A Supermom
• BALANCING THE BOOKS: Salma has seven children to look after, but she’s still found time for her studies to become a teacher.
A Supermum is on her way to fulfilling her dreams after juggling studies with looking after seven children. Salma Kausar, 31, left school without any qualifications but is now pursuing her goal of becoming a teacher.
The Rochdale mum, whose youngest child is just five-months-old, was unsure about spelling and adding up and wanted to help her children with homework.
But after taking a basic skills course at primary school, she has quickly gone on to study English and maths in more detail.
She balanced studying with looking after children Mohammed Sabi, 12, Iza, 10, Qudsia, eight, Fizah, six, Mohammed Adeel, five, Mohammed Shaaref, four, and five-month-old Mohammed Qasim.
She is studying for a GCSE in maths and has nearly completed a teaching assistant course at Hopwood Hall College, Rochdale, which will allow her to work in schools.
Salma, whose ultimate goal is to go to university and become a primary school teacher, said she would not have been able to do the course without help from her family.
She said: “At first I just wanted to improve my maths and English as my oldest child was going to secondary school and I wanted to support him. My aunt and other relatives have helped look after the young ones.”
To recognise her achievements, she is being presented with an award at an event in Rochdale town hall showcasing learning opportunities
Even Super Mom Needs a Break
Finding Time for You
By Lisa Marie Metzler
taken from : http://www.momstoday.com/articles/leisure-and-entertainment/even-super-mom-needs-a-break-3075/The day starts out as usual. I manage to get three cranky children out the door and drive them to school. I arrive home to a blinking answering machine, a ringing business phone and our adorable new puppy marking his territory – for the second time this morning.
After I answer the phone and return some calls, I gulp down cold coffee and eat the remnants of what I hope was my daughter’s leftover bagel. A shower is next on my agenda, usually my 10 minutes of peace, but our puppy yelps at the shower door as soon as I close it.
The telephone rings again. It is my son, pleading for me to deliver his assignment he left “somewhere” in his room. With wet hair and little make-up, I deliver the paper and drive home to find the answering machine blinking again. My daughter isn’t feeling well and would like to come home. After retrieving her and settling her with pillows, blankets and a juice box, I return to my duties: preparing for one of two parent meetings at school this week.
Things are looking good until I get a phone call from my husband requesting I type and fax a mega amount of important documents to his associate. No problem. Make more coffee, check on sick daughter, clean up another puppy mess.
It’s time to pick up my middle son and then drive to another school to pick up my oldest son for a doctor’s appointment. However, my oldest isn’t waiting in the car pool line to be picked up. I search the school and make some phone calls, only to learn he rode the bus home. I re-schedule the appointment and drive the 15 miles to pick up him up.
Taylor Wells, M.A., M.Ed., R.Y.T.
Monday, June 23, 2008
taken from: www.super-mom.com
When I was little, my legs were just my legs. I never thought about them. My arms were just my arms. They helped me hit a tennis ball, to win a match. I never thought about whether they were toned, thin, whether they fit into the “right” size of clothing.
I never thought about food, either. Except for the habitual question: “Mom, what’s for dinner?” food wouldn’t cross my mind, unless the Good Humor ice cream truck was driving down my street in Lake Bluff, Illinois.
How is it that our culture has become so obsessed with food, so hyper-aware of our physical bodies?
Since our body is really just “the home of our spirit,” why do we obsess so about it and what we put into it? And how can we stop?
The dichotomy is astounding: droves of people mindlessly, automatically and obsessively shoveling food into their mouths on a regular basis, not paying attention—not listening to what their bodies are telling them in the form of fatigue, illness, pain, depression, anxiety (“It’s 12:00? Time to eat!!”) Vs. the epidemic of eating disorders or “eating concerns” as we so politically correctly called them at Harvard University, where I worked as a doctoral candidate therapist-in-training.
Most of us have lost our ability to judge real hunger, and to feed it.
A world full of over-processed, non-nutrient dense “food” products has caused our culture to become over-fed and undernourished. People are full–and starving. Starving for real nutrients, real love, and light.
Our bodies are starving for nourishment, as they consume hundreds of pounds of sugar, additives, and chemicals every year, all in the name of “health food.” Have you seen it? We now have “organic junk food,” in shiny, pretty packages that call it “healthy.” “Well, it’s organic!! It must be healthy!!” “I bought it at Wholefoods; it must be good for me.” People want to be healthy and want to feel good, but they are lost.
And it’s no wonder. A culture and government that pushes junk food, meat and dairy products, pharmaceutical consumption and medical procedures doesn’t help.
And if you choose to think and live “outside the box” or cultural programming, you’re labeled “weird.”
Where did it all go wrong?
Bill Cosby once said “I don’t know what the key to success is, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone.”
I can’t pinpoint where or how it all went wrong, but I can say how it shifted—“went right” for me.
Four words: yoga and raw food.
With a daily yoga practice and a vegan raw food lifestyle, the mystery is solved, and life is good.
I have a ton of energy, feel happy pretty much all the time, feel and look ten years younger than when I was eating “healthy” cooked foods from health food stores and working out at the gym, need less sleep, have more clarity, focus, and patience, and am a better parent, wife, and teacher.
I am better able to be of service–to my family, my yoga students, my teaching staff, the person on the street who needs help, the world.
Many people ask me: “Is it really that simple?”
Yes, it is.
