Chile shocked the world this week by electing their first woman president. Michelle Bachelet is a pediatrician and single mother of three, and with 53% of the votes in her favor she became only the second woman elected to head a South American nation (Janet Jagan was chosen to succeed her husband as president of Guyana in 1997 after his death). Ms Bachelet has already made some strong pledges to her country, including helping women have a stronger voice, and promising to bridge the gap between the rich and poor. This was Chile’s fourth election after their return to democracy in 1990, ending 17 grueling years of military rule.

Liberia also swore in a female leader this week! Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Africa’s first elected female president. The world is changing, according to the female author of this article, and women leaders are bringing new skills to the table: “The modern world, if it is to be sane, is going to have to be much more of a woman’s world than a man’s. The operative words today are not kill, but negotiate; not hate, but understand; not riot, but institutionalize.”

Where does the United States stand amidst this swirling tide of growth and change in the world’s elected leaders? Some speculate that as one of the world’s longest-running democracies, perhaps the answer lies in “social constructs that have been embedded in the nation’s very fabric.” Whatever the reason, I think that America is past due for a change in the way we think about our elected leaders. Our country could only benefit from breaking away from the traditional white Christian male authority. Several countries have not only broken ground by electing their first female leader in the past fifteen years, but they have continued the trend; New Zealand, Bangledesh, Ireland, The Phillipines, Lithuania, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Finland have all elected two women as president so far, and Sri Lanka has had three women leaders, two of them serving as Prime Minister, and one as President.

Laura A. Liswood, the co-founder and secretary-general of the Council of Women World Leaders, has made it a personal mission to get a woman in the oval office. She believes that there are several main problems preventing America from electing a woman as president. According to her, the two-party, “winner-take-all” system does not work for out-of-power groups, which includes women. The United States is also the only country that requires an enormous amount of cash to finance an election, which is another obstacle to those outside of the power structure.

Ms Liswood believes that “women must play an integral role in all the world’s issues or else humanity’s challenges will never be solved.” I agree wholeheartedly. Not only are women as fully capable of taking a leadership role as their male counterparts, but I think that our gender can add a much needed dimension of caring and softness to the role of president. A woman thinks differently, approaches problems differently, and applies solutions differently. Gerald Ford is rumored to have said that America will only have a woman president after a woman becomes vice president, and then succeeds a male president who dies in office. Ford said that once that happens, we’ll never have another male president again. Imagine that!

This chair sat at my grandmother’s kitchen table for as long as I can remember. It came from the house she grew up in, the house that was built on land my family homesteaded when they settled in Washington after a long journey west. The chair held such special memories for my grandma, that she brought it with her when she moved away to have a family of her own. My grandpa strengthened its ancient legs with new screws and sanded down the rough edges that had splintered and cracked over time. The kitchen was the heart of my grandmother’s house, always warm and inviting, filled with the smells of her homey farm cooking. She ate every meal sitting in this chair. She rested in it when she taught me how to make pickles and country gravy. She sat in this chair surrounded by her children and grandchildren on every holiday and family get-together.

When she died four years ago, the light went out in our family. We had never realized before how much she held us all together, how we all gravitated towards her. She was our center. My grandfather wilted after her death. He removed most of the things from their little home that reminded him of her, reconstructing his life to a sparse and quiet existence. Holiday gatherings have migrated to my aunt’s house, and the family echoes with her absence. We will never adjust to life without her.

A few months ago while visiting my grandpa, I found this chair hidden in a basement corner. The space that it used to fill at the kitchen table has been replaced with a cold metal folding chair. I asked him if I could have it, and he helped me load it into my car without a moment’s hesitation. I think it’s painful for him to see her sitting there in his memory, when she was so full of love and life. But for me, this chair is a connection to her. When I sit in it now, running my fingers along the smooth, bare arms where her hands rubbed away the varnish, I feel like she’s with me. The wood creaks so invitingly when I adjust my weight, just as it’s creaked for the many generations of women in my family who have rested their tired bones there. When I see that chair sitting so straight and tall on the far side of my living room, it reminds me that I’m part of the legacy my family created when they staked their first claim in the west. In my veins runs the blood of pioneer women who faced off with Indians and helped build a sod house. Women who farmed cattle and birthed babies at home in their beds. Women who held my face in their hands and proclaimed me the most beautiful creature they had ever seen. This chair gives me strength.

This month’s Self Portrait Tuesday theme is “Personal History”. To see more self portraits, go to the Self Portrait Tuesday blog. Also, to all you Firefox users- we are still working out the kinks, please be patient!

I’ve been thinking a lot about that saying lately.

I always envisioned motherhood as cozy rainy afternoons doing art projects in the kitchen, and family snuggles in the big bed on Sunday mornings. We would frost cookies and take long bubble baths, and the house would be filled with singing and laughter all day long. Yeah, not so much. I’m finding out that having two kids is less about idyllic little Kodak moments, and way more about damage control. The laughter I envisioned is in reality screaming and whining and goodness gracious somebody get me a valium before my brains spill out all over the counter.

So much of our day depends on our interactions with each other. I don’t have one active preschooler and one snuggly toddler, I have a pair of siblings who drive each other batty and spend the majority of their waking hours locked in a conflict of some kind. They cry and they yell and then, inexplicably, they are suddenly rolling around on the floor giggling. Their relationship makes about as much sense to me as those fortune cookie papers with quotes from Confucius. Individually, all of the words make sense, but put them together and you’ve lost me.

Babs is the “squeaky wheel” in our family. At four years old, she is an energetic, bouncy little enigma. She lives life on a roller coaster of emotions, dipping and spinning at the most unexpected moments. I am a strong believer in Emotional Intelligence, so I view these moments of emotional fluctuation as important learning opportunities for the whole family. So as you can imagine, we are learning all the time.

Zibbit is absolutely enamored with her big sister, and wants to be involved in everything Babs does. This is the cause of much distress to Babs, whose most commonly used phrases are “Don’t touch me!” and “Leave me alone!” Babs is much more vocal about her displeasure than Zibbit is, and as a result often wins more parental intervention. This is an error on our part, and one that I try to be aware of as much as I can. I want to teach her to be an example for her adoring little shadow, but at the same time validate her feelings of frustration. After all, I was an older sister growing up too. I remember what it feels like to have a little monster sister grab your Cabbage Patch Kid and run away with it, then get in trouble for chasing her.

I suppose my question is, how much of my personality is a result of the temperament I was born with, and the environment I was raised in? How is growing up with a sister going to affect who my girls are? How is the way their father and I parent their relationship with each other going to affect the people they become? Ok, so that was three questions. I just want our lives together to be more than damage control. Instead of merely greasing our squeaky wheel, I want to gently guide her down the bumpy path of life until she is strong enough to roll away on her own… and not lose sight of everyone else’s needs in the process!

Oh man. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

Hello everyone, and welcome to my new blog mom on a wire! It’s going to be quite different from my old blog, Eulallia.com, so I’d like to encourage all of you to read my about page to see what mom on a wire is going to be like. Thanks for coming by, and I hope you find something here that speaks to you!

Lots of special thanks to my darling husband for putting this all together, and my friend Redhead Momma for creating the beautiful graphics you see on the sidebar. I couldn’t have done this without you guys!

The birth of my first child was an intense, frightening experience. Babs was 4 days overdue, and having gained over 60 pounds in my pregnancy (which we found out later was due to untreated medical issues) I was a quivering blob of uncomfortable fat. I begged my doctor to induce me to end my suffering. After 12 hours of labor and 3 hours of pushing, I was spent. I couldn’t go on. The baby hadn’t moved an inch, and she had gone into distress several times. We decided to do a C-section. My recovery was difficult, to say the least. My body was so drained from the unsuccessful labor, that it had no reserves left to heal from major surgery. I was in a lot of pain, taking some major drugs for the pain, and barely able to care for myself let alone this tiny new baby.

The morning that I went in to be induced, I was not the only one about to have a baby. My cat and I had been pregnant at the same time, and as we left to go to the hospital, she had already had three of her five kitten litter. I was worried about her all that day, and during my stay at the hospital I had my mom and husband drive to my house several times to check on her. She was a first-time mother, just like me.

When I was finally able to come home, I was struck by how the mewling of her little kittens sounded remarkably like the squeaks my own child made. My cat and I both took to parenting with tentative ease, both of us constantly hovering over our babies and jumping to tend to their every need. We struggled to master our new roles as mothers, nursing and bathing our babies, and trying to take care of our own sore bodies. While Babs thrived, however, my cat’s babies grew steadily weaker. Three of them stopped eating completely, and their pitiful cries (sounding so much like little Babs’) were more than I could bear.

A woman from my church had been coming over regularly since the birth of my baby, bringing me meals and helping with the housework. Before she had her own children, she had worked as an assistant at a veterinarian’s office, and she recognized the kittens’ sudden decline as Fading Kitten Syndrome. She came over at least once a day to help me try to get the kittens to eat, and then to bury the first two that passed away. She held Babs while I sobbed uncontrollably at the sight of my cat searching the entire house for her two missing babies. When it was clear that the little black and white kitten was too weak to nurse from his mother, she took him home with her so I wouldn’t have to hear his suffering cries. She tried to feed him kitten formula with a tiny bottle, and warmed him on a heating pad on her lap until with one last shuddering breath, he finally let go. She called me to break the sad news gently, comforting me with kind reminders that he was no longer in pain and that it was meant to be.

With the sick kittens gone, the remaining two had enough milk and their mother’s attention to slowly regain their strength. A few weeks later, they were healthy and strong enough to go to their new homes.

I will never forget the kindness this woman showed me. She went above and beyond the bounds of our friendship, stepping in to fill a need I was unable to handle on my own. Her kind, unselfish, and insightful acts will live on in my heart forever.

By the way, the little tortoiseshell kitten with the fluffy tail now lives a spoiled, happy life with my friend and her family.