Category: The Parenting stuff

Good Mom Bad Mom

Daniel spent the morning with my In-Laws and the afternoon with my Mom.  Which meant that when the first call came 30 minutes after she had collected him I was already rolling my eyes.  (For incase I haven’t mentioned it before, I love my Mom dearly, but she is a case study on hypochondria waiting to happen)

When the first call came “I think his glands are swollen” I rolled my eyes.

When the second call came: “His glands are swollen, he keeps his head to the one side and it looks stiff and his fever is going up” I started listening.

And dreading that I might have to leave work.  As you do.

Cue desperate sms’ing of the Homeopath which resulted in a decision to leave work earlier to take him for a quick check-up.  Just because you never know.

As I drove away from work I felt like a very bad employee, but I felt like a worse Mother. I had an entire thought-process about at what point I would become a Bad Mother. (if I wasn’t one already), because if there’s something we all dread it’s the mere thought of being labelled The Bad Mother.

Until I saw him.  And I knew that no matter what, my sweet little boy needed me and I had made the right decision.  A quick visit to the Homeopath confirmed that we should rather get him off to the GP and off we went.  A 39.3 C temp, a script for antibiotics and 1 Voltaren suppository later he looked a lot better this evening.  It’s scary when doctors start saying things like Scarlet Fever, Meningitis and Monitor in the same sentence, but thankfully it just (!) looks like really bad tonsillitis and an ear infection.

Casting my mind back over the day I realise that, instead of feeling like a Bad Mother for being at work, I should rather feel like a Good Mother for making the call and collecting my sick child.  And as much as I don’t like antibiotics that sometimes it isn’t about what I like, but about what my child needs.

And that’s completely fine by me.

Roll on long-weekend!!

Meat-free Monday and bugs

The wonderful Ishay has this amazing recipe on her blog, you should really give it a try!

Click here for the original recipe, we left out the almonds (Daniel is intolerant) and replaced with chickpeas that we roasted in the oven for 20 minutes with some olive oil, lemon juice, sesame seeds and cumin.

Not that Daniel or the girls ate any of it, but hey.

Daniel started running a fever yesterday and we ended up leaving him with my Mom today who (kicking and screaming) took him off to the Homeopath.  To cut a long story short the little man has tonsillitis and he is really not well. I haven’t seen him this unwell in a long, long time.  He hasn’t been eating or drinking much the last 2 days and if he’s not better tomorrow I think we need to re-evaluate.

Of course his sisters were completely out of bounds tonight.  I saw, for the first time ever, complete disdain for Mom and Dad and rules.

And what was the first thought I had surface through the sheer terror?

I wonder what book I can read to fix this.

True story.

To Play-date or not?

Daniel had his first play-date yesterday. It entailed a school friend’s Mom sending me an SMS earlier in the week and asking if our boys could have a play-date.
Up to now I can’t say I’ve ever had an actual thought process about play-dates and what the right etiquette would be.
Let me elaborate:
The Mom, Dad and child arrived and they checked that he was ok and then said they were going and would see us later. Etienne and I did a bit of a ‘huh?’ and I had about 1 000 conflicting emotions ranging from ‘maybe they don’t like me, but their son drove them nuts to play’ to ‘how brave to leave your son’ to ‘OMG, they must trust us enough to look after their sweet little boy’.
It was the weirdest thing for me, especially because I’ve never contemplated leaving any of the kids with someone else unless we know them REALLY well, there’s a crisis or they get paid to look after them. I’ve just kind of assumed the more the merrier, roll on in and let’s have fun.
It was funny when the Mom came back later as I think she picked up on our surprise and asked me about doing play-dates as she was also a ‘virgin’ (thanks C!) and we both had a nervous little chuckle about it. Hilarious!
But now I’m thinking that’s not such a bad idea and I’m really just completely anal retentive about leaving a child with someone else. (unless under the above-mentioned circumstances). I’ve kind of been stuck at the fact that I couldn’t unleash the sheer force of our brood on an unsuspecting family EVER. But suddenly I have options.
Mmmmm…
When did you send your child on their first ‘solo’ play-date? How did it go? Any tips?

Why

If you have been a parent for any length of time you will be well familiar with the word WHY and the indiscriminate use thereof.

For example, I arrive home tonight with gifts for my friends Camilla and Renata.  So this conversation ensues:

  • Isabel: Why are there 2 gifts?
  • Me: Because the one gift is for Aunty Camilla and the other gift is for Aunty Renata.
  • Isabel: Why?
  • Me:  Why what?
  • Isabel: Why did you buy them gifts?
  • Me: Because they had birthdays and Mommy and Daddy couldn’t go to Aunty Camilla’s birthday because we had to go to Ouma Hanni and Oupa Duncan’s 40 th anniversary party. And Mommy is going to Aunty Renata’s party tonight.
  • Isabel: Why?
  • Me: Why what?
  • Isabel: Why did you go to their party?
  • Me: Because their hearts would have been very sore if I didn’t go.
  • Isabel: Why?
  • Me: Because I love them very much and they are my Mommy and Daddy.
  • Isabel: Mommy and Daddy.
  • Me: Yes.
  • Isabel: Why?
  • Me: Why what?
  • Isabel: Why are you going to Aunty Renata’s party?
  • Me: Because she’s my friend and she’s having a party.
  • Isabel: Why?
  • Me: Why what?
  • Isabel: Why is she having a party?
  • Me: Because it’s her birthday.
  • Isabel: Birthday!

The way I know the Why’s have come to an end if she repeats the last couple of words of my last sentence.  Then I have this feeling of Winning.  Which is usually short-lived.

Sigh.

Monday madness

The kids’ school always start a day later than the normal schools, so they were home yesterday and there was a juggle between Grandparents and our Super Fantastic Other Parent aka Angie the teacher/babysitter that took all of them for the afternoon.

In the mayhem of cooking supper I hear Mignon talking about a “Omie”(Uncle, loosely translates to a term used for an older man) and Etienne tells me to listen to what she’s saying.  So I ask her about the “Omie”, my imagination going mad.  And she tells me all about the “Omie” that found her and took her back to Granny.  My heart did a couple of flips, only for Etienne to roll his eyes and say that she managed to get lost in the shops.

My Mom took the girls shopping and apparently they passed an elevator where Mignon wanted to press the button, but they had to keep going.  I’m sure you can figure out the rest.  Cue Granny almost having heart failure as some random guy (the Omie) brings Mignon back up in the elevator.

And Daniel came home with really weird-looking jelly they made at MIL’s house.  Don’t even ask.

Oh, and Etienne was home sick for the day and unfortunately (much as it pains me to not be part of the club) he was really sick.  Not the man-flu, the real-flu.

And now I have no voice.  This could be fun..

 

The weekend

So the boys went fishing and we had a girls weekend.  Even though I missed my boys like mad I think it did Daniel the world of good to spend time being ‘the only child’ with his Dad.

Here’s a pic of him fishing.  And I say fishing in the loose sense of the word as apparently he spent more time running on the wooden pier and sticking his feet in the water.  My silly boy.

My Mom, my Sister and I took the girls for a picnic at Zorgvliet today and it is such a lovely, lovely place to have a picnic.  Their picnics are good value for money. (R280 for a family picnic, more than enough for all of us and it included a bottle of wine)

The picnic area is a massive lawn surrounded by trees with a lovely jungle gym right at the bottom.  And quiet.  Truly amazing, I’m so going back there!

Here’s Isabel on a little bench on the lawn:

Here’s Granny, Aunt and sisters taking a walk to collect the pudding:

And here’s a pic of the vineyards, you can tell autumn is here, check how brown the vines are already!

May you have a fantastic week!

You can’t believe..

We ended up at the Emergency room again last night!

This time Mignon had croup.  And it was much, much worse than Isabel’s.  Luckily we still had some of Isabel’s stuff to nebulise her with and some leftover medicine and if it wasn’t for that we would have had a serious problem as she was battling to breathe so much.  So I simply carted her off to the hospital as well where they nebulised her with Adrenaline to open the airways.  And she was running a 38.7 fever.

The same doctor was on duty as the night I took Isabel and she did a serious double-take so I explained it’s the identical twin this time and we had a little giggle at that.

So, just so you know: Croup can be contagious if a child has an underlying minor infection such as a cold.  Don’t say you never learn anything here.

But we now have plentiful medicine, just for in case.  Can you imagine if we arrive there with a 3rd child??

I thought I was coping very well with leaving Mignon with my Mom today until she called to tell me that Mignon keeps saying how much she misses me.  Why not just take a knife and stab me repeatedly??? (cue scary violin music from Psycho)

Had a little cry in the bathroom, sucked it up and carried on with my day with a smile on my face.

As you do.

Just some useless info

Since we embarked on the whole mission to avoid antibiotics/steroids/cortisone as far as possible for our children we realised that half the battle was making sure that we supplement their diets and boost their immune systems to keep them healthy.  Because there are 3 of them we get a little freaked out when they all get sick, as you can imagine.

We usually give them Multivites all year round, but then kick it up a notch from March to September just to be sure.  They still get sick, but not nearly as sick as they used to and they definitely recover a lot faster!

I often get asked what we use, so here’s a pic and description:

From left to right:

  • Natura’s Coughs and Colds formula for when the sniffles start.  If I don’t catch it in time, we normally move on to Pentagen which also helps with aches and pains and fever (not in the picture, couldn’t find the bottle when I took the pic).  Love the stuff, works like a bomb.
  • We also love the Solgar Vitamin C and Multivitamin chew tablets.  We call them sweeties…  They are great value for money.  I keep checking the price against other kiddy vites and I seriously can’t believe the price comparison.  They work out cheaper than those half-arsed Barbie/Barney vites.
  • Echinaforce: We give the kids each a chew tablet every day and can also crank it up a notch when they do get the sniffles.
  • Respitron from Sportron:  When Daniel was diagnosed with all his allergies 2 years ago his chest was really, really bad.  It just wouldn’t clear up until we eliminated all the stuff he was allergic to and I’m convinced the Respitron made a massive difference.

All of the above stuff was R546.00 on the dot and lasts on average about a month.  But remember that we have 3 children and that a single visit to a paediatrician will probably set you back that much.  And then you haven’t even bought medicine yet.

What vites/supplements do you use?

Ps: Please bear in mind that I am not a doctor and this is not a medical opinion, I’m just a Mom and this was by trial and error!

I review Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

I have been putting off writing this review as I have been processing and thinking about the book.

I rate a book good by

  1. the time afterward I spend thinking about it and
  2. the time afterward I spend talking about it

Suffice it to say I have spent A LOT of time thinking about and talking about this book.  It has made me wonder a lot about what it is I want for MY children.  Up to now I was really not thinking much about should they play a musical instrument, should they become doctors or even if they should go to University.  I was really just hoping for a good night’s sleep every now and again.

My Master plan was for them to figure it out and we would take it from there.  Well.  That plan’s out the door for good thanks to Amy Chua.

Interestingly enough a friend recently got married to a Taiwanese darling Daniel calls a ‘little girl’ and they were here on honeymoon when I was reading the book.  I asked her if it was like that for her as well when she grew up and she said yes, not having an A was not accepted.  She is a teacher now and many, MANY children in Taiwan go to school from 8am in the morning to 9pm, 6 days a week.  How can this be good for children?  Surely they should be given the opportunity to be Children?

But where does this leave us as parents?

I’m not suggesting that I will make my children practice piano 90 minutes a day because, quite frankly, I would also like to have a life and there are 3 children in our house. I tried to imagine doing a full-time job (I wish) and then coming home to 4.5 hours of piano practice.  It simply does not compute.

BUT what I have considered is that if they decide to take up something best they stick to it and at least master it.  I don’t expect them to only be the best because failure is humbling and life sometimes is about failure, but that’s what teaches you resilience.

I want, for my children, (sorry Etienne, I say My and Mine, but I know you feel the same) to be happy and confident and humble.  I want them to respect each other and their parents.  I want them to feel like they can master anything they attempt.  I want to embrace them each as an individual and steer them to be the best they can be, not push them.

I want them to make life choices for themselves, not because they think they will please Etienne and myself, because in the end that is a recipe for failure.

I might read this in 10 years time and roll my eyes at my 38 year old self, but for now that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Read the book, you might not agree with a lot of what she says, but it will certainly make you think.