It’s this particular photo of Beyoncé on stage in London for the Mrs. Carter World Tour, reaching out to Blue Ivy in her sparkly blue jumpsuit, that has people talking. From the angle that the picture was taken, a few different sites and publications have speculated that the mother of one, could soon become a mother of two, and The New York Post is running with the story.

Multiple sources told us after the Met Gala last week that the singer, who is currently in the middle of a world tour, is pregnant. Bey wore a Givenchy gown with a high, belted waist that carefully camouflaged her midsection, but pictures have emerged on blogs of what looks like a baby bump from recent tour dates. Last week Beyoncé, who gave birth to daughter Blue Ivy in January 2012, gave an interview to ABC’s “GMA,” where she said, “I would like more children. I think my daughter needs some company. I definitely love being a big sister.” But she came short of saying when that would occur: “At some point, when it’s supposed to happen.”

For a long while there, before Bey announced that she was pregnant in 2011 at the MTV VMAs, every other week magazines and entertainment shows were asking whether or not she was pregnant, and for the longest time, the answer was always no. But nowadays, anything is possible. If the rumors of another baby on the way could be true, it would be an interesting time for such a thing to happen, considering she just started her world tour and there’s no sign of it ending until early September. Then again, I had the opportunity to watch her in concert while she was promoting 4 in August of 2011, and I had no inkling that the singer was with child, though she wasn’t dancing as much as usual, and her costume was much looser than usual.

But as always, we’ll have to wait and see if this information is true or false, because we know that if it’s factual, her team, aka The Beyoncé Machine, will find an elaborate way to spill the beans. But a possible post-eating looking belly and a high-waisted skirt aren’t really convincing us…yet.

Caroline Torem Craig/WENN.com

What do you think?

Source: WENNN

From HelloBeautiful

I remember vividly the first time I came to know the name Jada Pinkett. It was in the last days of “A Different World,” when the “The Cosby Show ” spin-off sitcom set on a Historically Black College campus was struggling to keep its freshness as it transitioned in to the early 90′s. Beloved characters Dwayne Wayne & Whitley Gilbert were all grown-up and professional, and the show’s once authentic connection to college life, youth culture and energy was dwindling. Insert Jada Pinkett’s Lena James, a powerful pint-sized freshman who boomed with energy and breathed new life in to cast. She joins the cast as a freshman, Lena James, introducing her self to the common area with a not so humble solo step routine: “L to the E, to the N, to the A, Step off, you ain’t getting no play!” From that moment on, in my 9 year-old mind, I was pretty sure I wanted to be her. She exemplified the spirit of what largely came to define the creative Black experience in the 90′s: loud, colorful and unapologetically proud. That was 20 years ago.

I find myself on the phone with Jada on a Thursday afternoon about a month ago. She’s in the process of doing promotions for “Free Angela And All Political Prisoners,” the brilliant documentary directed by Shola Lynch.  After a friend shared the film with her, Jada came on as a producer using her hollywood muscle to help get the film distributed in select AMC theaters nationwide. What I thought would be the typical 15-minute movie junket interview (abruptly ended by publicists listening in on the other end), turned in to a 90-minute phone call with the real Mrs. Smith about everything from her early relationship with her husband to why people should lay off Rihanna.

In what #TeamBEautiful has deemed the Best.Jada.Interview.Ever., we speak with the stylish and brutally honest A-lister about about parenting, dating, marriage, Black hollywood, and why America loves to hate on little girls. Check out the first of our three part series.

HB: You get a lot of criticism on the way you parent, has it ever bothered you?

JPS: You know what, I get it. In people eyes, I could see how it could be radical. It’s so funny the more I sit back and think about it, I was raised like this. It’s so natural to me–my situation was different; I had a lot of freedom. My mother worked a lot and she also struggled with drugs. So I had a lot of freedom at 12. But I also paid attention to where freedom worked and where it didn’t. One of the freedoms that I had was hair and clothes and how it completely [helped to] develop my self-esteem and sense of worth. And how, if I could dye my hair blue and shave it on the sides and deal with people remarks or smirks while I am walking to school, I’m good. To be able to stand tall in my own personal convictions for who I am and what I decided I wanted to be. And I was given that at a very early age. So by the time I got to 18 and I came out to LA, there was nobody out here that was going to pull me out of my own Jada game because I was very clear about who I am. You aren’t going to sucker me into to doing some crazy Isht I didn’t want to do. I didn’t have someone dictating to me along on what I need to be, and then at 18 struggling to figure out–I was already there. And the difference I see in Willow at 12 is, she’s got a loving father and the truth of the matter is that a girl’s emotional development is really strongly developed based on her relationship with her father. I just think of parenting at this: I don’t believe until waiting until a child is 18 to throw them to the world. I’d rather have kids in my house with me, building out certain freedoms as you go, and being there with them in my house while they are exercising these certain freedom so that we can be in the process in these freedoms together. When my children are 18, they will be fine. I don’t have to worry about them. Life starts when you pop out of the womb, and that’s what I believe!

Read more at HelloBeautiful.com

As humans, we know that we have limitations.  None of us are omniscient, all powerful, or can break the barriers of time and space; and we accept that about ourselves.  The only time that it’s difficult to accept the shortcomings of a person is when you are a parent and you’re observing your child.  I would always get so angry and annoyed at my own parents when I felt like they wanted me to be a superwoman of sorts.  Being late was unacceptable, even though one of them sped to work every day.  If I was having a bad day, I was supposed to keep it all inside, but they were allowed to take their bad day out on others.  Even to this day I still feel annoyed with it, but I realize that it’s something that I’m going to struggle with as a parent myself.

My daughter is the love of my life.  Seeing her little head come bouncing toward me is one of the greatest things in this world to me, and I look forward every day to sitting on the couch with a book, her sitting next to me with hers, and watching her mimick every time I turn a page.  I look at her and see nothing but possibilities.  So when she hit her second birthday and she hadn’t started talking yet, I have to be honest, it scared me.

Every parent who’s involved with their child looks forward to the day that their child start’s speaking.  I heard the excitement in my sisters’ voices while they exclaimed that their children said their first words, and there was a bittersweet feeling when I would hear my niece or nephews (two of them are younger than my daughter) talking in the background, while my child only pronounced hard, consonant, guttural sounds.

At the beginning of her life when she would go see the doctor, he would ask questions about her development, and she was always on track, except for when it came to speech.  Each doctor visit I would dread having to feign a smile and say:  ”Well, she’s not really saying those sounds yet, but we tend to communicate strongly on a non-verbal level.”  He would smile back and suggest that I should seek early intervention.

During her last doctor visit he asked me if I’d looked into early intervention yet.  I was honest, told him no, and he asked me why.  That’s when I realized that I was scared of what they might say.  I feel as though my daughter is smart and amazing, but if they reveal her limitations to me, then its something that’s concrete, something that I’ll have to face, handle, acknowledge.  It would shine a light on my own incompetence as a mother, and beckon of light would echo on my child.  They’re right, ignorance is bliss, and I wasn’t ready to give that happiness up yet.

It wasn’t until thinking about my own development, and one of my sisters reminding me that we also needed speech therapy when we were younger. As a child, I stuttered and my sister had a problem pronouncing her words correctly.  However, our parents put us in therapy to help.  My sister reminded me that just because we couldn’t talk didn’t mean that we were any less intelligent than anyone else, and it’s the same thing for my baby.

I feel like sometimes, as African Americans, getting professional help can have such a negative connotation to it. We’re supposed to be strong, and our children will be too.  But, just because you have to get some outside help shouldn’t be a bad thing.  Your child is amazing, but sometimes getting help at the earliest time is the best thing for them.  It can be scary, and it will be scary, but just remember that you’re doing what’s best for your child, and that’s what being a good parent is all about.

Kendra Koger loves her daughter.  You should love her twitter account @kkoger.

Source: WENN

Beyoncé Knowles-Carter may be basking in the joys of motherhood, but sister-friend Kelly Rowland says she’s not quite ready to be about that mommy life and seeing Bey with baby Blue is not giving her baby fever. The “Kisses Down Low” singer recently chatted it up with E! News on the red carpet at the Elle Women of Music event in New York. She honestly revealed to Alicia Quarles that she’s not ready to be a mother just yet and has no shame in admitting it.

“I’m not ready, I’m not ready to have a child. I can be very honest,” she revealed.

“Because right now, I’m a bit selfish, a lot—I was gonna say a little—but I’m still selfish,” 32-year-old Rowland added.

She went on to say that she really enjoys having her time to herself and that she isn’t exactly ready to share it with another person.

“I like my time, I like to wake up whenever I want to and I like to come and go as I please. I don’t know if I’m ready to share that time with another person, I don’t wanna mess them up,” Kelly confessed.

She did, however, reveal that she’s down to babysit baby Blue if ever Bey needed her to. We certainly can’t blame Ms. Kelly for wanting to do her thing before settling down and having babies. It seems that there is a lot more she hopes to accomplish, not to mention her forthcoming Talk a Good Game album, which is slated to drop later this year. It’s hard not to respect her honesty.

Click here to watch Kelly’s interview.

Source: Shutterstock

From MommyNoire

Having children can bring up all kinds of emotions, but we were surprised by Isabella Dutton’s essay in the Daily Mail that said her main emotion was no emotion at all. Thirty-three years after giving birth to her first child, she can still recall quite clearly how indifferent she felt at the sight of her five-day-old son, Stuart, in his crib.

What did it, exactly? “Quite simply, I had always hated the idea of motherhood,” Dutton writes. “In that instant, any lingering hope that becoming a mum would cure me of my antipathy was dispelled.” Believing it selfish to have just one child, two years later she had a daughter—and the same feelings toward motherhood. Dutton married her husband at age 19, not wanting children though he said he wanted four. He thought she would eventually change her mind and she did at age 22, but only out of her love for him. Though she didn’t relish the job, she still got in with it. Dutton says she fed and clothed her children, took them to the park; she said no to nannies, feeling she would be the best for her kids. She didn’t want to do a “halfhearted” job, but Dutton still said her children “were like parasites [and]…would continue to take from me and give nothing meaningful back in return.”

The reluctant mother says she missed her old life, though with her day job as a typist at a telecommunications company, it’s not that she was doing anything terribly exciting. What she misses most is her time to herself and her uninterrupted time with her husband. Dutton is careful to point out her attitude toward having children isn’t a result of her own childhood. “Mum and I were close; even as an adult I could always confide in her. My childhood was very happy and conventional. Like most little girls I played with dolls. But I never recall a time when I wanted those make-believe games of motherhood to become a reality.”

Read more on MommyNoire.com.

Source: EurWeb

If there’s one thing that we love at Madame Noire, it’s cute, cuddly, giggly, squishy babies! “Lose to Win” singer, Fantasia Barrino recently shared two adorable photos of her 1-year-old son, Dallas Xavier, whom she shares with Antwaun Cook. We can always appreciate when celebrities decide to release photos of their little bundles of joy!

Tasia gave birth to Dallas back in December of 2011 and this little guy has clearly stolen her heart. She’s gone on record multiple times, expressing that her children add so much joy to her life.

“I felt like at this point, for me, my music makes me happy and my children make me happy and I need to put my love in both of those. So my children are my kids and my music is my blessing and I want to be good to it,” she said in an interview last month with Kiss 105.7.

Dallas is Fantasia’s second child, she also has an 11-year-old daughter, Zion Quari Barrino, who will be 12 in August.

Source: EurWeb

Source: EurWeb

Who else is really loving these covers EBONY has done lately? That revamp definitely did the magazine a lot of good and we’re feeling it!

For the new May issue, which centers around motherhood (of course because of Mother’s Day), Jill Scott covers the magazine with her very adorable 3-year-old son Jett. According to LoveBrownSugar.com, the singer speaks on how motherhood has changed her, and the success and sometimes struggles of being a single mother.

From the snippets provided, Scott says that of all the things she loves about being a mother, it’s the moments when she feels and sees the love from her son in some of the smallest ways that moves her the most.

“Motherhood is getting your hands and your feet in the soil…When Jett puts my face in his hands and tells me, ‘Mommy you’re so pretty’ or smells me, it’s so wonderful.”

She also dishes on the reality check she received trying to raise Jett as a single mom after her relationship with her former drummer and fiancé Lil’ John Roberts, ended some time after Jett was brought into the world (they are said to be co-parenting though). She says that every single mother needs a “village,” as she puts it:

“That I-can-do-it-by-myself mentality is a lie. I’m sorry if I hurt anybody’s feelings, but you cannot do it all by yourself. You need a village: some aunties, grandmoms, friends. I couldn’t do this by myself and would be a fool to think I could.”

You can get more of Scott’s thoughts and advice on motherhood when this newest issue of EBONY drops on April 16, and you can see more photos from the shoot at LoveBrownSugar. But in the meantime, do you remember this picture of Scott and Jett above from when she debuted him to the world in Essence? He’s grown up so fast since she showed him off in that magazine in 2010. Definitely a cutie-patootie, and he looks just like Jill!

What do you think about her take on motherhood?

Source: Getty Images

From Essence

Even a Hollywood starlet like Lauren London battles with the challenges of being a single, working mother.

The new star of BET’s The Game says juggling her work life and raising her 4-year-old son Cameron Carter (dad is rapper Lil’ Wayne) has its challenges. “It’s not easy but I’m not the first to do it,” she told ESSENCE at their sixth annual Black Women in Hollywood luncheon. “I know I can do it; there’s a lot of mothers that work. I got the blueprint from my mother who was a working mom, so I just get it done.”

Aside from her family, London says she finds inspiration from women in the industry like The Game’s creator Mara Brock Akil, a mom of two. “Just working with Mara continues to inspire me to meet the goals that I continue to make for myself,” she said.

Yes, women are definitely finding a way to keep their family’s heads above water. For more with Lauren, including what she thinks about her new character on The Game, head over to Essence.

Are you a single, working mom?  Do you have family support or are you doing it alone? How do you make it work?

Shutterstock

Moms can be so busy thinking about how to satisfy their kids, their partners, their parents, their in-laws and their friends, that they can end up feeling deeply unsatisfied themselves. Everyone else gets the best of them. And they just get the scraps—the tired, haggard, cranky, messy woman left over when everyone else got a piece of super woman. Here are 14 ways to combat feeling like you’ve neglected yourself.

C. Smith/WENN.com

From ESSENCE

Showtime’s hit series House of Lies has earned much attention since it debuted in 2012. Now in its second season, the clever comedy about an over-the-top consultant, played by Best Comedy Actor Golden Globe winner Don Cheadle, continues to up the ante with guest stars. Nia Long is among the selected actors to appear on the series this season and we hear her upcoming episode may raise some eyebrows.

Nia talks about her character, Tamara:

“The very first time you meet her, she talks about how she’s been out of the game raising children. She’s a wife. And coming back into the game she wants to have some sort of integrity for herself. When you look at the characters on House of Lies, they are all very twisted. They are not what they seem. They’re back stabbing. They’re just ugly people, not nice people. They go for theirs.  I think Tamara’s approach to things isn’t that way. She has a different way of getting what she wants.”

On what it’s like working with Don Cheadle:

AH-MAZ-ING! He is probably my new favorite person right now. At first I was so intimidated and nervous and I never get that way. I don’t know what it was about him. I don’t know what it was that made me feel that way. I think it was me coming on to a show that’s already established. I’ve seen almost everything he’s done. I’ve always wanted to work with him. I really like him because he stays under the radar and does great work. He doesn’t care about the fanfare or the fame.

Don’t you just love her? It’ll be great to see her back to work.  You can read the full interview on Essence.

Do you watch House of Lies?