Category: The Parenting stuff

Sticker Mania

You know, kids can be pretty ungrateful sometimes.  I know that we shouldn’t expect them to understand sacrifice and compromise in the same way us grownups do, but sometimes, just sometimes, I wish they would take a moment and think.  Think about the intent of an action of a parent.  When ‘they’ said parenting was a thankless job they really meant it.

Point in case:

I thought it would be a sweet thing to do to put a different sticker on each child’s wrapped snack every day inside their lunch box.  It embodies the amount of guilt I feel for working and missing so much.  It’s that little gesture that says “Hey! Mom and Dad are thinking of you!”

To this end I bought Isabel little Mini Mouse, Mignon butterfly and Daniel beautiful, bright smiley face and heart stickers as those are the things they love.  The plan was to stick them on when they aren’t looking so they know how special they are as individuals and that we treasure them.

How did it turn out? Not so well. Road to hell and all that.

They have of course twigged on to the fact that there are stickers and this morning there was a barmy of note.  Daniel opened his lunch box to find the (biggest on the sheet) happy face sticker on his snack and immediately proclaimed that he didn’t want the sticker.  In my mind I went What the fuck? and I mentally rolled into a little ball of self-pity.  We then had the whole conversation of why there are stickers, that they are simply something nice for them so they know we love them and so on, but Mister was having none of it, the sticker had to go.  So, the sticker went.

2 minutes later he is back: he wants a butterfly sticker.  No, sorry, no sticker for you today mister and we have thrown the other one away at your instruction.

Another 2 minutes later he comes back, big crocodile tears and demands to have original sticker back.

At which point I had a choice (besides feeling very manipulated).  I could either cave in and give the butterfly sticker or stick to my guns and not let him have any sticker.

So I dug out the original sticker out of the bin.

As you do.

First day of school – 2012

We officially survived the first day of school yesterday and I am very relieved!

Our lovely helper (I hate using the word Au-Pair as it feels like it puts us in a certain category, which could not be further from the truth as my grey hair and unmanicured nails will testify to) started on Monday so she had a chance to settle in.

We sent Daniel off to holiday camp at his new school with his BFF on Monday and Tuesday, so he had a chance to get a little aquanted with his school, but yesterday was still a big day for him.  Of our kids I worry about him the most (stop me if you’ve heard this one before), because the girls are mostly fine wherever they end up as they are always together.

First we all went to Daniel’s school so The Sussies could see his classroom and have a look around.  Here he is on the playground, thoroughly gatvol of me with the camera:

And here he is with the girls, Mignon on his right ad Isabel on his left:

As you can see, they were also rolling their eyes at me.  (which reminds me, Isabel has this little exasperated sound she makes these days, too funny)

I left Etienne in charge of The Big Goodbye and the Girls and I went off to their new school.  Here they are, humoring me in the road.  I don’t know how they put up with me 🙂

Incidentally, I had to take 6 pics to get this one, and still Mignon refused to look at me.

And finally, here they are, playing at their school.  I even managed to get both of them to look at me AT THE SAME TIME.

How did your first days go?

Delinquent Deluxe

After this morning I’m convinced we are raising at least 2 deliquents/serial killers/master thieves.

You might recall this post where I bragged endlessly about my awesome Advent Calendar idea.  I bet many of you giggled in your sleeves at the time and predicted what I am about to tell you.

The kids have been home this week, mornings with the Fabulous Angie and afternoons with my Mom and have been dreadfully spoilt by both.  We noticed on Monday evening that the tree was looking a little lopsided from a bag perspective, much as a fruit tree that grows next to a wall is in that the one side was completely stripped.  So, we have a stern talk with the kids about not taking any bags off the tree without us being present yaddayaddayadda.

Which, as it turns out, is all Daniel and Isabel heard: yaddayaddayadda.

As I’m about to leave this morning I hear the distinct rustling of paper and go off in search of source.  In Isabel and Mignon’s room I find Daniel and Isabel, each with a torn bag and Isabel scoffing a sweetie.  If I weren’t so mad I would have taken a photo of their faces when they knew they were caught, it was epic.

So, I did what any self-respecting Mother would do:

I said that they would just have to wait until their dad got home this afternoon and that he would deal with them.

Then I took all the bags off the tree, hid them in the cupboard and said only Mignon could have a sweetie today.  I told them they could have dry rye bread today for all I care, I’m very disappointed and so on and so forth.

Oh yes I did.  No shouting, no bitter recriminations.  Just that.  Daniel gave me the quivering-lip-welled-up-tears-look and Isabel, well, Isabel just shrugged.  That one is going to give us all our days.

And where was Mignon through all of this?  Watching tv in peace and quiet.

ps: Daniel was in our bed at 05h00 and eventually got kicked out at 05h30 because he was scratching so much (thanks for buying him ice cream yesterday Mom!) and promptly went to wake his sisters that descended upon us.  We need a King size bed, the spooning was intense with 5 of us in a queen.

pps: I can trust Angie to on board with my ‘punishment’, but I’m afraid my mother will just roll her eyes and undermine my desperate attempt at authority.  But that’s my therapist’s problem.

Goodbye Chameleons

You might or might not know that our children have been at the Chameleons Montessori School on Nitida since forever.  Daniel  joined their Toddler group in 2008 when he was just 19 months old and the girls joined just before they turned 2 in 2010.

As with every school we have had our ups and downs, but mostly they were ups and we have been blessed with amazing teachers that have taught our children skills no-one can ever take away from them.

We love that they discourage all the crap that kids are constantly bombarded with from an early age (think Ben10, Barbie etc) so that they don’t compete with each other for the wrong reasons.

We absolutely despise a certain parent (that shall remain unnamed) that has all but ruined the reputation and financial stability of the school by making allegations around vine spraying that has cost the school many MANY thousands of Rands in tests.

We were also enraged very disappointed in Carte Blanche for doing a one-sided ‘expose’ on the school earlier this year.  (as a side bar: all the respect I had for Carte Blanche as an objective news program is out the window.  I will forever wonder what their angle is if someone had to force me to watch their show ever again.  But I could seriously go on about this forever)

Today was our kids’ last day at Chameleons.

Daniel is going to Grade R and the girls are going elsewhere.  All the staff have been amazing, but there are a couple of very special people I would like to thank:

Claire: Thank you for standing up to me, as cantankerous and scary as I can be.  Thank you for making us take Daniel for allergy tests and for caring so much about the welfare of our child.  Thank you for all the hugs and cuddles you have dispensed to all 3 our children over the last 4 years.

Poppy: Thank you for potty training all our children (a task that I dreaded) and for being the shining light of patience an unconditional love that each of our children felt deep into their very souls.

Sally: Thank you for just being passionate about our children.  For fetching Isabel from the car morning after morning and coaxing her into the school gate when I am about to lose all my marbles with her.  (I know, I know, like Mother like Daughter)  Thank you for all the suntan lotion you have put on our kids day after day when I forgot to do it in the morning and for all your enthusiasm.

Kerry:  You are no longer at the school as you now have your own baby.  Know that you made an indelible impression on Daniel.  Just this morning he asked me when you could be his teacher again, even though you
haven’t been at the school since May.  That is the sign of a truly special teacher. Thank you for being my sounding board and for backing us up and supporting us as parents.

Tanya: Chick.  You rock.  Thank you for being flexible and for allowing our girls access to your class so they could have a break from each other and be with their brother.  Thank you for being there every morning, smile on your face and truly happy to see our children and their harassed mother.  I wish you only the best.

Angie: You do know you are stuck with us?  Thank you for your enthusiasm for children in general and our children in particular.  I have never ever hear you say a bad thing about a single child, you always manage to look at every child as an individual and find the best in them. I love how you mold them, inspire them and always find something engaging to do with them that they will enjoy. Thank you for being interested and involved.  Thank you for your honesty and your support.  Thank you for keeping us me straight when I go a little OTT.

If you are looking for a great school, pick Chameleons.

They might not answer the phone because the lines to the farm are often stolen or they are too busy engaging with other people’s children.  But know that your children will be taken care of and will leave there knowing what their worth is in the world.

On being connected

You know how you meet someone and for some reason you are just completely in sync with each other?  It might be because we have known each other for such a long time (26 years!!) or because our backgrounds
are quite similar, but Etienne and I have almost always been like that.

Even in the early days we would be sitting in a restaurant and someone would walk in the distance or we would drive past something.  I would notice something and start: “Did you see that..” and Etienne would finish the sentence and be 100% spot on.

We have this thing where we finish each other’s sentences.  And arb stuff sometimes that’s not even remotely connected to what we were talking about at the time.

“Remember, we still have to…… check school hours for next year” when we are sprawled on the couch after being spewed out of the nightly vortex that is our children.

One of the sure ways I know that we are out of touch with each other is when we stop doing that or we get it wrong.  Then I know that we need to regroup and sort out some stuff.  And then, when it’s sorted out we get right back to talking in half sentences.  It’s uncanny and downright weird sometimes.  I often think “How did he know I was going to say that?” or when he starts a sentence I am blown away when I just know what he is going to say.

That is why I think it freaks him out when he doesn’t understand why I feel low sometimes and I can’t explain why.  And the door is closed for him to understand without me actually saying anything.  Because I don’t really know myself.  Depression is SUCH a bitch.

Do you have this in your relationship too or are we just weird?

PS. He offered to bath the dogs yesterday morning to give me a chance to catch up on some Christmas gifts I am making.  He kindly dressed the kids and coached them nicely on how to hold the garden hose and the doggy shampoo.  Eventually, after hearing she sheer exasperation in his voice I go outside.  And there he was, desperately holding on to Lily with Daniel clutching the bottle of shampoo and the girls shrieking away
in mirth at the very unhappy dog.  Wet Husband, not so wet dog, dry children lined up against the wall canning
themselves.  So we ended up sorting out the dogs and only then I realized that the neighbours’ back door that looks out on our back garden was open.

And I was wearing was a short nighty and no bra.
Oops.

And here are our ablebodied assistants driving the tap:

 

Noddy’s Christmas Party

We went off to the Round Table Noddy’s Christmas party at Vergelegen on Thursday night again this year and revelled in the sheer naffness of it all. The kids loved it too 🙂

First you arrive and get treated to a ride in a trailer behind a tractor. I did the tractor ride with my sister an the kids whilst Etienne went ahead and did the set-up and dropped off the gifts and I desperately attempted to get a pic of

  1. all the kids together,
  2. looking at me and
  3. smiling.

I often manage 1/3, seldom 2/3 and hardly ever 3/3. Here follows the sequence:

Here is my sister with the girls and Tertia with Max in the background.  It was great to catch up with her and Candice for a change!

The Concert

Here is the venue, very nicely protected from the wind.

The venue, nicely protected from the wind
Mignon clutching her glowstick necklace

Project Christmas, Day 1

This year we are going all out for Christmas.

We are going to embrace all the Boney M, all the Christmas carols.

We are going to Noddy’s Christmas Party, like we did last year. (and hopefully will for a few years to come)

We are making it a true family affair.

We are going to try and avoid most of the Christmas Consumerist crap trappings and make as many of our gifts as possible.  Lighter on the pocket and good for the soul.

The first project was the Advent Calendars for the kids.  My idea was to put each day’s little sweetie in a packet on the Christmas tree and when the kids remove their packet they replace it with a Christmas decoration.

The kids stuck their own numbers on little white bags I found in a cupboard and we used clothing pins and some ribbon to attach the bags to the tree.  It’s not Martha Stewart, but the total effect looks cool.  And the kids loved it this morning.

It was hard to get the whole tree in, but this was the effect.

Daniel and Isabel putting their first decorations on the tree:

 

 

Education Fail

Picture this:  December, 1990. (said in the voice of Sophia from The Golden Girls)

Matric exams and all the after parties are done. The day the Matric results come out we all descend on the school and buy the newspaper with a mixture of excitement and a little trepidation as now we have to start growing up.  We knew that we had studied hard and we knew that we had been in a good school and felt safe and supported by our teachers.

This morning I read this article on News24 and I am furious. To say the least.

I have written several posts this year about schools with Daniel going to Grade R next year and we have found a great school. We will also agree on a great High School when the time comes.  Not a private school, because we simply cannot afford it with 3 children, but a really good government school.  A school where there are teachers for all the subjects, where children can depend on teachers to teach them and not behave like delinquents themselves.  A school where teachers will care enough to
point out to us when our children need an intervention of sorts.  As parents we want to be involved in what our children learn, we want to teach them things they will never learn in a classroom.

We will choose a school where many of the children won’t drop out in Grade 10 or be in their mid-20’s when they finally Matriculate. There will probably be the odd fail or teenage pregnancy or child that disappears for a few months to go to rehab (hell, one of those might even be one of ours), but they would be the exception.

But all in all we hope to raise children, with the help of great teachers, that will turn out to be responsible, respectable, adults that will go out into the world and be the best they can.

We will probably be on the very strict end of the parenting scale, but I hope that we will make our children carry the consequences of their own actions and not cover them in cotton wool so that they leave our house ill-equipped to deal with LIFE.

According to the News24 article  “We are calling on all learners not to buy newspapers on the day results are published. These newspapers are only interested in making money while the students are enduring trauma,” said Mani.

I’m curious.  How have we failed these children that they will be traumatised by their Matric results?

Who is to blame?

The teachers?

The parents?

The collective angst of society that makes these children feel  that they will amount to nothing anyway?

A government that is more concerned about hiding things from the public through the Protection of State Information Bill than building a proper education system and making sure that their teachers teach?

I know I’m taking a very simplistic view, but I have been watching all this madness in South Africa this week and I am very worried for our children.  We as parents can teach our children what we want, but how do we make them believe what we try to teach them when we live in a country where (even less than) mediocrity is acceptable and often even the norm?

Uncles and Aunties and all things polite

If your life was anything like mine growing up you spent a LOT of time saying ‘Oom’ (Uncle) this and ‘Tannie’ (Aunt) that and kissing older people on the mouth and having your cheeks pinched by those very same Tannies reeking of lavender and spice.

Etienne and I make the kids call older people Tannie/Oom and it has never bothered me that other people’s kids might not call me Tannie.

Tannie Tania. The thought alone makes me squirm. And then puke a little in my mouth. How’s that for double standards?

Over the weekend we were with English friends and it came up in conversation. They aren’t too fussed about the whole thing, but asked me to ask everyone on the interwebs what they do.

So. Do you expect your kids to call people Aunt/Uncle or are you comfortable with first names?

A question about extra-murals and Tori

I know.  What a bizarre title, but anyhoo.

Firstly:  No more sleeps until the Tori Amos concert.  And I’m sitting here in my office being happy about it all by myself because half of the staff here were still in nappies when we were listening to Little Earthquakes.  The best of it all?  I’m going with 2 of my all-time BFF’s from school days.  We have been friends for 24 years (24 YEARS people!!) and they are still 2 of my all-time favouritest bestest people.  L and I: it’s the 80’s ALL over again for us tonight!

Then, a more serious question:

We have to choose which extra-murals Daniel will do next year and we are completely spoilt for choice.  I have always wanted Daniel to do karate, but between that and computer classes and rugby and cricket and swimming and all the other stuff Etienne and I are a little ‘deer-in-the-headlights’.  And we don’t have endless funds to pay for activities either.

So, I would like to know:

How many extra-mural activities is age appropriate for a Grade R child?

Which ones would you or have you picked for your child and why and how did it impact on their choices when they grew older?

Thank you!