Month: February 2011

Living proof that I will never be a hairdresser

If you know me in real life or used to read my other blog you’ll know that I’m not only notoriously bad at baking banana loaf, I’m also notoriously bad at cutting hair.  Here is proof: (no judgies please, ok?)  Besides, to take 3 kids for a haircut is very, very expensive.

Daniel at about 16 months old:

Daniel, May 2008, just after the girls were born.  Hey, the hormones were rampant.

Daniel, late 2008.  Don’t even ask.  I picked up the #3 instead of the #4 to cut his hair.  It’s hard to focus when the child’s screaming and being pinned down by his father.

Daniel, early 2009.  This time I took the #3 out of the box so I wouldn’t get confused with the #4 and the #3, but ended up using the #2.  Shameful I say.  Please see story above.  I’m sticking to that.

Mignon and Isabel’s first fringe cut (taken with Grannies, they were NOT happy with me.  The Grannies, not the children)

Eek.  That one’s really bad..

This one was July 2010.  By this time I had learnt that less really is more, but not always in a straight line:

And here the hairdresser messed up their hair in December 2010: (she had to run after them and cut over their heads from the back.  It was not pretty)

And lastly, my most recent ‘work’.  Done this week.  Don’t ask about the outfits, they picked and dressed themselves, who am I to complain? I also have to confess that I am known to do what I can with Daniel within the limitations of home-based-hair-cutting-hysteria and then cart him off to school where his lovely teachers keep scissors at hand and snip stray hairs to fix my work.  Love it!  (Mignon in pink top and Isabel in white top)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can’t say I didn’t warn you…

Reality bites

This morning I did what I do every morning first thing and checked twitter (can you say addict?).  I woke up to the horror of the earthquake in Christchurch.

We have a good friend that lives there with his wife and baby boy.  He called us last week to have a catch-up and ask for advice about reflux  as they are really battling.  He also mentioned in passing that they were finally going to have their house fixed after the damage of the December Earthquake.

Tonight he doesn’t have a house and neither does his parents.  In fact, they have nothing.  Everything is destroyed.

But they are all alive.  Shocked and devastated, but alive.

Dear friend, we send you all our love and strength and wish we could offer you our home and all our stuff to share.  We have you in our thoughts constantly and wish you were just down the road so we could do something physical to help!

MFM – Baby Marrow and Quinoa Fritters

I wanted to try something a little different this week as we were dying for something healthy and light after our weekend of indulgence, and this looked beautiful.

I found the wheat free, gluten free and egg free recipe here and the original here.  We normally do wheat free but ran out of rice flour, so I did a combination of the 2 recipes and it looked really amazing.  Not exactly diet-friendly due to the frying, but hey, it’s Monday. Here’s how I ended up making it (I’m notorious for taking shortcuts and not reading recipes properly.  Whatever.  I blame my Mother.)

1 onion, peeled and finely diced
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp curry powder
400g baby marrows, grated
2 cups cooked quinoa*
1/2 cup self-raising flour
3 eggs, lightly beaten
Salt and pepper, to taste
Sunflower oil, for frying

In a frying pan, heat a glug of olive oil and add the onion. Saute until the onion has softened.
Add the garlic and the cumin and curry powder and saute for a further minute.
In a large bowl, place the grated marrows, the cooked quinoa, the flour and the eggs and stir to combine thoroughly. Add the onion mixture to the bowl and stir.
Season with salt and pepper.
In a large pan, heat enough sunflower oil for shallow frying. Using a tablespoon, spoon
the baby marrow mixture into the oil and gently flatten slightly with the back of the spoon.
In batches, fry the cakes until they are golden and crisp, which should take no more
than a few minutes on each side. Remove with a slotted spoon or stainless steel spatula and
drain on kitchen paper. Continue until all of the batter has been used.

It was delicious, even the kids ate them.  But maybe only because we told them they were cookies.  They are used to potato fritters, so they were only mildly sceptical about these.

Here is a pic: (I’m no professional food photographer, so please forgive me!)

*quinoa: Quinoa is a grain from South America that is a protein, not a carb, which is a big win in my book!  The easiest way to make it is literally to rinse, add to a pan, add water so that it is 1:2 quinoa to water ratio and a little vegetable stock.  Bring to the boil and simmer  until the water is absorbed, about 20 minutes.  It tastes almost like couscous.

Overdue weekend post

This past weekend (that started on Friday morning) we squeezed in so much fun it felt like it should have lasted for at least a week!

It was Etienne’s birthday on Friday and we were staying over in town for the U2 concert on Friday night, our first night away from all the kids.  How sad is that?  They were at home with Angie, our superhero and the only person able to take care of our mad bunch.

By now you would have seen all the comments about the Cape Town concert ranging from bad sound to too many smokers, so I won’t bore you with that.  I will say that it was a very long, hot day, but well worth it.  The fan walk was amazing as always, here’s a pic of Etienne in front of one of the big posters on the way:

I never ever post pictures of myself, but just to give you an idea, my hair was beautifully straight and I was wearing actual makeup when we left the apartment and here we are, Etienne looking beautiful and me, well, no makeup and ‘minced’ hair.  Oh well.

On Saturday we headed through to Kleinmond where Etienne’s BFF is spending some of his honeymoon with his folks that retired there.  He lives in Taiwan and got married in the Philippines recently to his lovely wife that Daniel calls ‘the little girl’ because she is so petite.  To say our kids were spoilt is the understatement of the century.  They were doted on by everyone from the minute they set foot in the door and rewarded us by being pretty well-behaved (well, most of the time anyway).

Here is a pic of our walk on the beach:

Our friend’s Dad also plays the keyboard and he entertained the kids for ages, check out this little video of Mignon playing and Isabel and Daniel dancing.  I’m so glad I caught it!

My humble thoughts on Steve Hofmeyr

I’m no political satirist or activist.  But I am a Mom and I am Afrikaans and I do have some thoughts and concerns I would like to share.

It was with great interest I followed Steve Hofmeyr’s reaction on Bono’s comments over the weekend and the ‘shocking’ admission today that it was all a publicity stunt.

I get that he felt the need to share that he dumped his R5000 tickets and had a good giggle at the ensuing remarks on twitter.  But I was a little annoyed at the Neil Diamond remark (‘All I ask is that Neil Diamond keeps his political trap shut until after Sweet Carolina’)  Was this not a tad out of line?

He then proceeded to post a picture of himself and his boys having sushi instead of going to the U2 concert.  I’m curious, did he call up his ex-wife and say ‘Hi, I’m taking the boys out for sushi instead of going to U2 so I can take a pic and stick it on twitter so everyone can see that I’m a fabulous Dad and that I gave old Bono the middle finger’

I wonder if it occurred to him to that he might be using them for his own agenda?  It did to me.

I wonder if Steve has ever been to Ireland?  Whether he has been to Belfast?  I wonder what he actually knows of their ‘troubles’?  I doubt if he is in any position to judge them and their version of the struggle.

I also see that he is very active within Afriforum.  I wonder if, in his opinion, there is a difference between being Afrikaans and being an Afrikaner? (and lets not even get into who qualifies as Africans and who not, we’ll be here forever).  I think he does think there is a difference.  I think that, despite all his statements to the contrary, he does judge people according to race and colour.

As his twitter bio suggests, he is an ‘angry activist’.  Surely this suggests that in his mind some people are excluded from being Afrikaners, as opposed to being Afrikaans?

Interestingly enough I cannot help but notice that the photos on the Afriforum Facebook page are exclusively of white people.  Does this not worry you just a teeny weeny bit?

I get that he feels he has a duty and I respect his choices and that he wants to use his ‘fame’ to do so.  I also get that Bono probably spoke out of turn, but I do think a lot of people chose to take what he said out of context.

Organisations such as Afriforum and opposition parties such as the DA are neccessary in my very humble opinion as it helps keep people honest, and I appreciate that they are taking this whole “kill the Boer” issue to the Courts, but where is the line between making a point and leaning ever so slightly towards being militant and exclusive.  Is Steve not doing exactly what Malema is doing, just in reverse?

I live in deep dark Cape Town and I suspect things are slightly different here than in Blue Bull country.  Here we embrace people that are Afrikaans, regardless of what their colour is.

We even love saying Jou Ma se …..

With meaning.

pick pick pick

Since the Big Prickly Pear Episode over the weekend Etienne and I have been walking around with my favourite pair of tweezers.  I have several pairs of tweezers, but this is by the far the best one I’ve ever had.  It’s always in my make-up bag so I can whip it out and pluck that stray hair whenever I’m sitting in traffic or whatever.  Every girl should have a favourite pair of tweezers.  And I’m particularly possessive over mine.

Why am giving you this absolute little gem of utterly useless information?

Because I was sitting in an interview yesterday and ran my palm over my neck and SUDDENLY I felt a hair.  A prickly little hair that didn’t belong there.  And I felt completely distracted.  And panicked.

Firstly I was wondering about where my friggin tweezers were and mentally poking a little voodoo doll that looked like Etienne for peeling those farking prickly pears in the house.  Then, as I was leisurely running my hand back and forth over the offending hair I was wondering if the person I was talking to could see it protruding from my neck.  I was wondering if she was going to walk away from the interview and say to someone: “OMG, you won’t believe it, this chick had a massive hair sticking out of her neck!”

I seriously had to pull myself toward myself and focus on the conversation, it was ridiculous.  You know what it’s like when you know you can’t scratch something and ALL you want to do it pick away, like having an annoying pimple.

At least I found the bloody tweezers floating around the house and could resolve the ‘issue’ when I got home.

Phew.

Chestnut and Mushroom Pilaf

This recipe is from the Patrick Holford Low GL Diet book and easy as pie as many of the vegetarian recipes are.  It takes about 50 minutes to make including cooking time and you only use a single pan.  Now that’s cooking!

As a variation you can replace the chestnuts (that according to Etienne taste like nothing) with almonds or cashews, depending on what your fancy is.

  • 170g Peeled Chestnuts (the tins here have 140g and that’s fine for me)
  • 1tbsp olive oil
  • 70ml brown basmati rice
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 2.5cm fresh garlic (I use about 1/2 tsp dry ginger)
  • 150ml water with some vegetable stock
  • 113g chopped mushrooms (I ignore this and use a whole punnet, it cooks away anyway)
  • 2tsp soy sauce
  • 1/2 cup frozen baby peas

Heat oil in the pan and fry the uncooked rice until it’s pale brown (about 3-4  minutes).  Add garlic and ginger, stir for 30 seconds, add onion and cook for a further 3 minutes.  Then, add mushrooms and fry for another 3 minutes.

Add in the stock and chestnuts and simmer over a low heat for about 35 minutes until the rice is soft.

Lastly, add the peas and soy sauce and let it cook for a minute or so until bright green. (the peas, not the rest of the dish)

It sounds like a weird recipe, but it’s amazing!

The longlonglong weekend

OK. Fair enough.  It was a normal weekend.  It was the first weekend in literally months that we had absolutely nothing planned.  No parties, no dinner parties, nothing.  (I’m almost ashamed to admit it)

We decided to give the kids a break from all their friends and have a lovely weekend to ourselves and the Grandparents.

We should have known that there would be trouble when we popped into our local Pick and Pay yesterday and they ran around the shop screaming and laughing and babbling like lunatics.  Generally they are a bit noisy in the shops, but yesterday they took it to a whole new level.  Yesterday we were ‘those’ people that you hate in the shops with the loud children.

And that’s pretty much how the rest of the weekend went.  With a little manic crying every now and again, jumping on everything, ignoring repeated pleas and just generally being little miscreants.  We tolerated it because Mignon and Isabel are under the weather with the snots, so we only realised it when we got to the end of our tethers on a Sunday evening and they eventually ended up in Time Out.  I’m surprised we lasted that long.

After Time Out peace descended.  They sat in a line all quiet and peaceful, little halos all bright and shiny.  Which makes me wonder: why did it only dawn on us then to draw the line? We just kind of sucked it up until then.

Don’t get me wrong, we had a lovely weekend full of hugs and cuddles and we chatted up a storm, but jeez, they’re a busy bunch.

Here is a conversation about party themes we had in the car today.  Just so you believe me when when I say it’s an ongoing conversation in our house:  (If you don’t understand Afrikaans, my apologies, but there’s enough references to popular characters for you to follow the gist)

Party theme conversation

Oh, and when you get given a box full of prickly pears that haven’t been de-thorned, do encourage your husband to peel them outside. On paper.  And not to use one of the kitchen cloths to wipe down the kitchen counter and then just chuck it in the sink.  Where Someone will use it later.  And end up with a hand full of thorns.  Just so you know.

No

The first time I heard “No” uttered by Daniel when he was around 2 years old I was simultaneously filled with dread and fear and powerlessness.  Because up to then I had control over him, but he had clearly decided that he had his own free will.  How bloody inconvenient.

Over time I have come to be able to push those feelings into a little corner as you learn coping mechanisms such as making a game of it and pretending that is doesn’t phase you and it’s all fun etc.  Or I just make Etienne deal with it when I know I’m about to crack.

I kept Isabel home today as she isn’t well and my Mom came to fetch her for the afternoon.  I had to collect Mignon and Daniel and then drive to my Mom’s house to collect Isabel.  As I arrive Daniel’s teacher says he’s been ‘otherwise’ for most of the day, refusing to pack away work when he is done and just generally making a mess.  And I already braced myself.

I put him and Mignon in the car and he refused to face the front after much cajoling and begging (I mean, you cannot be seen to lose your temper in the parking lot of the school now can you?).  So, I ended up strapping him in facing out the back window.  And then proceeded to say that if he doesn’t turn around in 1/2/3 counts he will not go with to his Ouma’s house to collect Isabel.  He remained stubbornly unmoved, which of course made me feel all the more powerless and generally pissed off.  And people in cars were pointing and staring at the child facing the wrong way.  Oh the shame of it.

I then went straight home and waited for Etienne to come home so I could take Mignon and leave.  And that 7 minutes of waiting went something like this:

  • Daniel, please bring your bag up from the car.
  • No. Never.
  • Daniel, please don’t make a mess in the playroom.
  • No.
  • Daniel, please close the back door.
  • No. Never ever ever ever.  I’m not your friend! I don’t like you anymore!

To which I of course said ‘Just wait until your Dad gets home!’  (which of course, was exactly what my Mom used to say)

So, ‘No’ is probably one of the most powerful words in the world.  And the most hated by parents everywhere.

If he weren’t so damn cute and sweet most of the time he would have been in BIG trouble.

ps My most heartwarming moment of the day was the reunion between Mignon and Isabel.  They love each other so much and gave each other a big hug and a kiss after spending the day apart.  And then proceeded to have an argument about a doll dummy.  It never ends.

Book Club Mania

I belong to a book club.  A really fabulous book club.  Not all the gals read as much as they should (it IS a book club after all), but the company is great and we are all kind of in the same place at the moment.

In our house we often joke about the parent:child ratio being 2:3 .  It gets a bit rough sometimes, but it gets better as they get older. At least now when you are busy and someone needs your attention you can ask them to just wait a moment.  When they’re a little baby you are hopping all over the show.

Tonight, sitting  amongst these amazing women, I realised that if only the Moms were to go out with all the children we would be 8:21.  That’s right.  8 adults to 21 children.

Here some interesting stats:

  • 3 of us have twins
  • 4 of us have only girls
  • 2 of us have only boys
  • 2 of us have a mix of boys/girls
  • 6 of us have 3 kids each

In a society where it is generally accepted that families have 2 children I just find it amazing that there are so many 3 child families.  Very cool.

How many kids in your family?  If you could choose, how many kids would you want?