About babies and grandmas

Becoming a grandmother is wonderful.  One moment you’re just a mother.
The next you are all-wise and prehistoric.

Pam Brown

Yes, the news of my little granddaughter’s birth in December 2009 was wonderful and suddenly, i realized that being a Nana is an honour and not only  a title but an amazing opportunity to have and to hold!

The role of Nana is a totally brand-new phase in a woman’s life and it takes time to adjust to the elevated position, it means that one must grow in that part and finally, it means that you love the little thing so much that you heart could burst with the love and loving!

I get a new picture of Liana most days into my mobile phone, and when i phone my daughter who lives a hundred miles or so from where i live, Liana wants to join in on the conversation when her mother puts the phone on a loudspeaker. There will be heard most delightful sounds of cooing and joyful babble of a baby, who by all the signs pointing, will be as quiet as her Nana… :)) hehe

It’s such a grand thing to be a mother of a mother – that’s why the world calls her grandmother.

Author Unknown

Crossing a Bridge …

In any relationship, the essence of trust is not
in its bind, but in its bond.

I like this very much…
Keep so grand. Rii :))

Photo: Rii – taken in Powerscourt, Ireland.

Mum You Are …

MUM YOU ARE...

Someone who cares
when others care less,

Someone who encourages
when others ridicule,

Someone who defends
when others condemn,

Someone with patience
when others are impatient,

Someone who appreciates
when others fail to notice,

Someone who gives security
in a world of insecurity,

You are a friend
for all time,
to cherish
and
protect,
and your achievements
will linger
for generations.

I LOVE YOU.

© All Photos: Riihele. All rights reserved.

These very moving and so poignant words are taken from a card Becki gave me one year for the Mothers Day in Ireland. I have kept it in my wallet ever since through all these years, through all the countries and places it has travelled with me. Heli gave me a most beautifully worded handwritten letter and a note which have also been doing the same ‘travelling’.

It is one of the greatest privileges in life to be a mum.

NOTICE THIS: that in the wide world there is a mother dying every few seconds – the Unicef article of 2003 states that 1400 mothers die every day because of the complications of the pregnancy and the birth. Here is what the UNICEF says about it all. It is nigh impossible to fathom for us in the west and in the parts of the world where the antenatal and the postnatal care are taken for granted.

That to me is the Pandemic Catastrophe of giant proportions and not the other things at the moment that are marketed for us as such worldwide.

I do feel very strongly for these mothers who die each day, for these babies and other children of these mothers who are left orphans for it was most, most difficult and dangerous for me to have children. Each time I faced the more than the likelihood of a miscarriage during the entire nine months. There was no certainty at all – will there or will there not to be a baby at the end of the pregnancy. It was nerve-racking to the hilt! Then the births – they were the riskiest of all, every time, I and the babies were at each birth face to face with death for both of us.

So, for the mothers – all the mothers in the world –

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Tis for now. Riihele xx.

Tomorrow will be my Mothers Day Take 2 for in Ireland it was already celebrated in March and tomorrow it is the Finnish one. Double the prezzies and double the blessings of being an international mum!

DUSTIN The Turkey …

Ireland has won the Eurovision Song Contest so many times that it got too much for the tiny nation to cough up the dosh to make a posh do aka to arrange the competition year in, year out, so that the representatives selected on the same from the Emerald Isle have not done well at all for years and years.

But this year there is a very amusing entry, for the Irish voters picked the children’s hand puppet as the best of six finalists in a decision that is likely to ruffle some feathers – LOL!! — at the event in May. The entertainer’s song Irelande Douze Points emerged as a clear favourite in the weeks leading up to the country’s vote.

Dustin has been one of Ireland’s leading stars since he joined The Den with fellow puppets Zig and Zag in the 1990. He is no stranger to being in the limelight, having recorded six albums and performed a host of comical duets with artists such as Bob Geldof, Chris De Burgh, Ronnie Drew, Dervla Kirwan and the late Joe Dolan.

Dustin was plucked – HaHa!! very apt word as we are talking about a turkey — from six finalists to win a televised poll programme in the Republic of Ireland on Saturday night. And such is the contest’s reputation for successful novelty acts that bookmakers have made him 10-1 favourite to win in Belgrade in May. His song is entitled Irelande Douze Pointe, a reference to the maximum of 12 points which each country can award to a song.  Dustin’s song, sung in a North Dublin accent, urges the contest judges to “give douze points to Ireland, for its lowlands and its highlands, for Wogan’s wig and Bono’s leather pants. We brought you Guinness and Westlife, 800-years of war and strife, but we all apologise for Riverdance.”

The Eurovision Song Contest, now in its 53rd year, is known for its glitzy but tacky costumes, bizarre songs and outrageous performances. An estimated 100 million people from 42 countries watched last year’s gala, which took place in Helsinki.

The background of this turkey vulture loved by many is according to the Wikipedia that “Dustin was introduced as a character when one of the puppets, Zag, who was trying to join the upper classes, entered a golf tournament with Tony Fenton the 2fm DJ and came last. The prize was a Christmas Turkey, and a chance to meet movie star Dustin Hoffman.

It transpired however, that the turkey shared the name of the movie star and was not only still alive, but had a Dublin accent and his own building company. Zig and Zag intended to eat Dustin for Christmas dinner, and only changed their minds when a frequent visitor to the show, artist and children’s novelist Don Conroy, provided his taxonomical opinion that Dustin was, in fact a cross between a turkey and a vulture, and therefore unsuitable for human or Zogling consumption (Zig and Zag are aliens from the planet Zog). He makes appearances outside of The Den, including an annual appearance on The Late Late Show Toy Show special at Christmas each year.”

See for yourselves his remarkable talent in this video:.

Tis for now, Rii xx

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/24/neurovision124.xml

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=518091&in_page_id=1811

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dustin_the_Turkey

 

RAZOR SHARP: FISH

I read in a newspaper here in Finland the other week and found a good few very interesting articles, one of them being this:

School children in Sweden were asked to name the most common fish they knew.

Guess what the answer was for the most of the children?!

FISH FINGERS … !!

Yes, that is right, ’em ones in this link.

Oh vey, the edumacation in Sweden has a loooong way to go.

This is not a joke, but absolutely true. Tried to find the links but no luck online for ye to see it with yer own eyes like. lol

Which ones could you name off-hand?

Tis for now, Rii :))

I had great fun here in the MY FREE COLOURING PAGES where I found the picture of the fish to colour-it-in aka of a real thing to refresh the memory of how they look like!

NOTE:

I did find this very amusing, for Sweden is a vast country with huge rivers, large lakes and the sea shore lining it nearly entirely and to children to say this is just too hilarious, methinks. Very particular and so proud they were of the wonderful fish they have/had. I am puzzled as to reasons for these answers, you see.

They are or at least were big into eating fish of all kinds when i lived there for six years!

Or it could be that the mums have stopped cooking the real thing and are only doing fish fingers as a fish dish that is supposedly good for one…

NOTHING beats the real fish like Salmon, Trout and the like in me mind. In Ireland the most common fish one eats is Cod, Plaice, Hake, Haddock et al. Finland’s huge rivers have most fabulous fish.

Keep so well and keep eating fish — tis good for ye. Fish is my preferred meal while eating out or doing a meal at home as well, more so than meat of any kind.

Favourite Fairy Tales: The Little Match Girl

“The Little Match Girl” Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne) is a Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a young girl who dies selling matches during the cold winter. It was first published in 1848 as part of his fifth volume of Nye Eventyr (New Fairy Tales) as “Den Lille Pige Med Svovlstikkerne” (“The Little Girl with the Sulfursticks”).

It was night on New Year’s Eve, and a poor, little match girl was out on the streets selling matches. Although she was cold and hungry, with neither hat nor shoes, she was afraid to go home as her father would surely beat her when he found out she did not sell any matches that day.
In a nook between two buildings, she wanted to warm herself by lighting matches. In the light of the first match she saw a hot iron stove, but the fire was soon blown out by the howling wind. She lit a second match and saw a fully laden dinner table with delicious foods. (Wikipedia)

The Little Match Girl by H.C. Andersen (1805-1875)

This story is my most favourite fairy tale of all time and it moves me to tears to read this sad story with such a sad ending. The tale makes me think with empathy and compassion on people less fortunate than we are these days and it makes me help them actively. Here is the rest of the story in this link. Wikipedia article on the fairy tale is this:

“The Little Match Girl” Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne) is a Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a young girl who dies selling matches during the cold winter. It was first published in 1848 as part of his fifth volume of Nye Eventyr (New Fairy Tales) as “Den Lille Pige Med Svovlstikkerne” (“The Little Girl with the Sulfursticks”). It was night on New Year’s Eve, and a poor, little match girl was out on the streets selling matches.

Although she was cold and hungry, with neither hat nor shoes, she was afraid to go home as her father would surely beat her when he found out she did not sell any matches that day. In a nook between two buildings, she wanted to warm herself by lighting matches. In the light of the first match she saw a hot iron stove, but the fire was soon blown out by the howling wind. She lit a second match and saw a fully laden dinner table with delicious foods.  (Wikipedia)

And here is a You Tube silent black & white movie on this book:

What is Your Favourite Fairy Tale?

        Tis for now, Rii xx 

Incidents & Such Like: NUTS

Incident time again as I am reminded of these incidents that have happened to me or around me and of which I do have a vast collection.

The flights to Helsinki from Dublin used be an all-day affair because at that time there were no direct flights so we either went from Dublin via London or Amsterdam on the first plane. Then we had to take another flight to Copenhagen and/or Stockholm* and yet another as in a third/fourth flight on to Helsinki. Also, many a time we would take a fourth/fifth flight straight away to Oulu which is a town in Northern Finland as well.

So it was very handy to see half the Europe in one foul swoop! Then on the way back the same procedure. It required huge amounts of stamina and a happy disposition to be able to stick all these flights and the delays and whatnot.

This incident happened at the Copenhagen airport – so it was our 4th flight to board that day one after the other. The girls and I were waiting at the gate for our flight from Copenhagen to Dublin when I was sitting a bit further away from the girls as there were no free seats near them being totally engrossed in my own thoughts – wrecked so I was
– when Heli suddenly says to me:

“Look Mum, we got Bon-Bons** with nuts from this nice girl!”

“That’s great as you are so nutty yourselves,” says I.

“Oh, don’t say that Mum or I will crack up! ” – says Heli, six-years-old at the time.

It took just a second or two ’til Becki, Heli and I realized the joke in what had been said and we were having a very merry moment laughing when the girl who gave the sweets suddenly bursts into her own merriment when it went ‘Eureka!’ for her, too!

Never a dull moment in me life. Tis for now. Riihele xx.

* A lot of the times we did: Dublin-London-Copenhagen-Stockholm-Helsinki, that is: four flights in one go. Then the same thing vice versa back home to Ireland.

** Bon-Bon is a candy that often has a center of fondant, fruit, or nuts and is coated with chocolate or fondant. (The Free Dictionary)
Picture is off the net.

PS.
The girls used to thrive travelling – still do – and thought that it was so cool to get all these toys and games that the airlines gave to the youngsters to keep them occupied during the flights. You can see by the sheer number of the flights just how many they would get – a set of games & toys per each flight multiplied by the times we boarded a plane! Bagfuls of them; so much so that they would donate to their friends and cousins on either end.

CHILD MATTERS or Slavery in Modern Times

“Twice a year in Carrickmacross and surrounding towns a fair was held where men and girls rented their labour to well-to-do farmers for six months. It was Ireland’s version of the slave market.”
(Patrick Kavanagh ‘The Hired Boy’)

As you know by my blogs, that I do have varied interests in life and the living all the way from fashion, humour, blondes & photos, even frogs et funerals to anything in-between to the more serious matters of current affairs, politics and policies, so here is a more serious one on this Children’s Day in Finland. This is an updated entry of autumn 2006.

A Few Facts on the Child Labour/Slavery:

• Child labour is a pervasive problem throughout the world, especially in developing countries. Africa and Asia together account for over 90 percent of total child employment. (World Bank Org.)

• Children work the longest hours and are the worst paid of all labourers (The International Labour Office ILO in the World Bank Study Bequele and Boyden 1988).

• Just 5 per cent of child labour worldwide is for the export industry. The rest is for local agriculture and domestic work in people’s homes. (The International Labour Organisation estimate)

• One in eight children (179 million) around the world are involved in the worst forms of child labour – work which is hazardous to their physical, mental or moral well being. (The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimate. BBC article(old) estimate 246 million (from years ago).
  

• In Africa one in three children have jobs.

• There are an estimated 500,000 child soldiers worldwide.

CHILD LABOR: ISSUES, CAUSES AND INTERVENTION (World Bank Org.)

I did some research into the matter, so I decided to compile a few thoughts and facts on the same. First of all, it is not a new phenomenon but has been since time immemorial in almost every country in the world. We in the Western Europe do not have it blatantly into our face presently, but nevertheless it is there, as more and more of these children are smuggled into our towns and even into our neighbourhoods.

Secondly, as we see from the Facts above that I listed: only 5 per cent of the child labour is involved with the export business in the countries, the rest being in the domestic trades in their respective nations. This piece of news is most certainly ‘news’ to me for I have thought that the children would have been the main slave labour for producing export goods.

Anybody who has read/seen the films about the Dickens’ books like ‘Oliver Twist’ is acutely aware that the west has had their share of the children being treated as ‘nothing, nobody’ until the compulsory education, the child allowance and the general benevolence towards children became more of the norm. I am using that expression because as we know the child abuse is still rather widespread – but just in another way. The opening quote on this entry by Patrick Kavanagh was true to many other nations’ children in the times past, including Finland.
Even more facts:

1. The International Labour Organization in 2005 estimated at least 2.4 million people have been trafficked.
2. The United Nations estimates that 1.5 million children under 16 are trafficked worldwide each year. (Daily Telegraph article online 4.6.2006)

UNICEF CHILD LABOUR QUIZZ in this link.

Fired Up Blonde, Riihele xx

The solution to this problem lies in my mind:

1.)

With the LEADERS of these nations who have the power to change the circumstances of these children through the legislation via education to empower them. Also, the children’s allowance et cetera to make it worthwhile, so that the parents need not ‘sell’ or be forced to ‘hand over’ their children to this slavery. (It is the relatives in many cases who are forced to hand in the children as pawns for life because of debts accumulated.)
There is no excuse to say that there are no funds; I will not buy into that as other nations have done it with the means that they had at the time e.g. Finland from 1948 started to pay children’s allowance even though it was only three years after the wars while at the same time still paying both to Russia (reparation) and USA (loan) huge amounts of money and after losing tens of thousands of men in their best working age at the WWII.
2.)

The International Community at large through e.g. organizations* to implement pressure on the leadership in these nations to stop treating their young worse than cattle and give them life as a human beings fully participating in their own life and living.
( aka *ILO, World Bank, UNICEF et cetera)

I have already quoted articles by The World Bank, ILO – The International Labor Organisation et cetera – meaning: they know the problem and it is the high time to do something about it all instead just compiling more figures of the same!!

There are other things as the international business and manufacturing industry that many mentioned in the comments previously: yes shame and name them.

This will solve the other 5 per cent of the actual problem.

NOTICE:
Only 5 per cent of the children are made to work in the export trade. That means that the 95 per cent are not. (These figures by ILO = The International Labour Organisation).

Child Matters pun in the name is this that a CHILD DOES MATTER; and also ‘matters’ as in subjects, issues, items, topics, questions and things concerning children.

ROTUNDA Hospital & Becoming Mother

Although there are many trial marriages… there is no such thing as a trial child. (Gail Sheehy)

Giving birth is compared to running a full marathon. Maybe, as I have never heard this before by anybody, but could it not be said that, the baby who is trying to be born also is running her/his own mini-marathon! I really do think that it is so. It does require so very much energy and stamina to bring it about for both the mother and the child. It was in the antenatal classes in Ireland that this fact about the marathon for the mother was told to us by our trainer, who was a midwife and a mother of six. Here is a link to the Baby University.com. Yes, there is such a thing! The baby with the mortar board on his head looks absolutely cute & clever.

The one thing that the newly-baked mama herself is in great need of more than nearly anything else is one’s own mum in fact. This is the time that she needs the most assurance and advice – that she is doing the right thing with this little totally helpless creature. Things like: what to do in times of crisis – yes, one needs one’s own mama more than any other time in one’s life! My Mum died very young, just three months before my first daughter was born, actually. My paternal Granny had died ten days before my mum, so there was a double funeral for them in Finland which I could not make because I had had the risk of miscarriage for the entire nine months and was not allowed to fly. Then the obstetrician gave me permission a week later after the funeral had been to fly over to Finland. The year after my Mom and Granny had died while I was expecting my second daughter, my younger brother was killed in a traffic accident in Finland which made it all so much tougher. I associate giving new life with death, in fact because of this.

I do not take having the girls in any way for granted because the ‘road’ to have them was paved with unbelievable obstacles all the way; even at the delivery there were never the guarantee that they and I would come out of it all in tact and alive! Not once. I gave birth to a dead baby and that ranks as the saddest of the saddest things that have happened to me, ever. I would have loved to have sons as well, but them I lost in miscarriages.

It is a funny as odd thing that one gets these repeated false labour alarms and then they reverse in the last minute and stop completely, but then when the real thing comes, it comes with a bang and there is no turning back. So when the birth got really going, I had to make my way to the Rotunda Hospital because the waters had broken – the oldest maternity hospital in the world for it was founded in 1745. Such an apt name for a maternity hospital, methinks. One goes in rather rotund and comes out lean. The delivery itself would not get going the right way so I was put into an annex in the hospital where there was a whole bunch of all the social classes in a jumbled mix and I was attached to a drip with hormone Oxytocin* – that is supposed to speed up the delivery. Sounds snobbish to talk about the ‘classes’ but it is so. Yes indeed, the class division system in Ireland is very well and alive, in every way: hospitals, housing, education – you name it!!

The mixture was a colourful circus as anything: the one mum that I do remember very clearly is this one who was just about to give birth – finally – and to be rolled into the delivery room, when her sister and mother came in with the ‘glinkety-glinkety’ sounding bags into the ward at the non-visiting hours of the day and said to the poor thing while giving a hefty slap on the back of her, even though she was already doubled-up with the sheer agony and pain:

“Have you produced anything yet? We came to celebrate!!”

She could not reply them at all. Don’t remember what the nurses said to them but out they eventually were ushered out by the staff.

When my agony finally came to an end after a day and a half – I said to himself straight after the delivery that:

‘Funny, that the music has just been put on?!’

‘Oh no’, said he, ‘it has been on the whole time!’

I had not heard a thing until the very end of the end! So – the music is not there to soothe the nerves of the mamas but the papas & the staff!

“Now the thing about having a baby –
and I can’t be the first person to have noticed this –
is that thereafter you have it.”
(Jean Kerr)

Tis for now. Riihele – in the reminiscing mode. xx

* the word ‘oxytocin’ is from the Greek word ‘oxutokia’ meaning ‘sudden delivery’ (as oxy- =sharpness and tokos = ‘childbirth’) Well, it sure caused the birthing to be sharp, don’t know so much about the ‘sudden’ as it was an age before the Baby finally popped out!!

Picture is off the net.

Incidents & Such Like: EEJIT!

This is an Incident that happened many years ago in Ireland.

I have divided The Incidents into The Comical, The Dangerous and The Thinking About Them Ones. This one belongs to the first mentioned ones The Comical. The story is like this:

We have this Irish/American family as very good friends and we were used to spending a lot time with them while they lived in Ireland as well. She – the Lady of the Family – is and was one of the greatest RT-therapists of all-time and we did have such time-consuming sessions of the same female pursuit. My daughters were no problem to have tagging along as they are so into the RT- retail therapy themselves; the trickier ones were her three sons that failed to see, neither to understand the finer points of the said pastime. They had to be bribed to not to complain nor to sigh deeply every five minutes, never mind not to have fits and so on. That was always the hardest part of every shopping trip.

We were going to head one morning to a session and to make the experience smooth for all, we got the older boys to agree to be at their best behaviour but the last and also the toughest one to convince was always, Daniel, the youngest son of just a bit older than one year but who had such an amazing command of words for his age.

Daniel in his diapers, cherubic as always, was there leaning on the counter looking like a casual cowboy while drinking his morn bottle when we were going to put clothes on him, telling him at the same time that how great he was and what a brilliant time we were all going to have and did the marketing-the-idea-bit to him to the T; as we thought anyway.

Saying:

“If you are a really, really good boy in the shops, you will get to go for a ride in the Postman Pat Wagon in the shopping centre!”

Daniel thinks and ponders for a moment, takes off the bottle of his lips, still leaning casually and says:

“Postman Pat is a Flippin’ Eejit anyway!!!”

Am afraid we lost the plot at that stage for we started to laugh in hysterics and he won that round.

Anytime after that when we see the toy or the programme on TV, what Daniel said pops to our minds and makes us roar laughing once again.

Tis for now. Riihele xx.

* Eejit is Irish expression for Idiot.