Month: September 2011

A small epiphany.

One of the things I admire most about young people (i.e. people that are 10yrs or more younger than me) is their unabashed directness. They aren’t being rude, just fearlessly honest.

Take today for example:
I recently befriended this really bright, beautiful, young woman at work. It’s more of a telephone friendship as I realise now that I feel frumpy when I’m in her company. She hasn’t done a thing to make me feel this way at all, it’s all my own doing.

She hit me with a whopper today. We were chatting and I was on my usual self-deprecating humor mission. I said something about being a fat old hag hahaha and we had the usual skirmish where she said I was really cool and pretty and I scoffed and she said ‘You know what? It’s really unattractive when you say stuff like that about yourself’

And I thought Wow. How true.

I know that what we say about ourselves reflects what we think of ourselves and works to re-inforce our belief of our self-worth. And that we are only as good/smart/pretty as we think we are.

I realised that when I make these comments about myself I’m only reinforcing the incredibly negative self-image I have of myself.

So. As of now I’m going to be bold and brave and start believing that little voice inside that says ‘but you are pretty/clever/amazing!’.

What have I got to lose?

Ps Please do me a favour and call me on it when I do it?

Something’s been bothering me

We have this book from the library at the moment for the kids that we absolutely love:

It’s a book about opposites and it’s been a really fun way for the kids to learn them.  We love all her books, especially Hooray for Fish.  I do however have a little something that bugs me about this book:

I was reading to the girls last night and replaced “fat” with “large” just as Etienne passed by the door on his way to read to Daniel.  He thought it was absolutely hilarious and that I was being ridiculous.

I don’t know.  Maybe I am just overly sensitive because of all the weight I need to loose (she says whilst munching on a twix), but I feel a tad uncomfortable about the actual word “fat” is the book.

Also, I live in fear that we will be in the shops and one of my darling children will shout out “Look Mommy!  There’s a Maisy Fat Lady”.

What do you think?

The Chronicles of Vomit

Daniel wasn’t exactly a bundle of joy over the weekend so it came as no surprise when we got a call from the school yesterday.

Followed by Etienne collecting him and his sisters from school.

Followed by the obligatory fever medicine.

Followed by bed-time vomit on the carpet in his bedroom.

Followed by 02h00 vomit all over the bathroom.

Followed by that foul-smelling gastro poo in the same bathroom.

And this is where it gets complicated. See, in our house we have an arrangement:  Etienne does poo and I do vomit.  I don’t do poo.  I gag just thinking about poo. So when we were confronted with poo and vomit in THE SAME ROOM at 02H00 IN THE MORNING whilst we were meant to be FAST ASLEEP we were blinking at each other in the bright light of the bathroom.  And we had that moment of playing mental chicken. Until I started gagging.

Game.  Over.

ps Etienne found Isabel running around naked instead of being in the bath.  He asked what she was doing, “Pappa, ek het my vinger in my hol”. (Daddy, I have my finger up my bum) And she did.  I blame Etienne for this of course, he is forever joking about having your finger, er, you know what I mean.

pps: Isabel came haring into the kitchen last night :”Pappa! Mignon wil nie praat nie!”  This after repeated requests for them to be quiet because there was much singing coming from their room.  This is her, looking very tired as you can see:

ppps: I feel like I haven’t been writing about Mignon lately.  I just love how gentle and caring and affectionate she is.  Here is a little gallery of her and Isabel on Sunday.  She is in the blue dress, always keen for a cuddle.

Isabel looking at the camera

 

Looking at her sister

 

Lemme see your tongue?

Saturday morning

Saturday morning was one of those few Saturdays that we didn’t have to rush off anywhere, so I thought it a good time to go back to bed for a little snooze after all the kids were up and (mostly) fed.

I had just snuggled in and was drifting off after reading a couple of pages of my book when I get rudely awoken by Isabel shouting from the loo: “Paaaapppaaaa, vee my booouuuude af!!!” That girl has a set of lungs on her, let me tell you.

Doefdoefdoef Etienne comes down the passage, the rest of the circus children in tow.  At this point I could still block out the noise. I could even block out Daniel jumping on the trampoline right outside our bedroom window, but I couldn’t block out his frantic screams followed by Etienne trying very hard not to laugh hysterically.  Funny how I know his way of laughing by now.

Doefdoefdoef down the passage Daniel comes, “Mamma? MAAAMMMMAAA daar was ‘n spinnekop op die trampolien!!” (Mom, there was a spider on the trampoline!)  Apparently he was jumping on the trampoline and must have disturbed a little rain spider that must have gotten the fright of his life and dashed across the trampoline for cover.  I asked him how big the spider was:

This big Mom

Then Isabel came into the room to show me how big the spider was:

THIS big Mom

And JUST as I thought the children were simmering down, I had to deal with this little face up close:

Love me!

All this before 08h00 on a Saturday morning..

ps. Daniel is normally very into bugs etc and he had some Millepedes in a jar the other night.  The next morning through the din of the girls I vaguely hear him say he is going to put his Shongololo under the tree for the day. A minute later he is back, completely distraught and crying: Jack (the dog) ate the Shongololo!  He cried all the way to school where they thankfully distracted him very quickly.  Poor boy!

pps. Don’t you just love the word Shongololo?  It’s such an awesome word.

 

Of In-laws. And stuff.

I booked some tickets for my In-laws recently to visit my BIL upcountry and have been procrastinating printing them out despite several requests, so I ended up dropping them off this evening on the way from work because I felt so bad.

My FIL turned 80 in January and my MIL is of undisclosed age (i.e. not far off), but they are absolutely amazing for their age. They still travel, still drive, still live in the same house Etienne and his brothers grew up in and still take very good care of themselves. I often joke that they are “younger” than my parents that are almost 20 years their junior.

They were SO genuinely happy to see me today I ended up visiting for a while, the first time in absolute ages that I could have an uninterrupted conversation with them.

I was struck again tonight at how they are so much alike and yet so completely different to my parents. This is not a post of comparisons, and they certainly have their faults, but I feel incredibly lucky that they parented this awesome guy that I got to marry. Not just him either, his brothers are also so good with their parents.

I see so much of them in him. The way he really engages with his kids on a level I could only dream of. The way that he is so affectionate with them, just like he is with his parents.

So tonight I remind myself of this:

Never ever underestimate how far making your child feel secure and loved unconditionally will go.

And never underestimate the importance of spending actual time with your kids. They shine in the light of our love.

Ok. I’m stopping now, I must be PMS’ing or something. But you know what I mean.

And we shall be cooking up a storm on Sunday when all the Grandparents come over for lunch.

Dress me pretty

At the beginning of winter I bought a pile of pants and a couple of dresses, but as it turns out the girls have decided they will ONLY wear dresses.  No jeans, no tights, no tracksuit pants, ONLY dresses.  With stockings.  So, off I went to the shops.  As we are now at the end of winter those dresses are now pretty threadbare and Isabel tore the one over the weekend when we went to Green Point Park (will do a later blog post about that).  Of course, much to my dismay, it ended up back in the cupboard (still torn) and that was the ONLY dress Isabel was going to wear today. I was mentally shaking my fist at our domestic lady for putting that damn dress back in the cupboard!!!

Actually, maybe I should backtrack a little here.  Isabel didn’t get out of bed on the wrong side this morning, she woke up on the wrong side.  It was just One of Those Mornings.

But back to getting dressed… I don’t often argue about what they wear, as long as their legs and arms are covered I really am not worried about colour combinations etc.  They have all their lives to worry about that.

But this morning Isabel wanted to wear that torn dress and she wanted to wear it without stockings.  She was immovable.

To cut a long story short, we gave her her choices:  Dress with stockings or pants with socks.  She said No.  Out of sheer frustration we suggested that she would go to school in her PJ’s if she did not make a choice.  And the stubborn little Madam thought that was a great idea. So, off she went to school.  In her oldest and most revolting hand-me-down PJ’s that hang down over her butt.  Of course not the nice PJ’s.  Never the nice PJ’s.

I eventually gathered the courage to call the school to see if they managed to get her out of her PJ’s and apparently they went for a walk around the farm this morning, so she had to get dressed for that.  Bless them.

ps.  She has also moved herself to Daniel’s class with older children and is loving it.  I suspect she was bored with the equipment in her old class.

pps.  Mignon is happy as a lark by herself, I think she is loving the extra attention.  I do suspect it won’t be long until she also wants to move though.  But we will just deal with it when we get there..

My week so far

It’s official: I’m going to Mommy Hell.

But I’m hoping I’ll be able to catch up on some sleep when I get there. I calculated this morning that I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep in almost 3 weeks.

Week 1 is a long story, let’s just leave it at I was really pissed off for a whole week. Last week it was coming down from being pissed off and overtired and stressed out. This week, well, this week has been just friggin special.

Isabel started with a fever on Friday evening which ended in antibiotics on Monday. We left her with my Mom for the day.

Then Daniel started on Tuesday night, a set of AB’s for him yesterday. He did half-day at home with our domestic lady and the avie with my In-Laws (who couldn’t figure out how to take his temp and offered to give him Panado. The tablet)

THEN Mignon started with a temp last night and spent the day in bed with my Mom as she now has their bug. She now also has her very own bottle of AB’s.

Tomorrow the kids have a school outing that my Mom was going to take them to as both Etienne and I absolutely cannot take any more time off work.

And now my Mom is sick. Which means we have to farm the kids out to friends and teachers to be taken care of on the outing. It goes against every single one of my parenting principles to let someone else take my kids on a school outing, but I really don’t have a choice at the moment.

So kids: please forgive me. I know it sucks.

20110915-073306.jpg

Ps: I checked the weather, no rain tomorrow, so the outing will be on.
Pps: Best everyone gets well, Mommy and Daddy need some R&R. Pretty please.

The Toothfairy comes to visit

On Sunday evening Daniel comes into the lounge and shows us that one of his bottom front teeth are loose.  I had my usual mixed feelings of pride and horror whenever something monumental happens to one of our children.  (pride because they are just too cool and horror because they are no longer my babies)

Of course we asked him how long it had been loose for and he proudly tells us that his friend M (that also recently lost her first tooth) had loosened it earlier that day.  With a knife.  Which we hoped prayed knew was just a figment of his very active imagination.  As it turns out it was a plastic spoon, which is just hilarious.

We then asked him to not fiddle with the tooth, which is like switching Disney Channel on in front of a child and telling them not to watch it.  I can only imagine how much fiddling went on through the night and the next day, but needless to say I received a hysterical sms from the school on Monday:  His tooth had come out, but he had swallowed it.  Followed by another sms 5 minutes later: they found the tooth on the floor.  Accompanied by a pic of him showing off the gap in his teeth.  I called to congratulate him, but clearly he had already moved on as he was just not that interested to talk to me. Sins of the working Mother and all that.

Fast forward to home time and I arrive to find this on the kitchen counter:

We had a bit of a conundrum as we speak Afrikaans at home and everything is English at school, so there is a bit of a variation between “toothfairy” and “tandemuis” (toothmouse).  On Etienne’s suggestion we wrote them both a letter and Daniel drew a picture of a pink toothfairy wearing a green dress:

 

 

 

Please note that the note was written verbatim on instruction from Daniel.  We only work here to serve our children.  He went to sleep with his ‘baggie’ under his pillow and we only just remembered to leave our first down-payment to the orthodontist tooth-fairy under his pillow.

His face when he came into the kitchen this morning was just beautiful, he was SO chuffed!  We put his money in his moneybox, let’s see what he wants to buy with his 20 SA ront 🙂

Here he is, trying to show off his gap:

 

 

 

 

Grant me the serenity

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about relationships and whether people can change and whether I can accept the things about people that cannot change.

I believe that if you aren’t happy with something you must decide whether it is something you can change as that gives you some choices. And I like choices.  Life is ALL about choices.

You can

  • choose to try and change something you don’t agree with,
  • you can accept that which you cannot change or
  • you can simply move along from the thing or things that will not change and that you are not willing to accept.

Apologies if I sound vague.

Take work for example.  I love that I get to meet people from all walks of life every day, I think I have learnt more about what our country really is about in the last 4 months than I have in my entire life until now.  One of the biggest things I have realised is that the divide between Black and White is a LOT bigger than I thought it was.  Probably because I never thought about it until now to be honest.

As much as some white people harbour animosity toward non-white people the reverse is also true.  I am equally baffled and intrigued by this.  I mean, I was probably ridiculously naive in thinking that if I treat someone with dignity and a smile they will automatically reciprocate.

So here’s what I’m going to do: win them over.  One. By. One. Green, Black, Orange, Coloured, whatever.  I reckon if I touch only 2-3 people a day and chip away at their perception it will make a difference somewhere along the line.

I CHOOSE to accept that this will bring about a change in whatever small a way.  Imagine we all won only one person over a day what a massive difference it would make.

What do you think?