Month: March 2011

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I go back to work full-day.  It’s my first job at a completely new company in almost 10 years and even though it’s a contract for now it’s still all new.  New people, new building, new route to work, new morning routine.  But I’m looking forward to the new challenge and all the people I’ll get to meet.

In the week that I’ve had to think about the change this will bring in our life as it is now I have come to quite a few realisations:

  • I instantly felt an extra rush of love/guilt for the kids.  Because as a working Mom those totally go hand-in-hand.  In some really weird way I’m looking forward to missing them.  Not that I don’t miss them during the day now, but this is different.
  • Emotionally I’m a lot better equipped now to deal with a full-time job.  The girls are bigger and they are with Daniel all day and incredibly well taken care of.
  • We have an amazing support structure.  We have Grandparents, friends and teachers.  We have the entire veritable village it takes to raise a child (or 3 in our case)
  • Maybe I’m just not meant to be a work-from-home kinda person be it right now or forever, but time will tell.
  • I have also realised that Entrepreneurs come in many shapes and forms.  You don’t have to have your own business to be entrepreneurial, you can be so within an organisation.  And that’s ok.  It was a biggie for me.
  • And lastly, this is something for me outside my family where I can make an actual difference.

I can’t wait!!

Just some useless info

Since we embarked on the whole mission to avoid antibiotics/steroids/cortisone as far as possible for our children we realised that half the battle was making sure that we supplement their diets and boost their immune systems to keep them healthy.  Because there are 3 of them we get a little freaked out when they all get sick, as you can imagine.

We usually give them Multivites all year round, but then kick it up a notch from March to September just to be sure.  They still get sick, but not nearly as sick as they used to and they definitely recover a lot faster!

I often get asked what we use, so here’s a pic and description:

From left to right:

  • Natura’s Coughs and Colds formula for when the sniffles start.  If I don’t catch it in time, we normally move on to Pentagen which also helps with aches and pains and fever (not in the picture, couldn’t find the bottle when I took the pic).  Love the stuff, works like a bomb.
  • We also love the Solgar Vitamin C and Multivitamin chew tablets.  We call them sweeties…  They are great value for money.  I keep checking the price against other kiddy vites and I seriously can’t believe the price comparison.  They work out cheaper than those half-arsed Barbie/Barney vites.
  • Echinaforce: We give the kids each a chew tablet every day and can also crank it up a notch when they do get the sniffles.
  • Respitron from Sportron:  When Daniel was diagnosed with all his allergies 2 years ago his chest was really, really bad.  It just wouldn’t clear up until we eliminated all the stuff he was allergic to and I’m convinced the Respitron made a massive difference.

All of the above stuff was R546.00 on the dot and lasts on average about a month.  But remember that we have 3 children and that a single visit to a paediatrician will probably set you back that much.  And then you haven’t even bought medicine yet.

What vites/supplements do you use?

Ps: Please bear in mind that I am not a doctor and this is not a medical opinion, I’m just a Mom and this was by trial and error!

Meat-free Monday: Quinoa risotto with Mushrooms and Thyme

I need to start by saying I didn’t post a MFM recipe last week because of our camping trip, a broken fridge, some defrosted chicken and a resulting chicken pie.  Halfway through supper Etienne reminded me that it was Monday and then sat back and enjoyed my horror with a fork-full of chicken halfway to my mouth.

This week I tried a Quinoa Risotto with Mushrooms and Thyme from Epicurious.  Have I mentioned how much I love Epicurious? (Thanks Rose!)

The very best thing is that I can be standing in Pick and Pay and look for an interesting recipe on my fancy iPhone, they have a fantastic Mobile application.

I don’t normally like to make dishes that require more than a single pan or pot, but this was worth it.  None of the kids ate it of course, but at least they ate the baby butternuts Etienne had halved and stuck in the oven.  They even asked where the salad was.  Imagine.

This is my slightly amended version as the original asks for fancy shiitake and crimini mushrooms.

  • 1 cup quinoa, rinsed
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 1/2 cups chopped onion (about 2 onions)
  • 1 garlic clove, pressed
  • 2 250 g packs of mushrooms
  • 3 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme, divided (I used dried thyme, about 2 teaspoons)
  • 1 cup dry white wine
  • Grated Parmesan cheese

    •  

    Bring 2 cups salted water to boil in medium saucepan. Add quinoa, reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until tender and water is absorbed, about 13 minutes.

    Meanwhile, heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté until onion begins to brown, 5 minutes. Add garlic; stir 30 seconds. Add mushrooms and thyme. Sautée until mushrooms are tender, 6 minutes. Add wine, stir until wine is reduced and liquid is syrupy, 2 minutes. (it took about 6  minutes for this)

    Mix quinoa into mushroom mixture; season with salt and pepper.  You are meant to put the cheese over but we completely forgot.  Oops.

    The Man

    Jack the day we got him

    In September last year we adopted Jack.  Jack was meant to be a ‘small dog’ for Daniel.  Suffice it to say that, because he is a dog of Pavement Origin, he is now thigh height and about 9 months old.  I shudder to think.

    Jack likes to make us think that he isn’t clever.  Jack likes to lie in the girls’ room in the sun in the morning with the cat.  Jack likes to eat food off the table and out of children’s hands.  Jack loves digging up the same flower pot every day, despite heavy stones that are meant to deter him.  Jack will eat almost anything that doesn’t closely resemble broccoli.  Jack also likes to snack on the cat’s food when passing by.

    Jack is also a real wuss.  He has never allowed us to put a choke chain of any shape or form around his neck and when we bought him a harness he was not impressed.  When we put it on him the first few times he would just roll over and lie on the ground.  Not very encouraging then.

    I had 30 minutes to do a quick walk this morning, looked at him and thought HA I’m going to give it a bash.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m no special dog person.  In fact, when patience gets allocated in this house he is pretty far down the line.

    So, I lure him to the gate, spend 3 minutes figuring out the harness, only for him to slip out of the bloody thing and I spend another 3 minutes trying to re-attach.  After much clucking and whistling he eventually leopard crawls out the gate.  And stops.

    5 steps on the driveway and onto the sidewalk where we have a large tree he flops down on the ground, sniffing away and crawling toward the tree with me coaxing him to get up and walkies.  Spectacularly unsuccessfully of course.  And every time a car drives by he cowers, poor guy.

    He eventually crawled up to the next tree and the tree thereafter, never actually walking.  Every now again he would tease me and I would think we might hit the tar, but alas.

    I eventually managed to turn him around and sweet-talk him down the hill where he found a lovely little patch of flowers and made himself very comfortable.  It took all my will-power not to scream and drag him back up the hill and into our gate but I sweetly chatted to him all the while praying that the neighbours aren’t watching and laughing hysterically.  Even the cars that drove by looked at us funny.

    All of that took exactly 30 minutes.

    Imagine my surprise when I get home this afternoon and open the garage door for Mr to come dashing out and strutting around like he is The Man.  He’s even found his voice all of a sudden and now thinks he’s a real guard dog.

    So I guess I’ll give it another bash in the morning.

    Sigh.

    I review Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

    I have been putting off writing this review as I have been processing and thinking about the book.

    I rate a book good by

    1. the time afterward I spend thinking about it and
    2. the time afterward I spend talking about it

    Suffice it to say I have spent A LOT of time thinking about and talking about this book.  It has made me wonder a lot about what it is I want for MY children.  Up to now I was really not thinking much about should they play a musical instrument, should they become doctors or even if they should go to University.  I was really just hoping for a good night’s sleep every now and again.

    My Master plan was for them to figure it out and we would take it from there.  Well.  That plan’s out the door for good thanks to Amy Chua.

    Interestingly enough a friend recently got married to a Taiwanese darling Daniel calls a ‘little girl’ and they were here on honeymoon when I was reading the book.  I asked her if it was like that for her as well when she grew up and she said yes, not having an A was not accepted.  She is a teacher now and many, MANY children in Taiwan go to school from 8am in the morning to 9pm, 6 days a week.  How can this be good for children?  Surely they should be given the opportunity to be Children?

    But where does this leave us as parents?

    I’m not suggesting that I will make my children practice piano 90 minutes a day because, quite frankly, I would also like to have a life and there are 3 children in our house. I tried to imagine doing a full-time job (I wish) and then coming home to 4.5 hours of piano practice.  It simply does not compute.

    BUT what I have considered is that if they decide to take up something best they stick to it and at least master it.  I don’t expect them to only be the best because failure is humbling and life sometimes is about failure, but that’s what teaches you resilience.

    I want, for my children, (sorry Etienne, I say My and Mine, but I know you feel the same) to be happy and confident and humble.  I want them to respect each other and their parents.  I want them to feel like they can master anything they attempt.  I want to embrace them each as an individual and steer them to be the best they can be, not push them.

    I want them to make life choices for themselves, not because they think they will please Etienne and myself, because in the end that is a recipe for failure.

    I might read this in 10 years time and roll my eyes at my 38 year old self, but for now that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

    Read the book, you might not agree with a lot of what she says, but it will certainly make you think.

    Camping is not for sissies

    I have only once been camping in my entire life (when I was 30, skinny and childless), so when my friend Rose asked if we wanted to go camping for the long weekend I thought Hey, I’m all for new adventures. Besides, I knew the kids would love it!

    Beaverlac has intermittent (warm) water and no electricity for the camp sites, but not even knowing that deterred me. I was determined to have a great time. The most bizarre thing was that I felt like the last person on earth that had ever heard of the place. Absolutely everyone I spoke to either knew about it or had camped there to varying degrees of success.

    So, armed with a tent, a gazebo, a coleman, 2 camping chairs, many bottles of wine and a big blanket for the kids to sit on we hit the road on Saturday morning (after a swimming costume crisis which called for a hasty stop at Woolworths)

    I learnt some really important lessons this weekend:

    • Dirty feet are inevitable
    • There will be sand.
    • The sand will get into absolutely everything
    • Get a good ground sheet
    • Relax and let the kids play
    • Blow-up mattresses suck, we’ll be replacing those with other mattresses as soon as we can. I don’t want to shout at children to not jump on mattresses the whole time, they are also there to have fun.
    • Invest in a trailer. It’s easy to leave everything in there and better on the back to get stuff in and out.
    • And lastly: even though they say you can drink the tap water, don’t.

    I only managed to read Cat’s post on camping this morning, go and have a look at what she says, she has some great pointers!

    We all had a great time and I’m definitely doing it again, very soon!

    Edit to add:  I compltelely forgot to add!  There was NO cellphone signal.  Nothing, niks, nada.  Every time I would reach for my phone to tweet something I would realise I couldn’t.  Did me the world of good!

    Here some pics of the trip:

    Our fabulous tent!
    Daniel the first morning. Can you tell we had ribs for supper?
    My lovely friend Rose explaining to Isabel that the doggies are very friendly.
    Little A drawing watches on everyone's arms. How gorgeous is their Retriever?
    Walking to have a swim. How cute is that bum?
    Isabel eating breakfast. I just loved the colours and she looked so serene.
    Mignon contemplating life
    Just a cute pic of Isabel, she has this habit of walking behind you, holding onto whatever top you are wearing. Check out the cute little plaits.

    Problem? What problem?

    I have been writing this blog post in my head for a while now and toying with whether I should say something or keep quiet.

    When I write I try not to be whiny and if you have known me for any length of time you will know how much I HATE drama.  Which means that if I’m going through a rough time I tend to withdraw from my friends and family.  I’m really not good with talking about feelings and (even worse!) feeling like a failure.

    Without harping on about it I have had a spiraling sense of failure for a long time now.  I tried, in my messed up head, to pinpoint when it all started and it’s probably around the time I had the girls.  I remember really battling to get my head around being a working Mom to 3 children in such a short space of time and struggling with feeling guilty for not being able to spend more time with them.  This probably put in motion a sequence of events which now leaves me in a rather precarious position.  And a rather bruised ego and extreme lack of confidence.  (I hear you gasp in shock and horror and YES I hid it well)

    Of late I have been a really bad friend, quite a bit of a bitch and completely stressed out and anxious.  And lonely.  And because of this I messed up something which just left me literally breathless.  And even more pissed off.

    I have been using my children and my marriage as my anchor, which it is and should be to a large degree, but there needs to be a balance.

    So today I took stock.  I know something’s gotta give.  Because I’ve been feeling like this I haven’t been able to write because God Forbid someone should think everything isn’t completely fucking honky dory in my life.  Well, it’s not.  And if I cannot write I almost cannot breathe. Not being to talk about how I’m doing is almost like the proverbial elephant in the room, it’s had a profound effect on my ability to enjoy something I love: Blogging.

    I prefer natural remedies, am very passionate about Homeopathy and have resisted the more ‘chemical’ route of sorting out my anxieties etc, but today I decided to go on to Anti Depressants.  For most of you it is not a biggie, but for me it is.  I cannot even begin to tell you how much of a biggie it is for me.  But I know what’s best for me right now and for myself and my family and the rest of the very important people around me it needs to get done.

    There.  I said it.

    And tomorrow I will write about camping.  Promise.

    And thank you for reading and bearing with me, I love you all!

    Thank you and Good night

    The Living and Loving Magazine is doing a feature on Mommy Bloggers for their May edition and Tanya Kovarsky, their Editor, kindly asked if I would participate.  (I suspect my friend Tertia paid her, but that’s another story)

    I haven’t been on a photoshoot in, well, ever.  Unless you count my wedding pictures, but those were in a Kir Royale induced blur.  My jaw still hurts from all that smiling, 10 years later.

    I went by myself with the kids as my Mom’s away and Etienne was working.  I was a little very nervous about not having anyone with me, but they were absolutely AWESOME.  Yes they were extremely loud and energetic and ran around like mad, but they didn’t argue with each other (or me!) once.  There was a little moment when the photographer was busy when Mignon was not keen on sitting on her chair, but we managed to smooth that out.

    Here they are before they were all dressed up:


    Check how dirty Isabel’s feet are, we had to wash those before getting dressed..

    When the stylist put Mignon and Isabel’s outfits out I said, and I quote: “put down the two outfits and back away slowly” Which she promptly did and the girls chose an outfit each and were very happy with what they were wearing.  There were also the most delightful little pink pumps, Mignon now keeps asking for ballet shoes.  Sigh.

    Daniel was The Man.  He smiled and laughed and posed like there was no tomorrow, he kept everyone entertained!  He was wearing a really cool outfit, in fact we all looked like a gazillion bucks.

    It was great to have someone else do my make-up and fuss over beads of sweat and hair that ‘minced’ in the heat.  I could seriously get used to it.  I wish.

    And here is Isabel about 15 seconds after we hit the road:



    A big big thank you to the team that made us look so pretty and took such great pics today, we felt very special!  Oh, and please just photoshop out at least a couple of my chins please?  Ta.

     

    One for the boys

    There are so many cool things I want and need to blog about, but I would like to send out a little plea today instead.

    Our children go to a farm school.  To get to the farm school in the Durbanville Winelands we battle through suburban school traffic in the morning and travel first on a 2 lane road with NO shoulder and then on a road passing horses and cows and vineyards with a speed limit of 80km/h.  I love traveling to the school, it’s so good for the soul to see such beauty every day.

    Lately however it’s been marred by, for want of a better word, ASSHOLES.  People that are in a terrible hurry to get to whatever is so important in their lives that they end up endangering the lives of children.

    Yesterday morning there was a guy in a white BMW that overtook me, the 3 cars in front of me and 2 trucks into oncoming traffic over a solid white line at 110km/h.  I still shudder just thinking about it.

    This morning, after dodging the guy on the bike that decided that it shouldn’t be my turn to go because I should have a 360 view of absolutely everything on the road and because he is clearly so much more important than me, I am driving along merrily on the 2 lane road that has NO shoulder when another guy in a large white bakkie also overtakes 4 cars coming straight at me and pulled in front of the front car just in time.  The worst of it is that he would have ended up in that school traffic about 50 meters down the road anyway so that manic overtaking was completely in vain.

    So now my children can ALL say ASSHOLE, in unison, at the right time.

    Guys, please.  Breathe before you get in the car in the morning.  Think about the potential impact of reckless driving especially at that time of the morning when people are dropping children off at school.

    Please.