2 down:
– trying to negotiate that friggin SLA with the blue chip this week that could potentially lose us a big account in Cape Town a our head office in Jozi has dug their heels in
– worried about money – but who’s not?
2 up
– can’t wait to meet the Purebaby “mastermind”on Monday!
– short week next week as I have put in for a day’s leave
Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Of late Daniel has been wandering around the house again at night and it is driving me crazy. We would ask him what he wants or if something is the matter and he simply doesn’t answer.
I have been racking my brain thinking of reasons he is waking up at night as he eats well, he is very active, he doesn’t sleep for long in the afternoon and he is very loved and gets lots of attention (mostly, as he does need to compete with his sisters unfortunately)
As a working mother I am of course immediately on a self-induced guilt trip as to the amount of parental attention he gets and blame myself for his waking at night. And then I thought NO, hold the phone, I don’t actually think that is the case.
Then you start thinking of ways to deal with this waking and wandering and you are faced with some choices.
1. Let him into our bed. Not an option for us as he thinks it’s a game and will not go to sleep.
2. Keep on taking him back to bed without engaging in a conversation. Also not working very well as we spent 1.5 hours doing that 3 nights in a row and I am SO over that. Supernanny needs to have some of her own children me thinks.
3. Last night we did this (and admittedly I slept through most of it): first time he got up we asked him what he wanted and said to him that we will take him back to bed once more and then the third time we will close his bedroom door. He said to hubby that he wanted Milo and of course hubby decided that he would just take him back to bed sans Milo. We then found him looking very confused in the kitchen, obviously looking for the Milo and the waiter, so we obliged. End of story.
So, what is the moral of the story: I think he is thirsty or he wants the sucking comfort or he just needs some form of reassurance. That I can deal with with a smile, but running up and down the passage and disagreeing with hubby about our course of action at 04h00 in the morning is not an option for me.
Oh, and ALWAYS have a game plan 🙂
Does everyone visit their gynaecologist once a year to have the obligatory pap smears done like good girls?
That was the great part about being pregnant, you get to dodge that THING they do the smear with – I get the holy grilllls straight to my toes. And don’t get me started on having my boobs prodded by a guy I PAY to do it.
Well worth it though – well, at least half of the R831 I had to fork out. That’s daylight robbery, I wasn’t even in there for 30 minutes! I had to rush off afterwards, but I actually caught myself thinking “well, I’m sitting here, I know how expensive this is going to be, I might as well get the most out of it”.
As I was lying on the table I was thinking “why, oh why, do people choose that as a career. I don’t get it”
As I was getting dressed “I wonder if some women take like ages to get dressed afterwards?” and then “Thank God he didn’t make me get on the scale” “Should I get on the scale? Fark no, that’ll just piss me off for the rest of the day” And so on and so forth.
Shame, he is a nice man and he took really good care of me through 2 pregnancies and I’m glad I went. He is the only person I can really ask those intimate questions. Because I pay him to listen 🙂
My sister, bless her, is almost 7 years younger than me. And she is an even bigger hypochondriac than my mother.
She is all of these things:
1. almost blind in her right eye
2. problems with her feet as a child, but refused to wear the correcting shoes
3. suffers from epileptic fits, but only in her sleep
4. A serial church hopper. We were raised NG and she has been accepted into the Shofar and Old Apostolic churches. Since she broke up with the last (Old Apostolic) boyfriend she has scaled down on the church attendance. She now drinks wine again.
5. Both of the above changes coincided with different boyfriends
6. She is also a serial career hopper. She will be 30 this year and has started several courses and has been in Law, Security Installations and the latest is a dispensing assistant (which falls really nicely with the hypochondria).
7. She says she really, really wants to be a quantity surveyor.
8. She has dated many guys, all master manipulators
9. She has been engaged only once – to the Apostolic guy mentioned above. He wasn’t the manipulator in this case, his Dad was.
10. As a child she was a nightmare sibling. I vividly recall hectic tantrums etc etc etc
11. She is a little OCD
12. She still cannot switch on the oven
13. She loses her short-term memory every time she has a fit. This is a really shitty one as I cannot fight with her because she doesn’t remember why I am pissed at her.
14. She and my mother fight like cat and dog
15. She still lives with my folks
16. She still throws a mean tantrum, but that’s ok, so can I
17. She has the EQ of a 15 year old (but so do I probably for doing this post)
18. In my weak moments I call her selfish, but she just has no awareness of herself and the consequences of her actions. How do you teach someone this??
I accept that most families have a sibling that requires more TLC than your average person and I try to accept her the way she is, but it is really hard sometimes.
I have however managed to remove myself as the go-between between her and my mother as therein lies a minefield. I also try to deal with each episode as a stand alone and not harbor grudges. (This is a result of much counseling) I don’t hold on to stuff, I say it like it is and try to move along swiftly. Hard though!
She really is a nice person, but we need to be related, because I think she is damn hard work as a friend.
Last Sunday we decided that we would skip my Mom’s house for a while as it is too chaotic with the brood. We then invite them over for lunch today. First there was the to-and-fro about whether they would come, then there was the debate about whether my crazy sister should come, then my Mom decided that we should rather go there (accompanied by the sigh). At which point I said that we were having lunch at our house and if they wanted to see us they we welcome to come over. What gets to me is that, no matter what I do, I will always be the bad guy.
Then there is the hypochondria. My mom had cancer about 18 years ago and since then she has been on high alert for any and all illnesses. Every ailment requires a visit to the GP, medication, Xrays, a potential operation, visits to specialists etc etc etc.
The latest problem is her back. She hurt her back about a year ago whilst playing with Daniel and I heard about it for ages. She then had problems with her stomach for a while (that might require surgery) and a terrible flu that required weeks of bed rest and three courses of antibiotics. Now we are back on the back and she went to see the doctor, is getting intensive physiotherapy and if it doesn’t improve there might be surgery.
On the one hand I try to only absorb the important information, which means she probably thinks I am not listening. On the other hand I sometimes wonder if it is not a desperate cry for attention. I can’t help to compare her with my inlaws that are almost 20 years older than her and my Dad and a lot healthier than them.
I’m absolutely finished, thoughts anyone?
Phew, I don’t know where this week went!
I went to a meeting last night of our Neighbourhood Initiative (READ: neighbourhood watch). It was very interesting and here are some things the Police Sup said:
1. Do not feed the bergies (we have a couple of “local” bergies that sleep at the school) and by law you cannot remove them
2. Do not give people that come to beg at your house money or food as it encourages them to come back
3. Do not put your dustbin out the night before as the vagrants scratch in it and can see what you have bought
4. If you have bushes or trees obscuring the view from the road have them trimmed back so no-one can hide in them
To me this was an “inconvenient truth” as it means was cannot be giving and I have to mow down some more trees. The dustbin thing made me giggle as all they’ll find in our dustbin is dirty nappies and dog poo.
Then today I get an email from a friend, one of those “this happened to a friend of mine” emails and I got quite a fright. Basically the email refers to the guys that are at robots that prey on women on cars and point to their tyres etc and get them to roll down their windows and then snatch and grab.
On Sunday I went to the shops and had Daniel with me and a guy at the robot was pointing and waving at the front of my car, luckily I only wound down the window about 3cms as he was talking about how he loves my car etc and then he was checking my cell phone on my lap and staring into my car. I quickly told him to p-off and wound the window back up. I remember driving away feeling stupid and even told hubby about it. And I thought I was quite street smart. So, just beware.
I get really annoyed at people that have left the country that make negative comments about SA in general and crime in particular.
Get it in your head: we CHOOSE to stay here, not in 45 degree heat where women have no rights or in icy cold where you never see the sun and cannot let your kids play outside due to pollution. Don’t get me wrong, I love to travel and have seen a fair amount of the world, but I was born here and this is always going to be home.
I’m sorry, I often see comments on my blog and other people’s blog I don’t agree with and I never retaliate, because I think everyone is entitled to an opinion and I respect that, but someone that doesn’t even live in SA leaves snide comments on blogs about crime in SA I get ANNOYED!
Moment over, catch you all later!
How insane is it that the Dalai Lama was refused entrance to SA?
Does it not go against all our principles of not discriminating based on religion?
China, you are a big bully.
www.earthhour.org.za
My Mother’s house is not child proof. I finally had to accept this today when we attempted to have lunch and our 3 very mobile children under the age of 3 proceeded to search and destroy.
If memory serves (and I have already blocked out most of it), we had to remove Isabel from the coffee table several times – and this is the twin that does NOT walk. She also demolished a blind, rattled a LARGE mirror, pulled over some big copper thing that I am sure belongs on a ship and missed her by millimeters. She also managed to break the front flap off my Dad’s flat screen TV. She is a climber, so also had to be retrieved off the window sill several times.
Mignon is fixated with all the large ceramic bowls filled with ceramic balls that are strategically placed on low tables all over the house. She is able to juuuust grab on to the edges with her fingertips when she stands on her toes. OMG.
Both of them now manage to open all the cupboards that contain all types of glass jars, vases, plates and cups. They have so far only broken 1 vase. They work as a tag team and giggle all the way and they also love to use my Mom’s copper paraphanalia to bang against the glass of the heating trolley.
Daniel was actually quite well behaved, he only demanded to sit on Granny’s lap and would NOT get off which is fine. And the odd whine to watch “Tarzez”. Sweet boy.
My Dad tried to suggest that my Mom remove any and all potentially harmful things and this was met with icy silence. We diffused the situation by offering to uninvite ourselves from lunch for the foreseeable future and rather have them over to our house. Which is fine by me, but this means that we now have to cater for my crazy sister that is 30 this year still lives with them. (Remind me to devote an entire post to her)
Fellow bloggers, how do you deal with houses that are not childproof??