Month: August 2011

Oh the shame

It’s official: Today we received notification that Daniel has been accepted at the Primary School we chose.

When I got the email I must be honest, I had a moment. My boy is all grown up now. Lots of change for our little family next year (more on that later), but all good stuff.

So it was in this loving and pensive spirit that I came home tonight to find our Broker and Etienne at the kitchen table. Nobody wishes more fervently that we had money than he does, but he is a really good guy. We have unfortunately been a bitter disappointment to him.

But anyway, Daniel and Isabel were in the bath and came through to the lounge so I could cream and dress them and have a conversation with the Broker at the same time.

Pity though that they were more interested in each other’s private parts tonight than EVER before.

You know how you talk (shout) at your normal volume as that is the usual volume you are acknowledged at? I distinctly heard myself saying
‘Don’t touch your sister’s fanny’
and
‘Don’t touch your brother’s penis’, but it probable came out as
‘DON’T TOUCH YOUR SISTER’S FANNY’
and
‘DON’T TOUCH YOUR BROTHER’S PENIS’

And then I also launched into the whole ‘my-body-is-nobody’s-body-but-mine’ speech.

Do I care? Not at all.

And needless to say, the Broker left shortly afterward.

But I think the thing that disturbed me most about today is that when Etienne was reading The Gruffalo to the kids earlier I was in the kitchen reciting it with him. Word. For. Word.

Disappointment

You know, I get very annoyed.

I have had a standing fight about my cell phone account since the middle of JUNE.  11 WEEKS.  They finally seem to have resolved it today and allegedly paid money into my bank account, but only after a little snarky comment on twitter.  I am mentally tapping my foot.

And then I’m going through my bank account.  I mean ‘going through my bank account’ in the loose sense of the word as there hasn’t been much activity in, well, a long time. (I’m much better at denial).  So imagine my surprise when I see duplicate charges on my account.  Every time I draw money, the exact same amount is drawn, but under a different merchant.  So I can only assume it’s the ATM, but hey.

So, I call the bank.

I have a long conversation with a lovely lady and give her all my details.  Twice.

I explain the problem.

I hold on.

And hold on.

And hold on.

The lovely lady comes back and tells me that as it’s a card I need to go through to her colleague that deals with the card queries.

I say that it’s a debit card, not a credit card.

Yes, she says, that’s fine.

The second lovely lady looks at the most recent statement as she cannot go beyond July and asks me to tell her what the problem is.

I tell her.

She says that she can’t see who the merchant is.

This second lovely lady then launches into an extended explanation of how she can lodge a dispute for me and they will investigate, but that if the charges prove true they will charge me R150 per disputed charge.

At which point I got annoyed.

How can you tell me that I will get charged if you cannot even tell me who the Merchant is right now?

She says: Can I fax you a dispute form.

I say: No.  Can you email me one?

She says: No

I say: Just to confirm, you know that we are dealing with a debit card, not a credit card.

She says: Oh.

Silence

She says: In that case I can make a note and get someone to investigate.  Here is your reference number blahblahblah, please call back in 48 hours.

I say: Excuse me?  I need to call YOU back in 48 hours?

And this from a bank that has an “askonce” policy.  And has donated money on my behalf before to a charity of my choice.  Because I should only need to ask once according to their marketing campaign

Bad bad blogger

You know when you have a routine that is suddenly broken and then everything else kind of falls by the wayside?

That’s how I feel about blogging at the moment.  I used to blog at night, on the couch, in peace and quiet whilst Etienne was mostly trying to have a conversation and I mostly had my nose buried in my computer.  I stopped doing that lately because

  1. I took up crocheting (how big a nerd am I??)
  2. I couldn’t be asked to switch on my laptop and
  3. It’s easier to cuddle on the couch without a laptop in the way

Then I promise myself I’ll blog first thing in the morning or during my lunch and then all of a sudden it’s 17h10 and I have to run out the door.  And I spent my 30 minutes of headspace time on Pinterest.  That shit’s addictive let me tell you. But my head is abuzz with awesome ideas.

The Crochet/Pinterest thing is so bad I haven’t even finished a book in 3 months, which is completely unheard of as I normally average a book a week.

To top it all off I’m not spending enough time with the kids as it is so I have very little funny fodder to write blog posts, all I’m mustering at the moment is the odd pic.  Maybe I should rather be a photo blogger?  The stuff I would probably write about is how badly behaved they are at the moment and other random shit I shouldn’t really be talking about here.

And food.  Lots and lots of fabulously healthy food I’m making at the moment.

So that’s what potting.   We aren’t bad, we’re doing quite well actually.  Poor, but healthy and happy.

That is all.

 

Sleep

How much sleep do you feel you need in order to feel great function effectively? (and NO, not the obvious ‘as much as possible’ answer you are thinking)

I am my own worst enemy, but personally, I blame our couch.  It’s not like I stare at the television the whole night, I’m usually blogging or tweeting or crocheting or talking or something.  But for some reason I do not make it to bed before 22h30 every night.  And back up at 05h30 on school mornings.  Ok, make that 05h40 after a quick snuggle. So about 7 hours on a really good night.

Now that I’m eating better and drinking less coffee I don’t feel exhausted in the mornings, but come Fridays I’m downright finished.  Especially if there were child-shaped shadows looming in our bedroom or coughing or a dog barking in the middle of the night.  I’m still amazed at how your body adapts to sleep deprivation caused by sick/teething children and crying babies. Well, other people’s bodies.  I don’t cope very well without sleep, ask every single one of the extra kilo’s I’m carrying around with me.

So, now that there is a (touchwood) chance of a better night’s sleep I’m starting to wonder how much sleep

  1. You feel you need to function on and
  2. You actually get.

Let me know?

 

Cheat cookies – school snack

I found this recipe on Pinterest yesterday and rushed home to make it.  (don’t mock Pinterest, it’s addictive!!)

The original version has banana and wheat-flour in that I just replaced with maize flour and an extra egg as we didn’t have any bananas.  We are also trying really hard to manage Daniel’s exzema at the moment, so I ended up replacing the peanut butter with Tahini.  The kids went nuts about it and I sent it to school today as part of their snack. I also left out the icing bit as we are on a go slow with sugar.

It was SO easy to make, even with interference help from the kids and rescuing half a box of Bicarb of Soda from being dumped in the mixer.  But we all had fun.  And they actually loved eating something that’s really healthy.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 60 ml soft butter
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup castor sugar
  • 1/3 cup tahini
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups rolled oats

Method:

Heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius

Combine butter and both types of sugar and mix until pale.

Add honey, tahini, vanilla essence and eggs.  Mix until smooth.

Add all the dry ingredients except the oats and mix until just combined.  Lastly add the oats.

The cookies increase in size by about a third when baked, so it’s up to you to decide how big you want them.  I use a heaped teaspoon, roll it into a ball and then flatten with a fork.

Bake for about 12-15 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies, until light brown.

ps. The cake mixture is almost better than the final product.  At least, Mignon thinks so 🙂

Entertained

I have a nasty, dirty little secret.

I have a morbid fascination with the E! Entertainment channel.  My excuse is that when Etienne is not around and I’ve seen the re-runs of all the news on Sky 6 times I need something mindless on in the background whilst I’m busy doing something else.

In reality I just love to cringe at the falseness that is American ‘Reality’ TV.  And the sheer desperateness of people who live a pretend life full of self-created and blown-up drama dressed like models at 07h00 in the morning.

I have wasted spent a fair amount of time engrossed in the Kardashian Sisters in all their puffed-up-over-made-up-fake-everything-lives.  To be honest, I still don’t know which one is which one and the one that had the accessory baby and her dysfunctional relationship with that horrific ‘insert disapproving inappropriate adjective here’ guy is just my end.  I mean really.  Just dump him already.  And don’t even get me started on the “royal” wedding.

But I noticed something last night that really made me think when I was watching Kendra. (Are you still reading?  You haven’t puked yet?)

It was some episode where she hadn’t seen her husband for ages and she was going to Minnesota and the baby was turning 1 and there was “GASP” a blizzard.  Anyhoo, every once in a while you get a glimpse of what life would probably be like if she weren’t being filmed constantly.  She was trying to put on mascara whilst the baby was playing at her feet.  Without a mirror.  And she looked preeeetty uncomfortable.

Does this mean that they told her to do it to look like a busy Mom or was it real?  Or has she just not applied her own mascara in the longest time?  Either way, she doesn’t treat her baby like an accessory.  According to the television.

And speaking of make up:  don’t they know real Moms like us do their mascara in the car?

Hide and Seek

I collected the kids from school today for the first time since I started working full day in April.

These days when I get home they are usually already in the process of being bathed or running around or comatose on the couch – weather dependent. So I don’t get that sheer happiness you get when you collect them. Those few minutes when they are genuinely happy to see you and excited to tell you all about their day and you have some time to catch up with their teacher.

I miss those days, probably for selfish reasons more than anything else. But still. I love them extra tonight.

Here’s Isabel playing Hide and Seek:

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Power to the child – Advice Please.

Dear Clever Friends of the Interwebs,

I need some advice.

On Friday night Daniel screamed and screamed and screamed in his sleep.  He eventually ended up in bed with us.  (which, if you know me, is not a regular occurrence in our house, but that’s a whole other blog post)  He couldn’t tell us what was making him scream and he is not prone to night terrors or even waking up at night.

My immediate thought was that there was something that upset him at school, so we
kept a close eye on him the whole weekend.
We had supper at my folks’ house on Saturday night and my parents suggested that if it is a school thing we would know about it come Sunday night/Monday morning.

Trues Bob.  Last night he was quite clingy and this morning it was an epic battle to get him out of bed.  Not a major drama, but he was just not his happy self to go.

We took turns over the weekend to chat about school and ask who his friends are and
what kind of work they do etc, but as a rule he is already not very good at sharing stories, so we couldn’t get much out of him. He is quite a sensitive soul, a very outgoing and gentle little boy.  Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his faults, but in general he is kind and affectionate and will inevitably lean toward being bullied unless we equip him to deal with it now.

I had a conversation with his teacher this morning, but nothing major happened on
Friday that she knows about.

As I left school I was listening to the radio and they were talking about the link between recurring depression in adults and childhood trauma and I realized:
childhood trauma isn’t just all the horrible stuff that can happen to children.  It is the borderline bullies, the random things that happen that can scar a child as much as the big bad stuff.  (which also made me realize that I’m not done dealing with my own shit)

BUT. Life is hard and we cannot protect him against everything, especially as we are facing Grade R next year.

So, here’s what I would like to know:

How do you equip your children to deal with conflict?

How do you teach a child to acknowledge how someone makes them feel AND express those feelings without giving their power away?

What advice could you give me and have you had something similar that you have had to deal with?

Not so very nice a person

So tonight I don’t feel like I’m a very nice person.

I recently did a post about our cat constantly peeing in the house and the ensuing visit to the vet. Vet couldn’t find anything wrong with him, but we did the whole antibiotics thing just in case.

Then he went missing. And briefly came back, looking rather skinny. And disappeared again. All this was about a month ago.

Etienne and I went looking for him, alerted the neighbours and eventually just kind of gave up. We vacillated between feelings of guilt and relief.

Tonight our neighbour across the road calls and says that she thinks our cat’s just been run over as there are people in the road. To cut a long story short, I ended up taking a very sick kitty to the 24 hr vet and had him put down. The vet said that there was nothing he could do for him as he had absolutely no blood pressure and he suspected he had feline leukemia.

I feel like such a horrible person, like I failed our cat of all things. Like The Great Parenting Guilt isn’t bad enough.

At least I know where he is, it always would have bugged me otherwise.

Goodbye Kitty Kat.

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Ps: and our Dstv is also borked tonight.

Baby stories

I want another baby. I want another baby so badly I am willing to go through IVF again.

But, I think I have to accept that it is just not possible for us, so to console myself I have come up with (almost) 39 reasons not to have another baby. They will never outweigh the gazillion pro’s to having another baby, but hey.

  1. Poo Nappies
  2. Vomit in any shape or form. Yes, I’m still dealing with vomit, but at least these days when I leave the house I’m more likely to be covered in toothpaste than baby puke.
  3. Not having all my cupboards behind lock and key. Which means that I don’t dislocate a shoulder every time I want to open the cupboard to get the Handy
    Andy.
  4. No more feeding of babies with spoons.
  5. No more cooking of food in bulk and freezing in a gazillion little containers.
  6. Being able to leave a child unattended in the bath for longer than 2 seconds.
  7. The cost of having the baby.
  8. The cost of keeping that baby.
  9. Being able to sit around the supper table and have a conversation. Even if
    it entails more threats (eat your food OR..) than actual conversation.
  10. Not rushing home after an early lunch just so you can get kids down to sleep between 13h00 and 15h00. We lived for those 2 hours quiet time!
  11. Sippy Cups. I abhor sippy cups.
  12. Falling over the pram in the middle of the night.
  13. Potty training.
  14. No more let-down reflux. (my boobs actually flinched as I typed that)
  15. Stomach fat. (ok, who am I kidding, I still have stomach fat, but you get where I’m going with this)
  16. Being able to give a child an instruction and have them on occasion actually do as asked. Very occasionally.
  17. Not dressing a wriggly worm.
  18. Sharp table corners.
  19. Hard tile floors.
  20. Stairs (My stomach still flips at the mere thought of a child falling down the stairs)
  21. Not having to fish toothbrushes and other innocent paraphernalia out of the toilet.
  22. Sleep deprivation.
  23. Sleep training. God how I hate sleep training. Not that we haven’t had to re-train the odd child.
  24. Drool and bibs. They belong in the same place as sippy cups. Hell.
  25. Being able to say to that shadow looming at your side of the bed “Go back to bed, it’s too early yet”
  26. Being able to cuddle with abovementioned shadow because there is no way he/she will go back to bed and you have to wake up in 30 minutes anyway and not get up to put them back into a cot.
  27. No more Purity Banana. Eeuuwww.
  28. No more having to buy formula.
  29. Not having to buy nappies. That shit’s expensive. And no, I’m not ‘that’ into recycling that I would invest in cloth nappies. I’d rather plant a couple of trees.
  30. Not ever EVER crawling around on the floor to retrieve a brown dummy in a far dark corner under a cot off the brown carpet at 03h00 in the morning.
  31. Having to leave that baby at home and go back to work. Don’t think I could go
    through that again.
  32. Immunisations and seeing your baby being injected. Especially when you sport your own phobia for needles.
  33. Growth spurts and not knowing what’s wrong.
  34. Teething (need I say more?)
  35. Ok, teething nappies. Remember, I don’t do poo.
  36. Porridge brain. It’s taken more than 3 years after having the girls to feel like I can have an actual conversation about anything other than children.
  37. Hormones.
  38. Post Natal Depression. I’m a lucky two-time winner.
  39. My age. I’m almost 39.

Sorry if I just put you off having another baby 🙂