free gift

A few weeks back I noticed on Facebook that a friend of a friend was appealing to her friends to enter a competition she was running on her blog's Facebook page. (Facebook is weird).

The writer was concerned that she wasn't getting enough entries. The prize was a cookbook.

So naturally I entered.
And I won!

Aptly titled hey?

For the Love of Baking arrived on our grey Wednesday and so naturally ... I had to bake something.
Immediately.

This was going to be Frieda's choice, a Blueberry and Mascarpone Sponge Cake (pg 83), until I pointed out to her that she doesn't actually like blueberries in things ... so we combined a couple of recipes from the book (the gudda gudda gudda of the beaters in the bowl echoing the helicopters passing overhead) and made a Victoria Sponge, in a bundt (I finally got a bundt!), and topped it with whipped cream and a Blueberry Coulis (which I made following instructions from the book of course).

It was divine.

Anyhoo, this morning I spotted the author, Sarah, in the supermarket. She was chatting to a friend who had a teeny-weeny baby strapped to her chest.
I drifted closer, pretending to examine lettuce, to ascertain that this was indeed Sarah - I only knew her from photos on her website - and couldn't help but overhear the conversation.
Sarah's mate was describing, in utter minutia, her nights with a newborn ('And then she feeds at around 2, and has to be burped for a while, and settled, and then if I'm lucky I get about two and half hours .... yada yada yada') and Sarah's eyes were getting as glazed as her Doughnut Cake (pg 150).

I had to save the poor girl.

'Excuse me, I hope this isn't too stalker-ish but I just wanted to tell you I recently won a copy of your lovely book and I've been baking from it already! Well done, it's lovely.'

Sorry girl with baby, it's only once you've been an obsessed new mother yourself that you realise how tedious you are to anyone who isn't there yet, and I also know how painful it can be to have a non-mothers professional successes cast in your over-tired face, but Sarah needed that, and considering the hours of joy she has and will provide for me - I had to return the favour.

hot, okay ... warm, mama

The weather's been atrocious this last week or so. Real big winter storms with gale-force winds and rain squalls and ... hail!

It's impossible to relish winter in South Africa. Impossible for me anyway. All those 'winter delights' like open fires and red wine and hot chocolate and soup are tainted with thoughts of flooded shacks and cold children and desperate people.

I'm not a winter fan, I feel a growing dread as the nights draw in, but I can only imagine the fear of facing these harsh conditions completely exposed.

'The children, the children' someone tweeted this week, in a conversation about the weather and the homeless. But to be honest it's not the children who first break my heart.
It's the thought of the mothers, and their anguish at not being able to keep their kids warm and dry. I can't even go there, the guilt and pain and FURY of being unable to mother, due to circumstances so out of one's own control.

I met a young American girl this week, but from her name I could tell there was a connection to Africa. She said something about 'not having been back very often' and I asked her where she was originally from.
'Rwanda,' she said, 'we left when I was five.'
'1994?' I asked, and she nodded.
Instantly my eyeballs prickled, not at the thought of a five year old girl dislocated from her home, but at the thought of her mother, fleeing to save her children's lives.

Having my own children hasn't really made me feel differently about children, but becoming a mother has certainly made me feel for mothers, all mothers, the world over. And weeks like this make me realise anew that I have it so easy.

like sand through the hourglass

Friday afternoon.
Cabin fever.

I haul the girls across town following a lead on Husband's Christmas present.

I pack light, it's a short trip. A couple of nappies and some wipes.

There's a sign on the shop door. Back in 5 minutes. No problem, we'll pop across the road to the shopping centre, buy some milk for home, come back in 5 minutes.

I get Stella out her car seat. Big smile. Big stink. Evidently a big frikkin' problem that I didn't pack a change of clothes.
I'm doing what I can to clean her up, wedged on the front seat with limited wipes when ....
Mum, I need a wee.
Right.

With Stella in a clean nappy, stained vest, wrapped in my sling pouch, we negotiate our way across a busy road and into the mall.
Dash to the loo. Crisis averted.

There's a Pick 'n Pay in the centre, with a small clothing department. We go shopping for Stella, change her in the fitting room, pick up some milk on our way to the till.
The queue's 5 people deep when ...
Mum, I need a poo. Badly.
I look down into the eyes of desperation.
Right.

We can't abandon the queue 'cos Stella's wearing the produce. You got to hang in there baby, can you hang in there?
The eyes are watering but she keeps it together.
Dash to the loo. Crisis averted.

Where's the milk?!
Back to the store where luckily they kept it for us.

Aaaaaand back to the first shop.
We get the gift. I've got the giggles and can see Frieda doesn't quite get the joke.
Unlock the car.
Arghhhhhhhhh. Hot car. Stinky nappy.

These are the days of our lives.

hello ... (echo) hello ... hello ...

It's been so long I feel a little shy, a little awkward. How do I do this blog thing again?

Lordy what is it about August? I may not be first trimester pregnant this time but besides that there seem to be lots of parallels.
I've been working two jobs - two extremely low-key part-time jobs it has to be said but two jobs none-the-less. My usual extremely low-key part-time job and then an additional temporary low-key part-time job just for a few weeks.
Then, obviously, we've all been sick. Again. This time Stella added a nasty cough to the family flu.
Ergo we had no sleep.
And no sense of humour.
And no time whatsoever to think or write.

Or bake birthday cupcakes for my blog - 2 years old this month!

But some things I have been doing are ...

• trying to finally hang some family photos, a bit of a bitch when you live in a 100 yr old house where the walls are either so soft you can push a nail in with your finger (Obelix-style), or so hard you break and bend 3 nails, gouge out a massive chip of plaster and then discover you'd started in the wrong place anyway ...
• planning our September holidays! Just a week out of town but we've got some beautiful places lined up. Part of the planning is ways and means to keep 1 x 3 yr old and 1 x then-6 month old occupied in the car ...
• shaking off dependency on the corrupt (and ugly) kiddies clothing industry and persuading my Mum to dust off her sewing machine and start sewing for her grand-daughters (ooo they're going to look so cuuuuute!)
• making a photo album called 'Six Months of Stella' for my English Granny which means finally sorting and filing and printing a grazillion photos from the last few months
• adjusting to my oldest getting more and more self-sufficient, she's started playing convoluted and secret imaginary games which involve long whispered dialogues and bizarre props and, more excitingly, don't involve my participation
• adjusting to my youngest no longer being happy to recline in her bendy chair, or hang around strapped to me, the child wants to roll and squirm and move and try to sit - all of which definitely require my participation
• making peace with fact that she's starting to choose porridge over me, and in fact has expressed this desire for real food in quite a vocal and earnest manner (was that her first tantrum?)
•  and finally, finally, starting to get some sleep. Which ironically has left me (almost) as wiped out as no sleep did but the long-term effects are much, much better!

I hope to be back here a whole lot more soon. I miss my blog. Happy birthday old girl.

bad, bad friday

The first inklings actually happened yesterday, Thursday, when at an unprecedented early hour, and just a scant 45 min after we'd gone to bed, the Baby awoke demanding her first feed at 11.30pm. Simultaneously husband broke out in a fever, I got the dread feeling that I was getting the same ailment as him, and the Child started up her hacking cough from her bedroom across the passage, a cough which was develop fairly rapidly into cries for 'Mummmyyyyyy'.
'Twas then that I knew it would be Bad Friday.

The feeling grew throughout the night as every hour it seemed one of us would wake with some or other complaint, but had I been psychic I would actually have known back on Tuesday evening, when I fell prey to a random 24 hour stomach bug.
Because, of the smorgasbord of ailments currently on offer in our house: sinusitis, chest infection, tonsillitis, bladder infection and radically grumpiness, the one Stella chose to embrace was, of course, the shits.

She rendered a display on our cream bed linen which would've made Jackson Pollack a little envious. She projectile vomitted from her bendy chair on the table onto the black slate floor so that it seemed a flock of seagulls had spent the morning in the kitchen.
By midday I had a full laundry load of soiled clothes and blankets in the washing machine. She's currently asleep under one of her hooded towels, with a stack more of them standing by for whatever the night may hold.

But it was in the afternoon, with a swollen and aching throat, shaky limbs, my ears still ringing from Frieda's piercing screams to 'COME WITH YOU MUMMY', as I sat in the waiting room of the emergency ward with Stella, while she filled my cleavage with yet another load of regurgitated milk, that I really, really knew: Bad, Bad, Baaaaaad Friday.

Stella is fine, I've just got to keep feeding her and cleaning up after her 'til she gets better, Frieda recovered from the trauma of being left behind but still has her cough, husband kept his head down and more importantly, his cool, and got us through supper and bath time relatively incident free, and now it's 8.30 pm and I'm dousing myself with breastfeeding friendly drugs (read: highly unsatisfactory medicine) and going to bed to weep a little into my Orla Kiely's.

The Easter Bunny better have a truckload of chocolate heading our way.

the week in stats

number of days it has rained in succession: 7

number of fender-benders I've seen: 5

number of wardrobe crises I've had: 8 (dinner out on Tuesday night necessitated a wardrobe change. ack.)

number of pregnancy tests bought: 1 (just got a funny feeling ... )

number of positive results: 0 (turns out it was PMT. duh.)

number of episodes of Postman Pat watched: 8 (4 x 2)

number of times I've read Penguin: 4562

number of times poor Lego has missed out on a walk due to rain: 3

number of chew toys Lego's annihilated: 4

number of tissues Frieda's used: 852

number of times I've shuddered at the thought of Nu-Skin: 53

number of times I've done something, anything, to avoid tidying my desk: 8

number of blog posts I will allow myself to write before I tidy desk: 0

Goodbye dear blog, I may be some time.

saturday & no. 12

A nice, quiet Saturday in which:

• We introduced the pup to The Beach. And she loved it - I mean, why wouldn't she?

We did ponder the abandoned shopping trolleys in the background... They're often filched to be used as transport / mobile homes / cargo ferriers, but why dump them on the beach? Is this where they're parked at night? Did their new owners bring them down to wash them off (like the scrap metal guys do with their cart-horses)? Did they get pushed off the promenade as part of an insurance scam...?

• We discovered the existence of yellow watermelon! Yellow. Who knew?

And the child, who scorns all fruit except bananas and the occasional (un)lucky apple, LOVED it. And probably consumed far more than the recently recovered victim of a stomach bug should have... (pic, and some more info, from here).

• We laughed at the peril of training a puppy and a toddler at the same time. Whenever we ask Frieda to say 'please' before giving her something, she sits! Now if the pup starts saying 'please' it'll get really interesting...

• And I baked a batch of cookies - cranberry & orange for the grown-ups, choc chip with white chocolate icing & sprinkles for the kids. And also for the grown-ups.

And yes, that'll be no. 12!

it's a shitty business

number the one:

Turns out 19+ months of changing nappies has not adequately prepared me for dealing with puppy poop. Goddamn it's gross. And at least with kiddies there's the thought that one day, after the nappies and the 'Mum, come wiiiiiiiiiiipe', the day will come when they'll be solely responsible for that aspect of their personal hygiene. With a puppy, the best you've got to look forward to is that they'll get to a stage where they poop mainly in one place, or only out on walks and then you'll still need to pick it up and dispose of it for them. Bull terriers live for approx. 15 years.

But who's a cuteliddlepuppywuppy then?

Flew down from Joburg all by herself on Saturday (I've been fighting hard to name her Import) - no local Cape Town doggies for us dahling - and she's been really good and sweet so far. Husband is Smitten. Hyper Toddler is having to up her game to stay Ms Popular. Especially after recent events. More on that soon.

number the two:

So the stupid #!@&!! contract has been postponed! WTF??? I am feeling SO frustrated - I was SO looking forward to getting busy. Jaysus.

As my Mother, with her hilariously jaded sense of humour said; at least I've a fancy new oven to stick my head into! Urgh.

 

number the three:

Our house, my life, my sleep, our mealtimes - all are being run at the moment by a very contrary demanding little lady AKA Our Beloved Daughter.

It's the bane of parenting to spend ages seeking a reason ~ with Frieda at the moment I can only think its a combo of incisors cutting through (those bastards are sharp), the terrible two's making an early appearance ('cos she's so advanced of course), the (apparently normal) increased clinginess at her age, the shifted dynamic of having a house-guest and her possibly feeling she needs to be even Louder because of it. 

It's been a trial.

Me time is a concept I've completely shelved for the time being. The other evening I had a quick shower between Frieda going to bed and having supper. I was rushing, as I am all the time at the moment (and this without the job grrrrrr), skipping any luxury such as facial scrub or back brush, hurriedly drying off, dashing to our room to throw something on. It was dark out and the curtains were open. I was in too much of a hurry to close them so started dressing in the half-light. And suddenly I had to stop. The frangi-pani's outside my window are in full bloom, their wonderfully exotic scent wafting in the window on the gentlest of warm breezes. The street outside was quiet and almost glowy in the orange street-light, one of our kitties was sitting on the wall absorbing the evening, enjoying the coolness, surveying her kingdom.

I stopped, and sat down on a chair by the window, I forced myself to stop. Stop and observe the moment. Say hi to myself, to breathe, feel and most importantly, not to think.

And then I rushed on.

karma, baby

Just to kick off: I'm a little annoyed that I seem to have to log on to blogger through boring old Internet Explorer if I want to have the full bag of composing tricks at my disposal. I think my spacing problem of late was related to my preferred browser being Opera, and then, as of last night, I could only compose in HTML with no linkies or italics (and I love italics see), and that just sucked.

So now I've moved Her Blogship to Her own browser all by Herself. She's taking over me I tell you, and I have to wonder, is this how Bill Gates is going to become god in the end?

But I digress, there's loooooads more bullsh*t to come in this one...

Next: a Confession.
(And yes, this is a serious moment)

Deep breath.

I'm not really sure on where my karma sits on the next incident. And can I just say I'm kinda more and more conscious of karma, the very basic concept of it, in my life these days. I sometimes wonder if this is how one attains a spirituality of sorts, although my current gut instinct about karma is that it's much more related to how we interact with each other here, now, tomorrow, than in anything that may or may not happen in the big afterness.

Do unto others, what comes around goes around, ubuntu etc etc, it all boils down to a very simple message, and one which I think plays out on earth.

And ja, I don't really know how I rate karmically on this one...

The Skinny:
Some months ago Frieda and I were in one of our favourite places when we strolled past another mum, with a younger baby baby, and she immediately invited us to sit down on her blanket for a chat. We did, for a little while, and it boiled down to this.

• She was in that space I remember so well; she's still very much home, nursing the baby, and everyone else has kind of moved on with their lives.
• Her friends are busy with other things and she needs a baby-buddy.
• She's chosen a pretty good place to look for one but,
• it's not going to be me.
• I'm just not in that space anymore, I've a toddler - it's a whole different thang.
• I'm not in the market for new friends, I've lots whom I value deeply.
• I'm just not that in to her.

So to cut to the chase, she asked for my number so we could hang out again, I panicked and didn't know how to reject her, and I'm not proud about it, but I wrong-numbered her.

Just one digit out, just enough to look like human error. I'm shocked at my own deviousness. And I now totally understand why men do this in bars. It's hard to look someone in the eye and reject them outright, even more so when you detect a hint of desperation there. It's easier to just do the ole '1 digit wrong' manouvere.

But if it's any consolation to anyone who's been on the receiving end of this treatment, it really doesn't feel nice to do it at all. I've felt a twinge of regret about it ever since, and never more so than when she walked right past me at the Baby Expo yesterday. Gulp.

I froze, my animal spirit guide (which, by the way is a basset hound, but that's for another post), telling me that if I stood very, very still, she wouldn't see me. And it seemed to work, although it might have been this which disguised me....

You know how I complain about not having lost my baby weight? You thought I was joking huh?

No ha ha ha, this was a fake. An ingeniously designed cami-with-fake-preggie-belly which I was wearing for said Baby Expo while helping a friend of mine promote her ingeniously designed maternity product, visit her site - the wonderful Heather Moore did all the graphics, and My Friend (proud caps) is totally rocking being an important business lady - the product is a hit, and so were we in our cute little belly-suits. It quite made me nostalgic, to be 'pregnant' again for two days.

And made me feel a little broody. And made me remember how those crazy, mad days of early motherhood. And made me feel bad all over again for deceiving that poor fellow mother. And then she walked past me and I remembered that Cape Town could be too small to pull pranks like that.

It's probably too small to blog about it too! Let's see if this one ever comes back to bite me in the ass... eish, karma baby.

a hint of things to come...

One of the things I've been enjoying about hanging out in playgrounds (odd, but I seem to have been doing quite a bit of that lately...), is listening in on the conversations between the kids. As an adult, I'm completely invisible to them and can sit quietly by and eavesdrop. (Ok, ok, it's one of my favourite things to do anyway, be the conversationalists 5 or 55, but with the 5 yr olds I don't even have to pretend to have lost my car keys, or be blind or any of my usual stunts.)

This morning Frieda and I visited Deer Park in the City Bowl - they've got such cool stuff - and I overheard this little gem, which gave me a heads up of what may be coming down the line. Of all the things I'd already thought of that Frieda may have to deal with in play-parks in the future, this one hadn't occurred to me yet...

Three 5/6/7/whatever yr old girls, clearly recently befriended (how refreshing to use that word in a non-facebook sense), around the swings; one girl says to the others: "Does your mother read to you from the bible every day?". Blank looks from the other two. One of them: "No, why would she?" (titter from me). First girl; "You must ask her to read you the bible every day so you can learn to love Jesus." Third girl, until now silent; "Let's go on the roundabout!" and runs off. Second one follows quickly, Bible Girl brings up the rear a little slower.

I glance over at Frieda, busy chasing pine cones (ja I know, they don't move, but she hadn't figured that out yet), and feel a little overwhelmed by all that she (and, by proxy, I) will encounter in the near future. Lord (if you are out there after all), give me strength and wisdom to guide her through this complex life. Oh, and a whole sackful for her father too please, 'cos he ain't getting away with leaving this stuff up to me!

Anyhoo, the park was lovely - life lessons aside -

this reminded me that somewhere in the shed I have a whole bag of bottle tops I collected while pregnant to make just such strings, I'll have to dig them out and give it a bash,

and this is just too clever.

ups & downs

Blah.

That pretty much sums up a lot of how I've been feeling the last week or so. A little grey around the edges, a little lack-lustre. A lot of blah.

But even consistent blah would be more manageable then this bizarre pseudo-manic-depressive, up and down, a constant oscillation from bling : ) to blah : |, with occasional brief plummets into : (. And I can't really trace its origins to any one thing, just seems to be an accumulative roller-coaster (no, roller-coaster is too exciting sounding, this doesn't even warrant that kind of association), maybe an accumulative goods lift of ups and downs which play out every day, every up a momentary breath of fresh air, every down crushingly boring and blah-inducing.

Ok there, I had a little pitiful roll in that pile of shit, now I'll break it down in an attempt to wrangle this blahness into something more controllable.

WORK

Up: 5 hours of stimulating & well-paid work a week, possible more full-time exciting project on the horizon.

Down: 5 hours (while I do love the work and am deeply grateful for it) is just not enough to really get excited about. Let alone get dressed for. And possible more full-time exciting project? Ja, I'm not falling for that one until I see an offer on the table.

Up: 3 possibles in 3 weeks is not bad going for a freelancer who took over a year out.

Down: 3 possibles. No definites.

PARENTING

(ok wait, lets start channeling the right energy here - yawn - and list the downs first, followed by the upbeat and energising ups. You can't say I'm not trying ok....)

Down: Toddlerdom. Seriously, new balls please! What is this ego-developing, personality asserting, will exerting bullshit? Why must something as pleasant and harmless as eating yoghurt for gods sake turn into the clash of the titans? I mean, obviously she gets it from her father right?

Ups: Soooooo many. The child says 'helicopter'. At 16 months! And many other words besides. She understands, she communicates, watching her powers of perception and deduction develop is totally exciting and stimulating, she fawns over me (what an ego rush) and is clearly never happier then when by my side.

Down: Or in my arms. Unless we're on a busy street or in a crowded shop. Then she refuses to be in my arms. But at home, when I might want to be deep-frying something or sharpening knives or... (you get the idea, something which absolutely requires two hands and is unquestionably not baby-friendly) noooo, then she simply must be hanging off me, else wrapped around my ankles in full melt-down.

Up: I love her.

ME

Down: I feel so unproductive! 

Up: Having a nanny 3 times a week has really enabled me to get stuff done. When I'm motivated to do it.

Down: I feel so unmotivated!

Up: The wonderful blogosphere and interweb in general has given me loads of inspiration and uplifted me in so many ways.

Down: I spend all my 'free' time on the internet getting inspired and then the nanny leaves and I'm wrangling a high-spirited toddler and feeling so unproductive, and pissed off that I spent so much time online.

Up: I've been making real progress on my own (mini) studio space and will be ready to reveal it soon... I don't really know what I'm going to be doing there but am following the 'if you build it, he (in this case my muse, hopefully in the guise of George Clooney NOT Kevin Costner) will come'. Oh, just re-read that.. wha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I gotta take all the laughs I get these days.

Down: Goddamn I'm still so fat and it's summer again.

Up: The little 'un thinks it's very entertaining when I exercycle. And if she insists on being in my arms while I do, think what that's doing to my pecs?!

LIFE in GENERAL

Down: It sucks.

Up: I have a wonderful husband and a bright child and my health and a loving family and lots of good friends.

Down: That's supposed to make everything else ok but it doesn't really all the time and so on top of everything else I have to feel guilty about that too.

Up: We just started watching Season 4 of The Wire and it kicks ass!

And that's my pity party done. The lights are going out, the bunting coming down, Leonard Cohen's off the stereo, and I'm going to bed. Tomorrow will dawn full of possibility and hope.

And it better fucking deliver.

the tee-gel incident...

Confession time.

I guess I should be wracked with guilt... but while I obviously feel a little bad, I can't help giggling over this. And the thought of this entering family lore.

So one morning a few weeks ago, the kiddiwink was being a whinge. It's unlike her at the best of times and I knew she'd slept well, fed well so I really couldn't think what could be bothering her. I checked her gums, sniffed her ears, took her temperature and she seemed fine.

I decided an outing was the only solution - she usually perks up in public and at the very least it meant we weren't stuck at home together. So I load her in the car and it's whinge whinge whinge all the way - again, really unlike her.

We get to the mall - whinge whinge whinge, do some errands - whinge whinge whinge, get a coffee - whinge whinge... (barrista gives her a chocolate drop, momentary break in whinging), take the lift back to the car - whinge whinge whinge. Tedious!

Before driving off I give her a quick nappy change in the hopes (oh please Lord) that she'll fall asleep on the way home. And lo and behold, what do I find in her nappy? Wedged inbetween those soft little pink bum cheeks? A tube of Tee-Gel!! Shame! 

It must've been lying on the bed when I'd last changed her, and inamongst the thrashing and wild cavorting which usually acompanies a nappy change, slipped undetected into her nappy. The poor little mite, those tubes are small, but with sharp metal edges!

No visible wounds luckily, just some redness. She perked up immediately, had a snooze and was her usual angelic self for the rest of the day.

Call me a bad mother if you must. But I still think it's fun-neeeee!

yoga with cats

not that it's a fixation or anything...

I had about a zillion other things I was going to blog about, but then this came up.

And it's not like I have any kind of weird scatalogical obsession or anything, but this I couldn't resist...

I've always been one of those people who judge other people who have too strong thoughts about too arb things. For example; who cares whether the tomato's between the cheese and the lettuce? Will the world really come to standstill if you don't use sequential slices of bread for your toasties so the crusts line up exactly? Does your dishwasher really have to be packed exactly the same way every time? (p.s. use of whiny italics 100% intentional).

And I felt the same way about people who insisted that there was a right and a wrong way of dispensing toilet paper - is your world really so small that this registers as an important issue?

But then.... I had a baby. And somehow with the lack of sleep and the lack of free time and the paring down of my long leisurely existence (what did I do with all my time before...?), I found that I was getting completely &%%*^!! annoyed with toilet paper that wouldn't roll freely at 3amwhenyou'vejustgotthebabybacktosleepandcan finallypeebeforefallingbackintobedyourself or 4amwhenthebaby'sscreamingforafeedbutifyoudon'tpee firstyou'llpeeonherwhichwouldinallfairnessbetitfortatbut maybenotcompletelyappropriate and so, for the first time, I started noticing, and caring, which way the toilet paper was 'loaded' on the roll and discovered, to my amazement, that there really is a right and a wrong way.

I couldn't however have told you why until I found this, which explains it all far more concisely and logically than I ever could.

Check out the diagrams here, and then follow the link to read on:

With sincere gratitude to www.currentconfig.com!