Category: The Parenting stuff

On Being Everything

I recently imported all my blog posts (October 2008 – January 2011) from Parent24 so I could have all my words in one place.  I haven’t had a chance to read through them all as I need to do a major clean-up, but many of the posts that have caught my eye strike me as very unhappy and some were downright mean.

I started blogging when the girls were about 7 or 8 months old and it was a very hard time for me emotionally.  Not necessarily because I had just had twins, but because it was really hard to re-establish my place in the Working World as a Mom.  Plenty of long-standing friendships with single friends were compromised as drinks on a Friday were just no longer an option.  I couldn’t wait to hit the tar on a Friday afternoon.

I didn’t feel it so much after Daniel as I had started in a new position after maternity leave and I was only in that job for about 6 months when I was going through IVF and then pregnant again, which meant that I was focused on a pregnancy and a relatively new job.

It really hit me when I came back from maternity leave after the girls.  Suddenly many of my old work relationships weren’t the same anymore, I was extremely sleep-deprived and I was just not functioning very well.

I was a mess.  I hated the way my body had changed because of 2 pregnancies (although I would probably rather have died than to admit it), I felt marginalized at work and as a result my self-esteem was at an all-time low, Etienne and I weren’t in our comfortable communication and affection groove and, as much as I love my children, I just felt like I was not a Good Enough Mother.  I felt unattractive and horrible to be around, which rapidly snowballed into becoming my reality.

It has literally taken me 4 years to get my groove back (mostly).  I’m not the same person I was pre-kids and I never will be.  I still haven’t lost the baby weight.  I ended up on AD’s and in therapy.  My hair is still a mess and I still don’t like people staying too late when they visit because I really need my sleep

Why am I telling you this?

I see lots of Moms around me and online just coping with first babies/toddlers and/or not so well after second (and third and fourth) babies and I want to reach through my computer and hug them HARD.  I want to tell them it’s going to be OK.  I want them to know I know what they are going through.  The sleep deprivation, the lack of money, the having to put on your game face and going to work when you would rather sit crying in your car all day long just because it’s quiet there.

Feeling like no-one truly understands what you are going through, that, no matter WHAT you do, you will never be that awesome Career Girl AND the Perfect Mother with the Perfectly Clean House and the Perfect Marriage.  Hey, any combination of just 2 of the above is almost impossible.

To you I want to say:  It’s OK to feel like this, those are very valid feelings.

Then I want to invite you over, feed you and water you, stuff your freezer full of meals, hold that baby whilst you have a special minute with your toddler or your husband, whack that same husband on the head if he’s being a douche, whack you on the head for being so bloody hard on yourself and then, when you leave, give you a big squishy hug and a bag with 8 hours sleep.

And then, when some time has gone by and things are going better for you, I hope that you would do the same for another Mom.

Us Moms need to take care of each other and we cannot afford to get stuck in UnHappyland.  We owe it to ourselves, our children, our husbands, the people we work with and the people we interact with on the interwebs.

If you are battling, this is your virtual HUG.

Chin up and hang in there!

What is your favourite?

Isabel has this thing she does.

Whenever you ask her to pick a dress / movie / shoes / book / fruit she’ll say ”What’s your favourite?”

Now, if you’ve been a parent (specifically of a child as stubborn as she is) for longer than 2 minutes you will know that this is a trick question, designed to test you. A question that never has the right answer, or at least not until they have driven you to the liquor cupboard out of sheer desperation. Do not fall into the trap. I repeat: do NOT fall into the trap. Especially as she taunts you with the idea of “letting” you decide on her behalf when, in fact, it gives her a reason to shoot down all your proposals.

Are you seeing our dilemma?

It does make for some interesting conversations though.

Parent: Isabel, which book would you like to read tonight?

Isabel: What’s your favourite? (said whilst bouncing around the room)

Parent: My favourite is the fairy book. Yes! Let’s read the fairy book!

Isabel: “shakes head” No thanks.

Parent: So, which one would you like to read seeing as how I picked one and you don’t like it?

Isabel: What’s your favourite? (cue more bouncing)

Parent: Er. The number book?

Isabel: “vehemently shakes head” NO.

Parent (in soothing, desperate voice): Please Isabel, what would you like to read?

Isabel: what’s your favourite? (bouncing has increased to manic stage)

And so you will carry on, at the mercy of our little madam until you eventually get to the option she wanted in the first place.

I almost prefer the “why” stage. It’s a LOT more fun and you feel a lot less rejected. If you want to pursue a career in sales having children is a wonderful way to teach you resilience and to handle rejection.

What do your kids say to drive you nuts?

Linklove and the end of Quasimodo

I find lovely things on the web and via twitter every single day that I find I need to “keep” somewhere, so I’ll tag them as “linklove” from now on.  This way I get to “keep” those lovely links and still get to share them.  That’s a big win in my book!

My Reader is also jampacked with awesome blogs, ranging from food to design to parenting to personal blogs and I find it easier to manage my on-line reading that way.  It’s like opening the fridge to see if there’s anything to eat in there and there’s ALWAYS something to nibble on, any time, day or night.

First up is an article Tanya posted on her blog today about manners.  I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot recently as Daniel has suddenly gone into Brat Mode.  He has become all punchy and rough and downright disrespectful.  We have zero tolerance for this kind of behavior, but you also don’t want to spend your waking hours fighting with your child, especially when he doesn’t have any front teeth*.

Staying on the topic of real-life stuff and manners, Emily posted this great list of books to read on her blog and I’m definitely going to work my way through them, especially Bringing up Bebe.

Then, an article I found via @glutenfreegirl on twitter about how amazing Julia Child’s (from Julie and Julia fame) marriage was.  I hope to think that our marriage will be like that when we grow up old.  I also have a sudden desire to own one of her cookbooks.  If my trusty and crusty 1973 Kook en Geniet still works so well, just imagine what I could do with her books!

On the topic of cooking/baking, Etienne made a banana loaf last night out of the abovementioned Kook en Geniet, something I’m famous for screwing up.  He added some choc chips we had left over in the fridge from the girls’ birthday earlier in the year and it was delicious!

Know what made me want to stomp my feet? I pass him pouring flour halfway into a cup measure and dumping it in a bowl so I ask if those are cups of flour he is measuring.  Yes, he says looking at me like I’m mad.  He’s been pouring flour like this forever and I, that follow that bloody recipe to the last bloody letter, can’t get it right. I do maintain that it’s because the bananas he uses are completely overripe, that’s why his “recipe” works.  If you want to try this recipe, go right ahead, don’t say I didn’t warn you, but even my MIL swears by it.

Banana Loaf (translated from The Afrikaans and adapted for lazy cooks like me)

  • ½ cup butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 4-6 very ripe bananas
  • 1 tsp vanill essence
  • ½ tsp salt
  1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.
  2. Cream butter and sugar until light and add vanilla.
  3. Add eggs, one by one, mixing well after every egg.
  4. Mix all dry ingredients in a separate bowl, stir with a whisk and add.
  5. Press bananas into mush with a fork and add, mixing well.
  6. Pour mixture into a loaftin and bake in over for about 1 hour, until knife comes out clean.

(Apparently the flavor improves if you let it stand for a couple of days, but it generally doesn’t last more than a couple of hours in our house)

*Daniel finally managed to rid us of the dreaded Quasimodo Tooth last night and conveniently so right at bedtime.  He gleefully told me in intricate detail how he managed to get the tooth out.  His sisters found it hilarious. Needless to say, bedtime was extremely delayed.

Back to normality, whatever that is..

I know I should have blogged about days 3 and 4 of Etiennelessness, but I was far too busy Parenting our 3 evil spawn maniacs lovely children to have time.  Besides, our ADSL is still borked.  Vodacom is going to bill me with great mirth at the end of the month.

Today marks the 7th day of no ADSL at home.  Creation happened in about the same amount of time.

Anyhoo, hopefully it is sorted out by the time I get home tonight.

Friday night was fun with 1h30, 2h30 and 3h30 wake-ups (Isabel, Isabel demanding water FROM THE FRIDGE IN A CUP WITH A BLOCK OF ICE and then Mignon who came to crawl in with Isabel and myself.  This left me hugging the side of the bed whilst the 2 of them lay with open arms.

Saturday night was pretty much a rinse and repeat of the above, but on the upside we all slept until 07h30 each morning.  No hating please.

The Bathrooms at Tokara

On Saturday we went off to Tokara with my friend Sue and Daniel’s BFF.  We were a little nervous about the weather, but they have loads of indoor space, a roaring fire, heated floors and toys for the kids.  All of which was promptly ignored as the automated (glass) door on the far side of the room provided much more entertainment.  Almost as much entertainment as the bathrooms did.

Did I mention they have really nice wine at Tokara?  Oh, and free wi-fi.

Then it was off to be fed by my friend Carmen and her lovely family and we scooted home, only to find the neighbours having a party and someone had parked in our driveway. In front of my garage.  So I left my kids in the car, at night, in the dark, in the driveway, in the middle of winter and had to wait for the person to move their car.  I was NOT happy.

Yesterday morning I managed to get the 3 of them in the bath by bribing them with beads so we could mozy on down to my Mom’s house to be fed lunch there.

And then Etienne came back just after lunch.

And I went off to have a nap, in peace and quiet.

PS: Daniel swallowed a tooth during supper last night.  Not the Quasimodo tooth, another small tooth.  He insisted on paying the Tooth mouse to come and collect the tooth and was very upset when he woke up in the middle of the night to find other money next to his bed.  I give up.

PPS: I should really stop posting pics of my sleeping children on Instagram..

Etiennelessness Day 1

Last night was the first of 4 Etienneless nights.

I had a vision and a mission and a plan of action for keeping it all together and having an event-free supper and bedtime procedure.  This went for a complete ball of shite approximately 10 seconds after I waltzed in the door. Of course.

By the time I arrived I knew I had an hour to put together a mince pie and steam-fry some broccoli as the rice was already made.  This would keep me bang on schedule to have the kids in bed by 8pm and some quiet sanity time and an early night for me.

I should have known when I walked in the door and our 3 children were perched on the kitchen counter listening to the Titanic soundtrack.  Loudly. They looked depressed.  I wanted to vomit.

Megan was kind of hovering around, with that “I really need to tell you something, but you are not going to like it” look.  As it turns out, when my Mom had arrived just before me she decided to lock our front security gate.  With Megan’s house key.  That was now stuck in said security gate.  And the lock broken.  I went into “It’s fine, don’t worry about it” mode and ushered Megan out the defunct gate, all the way to her car and trying not to glare at my sheepish Mother on the way back.

I had also called the house several times to check on random things yesterday afternoon specifically to check whether our Wild Bag had been collected from the Deli and somehow I was given the impression that it was there, waiting for me on the kitchen counter in all its organic glory.

It wasn’t.

So I do a mad little spin in the kitchen, trying to re-adjust my carefully laid plans and STILL have supper on the table at a reasonable time.  This was a hard task as by this time Mignon was crying because my Mother had retired to the lounge to play a card game with them and someone had committed the crime of Not Letting Her Win. And my Mother was holding her whilst she was sobbing and sending out the “Your own Mother should be holding you when you are crying” vibe loud and clear.

So, I chopped the onions, delegated the mince and ran out the door to go to the deli.

Dinner was only 20 minutes late and the kids in bed 15 minutes after their usual time.  They were really good about reading and going to sleep.  Bless them.

All in all not too bad in the end and this morning also went relatively well, there was no shouting and no-one was harmed.

Tonight is roast chicken which my Mom is making at our house, so hopefully it will be a little calmer.  The sum total of effort required from my side will hopefully be vegetables. (she says whilst knocking her head)

PS If you are wondering about the broken lock, my Dad went off in search of a padlock and I now have a big-ass make-shift (dog) chain and padlock on the gate, so I’m very safe thank you very much.

PPS I am now wondering whether my Mom is going to be able to figure out our oven and having visions of how to explain “the Thermo fan sign” over the telephone.  Oh well.

PPPS:  our home ADSL has been broken for the last 3 days with no word on when it will be fixed.  This does not please me.

Tough Love

Daniel peeling a carrot.

Tertia re-tweeted an interesting article last night from the New Yorker that I found very thought-provoking.  It basically boils down to how we are raising spoilt and lazy people.

We have domestic help (Yes! We have a lovely, sober new lady!), so hardly ever do the kids have to make their own beds.  Yes, they know to take their breakfast dishes to the kitchen (those 5 steps to the sink) and they can happily pour their own water from the convenient dispenser in the fridge. And yes, the kids can all feed themselves, dress themselves, cut their meat and brush their teeth.

But is it enough? I shamefully have to admit that Daniel wouldn’t be able to tie his shoelaces even if they magically almost tied themselves by way of fairy dust and glitter.

We make half-hearted attempts at getting them to clean up the playroom/their rooms. Etienne is way better at this than I am, I just close the door to the playroom and back away quietly.

We don’t really involve them in cooking and baking unless you count licking the bowl as helping and getting them to sniff and identify spices, something Daniel is really good at.  This is not because they don’t want to, it’s because I hover over them spooning flour etc into the mixer because God Forbid they should make a mess.  And it is infinitely harder to manage 3 helpers perched on the kitchen counter gleefully armed with spoons and flour then you might think.

But I digress.

I just often wonder about what type of people we are raising.

I wonder if we are spoon-feeding them all the answers to life or giving them the space to make their own mistakes.

I wonder if we invest enough of our own time in guiding and teaching or leaving it all up to others to do.

I wonder if we are tough enough with them.

Without sounding all Tiger-Mother-like of course.

What kind of adults do you think we are all raising? What chores do your kids have?

PS: Our new domestic lady definitely comes from a home where absolutely everything is done for the kids.  She wants to dress them, feed them and carry them the whole time.  I am horrified. I feel like a complete bitch asking her not to do too much for the kids.

PPS: Etienne left this morning on his Annual 5-Day Boys’ Trip.  Otherwise known as my Annual 5-Days of Single Parenting. Fancy that.  This morning went off well, let’s hope the we all make it to Sunday in one piece.  I’m lining up friends and partners-in-wine as I’m writing.

The Language post

When I arrived home last night there was a note in Daniel’s school book asking us to please make an appointment to see the teacher.  I hate those notes, I really do.  They send me into complete worst-case scenario mode.  By this morning I was ready to take Daniel out of the school because the teacher had (wrongly) insisted he had some terrible learning disability and wanted to put him on drugs.  All fabricated and in my head.

But, I puckered up, sucked it in and went off to the school to see if I could grab the teacher first thing so I don’t spend my day looking for child psychologists and other schools just for incase.

You might recall my angst-ridden (I can hear you gasp in shock there.  What?  ME?  Angst-ridden?) posts late last year about whether to put Daniel in an English or Afrikaans class and how, short of whacking me on the head, Etienne finally managed to put things into context for me and we decided to put Daniel in the Afrikaans class.

We weren’t worried as the majority of our friends and his BFF are English, so he would still have plenty of exposure to English.

At the end of the first term Daniel’s teacher expressed a little concern over the fact that he was mixing so many English words into his sentences and so we have been correcting him at home whenever he does it.  But we do know that he almost thinks in English and then directly translates into Afrikaans, which means that the construction of his sentences gets muddled.

Today the teacher expressed more concern over the language issue as well as his gross motor skills. The gross motor skills are being addressed, but the language thing sent me into a bit of a tizz.  There is apparently someone at the school that will assess him and give us a recommendation, so we will wait and see.

This also made me think: Daniel is a 1 or 2 friend child, he doesn’t have loads of friends that he demands to play with outside of school, so in that way he hasn’t been exposed to a lot of Afrikaans kids.  We love his BFF and we are certainly not going to force him not to play with her, but we also can’t force him to play with Afrikaans kids. Can you imagine: “Sorry boy, we don’t want to play with the English children, rather go play with the Afrikaans boys”

As if.

So, what is important is that he is happy with the friends he has and hopefully we’ll sort out the rest with time.

Right?

Ps:  His second front tooth is literally hanging by a thread and he looks like Quasimodo.  We crack ourselves every time he opens his mouth.

Love through the eyes of a Four Year Old

After spending the day at home with a decidedly-under-the-weather Mignon and Daniel and an early-morning trip to the GP (I know! How shocking has this week been??), I took Isabel on some errands with me this afternoon.

She apparently battled a little on her own at school today, so I was determined to have a little alone-time with her. I’m really glad I did.

On the way home we were listening to Adele in the car and talking about her songs. Isabel wanted to know what they were about and I tried to explain that most songs tell a story and that most of Adele’s songs are about love.

So, she asks, does Adele have a boyfriend. Yes, I say, she has had a couple of boyfriends.

Is she married, she asks. No, I say.

Why? Well, I tried to explain, you should only marry someone who loves you very much and that you love in return, like Mommy and Daddy do.

She then wanted to know who Adele loved. Whilst I was battling with how to answer a question about Adele’s love life, Isabel asks me if Adele loves everyone. So I said kind of, thinking about how awesome she was in her concert at Royal Albert Hall and how that probably relates to Isabel’s concept of “everyone” as they have seen the concert.

Which left me in a bit of a pickle. If I say “No, you can’t love everyone” am I teaching her about judgment and exclusion or am I teaching her to have good sense? I had a vision of her going to school and saying to some poor child how much she doesn’t love them.

So I tried this: “you can’t love everyone the same way. You have to love Mommy and Daddy and Daniel and Mignon because we are your family and we will ALWAYS be there and we HAVE to love each other. But you don’t have to love people who are horrible” (with my Calvinistic upbringing ringing in my ears about how God loves us all, followed shortly about the wrath of God)

It was quite an interesting conversation to have, certainly more entertaining and thought-provoking than having to explain that the tampon she was holding earlier was not a sweet.

How would you explain love and the concept thereof to your children?

Edit to add:
Just seen on FB: The average 4 year old asks 437 questions a day. We reckon Isabel is an overachiever.

When your parenting principles get in the way

I had a little epiphany yesterday.  And I wasn’t even drinking at the time.

I was in the great company of my favourite psychologist this week and was telling him about how Mignon was driving me mad with her whining at the supper table on Tuesday night.

We had chicken pie, rice and salad for supper (all her favourite things) and from the get-go we could see that things were going to go pear-shaped for her.  In the back of my mind I knew she was probably overtired, but I chose to ignore that screaming little voice and all the flashing warning lights.

She was whining and crying about how she couldn’t cut her chicken pie, literally sitting in a little heap on her chair, when Isabel and Daniel had no problem and it is very much something she is able to do for herself.  To cut a long story short it ended up in a time-out for her amid much sobbing and crying and drama. (have I ever mentioned how much I hate drama?)

Supper is a special time for us (or it’s meant to be).  It’s the one time of day no-one is in a rush or staring at the TV/computer and we normally have a lovely chat and hear stories about their day that we never would have heard otherwise.  So you can imagine that we jealously guard this time with them.

The other thing that is really important to me is fairness.  How could I possibly agree to cut Mignon’s chicken pie when we just made Daniel and Isabel cut theirs? What message does that send to them? (this has more to do about my own family stuff.  See also: drama)

In the end Etienne basically just picked her up and took her to bed where she stayed until the next morning, she literally passed out.  I ended up feeling like a complete bitch, wondering how I could have handled it differently without compromising on the things that are important to me as a person and a parent.

So, the following scenario was presented to me by my shrink:

He had recently heard about a family who believed in the power of prayer and didn’t take their sick child to the doctor.  The child then died and by law an autopsy had to be done and they had to go to court.  Apparently the judge then suggested that they should have considered placing their love for their child before their personal principles.

This made me think.  I have all these issues I am dealing with and mistakes I am trying not to make with my own children, do I sometimes place those principles and the mistakes I so desperately try not to make before my love for my children and what they might need at any given point in time?

The short answer:  You bet.

So, next time I’m going to say to Isabel and Daniel “Guys, thanks for cutting your own chicken pie, would you mind if Mom/Dad helped Mignon tonight?”  And before jumping on my principles I’m going to try to take a step back and ask myself whether they interfere with my love for my child.

Damn, parenting is hard sometimes.

Karate love

I got so wrapped up in the sugar-free challenge last week I didn’t have a chance to write this post (or about anything else since then for that matter), so here goes.

Before Daniel went to Grade R this year Etienne and I had a difference of opinion about his extra-murals.  Etienne wanted him to start with rugby/cricket/anything remotely connected to a ball sport and I really wanted him to do Karate.  I’m not holding out hope that Daniel will end up being a pro, but I have heard from so many people that karate is a great sport (?), especially for boys, as it forces them to be disciplined.  Amid much eye-rolling from Etienne I stuck to my guns and managed to get away with it.

Am I glad I did.

We had his first grading last Saturday and it was quite something.  Hennie Bosman’s studio offers the karate classes at his school and Hennie himself conducted the grading.

For those of you that don’t live in the greater Cape Town area, Hennie Bosman is a legend.  He has had his Karate training school for as long as I can remember and has an outstanding reputation.

There were about 40 children and twice as many parents/siblings crowded around the edges of the studio to watch.  Here’s what I noticed:

Daniel’s Hero

1.  40 children stand at attention or sit QUIETLY at a softly spoken instruction from Hennie.  They literally jump to attention.

2.  He relates to the children in a language theat they understand.  He would talk about how you would block the “baddy” if he came at you.

3.  They had to do all kinds of gymmy-type push-ups and stuff.  Like really physical stuff that they need to learn how to do anyway. (not that Daniel really participated very well, he spent more time trying to get away with doing as little as possible)

4.  The amount of hero worship is quite spectacular.  And that’s just the kids.  At one stage he was explaining how to do push-ups and rapped his knuckles really hard on the wooden floor.  There was a collective intake of breath and reverential hush around the room that made me want to giggle.

5.  The guy is really really strong.  He literally picked our 25kg son up with one arm like he was a feather.  And then had quite a hard time removing Daniel from his leg as he kept on hugging and there was a pile of 6yo boys lined up to do exactly the same thing.

So, if you were wondering about whether your child should do karate, don’t wonder.  Just do it.

Ps: he had his Mozart Music Mouse (Daniel, not Hennie Bosman) “concert” yesterday and I managed to get there during lunch.  To see his face light up when he saw me made my heart lurch.  I now have to go home and explain to him that all most of the other Mommies are having a party for his teacher at 10h00 tomorrow morning (at school) (during their snack break) and that this Mommy unfortunately has to work.  I would rather stick pens in my eyes.

Pps:  I just googled Hennie Bosman and there is an actual gallery of images of him.  Very Jean-Claude van Damme, just without the naffness.