In Love Anwar: Express Affection for Your Baby
By Gabrielle Anwar
Don’t wait for an official holiday to share your love with the world. One day a year is simply not enough! Rather than pouring over generic Hallmark poems that bear no resemblance to your relationship, try your hand at some personalized prose.
You might inspire your pen by Googling some of your favorite writers or quotes. Handwrite a heartfelt note to your Beloved, evoke their unique qualities that you fell in love with, and those that continue to seduce you. Separate yourselves from Baby, maintain the extraordinary coupledom that unites you, without mention of sleepless nights, diapers and regurgitation. Maybe create a practice of this expression, beyond an annual obligation.
Another opportunity to dress Baby up in hearts for a photo shoot. Poking props and accessories in creases, nooks and crannies. Do your very best not to encroach on Baby’s personal space. He cannot articulate his confusion and discomfort at suddenly becoming a prop for your social media feed.
Be gentle. Remember to put your tiny self in baby’s booties and feel the significance of being manhandled and posed in unnatural postures and environment.
There is nothing more satisfying than capturing a keepsake of your adorable mini-man to display proudly for years to come, but keep in mind that any discomfort you might provoke in him will also last a lifetime.
With the significant amount of digital tools, you can create a number of adorable images to enhance a simple shot of Baby, finessing with personalized messages, and effects, with little to no disruption to the physical, emotional, psychological status quo.
It is easy in this fast paced world to lose sight of the stimuli that suffuses our lives. We can diffuse the static, turn down the volume, decrease speed and settle into the current moment. Less is more. So much more.
The politics of raising babies is lacking the fundamentals of cause and effect in society. We have not recognized that infancy shapes early childhood, which shapes childhood, which shapes adolescence, which shapes young adulthood, which shapes adulthood. If we do not provide adults with the education to begin conscious parenting from pregnancy onward, then we are regretfully, unconsciously, subjecting our children to failure long before their first steps.
There is a shockingly missing piece to childcare in our communities. We have neglected the critical impact we have from baby’s birth to toddlerhood, when we as parents, exhausted, overwhelmed and inexperienced need the most help and guidance.
When an infant is prepped for success in his immediate, seemingly tiny universe, this will infuse his entire journey through life. He will develop high Self-esteem, self-respect, respect for others, and a gentle, free spirit. If these qualities are lacking in his beginning world, then he may never develop his sense of the expansiveness of love to bring to the planet. It may be too late.
Rehabilitation later in life to remedy this primordial lack is expensive, time consuming and unreliable. Imagine a utopian world where there was no need for a penal institution, judicial system or the need to bear arms?
Author, advocate, philanthropist and actress Gabrielle Anwar at charity events throughout South Florida.
Born in Berkshire, England, attending the Italia Conti Performing Arts Academy in London, the accomplished Gabrielle Anwar has over 45 film and television performances to her credit in both Europe and the States, including her breakout film Scent of a Woman, where she was whisked off her feet into an acclaimed tango with Al Pacino.
Anwar has taken on the roles of a vast array of characters: from the blind diving horse circus performer in Disney’s biopic Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken to the risqué royal in Showtime’s The Tudors, to the supercilious counterpart to Noah Wyle in TNT’s The Librarian II. And from the fatal object of desire in Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead to the regal Queen Anne in The Three Musketeers. She has also shown her versatility as an expat party girl in BBC’s adaptation of Mortimer’s Summer’s Lease, Gun toting Fiona on the hit show Burn Notice and Wicked Lady Tremaine in ABC’s Once Upon A Time.
On the board of Pikler USA, Anwar speaks frequently on early childhood care and its direct relation to mental health, most recently to congress in Washington D.C. Active in funding and bringing awareness to the life-changing work with the firm belief that educating parents and care-givers on infant interaction prevents future developmental issues, addictions, violence and general teen-adult malaise.
On the board of Young Musicians Unite as Vice Chairman and Gala Chair. YMU affords all strokes of Miami’s socio-economic children the opportunity to be educated in the joy of music.
Supporting an array of animal and childcare charities, Anwar continues to host the southern Florida Make A Wish Ball for her twelfth consecutive year, raising more than $25,000,000 in wishes for children with life-threatening illnesses.
Gabrielle and husband, Shareef Malnik are recently empty nesting with their animal menagerie. Anwar continues her lifelong passion for the written word with her first novel and pilot in development.
Anwar’s directorial debut, Sexology is available on iTunes.
