The completely amazing Margot and I were chatting over email today about kids and sugar and if there is a big impact on kids’ behavior when they have sugar. We agreed that there is, but we aren’t sure how much as everyone’s kids consume varying degrees of sugar.
Ask yourself this: how much sugar do we knowingly or unknowingly give our kids?
How much sugar hides in that chocolate, dried fruit, Milo, cookies, juice, cooldrink and cereal we give them? How hard would it be to not give them sugar, even if it was only for 48 hours?
We have therefore decided to not give our kids any sugar for 48 hours and see if it would make any difference to how they behave.
I then spoke to Tanya about it and she was keen to challenge parents as well. (note how we don’t exclude the Dads..)
So here’s the challenge:
Starting on Wednesday morning up to and including Thursday evening not a crumb of sugar shall cross the lips of a (willing or unwilling or unaware) participant and we shall convene on the interwebs on Friday to see the results via a poll right here.
What we really want to know is how it made you feel to not have any sugar at the end of the 48 hours and if you could see or feel a difference in yourself and your kids when you woke up on Friday morning.
It’s only 2 days. Who is in?
PS: The #tag on twitter is #sugarfree48
PPS: If you are curious about food labels go and have a look at the nifty guide Discovery put together on reading food labels, it is very cool
That person that picks her battles carefully went for a long walk this morning to a very happy place and left Super Bitch Mom to deal with the Monday morning blues. (Even Etienne lost his cool today. Normally he is so calm I have to check him for a pulse.)
The SB Mom that says Fuck This. You WILL wear a long-sleeved vest AND stockings because I SAID so and then proceeds to yank on those offending items of clothing whilst punctuating her words with every yank.
No harmony at Casa Roux this morning, except for poor Daniel that thought it was hilarious and was copying all the crying/whining/shouting in fine form. When I leaned into the car to kiss the girls I literally got the cold shoulder, and I was so pissed off at the time I didn’t actually care. I literally dumped him at the school gate with a hasty kiss and a “Love you madly” and stomped off in a huff, desperate to get to work.
Etienne got to drop off The Sisters Grim. He isn’t answering his office phone so I’m not sure how that went. For all I know he is still at the school trying to detach them from his legs. Once again: don’t really care. I’m sitting in peace and quiet in my own office, thank you very much.
Edit to add: Etienne did in fact have quite a battle to detach them from his legs in the end. Oh well.
But, moving right along, I have a life-or-death question to ask that I’ve been meaning to ask for a while. We were at a party on Saturday night (Hello and happy birthday K! Sorry we stayed so late!) and between the obligatory existential conversations about To Wax or Not To Wax I asked Tertia:
Do you wear a dressing gown?
I seem to have accumulated 2 dressing gowns, a winter and a summer number and lately I have actually been wearing them, especially the big white fluffy number my sister bought me ages ago at La Senza that was gathering dust in my cupboard. I must be getting old, but I really like them these days, they are strangely comforting first thing in the morning. Fancy that.
Do you wear dressing gown/s? Do you expect your kids to wear them?
This morning was D-morning for Isabel’s visit to the dentist and I was more than a little nervous, especially as I had to drag Mignon along. She was almost more excited that Isabel.
Last night we had the whole conversation about how much fun the dentist is, the cool chair that goes up and down, the mirror in the mouth, the bright light so the dentist can see properly and open your mouth wide and so on and so forth. We tried to keep it light and didn’t mention things like needles, numb mouths, root canals, pain etc. You know, things that dentist are really about.
On recommendation of the lovely Liezel I pumped them full of Rescue Remedy and a little something for pain for Isabel just for incase before we went and everyone was in high spirits.
They sat quietly for 25 seconds on their chairs:
Then we did the obligatory trip to the toilet as we do whenever we leave the house. I can tell you what the inside of most public toilets look like in the greater Cape Town area. And then some.
Then our big moment arrived and we were shown into the consultation room. I was literally holding my breath, knowing my luck was going to run out at some stage. They saw the chair and thought it was like a jungle gym. Up, under, over, above, sliding down, but I drew the line when I saw them line up to start jumping.
We ended up putting Isabel on my lap and we tipped the chair back, the light went on and she opened her mouth like a trooper. The dentist was friggin awesome. She kept it light, she explained everything carefully, she showed the mirror before she used it, blew some of the air on Isabel’s arm before she did anything in her mouth and explained very nicely what was going to happen when she took a little X-ray. She even sent Mignon out with her assistant to press the button, showed them the X-ray and printed out a copy to for Isabel to take to school. With a sticker and some toothpaste.
And then.
She put the 2 of them on her chair and elevated it all the way so they could feel what it felt like, put a blankie over the 2 of them and made them pretend to sleep. We were all laughing our asses off. By far the most fun I’ve ever had at the dentist!
Bottom line: nothing wrong with Isabel’s tooth, so I was very very lucky today as there was no drilling and stuff, but at least now they know what it’s all about.
Next up: Daniel. I think it’s Etienne’s turn..
If you want to contact the dentist, her name is Dr Kelly and she is available on (021) 919 5559. This is not a sponsored post 🙂
Ps: We are a little worried about Mignon. As I drove past Teazers the other day, she points at the picture and pipes up: “Mom! I want to be like that girl (daai dogtertjie) one day!” I had to carefully explain that that was maybe not a career choice that would please Mommy and Daddy. And then, on Saturday, Etienne is watching the rugby and she sees the Stormers’ girls and we hear “Mom! Dad! I’m going to be one of those girls one day!”
The picture in question
Some people worry that their children are going to be serial killers one day, we worry that ours is going to be a stripper of sorts…
Pps: I made this Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart bread for dessert yesterday and it was to die for. I only used about half of the sugar mixture, but it was yummy. Easy as pie to make and just as decadent. I’m in love with that smell of yeast.
My own Cinnamon Sugar pull-apart bread, pardon the bad pic quality
By the time I got home yesterday the kids were all squeaky clean and their outfits were chosen for today and they actually stuck to their outfits this morning, which was pretty awesome. I did a little mental round of applause. With the focus on mental.
But.
Then.
We were way ahead of schedule (cue anther mental little round of applause), everyone was dressed and ready to go and then:
They decide they each want to take something to school which is not allowed at all as it gets out of hand very quickly. It’s like they spend their nights thinking up ways to torture us in the morning.
Enter negotiations on what is allowed and what not:
Yes to the broken crown Daniel wanted to take for his best friend.
Yes-ish to the handbag Mignon wanted to take as it had to stay in the car. It has worked very well in the past as they somehow feel like they have won a little. But clearly that also backfired this morning as Etienne had drama about the bag when he dropped the girls off.
Absolute no to Isabel scratching around in the playroom, bag on her back, looking for something, anything to take with whilst everyone is already sitting in cars. I tried leaving her in the house and realized halfway out the door that, left unattended, she would probably pack in the TV, so I headed back in. She wants to take something for the teacher she says. By now I’d really had her in chunks, she’s consistently been our weakest linkhandicapmost difficultmost challenging the hardest to get mobilized this week. So I herd her down the stairs and into Etienne’s car, sobbing.
At which point I had a moment. I realized: all she really wants is to take something for her teacher. Followed by Oh Faaaak, I have nothing to give the Teacher and why didn’t I anticipate this and it’s ALL my fault and I’m such a bad mother and all the other kids are going to go to school with awesome Mother’s Day gifts for the Teachers and my life is a mess and Oh Look! Green Lollipops!
So, Isabel went to school, happy as a lark with a green lollipop for each teacher. And she smiled at me through those tears and the gratitude on her face almost took my breath away. How’s that for a complete emotional roller-coaster ride before you have even leave the house?
It really is the little things. I must keep remembering it really is the little things that make or break their day.
Ps: I feel like I’ve been writing about Isabel this whole week, I’m going to spend some extra time with her over the weekend.
Mornings in our house are rapidly deteriorating into anarchy.
Every morning there’s a getting up/wardrobe/breakfast/teeth/hair crisis. Sometimes some of the above, some mornings all of the above. In varying degrees and sometimes multiplied by 3.
What infuriates me the most is the immobile stubborn silent treatment when you try and hurry them along without screaming.
What porridge would you like. Silence.
Please get your bowl and spoon. Silence.
You have to wear stockings if you are wearing a dress, it’s cold outside. Silence.
If you wear the shorts you still have to wear stockings, your legs will get cold. Silence.
You can wear the sleeveless top but only if you put on a sweater over it. Silence.
Please wear shoes. Silence.
Please come and brush your teeth. Silence.
Please stand still so I can brush your hair. Silence and turning of head.
Please take your bag to the car. Followed by complaints about who is taking them to school.
Instead of pulling out my hair I pretty much let Etienne deal with it. Bad Mother. I know. Go ahead, judge me, I also judge me. But then come over and feed, dress and brush teeth/hair for a single morning and we can talk again. Capice?
Now before you start dispensing the advice I’m about to ask you for, yes, we have tried the “pick your outfit for tomorrow” routine which worked really well until the girls changed their minds about their outfits in the mornings. I mean, they are girls after all. It’s their prerogative. So now I have made it Megan’s problem. Mean, I know.
What else can we do to make it easier in the mornings?
Ps: Isabel now has a hole in her tooth and so we will embark on our first trip to the dentist on Monday. This is virgin territory for me, so ANY advice is welcome. And no, I can’t take vodka with me as the appointment is at 07h45 in the morning. On a Monday. Shoot me. Now.
Pps: Etienne is SO going to read this blog post and tell me it’s not so bad, I shouldn’t say things like this about our lovely children. Let’s consider it payback for suggesting that the inability to choose an outfit could possibly lie with me. I mean, sometimes clothes just don’t look right and you have to change a couple of times. RIGHT?
Yesterday afternoon I’m sitting in my office, minding my own business, when I get a whatsapp message from Megan (our Au Pair. Yes, I’m using that dreaded word these days):
“Hi, do you maybe have nail varnish remover because Isabel and Mignon are covered in nail polish and it won’t come off”
So I call the house like a Good Mother, not really comprehending the possibilities of the words “covered in”. I knew I still had some nail varnish remover left in a bottle lurking somewhere in a dark corner of the bathroom, thinking that should do it for the clean-up job.
10 minutes later, another message:
“The nail varnish remover is finished now, please bring some more when you come home.”
Still no warning lights flashing in my mind, call it denial if you want.
Fast forward to home time and I arrive home to the cupboard guy there to give us a quote* and the usual evening chaos. Etienne says, have you seen what Isabel looks like? Out of the lounge comes Isabel, pleased as punch with her altered looks. Blue neck, one leg completely blue and the other foot blue. With a teeny weeny little bit of bright purple nail varnish on some of her toes. I also saw that her hands must have been covered in the stuff as that’s where Megan must have focused her cleaning power.
The fact that there was so much lurking on her hands just tells me that she wasn’t completely innocent in what shall henceforth be called The Incident. It appears that some rubbing was involved. Along with the suspicious looking finger-painting efforts on her leg. She alleges that their friend at school did it all, complete with doe-eyed innocence. Bah.
They apparently nicked the polish out of their friend’s bag (friend helped them) and hid at the top of the jungle gym at school, obviously knowing that they were going to get into trouble.
All of this is fine, it’s easy enough to clean up. You know what made me really cross? I bought each of the girls a lovely ballet-type dress they have been asking for for absolute ages on Saturday and that’s what Isabel was wearing. There are massive splotches of nail varnish on the dress and I can’t get it out. Beautiful purple stains on the soft pink dress.
And the whole time I’m cleaning her leg I’m mumbling away to myself, telling myself to calm down and children make mistakes and they have to explore and don’t let her be scared of my reaction when she makes a mistake in future and ah fuckit I’m really cross and then then the crazy dialogue starts all over again.
So now I’m stuck with a brand new little dress that has nail varnish all over it.
Shall I just let her wear it?
(note how I’m not for a nanosecond thinking I can MAKE her wear it, that would be ridiculous)
*My parents sold their house and wanted to swap dining room tables. We had a comfortable little 6-seater and we now have a massive (Beautiful!) 3m long table lurking in our dining area, so we need to knock out a cupboard in our kitchen to make space. When we can one day afford to do this I’ll post before and after pics.
Etienne took Daniel fishing this weekend and I had the girls. He asked really nicely if he could take all the kids (keeper!) but I wouldn’t let him.
I’m really happy I insisted as I had 2 awesome days with my girls and Daniel had some much needed 1-on-1 attention from his Dad.
My master plan for the weekend was to let the girls pretty much just have a ball and enjoy all the things they are never allowed to have because their brother isn’t allowed. (all those food allergies). So there was pizza, milkshakes and McDonalds on the menu for them and they were in heaven.
We snuggled on the couch, had their nails done at a little kiddy place in Tygervalley, went to a special little girl’s party and did some more snuggling and mall-trawling today.
Actually, the McDonalds wasn’t planned, but we were having an awesome time (read: Mom was drinking wine) and they were happily playing at my friend Leo’s house so I was in no mood to fling food together last night.
I know I always have a lot to say about junk food, but it’s just a personal choice. I don’t judge. Promise. I only judge people that don’t buckle in their children. Really.
But. If I buy junk food I’m not too going to force my children to eat it. And they don’t. They only want the toy. A very clever Mom (Hi Shaz!) on Facebook suggested that you can just buy the toy. So hey, I think I’d rather do that next time.
By lunchtime today I was really missing Etienne as we haven’t been apart from each other for more than a night for almost a year. I was doing some mental foot tapping, waiting for him to come home.
It was however a nice break for all of us and great to see my boys tonight, extra squishy hugs and cuddles for both of them. Even though Daniel refused to speak to me on the phone the whole weekend, he was far too busy having fun with all the other boys.
This week’s going to be interesting as it’s going to be a whole 5 days long for a change. Ykes.
He only really turns 6 tomorrow, but we had his party yesterday.
It came with the usual grinding of teeth (me) and exasperation (Etienne at me and my OTTness) that accompanies all of our kids’ parties.
As parties go this one was one of the smallest and easiest on the pocket we’ve had in a while, but one of the nicest ones. Most of our special friends were there (and then some new ones), so I didn’t feel judged in any way and we could actually just relax and enjoy the day. After a weekend of rain the sun also shined yesterday, so even though we had set up shop in our modified lounge the kids ended up playing outside which was fantastic if you consider the amount of sugar they consumed. Our lot was still bouncing off the walls late yesterday afternoon.
I usually hate themed parties. I hate trying to recreate something that is branded as the margin for error is a LOT bigger. When you throw an “unbranded” party and make most of it yourself the end-result is always a lot more forgiving. When Daniel (not aided by Etienne at all of course) asked for demanded a Star Wars party I literally broke out in a cold sweat, I was not pleased.
Enter The Interwebs (said in my best Jeremy Clarkson voice). Etienne and I scoured the web and came up with some awesome ideas, mostly from here and here.
He had some masks printed and was determined to make a pinata.
Well.
We did the first layer of Death Star paper mache over an oval round balloon, ended up drying it with a hairdryer, did the second layer and decided to stick it in the oven with the fan on on Sunday night. Etienne then decides to switch on the oven “just a little bit” and 10 minutes later we hear POP! and find a collapsed paper mache mess in the oven. Many phone calls later we found a soccer ball pinata at King Cake and simply spraypainted it grey. Job done.
Daniel also demanded a Star Wars outfit (that he has never ever done before) and I had visions of making Jedi outfits until 4am, but Etienne managed to hire him something. It’s apparently really a Shrek outfit, but hey. It looks Star War-ish.
I looked at this cake through a migraine haze at around midnight and all I could think was that it’s not worthy of google images as the icing wasn’t smooth enough and then I thought Fuckit, took a migraine coctail and went to bed. It’s a chocolate cake (as demanded by Daniel), my second attempt, as the first recipe was a complete flop and clearly I had never baked a chocolate ever before in my life. Ever.
The cake
The snack table
The Wookie cookies are actually choc-chip cookies. I found the most amazing recipe here and I’m SO making them again, they are to die for.
Snacks 1
Snacks 2
Blowing out his candles, Isabel in pink and Mignon in orange dress. His BFF is on his rightOur beautiful boy. This pic captures his personality perfectly, thanks Pete.Blowing bubbles
Thanks to Etienne for putting up with all my angst, to Pete and Carmen for the pics, Sue for the wine (you know me too well!) and all our friends for sharing the day with us.
Once again this is an overdue blog post. I have been writing this in my head for days now, so it might end up being quite a long one. I might also ramble.
I was bathing the girls on Sunday and we were having a fat chat when Daniel comes into the bathroom. “Mom, do you remember when you put the rope on my door?” and laughs.
I almost died.
When Daniel was 18 months we moved him out of his cot and we went through the whole saga of trying to keep him in his bed at night. Enter Toddler Taming, a book that someone recommended to me that had some sound advice, amongst which was a little trick to keep your toddler from wandering around the house. You tie a rope around the inside door handle of your child’s door and then on the outside to another door so that the door isn’t closed, but the child can’t get out. So they can see and hear you, but they can’t get out.
Send the Parenting Police, I don’t care. (Ok, maybe just a little) What got me was that he REMEMBERED it.
He wasn’t traumatised by it, but our boy remembers stuff that happened when he was 18 months old. Scares the living crap out of me.
Then.
The kids are very into Bible stories at the moment. They each have their illustrated Bible books and we read them. A LOT. It’s actually fine because it beats the Barbie Trifecta and the lessons are good.
On Saturday my friend Sue and I took our kids for lunch at Nitida. (her little girl is Daniel’s BFF) and we took a walk around the farm to see what their school looks like now. (You might know that they were all at Chameleons until the end of 2011).
As we are strolling, minding our own business, a group of guys come walking up the road, one of them wrapped in a red sheet in what appeared to be a Bachelor’s party.
As we pass the group one of the girls pipe up: “Mamma! Kyk! Dis Jesus!”
Of course they heard us and were all canning themselves. We herded the kids away very quickly, stumbling to explain that it was, in fact, not Jesus, but someone dressed up for a party. But we had a good chuckle over it.
Ok, I’m done rambling. There is more, but I’ll come back later for more.
Hope you all have a fantastic long weekend, we are gearing up for Daniel’s party on Tuesday. Gulp.
I arrived home late this evening and both Etienne and I have had a hectic week at work so far. I think the kids picked up on it, even though we don’t talk about work or snap at the kids (that we know of).
They put us through the wringer between supper and bedtime, we are still reeling.
Point in case:
Wednesday nights are fish nights. Every single Wednesday night there is a massive drama and crying (I HAAATTTEEE FISH!!) and the odd time-out until they simmer down and actually take a bite and they declare it delicious. We roll our eyes Every Single Time. I just need to add that the drama is usually caused by one of the girls, Daniel will eat roadkill if you dress it up as salad.
But tonight was a hell all by itself. We dish up the fish. Isabel starts sobbing, she’s not eating fish. She hates fish. We ignore. She carries on. We say, have you tried it yet? Yes, she says, sobbing her heart out. (she hadn’t even sniffed it) Fast forward to our 1-2-3-time out count and off she goes.
Cue 4 minutes of silence with the faraway sounds of a pissed off child in the bathroom.
Isabel comes back to the table.
Mignon pushes her food around the plate, we ask Please try some of your fish. NO! she cries and shoves her plate away, placemat and all. Like we have just suggested she eat some 3 week old brown bananas that have been sitting in the fruit bowl.
Rinse and repeat of Isabel’s episode, sans the trip to the bathroom, as she simmered down at 1-2. But the tears didn’t end. We eventually compromised on more butternut and 2 bites of fish.
Bedtime was a whole other story, I ended up reading to Mignon by herself as she was completely inconsolable. I think they are feeling the pinch with lack of attention at the moment, my babies.
As a side-bar: You know what’s the weirdest thing I only realised when silence descended?
We don’t get pissed off, we don’t get emotional. We stick together and we back each other up. But fark it’s hard work. So much for not wanting to drink at all this week.
