Review & Giveaway: Inspiring a Healthy Self-Image with My Muse Dolls

Disclosure: I received a My Muse Doll for review purposes; all opinions expressed are my own.

Watching my children in creative moments is one of the most rewarding parts of parenting. Seeing them focused on scenarios that they've created and even stumbling upon sometimes hilarious vignettes they've staged around the house brings humor to my day. With the holidays approaching, I'm looking for gifts that will inspire more of this creative play in my children so when My Muse Dolls reached out to me I was excited to learn more about their high-quality, diverse dolls. 

Why I Took My Husband's Last Name (And No, It's Not Heroic)

Growing up I loved my last name, Sloan. I was given the name Quiana Rachelle Sloan at birth, and being the nerd that I am, growing up I geeked over the fact that my initials were alphabetical. I remember getting my LL Bean backpack in middle school and wearing my initials proudly throughout my school's hallways. I hadn't given much thought to marriage and what I'd do about my last name when I got married until I attended Wellesley College. I took an anthropology class, Marriage, Women and Family, and it really opened my eyes to issues I had never considered growing up in Ohio. Sure, I went to an all girls school but as an adult at an all women's college I really felt convicted about the importance of feminism. 

Speaking of feminism . . .

I cringe when people, especially women, staunchly proclaim they are not feminists. A feminist believes that men and women are equal. I cannot fathom why anyone wouldn't want to believe this. Men and women are different, yes, but we are equal. 

Now back to my love story:

When I met my husband Uka in college and he shared his full name I was especially curious about his last name, Agbai. I didn't know where it was from so I asked. It's Nigerian, Igbo, to be exact and when we started dating in 1999 and then married in 2009 it wasn't even a discussion to be had: I knew I would become Quiana Rachelle Agbai.

Here's why:

Sloan, my maiden name, is derived from Ireland. I am of African descent and perhaps some day I'll do one of those cotton swab tests to determine exactly where (I'm obsessed with Finding Your Roots). Like most African-Americans, my ancestors in this country were slaves and Sloan came from an Irish slaveholder. While I do have ancestors of European descent who were not slaveholders, the surname Sloan in my family is from slaveholders. 

My husband's family can pinpoint exactly where in Africa they are from: Nkporo and Ohafia, Nigeria. We took our daughter there when she was 16 months, and it made me very emotional to be there and stand on the soil, breathe the air and meet my family. Even now I cry easily at the thought that my grandparents never stepped foot on African soil. It is life changing to go to Africa, regardless of your heritage.

When I got married I knew I'd want to exchange my slave name for an African name especially for my children. I knew that I'd want them to know where they are from, to appreciate their Nigerian heritage. I also knew that if I kept my surname or did a hyphenated name that the surname Sloan is ultimately from a man. For me it was never an issue of being empowered by keeping "my name" because it's still a man's name. What's more important to me is where a name comes from vs. whether it belongs to a man or woman. 

Lately, while our society is quick to describe certain celebrities as "heroes," I think it's more important to be strong in your own convictions for living the life you believe in instead of trying to be "on trend."  I applaud Zoe Saldana's husband for taking his wife's name if that's what works best for their family; it definitely opens up a conversation for people to explore marriage traditions and why we do what we do. Also, I hope never to follow something blindly without examining the underlying foundation behind it (if you're interested in learning more about marriage history I highly recommend Marriage, a History).

Here's to six years (and counting!) as Quiana Rachelle Agbai.

If you're married did you discuss your surname decision with your spouse? If you're not married yet have you considered what to do about your surname?

Becoming a World Explorer with Little Passports

Disclosure: I received Little Passports for review purposes; all opinions expressed are my own.

Since visiting our family in Nigeria a few years ago Nia's had a very global perspective - she still remembers our trip fondly and we still enjoy looking at pictures from our visit. Growing up I longed to travel and traveled extensively as a young adult, but I hope Nia gets to go more places than I ever did and starting at a younger age.

I've come across Little Passports via social media and was curious about it especially remembering my childhood wanderlust so I was delighted when they reached out to me to experience it with Nia! With the World Edition focusing on over 25 countries and geared towards kids ages 5-10 and the USA Edition focusing on the 50 United States geared towards kids ages 7-12, Little Passports provides kids with the opportunity to learn about culture, history, and more.

Here's our adventure . . .

To my surprise Nia recognized the suitcase when it arrived - it turns out our neighbors have it and she's played with it there. Their mom even told me how much her kids enjoy it and gave me a tip to laminate the map (great idea!)

I selected Brazil for Nia to experience as her first adventure especially due to World Cup fever and this summer being the first that she played soccer. She was excited to participate in all the activities which I was surprised as she just turned 4 and I was curious if it'd hold her interest. It definitely did!

I found that I learned as well during our experience - I had no idea there were amethyst mines in Brazil! Activities where the parent and child learn together are so rewarding and relationship building. 

Created by two moms (tying into my mompreneur appreciation!) I also appreciate how Little Passports has such a unique combination of activities for kids and how it ties in online too. The games are smart and the entire experience online and offline is customizable - Nia especially enjoyed writing her name in her suitcase and typing her name in online. It's so important to foster a global perspective in kids from a young age and Little Passports does just that. It's something I wish I had growing up!

Also, with our upcoming trip to San Antonio I was interested to hear that Little Passports has partnered with JW Mariott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa to give young travelers the Little Passport experience. Although we'll be at Riverwalk for Blogalicious, it's the start of a partnership that I hope will spread! Participants will receive the Little Passports - JW Marriott San Antonio Edition journal featuring the geography, history, and points of interest of Texas and the beautiful Hill Country. Each of the 24 pages in the interactive guide is designed to teach, challenge, and entertain young explorers. The Little Passport experience is complimentary and will be offered on Saturdays and holidays to resort guests ages 5-12 years old throughout the 2014 summer season.  Reservations are recommended through the Range Riders Kids’ Club. For more information call 210-276-2500, extension 4347.

Be sure to follow Little Passports on Twitter and Facebook for all the adventure fun!

Are your children into exploring the world? Which countries do you think they'd like to visit via Little Passports? I think Australia would be fun!
  

Our Cousin's Wedding - Nigerian Style

At long last I'm getting back on track sharing our experience in Nigeria. You can click on the "Nigeria" theme to the left to see previous posts.

I had been to a Nigerian wedding before prior to Mr. Love Bird and I being married, but was excited to actually attend a wedding in Nigeria during our trip. I was given fabric and told to create a dress of any style - my mom made my dress and a smaller dress for Nia. We had Mr. Love Bird's wedding attire made in Harlem. I'm very sad that we didn't have a family photo of us, but I was so distracted during our trip due to my fractured ankle (I was in A LOT of pain), frustration with Nia's frequent nursing and being in a new place/very hot weather. It was a lot to deal with.  

At the wedding celebrations at the bride's family compound

We attended both Nigerian traditional celebrations at both the bride and groom's home as well as a white wedding at a church. At the church several couples were married at once as December is a popular homecoming time for Nigerians all over to return to their hometowns. The churches get very booked so brides and grooms have their ceremonies altogether. 

The bridal party lining up for the procession

Nia did her best keeping up with me and my bum ankle during the procession - the bride is in orange

The procession of the mother of the bride's family and friends

Food preparation was continuing behind the scenes for the hundreds of guests 

Mr. Love Bird in the groom's procession - not as good looking as the ladies'!

Next was the white wedding . . .

Our cousin, the bride and her groom

With cousins after the ceremony

Nia found a little playmate outside the church

I wasn't doing too well with my swollen ankle and had a hard time keeping up with Nia

The parade of brides at the church

After the white wedding we went to the groom's family compound for another reception: 

This was the chief - an important community dignitary, and I believe a family relation

Everyone was seated under tents to shade from the sun

The expansive view off the back of the groom's family compound

To start the festivities we dipped vegetables in kola nut sauce and had wine; the dipping was bitter tasting.

Our cousins

A few other notes . . .

We had also celebrated in New York City with the bride and groom a few weeks before leaving for Nigeria - it was a season of celebration!

The food at the receptions was generally rice and meat. We drank plenty of bottled water or pure water (little pouches - kinda like a boob, as Mr. Love Bird called them!). Nia liked sucking the water out of the them (gee, I wonder why???). Before leaving, my father-in-law had told me to drink Coke while in Nigeria and although I despise it stateside it is delicious in Nigeria thanks to being made with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. It's highly addictive and I couldn't get enough - in the glass bottle, that is! It's rarely seen in a can.

Most ceremonies were conducted in English but people speak Igbo to each other. Uka wasn't taught Igbo growing up but we were given a few key phrases as greetings. We would like to improve our Igbo using this program in time for our trip Christmas 2013.

You can view our entire Nigeria trip album here. I'm slowly adding captions to put things in context, but if you have any questions about this post, others, or what you'd like for me to cover coming up please post in the comments below.

Here's what I have planned for future Nigeria posts:

• Does natural hair exist in Nigeria?
• Mothering in Nigeria
• Our visit to my father-in-law's family village
• Class and colorism 
• Our favorite Nigerian meals
• Infrastructure

Nigeria: Taking a Step Back

I received some great questions on my last post about Nigeria, and it made me realize I need to provide a bit of back story about our trip.

Mr. Love Bird is Nigerian-American; his parents were born in Nigeria, married in the U.S. and he was born in Brooklyn. He is a born and bred New Yorker! When we met in Boston I remember being confused by his name when we exchanged information. He said his name was "you-kah" (phonetically how I heard it; the proper pronunciation is "you-kay") then when he wrote "Uka" on the back of a business card I didn't recognize what nationality it was, and he didn't have an accent so I was very confused. He later explained his family was from Nigeria.

Over the years I've told him how I'd love to visit Nigeria and get to know where he's from. He had been to Nigeria 3x prior to our family trip and was excited that I expressed a strong interest in wanting to go.

Previously, we were unable to go to Nigeria with his career playing basketball abroad. Peak time to go is Christmastime and most overseas players don't get off during that time. It's also the best time to go because Nigerians abroad tend to return home this time for lots of parties and other celebrations. It's a grand reunion time.

With Mr. Love Bird's corporate career we were finally able to go!

Nia and her friends in Nigeria!

 

Getting to Our Homeland

Thank you everyone for the wonderful response to my teaser post on our trip to Nigeria. So many of you online and IRL (in real life) have requested to hear more and have been so understanding of the fact that we're in the midst of a major move.

I'm taking a break from packing to put this post together...

With so many thoughts still swirling in my head about the epic-ness of our trip, I decided to just go ahead and go in chronological order. Makes sense, right?

Several of you have asked about traveling internationally with a toddler and while I'd like to eventually do a separate post about that (I've hinted at it before when Nia was a baby), I will intersperse some tips throughout but I do promise to do a dedicated blog post. 

On our way to JFK - we had a gorgeous departure day!

We left for Nigeria the day after Christmas in the evening on Air France Premiere connecting on our flight to Lagos via Paris. From Lagos we stayed on the same plane to Port Harcourt - a short 45 minute flight. Honestly, Mr. Love Bird had spoken so highly of what we were going to encounter by upgrading to Premiere that I was actually just excited for the flight itself for weeks!

A quick snapshot at Charles de Gaulle Airport

A look back at our plane once we landed in Nigeria; the plane from NYC to Paris was a double-decker - the first time I had  flown on one!

Outside Port Harcourt Airport

Uka's sister Nnenna flew with us to Nigeria and while the check-in desk warned us about a strike in Paris and how we were definitely going to miss our connecting flights by bringing carry on luggage, in the end there was nothing to worry about and we were fine. 

Nia in her Boba 3G that I won right before the trip while we wait to load up the van with our luggage.

I have to stop and say here that having the Boba 3G carrier was a dream come true! Nia was excited by the novelty of being on my back and we easily navigated Charles de Gaulle airport. Speaking of the airport, I spotted a Ladurée on our way to our connection and instinctively wanted to run and pick up some macarons (you can read about my obsession here) but decided to wait on the return trip to do so. They were SO good!

Overall I found that staff and fellow travelers were sympathetic and helpful in general to our traveling with a toddler. Despite already being ahead of lines by flying Premiere we were whisked to front of lines virtually everywhere. It was a real blessing! Besides skipping the lines, the leg room, meals, lounge access, extra baggage allowance and attentiveness we received from the Premiere staff was fantastic. I don't think we'll ever fly economy for a long haul flight in the future!

Regarding total travel time, France and Nigeria are both 6 hours ahead and we flew overnight to Paris so counting layovers and in-air time, it was roughly 16 hours of "airportness." 

One aspect that didn't dawn on me until maybe a month before our trip was that it was hot in Nigeria (yes, I'm a bit slow!). So after getting over the excitement of flying Air France Premiere, I became excited about going to 80 degree sunny weather. Although we hadn't had chilling temperatures in NYC yet (we've since been hit with our first winter snow this past weekend), it was still exciting to go to a warmer climate. I made sure we were dressed in layers to strip down once we landed.

There wasn't a jet bridge in Port Harcourt and we deplaned by going down stairs. The first thing that hit me was the humid night air. And the smell of air very different from NYC. The air wasn't quite as heavy as Florida's muggy air that I had expected - I was trying to seek in my travel memory bank for something to compare it to. The smell was more country, but not in a "fresh country air" kind of way. NYC has a myriad of smells from block to block even, and throughout our trip I would make mental notes of the smells which I'll continue to touch on. For me smell is inextricably linked to my memories of our trip.

Once we arrived in Port Harcourt we met up with our aunt and her daughter. I had read that retrieving luggage in Port Harcourt was a nightmare so I was definitely prepared to wait hours for our luggage. Luckily it was a mere 2 hours before all of us retrieved our luggage. There was something like 15 pieces for the entire family!

Nia was exhausted and fell asleep pretty quickly at the hotel

Uka's aunt's brother and driver were waiting to pick us up, and we were so excited to be on our way at last! We stayed at a hotel about 2 hours from the airport and in the morning we had hoped to wake up bright and early but overslept a bit and left for a 3 hour drive to Ohafia, where Uka's maternal family lives. It was a real journey, but I loved taking in all the sights and sounds along the way . . .

An example of traffic - people and cars made it a bit congested at times!

Nia was a good sport during the long ride - and yes, there are no car seats/regulations for child restraints in Nigeria (more on that to come . . .)

Another busy street scene

Sellers of beverages and snacks would approach cars in traffic; it was SO welcome as sometimes we'd be stuck in traffic for a while. I'd imagine it was also a great way for keeping in shape as they'd sometimes run alongside the car!

As we moved away from Port Harcourt the landscape changed . . .

It was interesting to me to see this "Jamaica" shirt as Nigeria often reminded me of the month I spent in Jamaica; from the landscape to the music and food I can now see the strong ties between Jamaica and Nigeria!

So after departing NYC on the evening of Monday, December 26 we arrived in Ohafia, Nigeria the afternoon of Wednesday, December 28.

Part of the festivities we were there for was our cousin's wedding on Thursday the 29th and 30th. I will have fun details on that in the next post as well as how we settled into Ohafia.

Is there something you're itching to know about our trip? Let me know in the comments and I'll try to address it in upcoming posts. 
 
 

Nigeria for Life

I have been trying to piece together my first of many posts about our trip to Nigeria and it's so hard to know where to start. Last night before I went to bed I did a brain dump of everything from our nearly 2 week trip that stood out to me.

There is so much to say!

In all going to Nigeria was life changing for me. Before touching down in Lagos I got emotional just thinking about how I was returning to not only where my ancestors were from but from where all of humanity originated (meaning Africa). This felt so powerful! I didn't cry but tears welled up in my eyes and I warned Mr. Love Bird that I was having "a moment." 

While I prepare and organize pics and details recapping our trip, I wanted to share my most favorite picture from nearly 1,000 we took:

I made her little skirt before we left for Nigeria - she loved it! More on that in a separate post.

To me this picture, taken from the garage leading out of our Aunt's compound symbolized the future our family will have in Nigeria, the opportunity and the expansiveness that I felt there.

Look forward to sharing more about our trip soon!