While at work today, despite the fires I needed to put out, I was thinking about what Sloane will eat for breakfast tomorrow. She had the last of her oatmeal today so I needed to either make more or make more. I have no other option. Sloane has started eating real solid food, as in whatever we are eating but in tiny bites.

Solid food can make babies constipate very easily so I have decided to make breakfast something that will help make bowel movements as easy as possible for her. The recipe I have is filled with fruits that are high in fiber and potassium and tons of vitamins. I also purée with coconut milk which contains fats that are good for baby among other nutrients. This recipe is so good, I usually eat so much of it during the process, basically, it’s a good breakfast for all.

Recipe:Oats quinoa and fruit purée

1 cup oats

1 cups quinoa

1 mango

1 apple

1 cup prunes

0.5 cup apricots

1 pear

1 teaspoon ginger

0.5 tablespoon cinnamon

4 cups water

3 cups coconut milk (or breastmilk, cow’s milk or formula)

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients except for water and cook on stover for about 15-20 minutes or until quinoa is soft

2. Let cool for about 10 minutes. Transfer into and blender, add coconut milk and purée

3. All done!

Now Sloane has enough food for a while. Below is a photo of the finished product!

Love always!

It is finally Mother’s Day. My first one. I have been looking forward to this day since Sloane was born. It still feels like a dream that she chose me to be her mother. She turned 6 months yesterday and she is growing so beautifully, being her mother is the most joyous thing in the whole world. I have so many amazing mothers in my life who have set the perfect example for me. They have created an incredible template and I am following it and adding my own as I go. So on my first mother’s day, I would love to say thank you to those who have come before me and have done it the best way they know how and continue to be fantastic role models for me and others.

My mom has such an amazing demeanor and a calmness that I see in Sloane. She is always there, no matter how tired or overwhelmed she is. She smiles through the worst of storms. She has taught me to live in the now and worry about tomorrow when it gets here. Though she lives in Woodbridge, VA, she spent 6 weeks with me in Ohio when I first had Sloane and really helped me get acquainted with being a new mother. While she was here with me, she was also helping Sidney write his essays for schools. She loves with all she has and is one of the most genuine people you’ll ever meet. She is successful at being a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend, and a career woman and I couldn’t have found a better role model in my own mother.

My mother-in-law, Betsy, is an angel walking among us. She is the most positive person I have ever met. She sees the good in every situation and always has the best advice. You can’t help but want to talk to her about your life because she is so trusting. She has raised  4 amazing men while also being a dentist. She makes you want more for yourself and I count myself lucky to be able to call her my daughter’s grandmother.

Auntie Becky, my other mother. She basically raised me and she raised 5 children of her own and so many others. One of the most generous people you’ll ever meet. She will starve just so the next person can have something to eat. She is very business minded and achieves success in everything she does. She is always praying for the absolute best for everyone, even people she’s never met before. I see some of her in me and that makes me very happy.

I could keep going because there are so many wonderful mothers in my life like Sama Darko who is such an incredible person, changing so many lives in Ghana, providing opportunities for anyone who is willing to work hard. She is so giving and has overcome to much to achieve tremendous success. Her kids have such an amazing role model to look up and she has taught me that you can achieve anything with hard work and perseverance.

To the new mothers, you’re already do so incredibly well and I am learning from you too.  Just know that we are all in this together and as long as our kids are happy and healthy, we are doing an amazing job.

To Adwoba, Becca, Amanda, Becky, Sally, Christine, Auntie Dorothy, Ama Cudjoe, Betti, Sylvia and every mother I know, you’re all phenomenal and your kids are blessed to have you.

To Nana and Arielle, I can not wait for you to join the club. I am so happy for you and I know you’re going to be the most amazing mothers.

To Sloane, thank you again for choosing me.

The flowers above were an early Mother’s day gift from my dad.

Sloane is 6 months today! Half a year. She is so beautiful, I can’t believe she is our child. She is growing very well, eating well. She actually tried her first solid food today; avocado! What kind of millennial will I be if I didn’t give my baby avocado as her first solid food? It was a super easy recipe that I will share at the end of the post.

Sloane has been scooting a lot, she can sit unassisted for at most 5 minutes. She has been trying to sit up by herself. She is reaching her milestones and is an absolute joy. She has one central incisor, so far it hasn’t been very uncomfortable for her so here is hoping the rest are the same way.

Apart from making Sloane Avocado puree, I also prepped blueberry puree and peas puree for the rest of the week. She will have more avocado puree tomorrow and Monday and we will move on to blueberries for 3 days then peas. I plan on introducing one thing at a time before I starting combining them. I will also be making my own baby food until she is 1. I bought this baby food freezer storage tray to store her food. It comes with a cover which I really like. My mom bought us an amazing blender for general use and it has worked perfectly for the blueberries and peas.

Here are 2 photos of Sloane trying her first ever solid food and a photo of the food I prepped today. I made a lot of peas so hopefully, she’ll like that.

Avocado Puree

2 avocados

3oz of breastmilk (you can use formula or water)

1. Mash avocados until very smooth
2. Add 3oz of breastmilk to 1oz of mashed avocado (you can add more or less oz)
3. Store the remaining mashed avocado in freezer for future use.
4. I only mixed breastmilk in 1oz of avocado not everything I mashed.

I can’t wait to share more of the recipes I make and how she responds to them.

Love always!

I like women who have done a lot and continue to do a lot for our world. We have our Eleanor Roosevelt, Florence Nightingale, Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa, Helen Keller and many more who are known to have had a positive impact on the world in so many different ways. This post is, however, not about the women we immediately associate with charity; instead, it is about the women whose names we do not immediately associate with anything in humanitarianism or activism but have done or are doing so much more for our world. All these women are/were wildly popular but not for the things I wish they are popular for. This post is about 5 impressive women and how they have been giving back:

1. Elizabeth Taylor: Extremely beautiful with that deep blue eyes which sometimes appeared violet. She was known for her glamorous lifestyle, her acting abilities and her 8 marriages to 7 different men (she married Richard Burton twice). Elizabeth Taylor may have been addicted to love but she was also very interested in helping people. Liz Taylor cofounded American Foundation for AIDS Research(AMfAR), helping raise over $270 million for the cause. She was a generous and consistent activist. She also founded the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. In 1992, she won a special academy award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, for her HIV/AIDS humanitarian work. In 2006, she donated $500,000 to NO/AIDS Task force during hurricane Katrina. She passed in March 2011 but she did so much for the AIDS research that I want us to tell people about it. That is what is important, making the world better for generations to come.

2. Rihanna: She is a beautiful, super stylish (she reinvents her style almost monthly) and a talented singer, but those are really secondary. She is one of the women I admire so much in our generation. Her Believe Foundation was created in 2006 to help terminally ill children. She has partnered with charities by performing a number of concerts to raise money for the charities and her foundation. She also founded The Clara Lionel Foundation (named after her grandparents) which promotes education and arts all around the world. The Diamond Ball is an event that has been held yearly since 2012 to raise money for the foundation. Rihanna has also helped build a Breast cancer screening and treatment center in Barbados where she was born. Last year, Harvard university gave their prestigious Humanitarian of the Year award. These are just a few of Rihanna’s very impressive list of charitable endeavors. She has such a huge following so I know she is impacting the younger generations to give back to their communities.

3. Miley Cyrus: She is very charitable and she can’t be tamed! Miley founded The Happy Hippie Foundation whose mission is to rally young people to fight injustice facing homeless youth, LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable populations. She raised money for the foundation by performing Backyard Sessions which allowed people on facebook to donate money. When Miley was just 18 years old, she visited Haiti twice to distribute hearing aids to those in need. At an AmFAR in 2014, she donated $500,000 for the fight against HIV/AIDS. She supports a variety of charities including City of Hope, Habitat for Humanity, Amnesty International and she is also a very active participant in the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

4. Gisele Bündchen: She was the highest paid model in the world for more than 10 years. She is also very charitable. She donated $150,000 to Zero Hunger program in Brazil. To raise awareness for the lack of attention given to HIV/AIDS victims in Africa, she painted her face as part of the I Am African campaign. Gisele donated $1.8 million to Haiti to aid the earthquake relief effort. There have been other ways that Gisele has given back such as creating a flip flop line with a company in Brazil to raise funds to call attention to environmental causes. She is a Goodwill Ambassador for UN Environmental program and has undertaken several field missions in Kenya and Brazil.

5. Kim Kardashian West: Yes, she is on this list. She is known for her very glamorous lifestyle but we always have to give credit where it is due. Kim is very socially conscious and very charitable. She has always said that she gives 10% of her net earnings to charity. In 2017, she made $45.5 million in gross earnings according to Forbes, so no matter what her net earnings came out to be, you know that she gave a good amount of money to charity. She frequently visits LA Children’s hospital and brings gifts with her. Every Thanksgiving, her and her family donate full course meals to a homeless shelter in LA. Most recently, Kim has been focussed on helping a woman named Alice Johnson who is currently in prison for first time non-violent drug related offense. Kim has been in talks with Jared Kushner, an advisor to president Trump about a potential presidential pardon. Alice Johnson has been in prison for over 20 years. Here is hoping that things work out well for her. She has also been paying for the legal fees of Cynthia Brown, another young girl who is sentenced to life in prison. In 2017, her and her family, donated $500,000 to hurricane relief efforts.

Beyonce, Angelina Jolie, Selena Gomez, Charlize Theron, Taylor Swift and so many more are also some women who have been impressively charitable. I hope we are all able to give back in our own small ways. If you’re looking for a charity to donate to either one-time or regularly, my mom and her friends started a foundation a couple of years ago called ‘Asankrangwa Kroye Kuo’ which has a developmental agenda to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life for the people of Asankrangwa. Asankrangwa is the village my mother grew up in, I lived there for a while too. Here is their website for more information on what they’re doing. They held a fundraiser last weekend and below is a photo of the president of the organization, Mrs Gradis Addai.

Sloane’s christening was this past Sunday April 15th, 2018. Bill and I were so honored that so many members of our family could join us. Almost everyone came from out of town; Boston, Woodbridge, VA, River Forest Il, Seattle, WA, Maryland, Milwaukee, WI. Sloane was so good throughout, she didn’t cry, she was not fussy; she actually seemed pretty curious about what was happening, especially with the water. We feel so lucky that she chose us to be her parents.

Here is a link to more photos from Sunday.

I haven’t posted on here in such a long time. It is so hard to let my blog go (I still pay for it  even when it is dormant) but so much has been happening in my life since I last posted. I am a mom! Can you even imagine? I definitely couldn’t imagine it until it happened. This post is just an update on life and a promise that I will try to keep updating world’s forgotten girl. 

On March 15th 2017 at about 7am, I took a pregnancy test and got a BIG FAT POSITIVE. It was so exciting. I was shaking. Bill hadn’t left for work yet so I called him upstairs and told him to go into the bathroom that there was something I wanted him to see. He went in there, came out, and gave me a big hug and kiss. The next person I told was my friend Adwoba. Bill and I told our parents later that day. We had told most of our family and friends by 15 weeks. I was 4 weeks along when we found out. My due date was November 16th 2017. The next almost 36 weeks were some of the best I’ve ever had. The first flutter, the first kick, the alien baby movement, the hiccups. I can’t possibly explain the feeling.

On November 10th 2017 at about 9pm, my water broke. How do I know this? I was involuntarily ‘peeing’ and just couldn’t stop it. Bill was asleep and I didn’t wake him up because I wanted to know what my obgyn would want me to do. I called the hospital and was told the midwife on-call was going to call me. I was not contracting or anything at this point, just ‘peeing’. I called back a few more times because the midwife didn’t return my call. While waiting for her call, I crocheted a diaper cover for my baby. I could not wait to meet her. Finally at 6am on November 11, the midwife called, she told me to go in and that I will be induced because I was still not contracting. I called my mom and my parents-in-law and luckily this was happening on the weekend so they all started driving, my mom from Woodbridge, VA and Bill’s parents from River Forest, Il. So much happened on the Saturday, that I honestly do not want to recount but on Sunday November 12th at 6:15am, we welcomed Sloane Elizabeth Edufa Samore via caesarean section. Her name Sloane (pronounced: SLOWN, rhymes with OWN) means warrior, we fell in love with it, Elizabeth is after Bill’s mother, Edufa was my great grandmother.

My mom once told me that there’s no way she can explain how much she loves me but she will wait until I have my own child so I can understand a mother’s love. Sloane is everything and more. I didn’t know it was possible to love a person this much. She has the best personality, she is reaching milestones every day. She is the definition of an easy baby, very rarely cries, always smiling, laughing, singing and talking. Just like Kanye, she can sleep anywhere no matter how quiet or loud it is. She makes my heart smile every second of everyday. She is growing amazingly and she is the most beautiful baby to ever be born into this world*

Life as a family of 3 has been great so far. Bill has been so great with Sloane, he’s protective and has been working harder than ever to ensure Sloane has the best of everything. We still wake up once a night since she is exclusively breastfed but this is something I actually look forward to every night, sometimes I wake up and wait for her to wake up.

My hopes and dreams for Sloane is for her to be happy and healthy. I want her to grow up to be kind, caring, confident, smart, hardworking, and loving. My hope for us as her parents is to love and nurture her and provide with the resources she needs to be the absolute best she can be. Here is a recent photo of baby Sloane.

*Every mother thinks this about their baby

I heard an excerpt of this on NPR and I just had to read the whole thing. It gave me a good chuckle and I hope it does the same for you. 

I cannot believe how long it’s been since I posted something here. I have a few thoughts and new developments in my life to share. Oh before that, I realized that on September 21st and November 27th, a whole bunch of people in Canada viewed my blog. I don’t know anyone there but thanks for the clicks eh. Newest development in my life is I have a life partner now and my extended family got a whole lot bigger. I am still on cloud 9 though I’m not sure about him, he is probably second guessing himself right now ;), JK JK. There are more people in my life, more to share my life with and more to love. I’ve been living in Ohio for almost a year and half and I just completed my first semester of grad school (I know, finally!) training to be a school counselor. I fall in love with the program each time I step into a classroom. The idea of helping people to be their best possible selves is satisfying. More update on that as it happens.

So the election was last month. We have a president-elect that is not the most political person but as I’ve heard from people, that’s part of his appeal. The American people-those who chose to exercise their rights-voted for him, they wanted change. I am trying to give him a chance as I believe that ‘united we stand, divided we fall.’ I was a big Bernie supporter during the primaries because of how genuine and passionate he was about his plans. I just love his tweets (@sendanders). I fell in love with him when I saw the picture of him getting arrested on August 13th 1963 for protesting segregation. However, he didn’t win the primaries because I believe that this was Hillary’s time, she has worked for over 40 years for this. It was upsetting to watch her lose to Trump. This was my first election as an American citizen and it almost feels like my voice didn’t matter because my vote did not make a difference and I wonder if I would have felt the opposite if she’d won, that my vote and voice matter. On the bright side (for me) this year was also the election year in Ghana, and my party the New Patriotic Party won. Nana Akuffo Addo is finally president, he has also fought to become president and I am excited about the changes he will bring to Ghana. Though I did not get to vote in Ghana, I was as invested in the process, at least 3 days before, as I was with the elections here. I will share the two photos I have talked about.

As stated above, I got married on September 17th, the first time I wore my wedding dress, before buying it, I knew it was the one. I felt beautiful in it, it was simply elegant, yes I will share a photo. Now, going into the dress shopping, I had one brand that I really wanted, it’s called Mori Lee but I ended up falling in love with a Sincerity Bridal gown. I follow them on Instagram and I see that they feature a lot of brides that wear their gowns. After the wedding I sent them a couple of pictures and they asked if they could share it on social media and I said “yes of course, that’s why I’m sharing it with you, I want everyone to see how I looked in that beautiful dress.” They haven’t shared any of the photos I sent them. I decided to look through their entire Instagram and I realized that they have never featured a black bride, they only black person was a model for them and I had to actually look very closely to make sure. I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions so I decided to check their twitter and Facebook, there is one black bride on their Facebook account from 2012 and not one on their twitter account. I don’t want to be the person who associates everything with race but if I spend over $1000 on a dress and I learn that the designers may not really like people like me, I have a problem with it. At a point I thought maybe they haven’t posted it because they had other brides before me but then after stalking some brides, I realize that it really doesn’t matter when you got married since someone who got married about 2 weeks ago just got featured. I loved the dress and now I feel like I could have given my money to a brand that appreciates people like me. It’s very disappointing.  So to be absolutely clear, I am not whining because they didn’t post a photo of me on social media, I am writing about this because they chose not to feature me possibly because of the color of my skin. I am a little upset about the fact that I am regretting investing in something that made me feel beautiful, something that was a part of the best day in a lot of peoples lives.

After months of going back and forth with a few topics to write about I decided to write about money. We all love money, some people are just lucky to have more than they could spend in one lifetime. I will not be talking about Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or Queen Elizabeth, we know they are rich and white. I will not talk about Kobe Bryant and Oprah Winfrey, they are in sports and entertainment respectively. I had this idea about looking up some black people, men and women, who are not singers, rappers, tv hosts, football players, basket ball players etc but are stinking rich. You know, the kind they just makes you want to change your last name so people will ask if you’re related to them in any way. I found so many of them but I will only write about 6, 3 women and 3 men and how they became insanely rich.

1. Isabel Dos Santos: Isabel is Angolan, her father is the president of Angola. Now, that might have gotten her some connections, but if you have connections and do not take advantage of them, they are just that.  She has investments in Retail, Finance, Telecommunications, Media and Energy industries. She is the most powerful woman in Angola and the first female billionaire in Africa and she boasts a cool $3 billion net worth. Now let’s try her last name with my first: Lordina Dos Santos…….yup, I could live with that.
2. Mo Ibrahim: He is a Sudanese born British businessman who founded the mobile phone company Celtel. He however sold his shares in 2005 and is now investing in various businesses in Africa and being just an all round awesome person by  engaging in philanthropy. He set up a foundation in Africa that promotes good governance called Mo Ibrahim Foundation. Africa needs good governance so thank you Mo for doing what you can. The foundation donates $5 million to head of states in Africa who are deemed worthy of  the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. I was disappointed to find out in 2009, 2010 and 2012 no head of state was given the award. Let’s do better Africa. Now how does Lordina Mo Ibrahim sound? Yeah, I like it too.
3. Folorunsho Alakija: I think this one is my favorite. She one day decided she did not want to be a secretary anymore so she quit her day job and went to pursue a degree in fashion in England. She started a business called Supreme Stitches, when she returned to Nigeria, which focused on fashion for women in high society. With a portion of the profits from Supreme Stitches, she acquired an oil exploration license and founded Famfa oil which earned her family 60% in a highly profitable oil block OML 127. She is worth $1.9 billion. Lordina Alakija coming through!
4. Donahue Peebles: He is a real estate entrepreneur, author and political activist. Peebles is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Peebles Corporation, the largest African American-owned real estate development and ownership company in the US, with a multi-billion dollar development portfolio of luxury hotels, high-rise residential and commercial properties in New York, DC, Pennsylvania etc. He is a lifelong Democrat but has demonstrated his independence by challenging Democratic leaders on key issues such as taxes and access to equal economic opportunities for minorities and women.He has received numerous awards over the last 25 years for his entrepreneurial leadership, community service efforts and development abilities. He is worth a measly $350 million. jk jk. The last name is not bad either!
5. Janice Bryant Howroyd: I would like to start with the fact that I want her whole name! Very classy! Her name isn’t the only enviable thing about her, she is an entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of the largest minority woman-owned employment agency in the US called ACT-1 Group. She started ACT-1 in Beverly Hills with her first client being Billboard Magazine, now her company boasts offices in 75 cities in the US with clients from Ford Motor Company to Sempra Energy. She can sleep peacefully every night knowing she has $250million in the bank.
6. Aliko Dangote: This guy here is the richest man in Africa! He is worth an impressive $17.7 billion. He built his fortune through Cement, Flour and sugar. He owns Dangote Group with companies in several countries in Africa. He is looking to invest $9billion in an oil project that will help in reducing Nigeria’s dependence on importing oil. Wait, doesn’t Nigeria have too much oil to depend on any from other places? Oh well. All I know is, this guy is impressively rich and I would not mind adopting his last name!