The Parenting stuff – Page 6

Welcome to the jungle

If winter is anything like tonight was I might be committed before very long.

I don’t know if the kids OD’d on sugar at school today or what, but it was a veritable friggin zoo at Casa Roux. I’m hiding in the bathroom at the moment because I’m afraid 1) of what will remain standing when I emerge and 2) what Etienne will be drinking in this time.

I don’t plan on leaving the loo until this blogpost is done by the way, iPads for the win.

Besides the normal burp and fart jokes it was mayhem and screaming and manic laughter from the minute I walked in. Our Norma isn’t here tonight, so it’s just Etienne and I. Outnumbered by our lunatic children.

Our day didn’t start out very well, they pretty much woke up like this. Then we forgot to pack in their juice. Then Megan (Au pair) came to fetch the house key from me at work, only she couldn’t get in the gate as it was the wrong set. Which meant a mad dash home and dispensing of frenzied hugs. (Which I’m not complaining about). Then Mignon lost her ballet shoes at school.

Crazy dinner making, usual complaints about mushrooms in Mac and Cheese (yes, they are over our last bad experience) and wanting Mom’s salad instead. Then on to read time and all 3 of them, each with a brush in my hair. I’m still flinching, I might be bald in several places.

But you know what, they play together. They laugh together. They aren’t bitching and fighting and hating each other. They are literally laughing their heads off at each other. They are having the time of their lives before the cruelty of teasing and judging and pressure of school and performance kicks in. They are being children and they are doing a damn fine (if loud) job.

And this? This is apparently a train-hug.

Ps. I didn’t finish this post in the bathroom, little people were lining up outside the door for hugs and cuddles and kisses, so it’s much later now.

Edit to add: I forgot to say last night that they were also singing the praises of Perry the Platapoooeees. If you have ever spent time with anyone from Cape Town or encountered an angry Bergie this would need no clarification. If you are not familiar with the Cape vernacular, there is a very expressive, very popular naughty word which is the same word for cat in Dutch. That is all I have to say about that.

Lastly I’m adding this pic of the pics for posterity. All 3 kids in the bath on Sunday, soon they won’t fit in there and they won’t want to bath together.

Grade 1 is not for sissies

Etienne and I went to our first Parent/Teacher meeting with Daniel’s teacher this evening.

I’m a bit of a cynic when it comes to these things (besides being a little nervous that our child might be a serial killer) as the teachers over the years have pretty much always commented on how he only plays with his girl BFF, how friendly and affectionate he is and how bi-lingual he is. He battled a little with Afrikaans last year in the transition from an English to Afrikaans school and was sent for speech assessment. We then almost got bullied into speech therapy earlier this year which we politely declined, wanting to give his teacher a chance to get to know him first and make her own recommendation.

Thank goodness we did as his vocabulary is great and his speech has improved in leaps and bounds.

Daniel’s teacher is the also apparently the favourite Acrikaans teacher in his grade and some of the Moms were a little surprised that we cracked the nod last year (I see I didn’t blog about it, I’m such a wuss), a couple of them made me feel that I somehow didn’t work hard enough to get my child into the best class. Yes, I know, I sound oversensitive, but you had to be there. In my defense, I didn’t really know anyone, it was at a Friday afternoon birthday party I took leave for to attend with Daniel and there was no wine. I cannot really be held responsible. But I digress.

His teacher really enjoys our son and yes, a little bit of me thinks that she must say that to *all* the parents, but I’m willing to roll with it. She apparently has a system where there are little ‘warning sticks’ to show the kids when they are being disrespectful etc and all the sticks went missing. She eventually found them at Daniel’s desk. He apparently hid them because he didn’t want any of his classmates to bet into trouble, not because he was constantly getting into trouble. The little man wanted to help his friends, how sweet is that?

So all in all, our son is not a serial killer, doesn’t need speech therapy and is doing extremely well overall. And he made friends with some boys, but we could already tell by the new real boy play and some of his language. In fact, just the other day I thought he said ‘fuck’ under his breath and when I asked him what he had said he sheepishly confessed to ‘fart’. Not something he’ll hear in our house in a hurry.

We say poep anyway.

Bad dreams and play dates

I know. If I was any kind of Mother by now I would have downloaded all the pics from the girls’ party on Saturday and already posted them here, but I haven’t. So there.

Their 5^th birthday party was on Saturday morning and I literally woke up in a puddle of drool from a nap on Saturday afternoon, I was THAT tired. What an epic nap that was after a party that I was very happy with. It wasn’t Pinterest Perfect*, but it was perfect for us and our kids had an absolute ball.

Sunday morning was brunch with the Whine Club girls and Sunday afternoon we went to see Koos Kombuis at Backsberg. It was really cool to be somewhere without proper cellphone signal so I was forced to pack my phone away and it was so relaxing just lolling around on the grass with the kids. We could listen to music, drink some lovely wine and just “be” with the kids and the lovely family that went with us. No rush to finish supper, tidy a kitchen or worry about feet on the couch.

I had such an overwhelming sense of peace on Sunday evening. You know those odd moments when you stand outside your life for a minute and realize OMG, this is it. This is my life and it is just grand, I wouldn’t exchange it for anything else. I love those moments, I live for those moments and try to replicate them as often as I can.

So imagine my surprise when I didn’t sleep much on Sunday night thanks to some dodgy sushi and battled to fall asleep last night again, only to wake up from a horrible dream that Daniel had died. I swear I was crying in my sleep, it was really very upsetting.

I wonder where that came from?

Then I would like to ask: some of the lovely Moms (that we met for the first time on Saturday) want to do play dates with the girls, but offered to pick up the girls either from school or our house during working hours. I felt a little awkward as they are really lovely people and I initially didn’t get that they were inviting my children only, so I kept suggesting Saturday mornings until it dawned on me that the invite was for the girls only. I’m just not comfortable sending my kids to people’s houses that I don’t know very well/I haven’t been to myself (that entire sentence should read “we” as Etienne agrees btw), but I also don’t want to seem ungracious and alienate the Moms as we will be together for the next 12 years. I also don’t want to be labeled as “that difficult Mom”, but I’m just not comfortable and I may or may not have taken it just a tad personally that I wasn’t invited either because I’m of the “the-more-the-merrier” persuasion. As far as I’m concerned our house can always be filled with people.

What do you think? How do I handle the situation with tact and grace?

ps: If I was under any illusion that I really wanted to have that last baby I keep begging Etienne for I changed my mind in the last 2 days as I DO NOT cope well without sleep. I a walking disaster breaking things and knocking my toes blue.

* Pinterest Perfect = those wonderful things you see on Pinterest that you so desperately want to copy but just never seem to get quite right. I totally made that up.

Some random thoughts on the girls turning 5

I wanted to do a whole post with pics of the girls from the last 5 years, but you see so much of them on FB and twitter I thought I would give you a break and only post this one pic of them on their birthday,

Instead I had a random little thought that’s like a thread I have to unravel, so this post is really about having a thought process more than anything else. And I need to give my head a break from thinking about Princess Party Origami Shoes* and other party arrangements that had me grinding my teeth last night.

It started with the girls’ teacher asking each of the parents to write their children a letter about the first 5 years of their life that is read to them in class on their birthday. As you may know, I’m hardly ever at a loss for words, but I procrastinated writing my 2 letters (as you do when you have twins) until 10pm on the night before they were due.

You see, I have a lot to say about our amazing little girls and celebrating them each as an individual little person. A LOT. It has been our life’s work to treat them as such, from dressing them differently from day 1 to encouraging different friends and interests and acknowledging that they have different emotional needs and respond differently to discipline. But in the end I have to concede: they are very much alike in many ways, not in as many ways as they are different, but still. And it’s about time I maybe start to realise it and say it’s ok instead of pushing them away from each other in the end.

For people who don’t know them well there is the most obvious thing that they look very much alike. Unless you look closely or know them really well they both come across as pretty boisterous (read: LOUD. No idea where they get that from by the way..), it seems like their body language is the same and they both love pink.

The thing is: they are both girls, so they will potentially both love pink. They love Barbie and colouring in and helping in the kitchen (mostly because our household revolves around our kitchen). They both love jumping on the trampoline and they both love bubbles in the bath.

I was lucky enough to attend their first ballet “recital” this week and was completely blown away by how much they have learnt in such a short time and how much they LOVE ballet, it made me all weepy.

They are children. They are completely and utterly awesome and we are so blessed to have them and their sweet soul of a brother that has just fitted into the mayhem that they bring with them.

So today I’m taking a moment to celebrate their alikeness instead of their differences, just a moment, because I think it’s worth doing.

*as usual I’m going OTT with party arrangements, mostly in my head, this is just one of those things I thought wouldn’t take long, but ended up being a pain in the arse more than anything else.

PS: men don’t understand parties. Etienne and I have 2 big annual fights and they normally fall in the day or 2 before the kids’ parties because he is baffled by the amount of stressing I do about parties. This year I got it out of the way early when I had a printer and origami shoe meltdown on Tuesday night. At least it’s done and dusted now and life carries on.

PPS: men also don’t understand that if you have 18 of something and suddenly you only have 17 of that thing it is a big fucking deal because then you can’t have 6 rows of 3, you’ll have 2 rows of 6 and 1 row of 5 and that Just Won’t Do. But I think Etienne is on board with that now.

Oh, and those star biscuits I was on about the other day? Etienne came up with the idea of painting glitter in the letters whilst I was decorating the edges. Isn’t he awesome?

Lastly: I’m going to indulge my paranoia and take Isabel to the Ortho on Monday to have her arm checked, rather safe than sorry! Even though I was *almost* accused of being a hypochondriac like a certain member of my family we shall not mention (my Mother).

Catching up

This is a catch-up post, it’s been mad.

What a fun week we had last week and tomorrow the girls turn 5. I’m stocking up on tissues, can’t believe they are 5!

I came down with a sinus, chest blahblah thing last weekend and took the afternoon off on Tuesday to go home and sleep. I had just fallen asleep when Norma comes to tell me there’s a phone call. It turns out its aftercare: Isabel fell forward over a chair and broke her fall with her hand. They’ve checked, it looks ok, should they still send her to ballet? As much as I appreciated the call I was a little baffled, if the child’s arm is ok and she wants to do ballet surely she should just do ballet?

Off back to bed I go and I vaguely hear the kids come home and later Isabel comes into our room, proud as punch, arm in a bandage and sling. My eyes nearly popped out of my head.

So, I put on a bra and pants and off to the hospital we went. On the way there I called aftercare in my best WTAF voice and was told that they try to give parents the facts, but they try not to upset parents with too much information and sometimes you have to “read between the lines”. I assured them that I would be upset either way, so rather give it to me upfront and “reading between the lines” is not one of my superpowers.

The locum took one look at Isabel’s arm and carted us off to X-rays (already after 5pm) after taking my temperature (I had a fever people!) and giving me a script for antibiotics. That little girl of ours is one tough little cookie, she didn’t as much as flinch when they were poking and prodding, even though you could see that she was in a fair amount of pain.

Diagnosis: Greenstick Fracture of the right wrist, slab and bandage for 2 weeks, no cast needed.

The next morning I receive a call from the aftercare manager, a lovely woman whom I have loads of time for. It seems there was a miscommunication of the severity of Isabel’s injury and yes, they will rather give me news straight up in future, none of that reading between the lines malarkey.

I’m still not 100% convinced we will be ok with a slab and bandage for 2 weeks, but I’m also not sure if it will scream OCD mother if I take her to an Ortho for a second opinion.

What would you do?

The chest sinus thing? The locum at hospital wasn’t too concerned over my less-than-stellar state of health; he gave me a script and said that if I wasn’t better in 2 days I should then probably get the antibiotic. It is now a week later and I am now on steroids (after a visit to our regular GP on Saturday) because my ears are so blocked and ringing constantly. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t rate that locum’s opinion very highly.

This coming week is all about party preparation, so I’m slave-driving poor Etienne to get all the bits and bops done before Saturday and still remain sane. I’m hoping it’ll all work out well, which it will, I’ll just OCD the crap out of it as usual.

Lastly: Yuppiechef sent me an awesome Letterpress cookie set (for free!!) that I took for a spin yesterday, thinking I would make cookies with the girls’ names on for school. The results are actually not too bad, let’s hope they look ok when I’m done decorating.

May you have a lovely week!

Ps: did you see that I’m giving away 2 tickets to go and see Koos Kombuis with us this coming Sunday? Hurry and comment here, it closes today.

Welcome to the House of Lice

By now you might have seen my (several) frantic FB posts about Head Lice as we had an Invasion. To say I had a freak-out would be a grand understatement.

When Megan (our fantastic Au Pair) called last week to let me know that we had The Lice I issued forth instructions for ~~the house to be burned down~~ beds to be stripped, teddy bears washed, towels changed, furniture vacuumed and all brushes to be boiled. I then, from Crisis Centre, aka the safety of my office at work, called the closest pharmacy, gave them Etienne’s credit card number and cleaned their shelves of any and all products recommended by FB. And a metal nit comb.

I then started scratching. Straight after I called the school and aftercare and asked them to ~~burn~~ check the mattresses the kids lie on in the afternoons,

By the time got I home that day my instructions had been followed to the letter and I was greeted by 3 bemused children with significantly less hair than they started the day off with thanks to a certain metal nit comb. BUT. Order was re-established, or so I thought.

Over the course of the next few days there was more scratching and embracing of our inner baboons (thanks for that one Katrina) until Megan and our Norma discovered the rest of the Family Nit happily living on the kids’ heads. So we kicked it up a notch.

Once again, from the safety of Crisis Centre, after much googling, I issued forth instructions for heads to be covered with olive oil and glad-wrapped, left for 45 minutes and then nit-combed and washed. I believe I might also have issued forth instruction that they may watch TV, “I don’t care, as long as they sit still and it gets done”.

3 days in a row, with a rinse and repeat of the bedding, towels, teddy bears, furniture and brush boiling. Every. Single. Day. You can never be too careful you know.

And then I found more of the fuckers in Mignon’s head last weekend, which meant that I spent Sunday evening, after our disastrous Sunday shopping expedition literally picking nits from hair. Never has “nit picking” had more meaning for me than it has the last week or so.

For now it seems things have calmed down, but I’m not taking any chances. I made Etienne check my head again last night and I’m scratching as I type this just at the thought of it. I want to run screaming when the kids approach me for a hug and lay their heads lovingly next to mine. I’m long-distance hugging my own children!

Just for your info, we started with the Picksan on the left as well as a a leave-in spray (not in the picture), but I really like the Treet-It kit, I highly recommend it for preventative treatment too. Apologies for the bad pic!

Ps: True to my overactive Working-Mother guilt I considered taking half a day leave to sort it out, but I know I need to depend on my support structure. Hard though.

Pps: speaking of awkward, I received a lovely R400 speeding fine last week which Mignon was clutching this morning, desperate to “take the picture of Mommy’s car when it went too fast” to show the teacher. Over my dead body.

Ppps: I joined the gym, post to follow. And yes, I can see you laughing in the corner over there.

A ballet tale

Without sounding like a complete drama queen, I had myself a little meltdown yesterday.

It went like this:

The girls started ballet at the beginning of the term and we wanted to give them a chance to settle in and decide if it was really their “thing” before we forked out the R510 x 2 for their ballet outfits. Yes people, that would be R1 020. For ballet outfits. For 2 x 4yo girls.

You see, it is one of the joys of having twins: everything costs double. Besides, when I was their age I briefly did ballet until the teacher told us to lie on our tummies and touch the backs of our heads with our toes. That kind of flexibility does not run in our family, so I wanted to avoid this expensive indulgence, for lack of a better word.

By last week it was clear that we really needed to get cracking on those ballet outfits after not having received our list of required items as promised or being able to get to the ballet shop (The Ballet Box) to buy said, prescribed items for our little ballerinas. It’s been mad the last few weeks.

So, on Friday I call The Ballet Box and ask whether they will be open on Sunday as Saturday was going to be impossible due to the lovely Sally’s wedding on Saturday morning and squeezing in the girls’ fun walk and a way overdue hair appointment for me. Yes, they are open on Sunday.

On Saturday I call them again to check, yes yes, they are open from 10h00 until 14h00 on Sunday. Are you sure I say, I need to buy ballet outfits for my girls, yes, no problem.

Off we went to our wedding and we had a relaxed morning yesterday and popped around to a friend for tea before we went to do our big shop, my girls and I. We were all very excited, me because I could give Etienne’s credit card a last little stab before payday and the girls because, well, they are girls and they are spending time with their Mom and it’s BALLET CLOTHES.

After tea we drove down to the shop and guess what? Closed. At 12h15.

I sat in that parking lot looking at that closed door and I felt utterly defeated. So did the girls. They didn’t whine or cry, they were utterly gutted and confused, because why did their Mom lie to them? I can handle a lot, but making a promise to my kids and not delivering does my head in, especially if it wasn’t my fuckup.

I then went through all the stages of grief, most of them right there in that parking lot.

Denial: I got out the car and tried the locked doors and called the shop, no answer.

Anger: I then left a carefully worded FU message on their voicemail so as not to teach my children any more bad words than they already know. (If you are reading this and you are from the Ballet box, I’m the Tania that left that grief stricken, passive aggressive message. You’re welcome)

Bargaining: Girls, Mommy will make a plan. I had visions of having to take half-day today so that I could drive to the Southern Suburbs if need be to procure ballet outfits because hell was going to freeze over before I gave The Ballet Box a single cent of our money.

Depression: If only I were a better Mother/didn’t work full-day/was more organized. At this point I had pulled out of the deserted parking lot and was driving home, the girls very upset in the back of the car that we were going home now and not buy their ballet clothes.

At which point I started crying. I cried all the way home and eventually went to hide in our room so as not to upset the kids, getting angrier with myself by the minute and to the complete bewilderment of Etienne.

Acceptance: I eventually pulled myself toward myself and decided to go and check out the sports shops to see if I could find at least some of what I needed.

Enter Mr Price Sports Store, after a false start at Sportsman’s Warehouse, where I found everything I needed. At half the price. And the service was amazing.

So, to the purveyors of The Ballet Box: get stuffed.

And now, for some horseplay

This is purely for some Sunday fun, but I’m curious: Who eats ready-made meals and how often?

Just in case you have been living under a rock here is the timeline of how the scandal unfolded of horsemeat that was found in pre-packaged meals and processed meat products.

I will be upfront and say that, as an unwritten rule, we don’t buy pre-made meals. I completely blame Etienne for this as we often used to stand in front of the pre-made meal fridge/freezer in the shop, look at the price and then decide that we (he) could make it cheaper (and better) at home and then proceed to do so. I did buy some of those mac and cheese meal thingies from Woolworths a couple of times, but the kids refused to eat it, so we haven’t tried it since. To us that’s like taking a R20 note, tearing it up and flushing it down the toilet, times 3.

When I became a food label Nazi because of Daniel’s food allergies it became a game to check out the crap they put in those meals and I sometimes had to restrain myself from saying something to people in shops that load their trolleys with meals for the week from the fridge and freezer.

I have now calmed down to the Zen place of “each to their own” and I don’t care what other people feed themselves or their families, so this post really is not meant to be from a bad place, I’m really just curious. To prove this point I have made a lovely little (anonymous) poll for you to take part in of you so wish to.

What I want to know is this: Do you buy pre-made meals for your daily main meal or that of your kids, be that supper or lunch. Simple.

And remember: NO JUDGIES

Random things our kids say

This past week a random email conversation triggered a memory and subsequently a sequence of events I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to blog about, not even a password protected post.

The reason is simply because it isn’t my story, but it potentially has massive ramifications for my family. On the upside it would explain so much of what my family has been through in the last 20 odd years and some of my own phobias. I’m just ALL about the silver lining, aren’t I? My shrink must be rubbing his hands in glee and already pre-ordering a fancy new car.

So instead of getting stuck I shall distract myself and amuse you with random things our kids have been saying:

The other night I was reading to the kids when Daniel grabbed my ring finger and studied my engagement ring. He then wanted to know when he could have it. (My first thought was that I wasn’t planning on dying soon) I asked him why he wanted my ring and he said that he wanted to give it to his BFF R as they are getting married. He’s going to have to wait quite a while before he can pry my rings from my cold, dead fingers.

That very same night Isabel farted and announced that it was by far the stinkiest fart she had ever made (Mom! Smell my fart!) and how proud she was of that fart. She can be quite a tomboy, I’m contemplating enrolling her for karate just to channel that energy of hers.

My folks were over for lunch yesterday and for some reason we were set upon by about 100 000 flies. There were none at all and the minute we sat down at the table they descended upon us the crafty little buggers. So we lit citronella candles and kept waving them away (we really need one of those tennis racket fly electrocution thingymajigs by the way) and Isabel pipes up: Die Donnerse vlieë!

Oops. Cue awkward silence.

And Mignon? Mignon is a little like Ashwin Kumar (the Dad from the BBC talk show The Kumars at No 42). He always had these random little stories that didn’t really have an end. For example, last night we were having our usual Sunday night feast (toasted pitas with cheese and bacon) and she pipes up: Mom! Did you know that my teacher’s baby’s name is Sonika?

May you have an awesome week and you may manage to keep the donnerse flies at bay.

Ps: reason number 411 877 you shouldn’t ever run in the house: Etienne challenged the kids to a race to the bathroom this weekend to brush their teeth and Mignon fell around the first corner and Isabel tripped in the passage and literally bounced off a bedroom doorway and is now sporting a bigass purple bruise on her hip, poor baby. ALL my children..

Dear Mr President

I have so many things to blog about (my awesome 40th last Saturday) and things that I’m considering blogging about (family and religion stuff), but this morning I had a hard conversation with Daniel which I think is more imporant to talk about.

Every morning I have a much-treasured 10 minutes of peace and quiet that I spend with my beloved iPad reading news and catching up on twitter. You could possibly also refer to this time as avoiding-making-lunchbox-time, but hey.

This morning I was reading this article about rape in general and the rape and murder of Anine Booysen in particular with some rather horrifying details. The mind baffles at the level of violence possible in a little town (Bredasdorp) that we have driven through several times on our way to Arniston. I know, how middle-class are we?

On the same page was a picture of our dear Mr President, Mr Zuma. Daniel came and sat down for a cuddle under my arm, pointed to his picture and asked whether he was our president. Yes, I say. Is he nice? Daniel asks.

It took me a minute to work through all the inappropriate answers I could have given my child, but eventually I came up with this:

No, we don’t like him very much.

We don’t like him because he doesn’t take care of the children in our country as a President should, there are lots of children in really bad schools and without school books.

We don’t like him because he takes money from the poor people to build himself and really fancy house for his own, very large, family.

We really don’t like him because he doesn’t tell bad people not to hurt other people and doesn’t make proper rules to make sure this doesn’t happen.

We really don’t like him because he has told many lies and is often just really not a nice person.

So, Mr Prez, how can you expect us parents to teach our children to love our country and be good citizens if you cannot do that yourself? How can you expect us to teach our children to follow rules and respect each other when you cannot do the same? How can you expect our children (and by default YOUR children) not to rape, murder and pillage if YOU don’t stand up and take a stand?

Just saying.

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