-hour game of whac-a-mole. Except we're operating in a 1x1 foot space and the moles are a lot bigger. When we board the plane we have an entire arsenal of tricks. The first step is to threat assess the fellow passenger in our aisle. With one lap baby, our family of 4 only gets 3 seats. There's always one poor soul sitting in that 4th seat next to us. Do they seem like the kind of person who can be easily charmed by chubby baby cheeks? Are their clothes too nice for stray, sticky baby hands? Etc.

I congratulate this mom of a 6-month-old and 2-year-old for getting her $3.99 back from the TSA for her confiscated peanut butter. Like she said, you need your peanut butter in a baby-plane crisis. The exact thing has happened to us. I can still hear the thud of our peanut butter hitting the bottom of the TSA trash can. P.S. Since when is peanut butter a liquid?

Often after the plane lands, a grandmotherly type will fulfill her role as the veteran parent and tell us what a great job our kids did. We graciously accept the compliment on their behalf, but we're really thinking, "Are you serious? That was some expert parenting you just witnessed. Did you see those moves about 7 hours in when these kids were seconds away from simultaneous meltdowns and we balanced 4 meal trays, 2 babies and 5 petit sachets of French cheese on our laps?"

x4 plus 2 kids.

  by  Jota_BRAZIL 

Now, I am in full support of child free zones on airplanes. It's called flying First Class. Good luck keeping kids out of Economy. When I fly without kids, I quite like hearing crying babies. It reminds me that they're not mine and I can relax.

On our last flight, just as we all got settled in our seats, the flight attendant came to tell us she found our family another spot. She walked us up the steps to the second level of the cabin. I gave Adam a panicked look and said, "We can't sit upstairs, it's too quiet, we're too far away from the engines. People will kill us." We found our seats anyway then sized-up the woman in the 4th seat. We apologetically said hello and she said nothing. Adam whispered to me, "Great, she's a real barrel of laughs." It took a few minutes to realize they had geniusly seated us next to a deaf woman. That's right, the one person we could not possibly disturb with our noise. We breathed a sigh of relief and thanked Air France for their expertise, once again, in handling families with babies.

Tweet