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I am really impressed with myself, I managed to do this all alone with the help of Google!

Mignon left, Isabel right.  This is why twins are special.

Tertia recently did this post on lying to your children.

And it got me thinking about lying and liars and people that cheat.

I am a terrible liar. Mostly because I’m incredibly lazy. I couldn’t be asked to remember what I said from one day to the next, so I try and stick to the truth as far as possible, as twisting the truth is just too much hard work.

When I was in Grade 7, in the century before this one, I bunked a class one day. Just to see what it was like. Firstly it was really boring and secondly I got caught.

I made up for not bunking at school in a large way during my 2 year sabbatical from studying at Varsity. I think I bunked more classes than I actually attended. Hence my lack of qualification. But I never had to lie to anyone about where I was. I only lied about how all that red wine got on my clothes. And I never hardly ever inhaled.

I’m also not talking about earth shattering stuff like embezzling gazillions or cheating on my husband. I’m talking about that little lie that saves you face or gets you something. When you get something because you weren’t entirely honest about getting it, doesn’t it take some of the joy of having It away? No?

Am I being vague and obtuse? Probably.

Are you reading this and feeling vaguely uncomfortable? Good, then my work here is done.

Ever feel like you just want to hide?

Switch off the phones, close the curtains and ignore the doorbell.

I wish I could, just for one day.  But I know, if I do it for one day I might want to keep doing it, so on we go.

Anyhoo. 

Daniel hasn’t been wanting to go to sleep by himself and sleep by himself for ages now and hubby finally got upset on Monday night.  He never gets upset, he is so calm usually that I have to check him for a pulse every now and again.  I think it is also because it is getting progressively worse.

It seems to be worse on school nights so, I chatted to his teacher yesterday and we tried to figure out if there could be something at school upsetting him.  He is always happy to go to school and interacts very well with hismates and the teachers, so we are all baffled at this.  So we decided on a plan.  Because you always need a plan.

They were going to discuss sleeping in group time at school and we were going to chat to him last night.  So, over supper, after a marathon puzzle building session, we asked him why he didn’t want to sleep by himself.  Spider he says.  He is scared of the big spider in his room.  So we promised to look for the spider at bedtime and made a big thing about it, looking everywhere for the spider and making sure he understood that there was no spider.  And then asked him if he was happy there is no spider, which he agreed to and seemed happy about.

And then he still woke up twice during the night, crying.

I will talk to the teacher again today, but would like some suggestions and thoughts please! 

I know this is a phase, but I’m not sure how to move on from here and just can’t let it carry on either..

I swear.  We had suicide hour at 07h00 this morning.  We had to wake, feed and mobilise everyone for school and it did NOT go well.

(Daniel has also decided he no longer wants to sleep alone so we had argument in the middle of the night, but more about that later.)

But, what I really want to tell you about is our domestic dinosaur.  She is a Zimbabwean lady that has been with us 2/3 days a week since the time we had a full-time nanny.  Afterthe nanny left I realised that there was quite a lot of stuff missing like shoes and clothes.  Arb stuff that you aren’t really sure whether you have just misplaced it or whether it is gone.  So, I left it, but made a mental note to keep an eye out.  She has also subsequently found part-time employment at someone further down the road.

So, back to this morning, with much fanfare I finally manage to leave the house as the lady is not in today, and halfway down the road realise I had left my make-up bag at home.  Turn around to come home grumbling nasty, nasty words to myself when I see the back of a sweater that has our Corporate branding on from a few years ago and I think, hey, someone else has that sweater, but they must have worked with me as it was only internal staff that got those sweaters.  Low and behold, as I drive past the person it is our domestic worker wearing the sweater.

Did I stop the car and confront her?  No.  I was in shock.

I have been looking for a live-in worker for ages now, so we were very happy that she found alternative days to work anyway, but this feels like such a smack in the face.  She recently brought her son down from Zimbabwe, so I have been worrying about leaving her destitute, but now I’m kind of over it.  We have really taken good care of her, always send clothes and extra food for her boy.  But I’m quite pissed off.

What would you have done?

I was going to spend this last day of the holiday around the house with the kids, but my Mom had other plans. She bullied forced suggested we all go off to the Cape Town Aquarium.

As we arrived we did our first loo run.  Which entailed the twins with their pants around their feet flushing all the toilets and trying to keep Daniel from running out the door. 

The rest of the visit went great, they absolutely loved it! I’m not too sure the other people there appreciated them shrieking and laughing and me yelling at them to not run off, but hey.

We then decided to eat some food, at which point Daniel ran off.  Twice.  I had a moment of hysteria when the security guard asked me what he was wearing.  I knew, but I took that little moment to second guess myself.  He was right in the play area.  Of course.  But he got a real stern talking to.

Before we left we did another loo run from hell and then herded them all across the road and into the car.  And then I made my Mom sing all the way home to them in the car (30 min drive) to keep them from falling asleep.  My ears are still ringing 🙂

Some pics:

Here is Daniel in a tank they crawl under and into with some Nemo’s, I absoluely love this pic!:

The girls at one of the tanks (I have numerous photos of just fish tanks, because the kids had run off by the time there was a click…):

The touch pool (amazing!): 

The girls again:

Enjoy the first day of school tomorrow!

Loving the rain in Cape Town today!

In my meanderings and bed hopping between the kids last night I had the weirdest dreams in Daniel’s bed:

First I dreamt that I was with someone that is really grating my last nerve at the moment and I was tempted to smoke a cigarette and I just coulnd’t get the words out how much I couldn’t stand being in this person’s presence, even though I knew I needed to say something.  I know what that one is about.

But then, I dreamt that hubby is leaving the kids and I.  It was like watching a car crash, you really don’t want to look, but you just can’t help yourself.  In technicolour nogals. 

The entire conversation about the breakup took place in a house that is not ours and doesn’t look familiar.

In the dream he kind of non-chalantly waved his hand over everything we owned and said ‘I don’t need this, where I’m going she has everything AND a double storey house.  (WTF??) I asked him why he was leaving and he said that he met someone else, but that I didn’t know her.  She works in the same building as him and he always used to see her from behind and she does (wait for it) PDF!  At which point I woke up and thought my imagination/subconscious really could have come up with something better than “PDF”???  And then legged it back to our bedroom, climbed into bed, woke hubby up told him I was really pissed that he had cheated and is leaving.  I got a big kiss and a cuddle for that. 

And all was well.    

Hi everyone, this week has flown by at the speed of light, can’t believe the SWC is almost over!

Downs:

1. As always, money!!!  This month I’m not praying to win the lotto, I’m just praying to win enough of the lotto to pay the bills!

2.  Tired, oh so very tired.  Wish I could spend a whole day in bed, but alas, duty calls.

Ups and Forwards (they are usually the same thing to me):

1.  Get to spend the last day of the holidays with the kids on Monday.  (bet you by lunchtime Monday I’ll be begging for wine though!)

2.  Looking forward to productive work from next week, business has been very slow during the soccer.  I think my head will also be in a better place!

Funny story:  A friend came over with her little one on Wednesday night whilst our men went off to watch the game and we collapsed on the couch after we got all the kids settled.  So, I got very comfortable and started taking my bra off through my clothes as I do, every other night.  Only to realise that my friend would probably not want to see my boobs stick out from under them hem of my sweater!

And lastly, here is Daniel with our very old Labby yesterday.  What you can’t see is the girls shrieking away in the corner as they still don’t like him (the Labby).  Shame, he is getting old now and probably won’t be able to get up the stairs soon.  We have had him since hubby and I started dating, so he must be about 12 yrs old by now as we adopted him from the SPCA, but that’s a whole other story.

Phew.  What a week!  So much to tell!

The soccer on Tuesday in Cape Town was great.  I was treated like a true VIP!  We were on a bus from Century City that took us straight to the Hospitality entrance at the stadium.  From there into the hospitality tents that were incredible and then on to the stadium.  With amazing seats.  Thanks to my dear friend for the invite, it was fantastic experience!

Then, yesterday my Mom and I went off to a Toy shop that was liquidated and the marked down stock was sold at less 60%.  I have absolutely no money this month, but my Mom went nuts.  She kept on saying “the more you buy, the more you save!”  And she’s normally the one that’s really good with money..

Here’s a pic of the girls with 2 of the purchases:  (you can’t really see the wands, but they got those too)

There wasn’t a lot of girly stuff, so Daniel scored really big.  He’s worth it.

Then, I was dropping the kids off this morning and was running very, very late.  I get to Daniel’s school and am ‘saying, come, come, out the car my boy, we are late’  He looks at me and says ‘Mom, just relax!’ 

My mother is a sniffer.  (minds out the gutter people!)

I would go home on a Friday afternoon from Varsity and she could smell if I had a cigarette or a glass of wine on the Wednesday.  Bearing in mind that I am from a no smoking / drinking / pre-marital sex home this was quite a thing as you can imagine.

She would be disgusted that my friends would all smoke and mess their Tassies all over my nice white clothes so often.  But I think we both knew better.

She could even smell when one of her precious bull-dogs went into labour.  Really. 

So, I should have known.  When I was pregnant one of my colleagues changed her brand of softener and I could smell it.  It is an urban legend in our office.

One of my least favourite smells is cat pee.  I want to gag just at the thought of it.

With potty training the girls it feels like that smell has been hanging around my house lately, so I assumed it was them having little accidents and there has been much mopping of floors and washing of bathroom mats.

So, imagine my horror when I came home yesterday and I caught that whiff again from the family bathroom.  How our domestic dinosaur didn’t smell it is beyond me.  So, we crawled around on hands and knees in the bathroom to find the origin of the smell and washed and mopped as usual.

THIS MORNING I wake up and that damn smell is back.  Back into the bathroom and would you believe, the other bathmat.  That’s it, everything on hot soak in washing machine, house stinking of lemongrass.  And the damn cat outside for the day.  I’m done blaming the girls, if it smells like cat pee, it IS cat pee.

Shudder.

As I was typing the heading I had a flashback to drunken parties with Faithless.  Anyhoo, moving along swiftly.

I’m probably not doing a post tonight as I had Insomnia for the first time EVER last night.  I was awake until about 2h30.  Wide awake. I ended up tweeting my wide-awakeness.

To not be able to sleep is one thing, but not to be able to sleep on a Sunday night is a whole different story.  You lie in bed and reply you whole weekend.  Then you lie there worrying about money (horrific enough to worry about during daylight, let me tell you!).  And all the creaky house noises freak you out.  And then you play out all kind of scenarios in your head.  And make to-do lists for the week.  And worry about not being sharp on a Monday.  And then the 4yr old wanders around the house so you end up lying with him for an hour.  Wide-eyed in the dark.  You catch my drift.

I don’t know if it was the afternoon nap, a late cup of coffee, working late as usual, other late night ‘festivities’ or general worry about the week ahead, but it sucks.  Bigtime.

As we were settling in to go to sleep hubby also made me promise that I would get up first as it is chaos when I don’t.  Needless to say I was pleading from under the covers to be left alone for 5 more minutes this morning.  Until the 4yr old switched on all the lights.

So, tonight I’ll try to switch off my computer and go to bed early and see how it goes..