Saved by the Bush

My mom is my hero.
I can understand why you'd be slightly confused by that statement since I may or may not have written ten blog posts which may not have painted her in the best light. A few of them may or may not have been slightly homicidal in tone, but this is not about pointing fingers or placing blame, it is about giving credit where credit is due and taking a moment to salute the unsung heroes in everyday life like Kern Jeremiah does in his blog 'People who help others'.

There are some problems like homelessness and pollution that leave us scratching our heads and asking someone who knows more than we do to give us a hand. In some cases, if we are very lucky, they offer -in very Mama-like fashion - unsolicited advice that turn out to be just what we needed all along,

My mother is very fond of saying that "common sense was made before book" and "medicine was there before doctors".  If you take a minute, you will realise that she is right. Books are made up of information gathered by people who lived and learned and passed on their experiences and medicine was all around us before we started paying an arm and a leg for someone to drug us into good health.
Jinnel Anderson's blog 'Kitchen Medications' takes an in-depth look at the medicinal benefits of simple herbs, spices and foods that we eat everyday.

Pregnant or nursing mothers eat differently than everyone else. Foods like pineapple, nuts and corn which are just delicious the rest of the time becomes no-no's when pregnant. However, ochro a.k.a. okra is a food that Mama strongly recommended when my due date started to draw near. According to my mother, this slimy food should be eaten by expectant moms because the slime makes the birthing process easier. I don't know if it actually works but anything that would make pushing a watermelon-sized bundle out of a mango-sized opening less painful can't be all bad, right?

Mama swore by Vervine for lactating moms as it increases milk production. When my baby was born, I was all gung ho to do the whole breastfeeding thing. My mother would picked and boil a handful of the shaggy, green leaves, I would drink an unsweetened teacupful every evening and come morning I was ready for milking. It has the added benefit of being a blood cleanser or a 'cooling' as we know it.

Caraille is so bitter that not everyone can cook it and not everyone can eat it. I remember as a child sucking on the red, sweet seeds of the ripe fruit but I think I was fully grown the first time I ate and enjoyed fried, green caraille. It is great for people with diabetes as the Bitter Gourd, as it is also called, helps control blood sugar. For my baby though, Mama suggested not the fruit, but the leaves.
My daughter used to get these heat rashes and the remedy was a bath using water with caraille leaves to keep her cool. Carille is also a cooling and can be drank for the cold but definitely not by me...yuck!

There is (slightly) better tasting stuff that can be drank for a cold. My mother's favourite is Baccano. The dried leaf, when boiled and drunk, will get that phlegm off your chest within days. Christmas, Shining and Cerio Bush are some other cold remedies that are free to use if you can get your hands on them.

There is a lot more that can be added to my mom's eat-this, drink-that list but this isn't just about that.
It is about thanking the hero in my life who unselfishly gave advice and assistance and is a major reason that I can say to you all, without feigned humility, that I am an awesome mother. Mama's invasion, I mean inclusion, in my daughter's life and during my pregnancy played a pivotal role in my winning the Mom award.
And yes, self-appointed trophy still counts.

Feeling Hot Hot Hot

My mother loves bathing in the rain. 
I remember, while growing up, whenever the rain started to pour down in that pull-the-covers-over-your-head, not-moving-from-this-comfy-spot sort of way, she would change into tights and a tee and go walking through the rain.

 Sometimes she would use the time to pull weeds but other times, she would just bask in God's happy tears. She so loved wet days that it always struck me as amazing that her all-time favourite advice for anything that ails you would be to 'take some sun'. 

Now, don't get me wrong; hot days are perfect if you are the ice-cream licking, river/beach/pool going type; and sunlight, in my opinion, beats the hell out of the doom and gloom of a dark and dreary, overcast and ominous day, but Mama took that wholehearted belief in the rejuvenating powers of solar energy to a whole other level.

When my baby was about a weeks old, my mother 'put it to me' that the child needed some sun. She then advised (cough! ordered) me to leave my bed around six-ish  - when the sleep is its sweetest - and swaddle my newborn and take her for a walk in the early morning rays. And, not just once or even once in a while, no...every single morning as long as the rain was not falling. This went on until my baby was about three or four months old. (I think it was her underhanded way of getting me to exercise away the baby weight.) 

When I was young, if we had the flu, she would insist that we leave the loving and revitalizing arms of our beds, where we were comfortably feeling like death, and 'take some sun'. Sometimes she would see something in the rich darkness of our complexion, comment that we looked "peaky" or pale and suggest (and not take no for an answer) that we 'take some sun'. Heaven forbid that we voiced a complaint about not feeling well, be it a headache or hangnail, the remedy was always the same: 'take some sun'.

One of her favourite mandates has always been not to let the sunrise greet us still in bed. Well I think, since they are so buddy-buddy, she should ask it to rise at a decent hour, like 10 o'clock....and while she's at it, she could ask her BFF to chill a bit, 15 million degrees is just showing off.

Hands off

Never underestimate the power of body language.

By now, we should all be aware of the connotations related to certain physical expressions.

In different cultures, common motions, such as handshakes or high fives, are considered

 either disrespectful or downright obscene.  It just isn't done!

And according to my mother, the same could be said of the actions of babies and children.

Toddlers are often seen looking backwards through their own legs and sometimes through their mothers' Just a part of growing up, right? According to Mama, it is not innocent fun and games. Assuming that position means they are looking for the next baby.

Oh yes, the placement of one's hands can mean different things. I remember reprimands for assuming 'The Thinker' pose, with one's chin on one's hand, apparently when we do it, it does not convey the same deep, philosophical introspection as the statue, instead, we were "propping sorrow". In other words, holding up our heads as though the worry was too much to bear.

Heaven forbid, you put your hand on your head because that has a powerful meaning too. I remember the first time I heard Mama ask my baby if she was trying to kill me. Apparently that pose is a foreshadow of doom and killing your mother is not okay, no matter how frustrated she makes you feel.

You cannot fold your arms across your body, not even to stave off cold or company, because you would be tying up your life and you definitely cannot stand with your hands on your hips because it was the epitome of disrespect and not seemly for children to do so. Pointing fingers was definitely out as you know there are four more pointing back right at you.

There was quite a list of 'don't-do-that's for a growing body in my home. When I think about it, I am rather surprised that we did not spend all our formidable years standing at 'At-ten -shun!'