say hello to my little friend(s)

WARNING: Arachnophobes, keep walking. Seriously.

Sitting on a sunny bench in Kirstenbosch on Tuesday afternoon, watching Sunday devour a mielie and marveling at the yellowness of it in the late afternoon light, I casually glanced up and gahhhhhhhhhh!

Golden Orb Web Spiders. About a grazillion of them. Look. They're really beautiful.

I can't recall ever having noticed these ladies in Kirstenbosch before. And we go often. I wondered whether their being out in such force was seasonal, but after a bit of research it seems not, just that they're far more common in the Cape South Peninsula in the last few years than ever before.
They're not toxic (unless you're a small winged creature) and they get their name from the golden strands of their amazingly intricate webs.

While going through my photos I recalled Heather posting photos of spider webs in Kirstenbosch last year - here - and was interested to see it was more or less the same time of year when she took those.

It may be that the Golden Orb Web Spider doesn't spin her web in specific seasons, but some seasons just display them better.
I think this magnificent Autumn light in Cape Town brings out the best in all of us.
Get outside!

when you're 2 ...

When you're 2 it doesn't occur to you,
To try and hide when you're having a poo.
In the car, at the Spar, at school, by the pool,
When you're 2 any loo with a view will do.

When you're 2 you don't know how to behave in a queue,
'Big boobs!' 'Chubby man!' you shout for all to hear you.
Pick your nose, stand on toes, run up and down rows,
When you're 2 no queue can contain the very two-ness of you.

When you're 2 everyone wants a piece of you,
They smile and they wink and they coo-coo-katchoo.
You can frown, you can scowl, you can launch a blood-curdling howl,
When you're 2 they'll keep on coming at you,

Unless you happen to be having that poo.

buying & selling in a time of children

We've put our house on the market. As of this morning there's a big yellow sign on our front gate and I'm imagining the neighbours are all a-twittering out there (as in twittering like birds not tweeting like people with nothing better to do, but you never know ...).
We've had our offer accepted on a gorgeous place on the other side of town, but as it all hangs in the balance until this place is sold we're walking a strange line between elation and apprehension. Interesting times.

Trials and tribulations of buying and selling in a time of (small) children:

We're trying to only give them as much information as they need, or can deal with, or we can deal with, but are still having to answer some pretty interesting questions .... 'So our new house will still have my room in it hey Mum? My room will still look exactly like this, just the rest of the house will be different right?'
'And we'll still have a pool hey Mum? I mean, we can't leave this ugly pool behind?'
Overheard to little sister: 'Just hide that juice bottle under your bed, we don't like it, it can stay here when we move.'

We're trying not to nag them too much about keeping the house tidy while we work ourselves to the ground getting show-house ready.
We continually weigh up the pro's of them being preoccupied in a game which allows us time to get other stuff done, versus the cons of the game in question being moving the entire contents of the playroom onto our bed.

We have sotto voce cryptic half-Afrikaans conversations about bonds and agents and try not to swear - they understand swearing in any language.

I discover that there are few things as demeaning as completing bond application forms when you're a stay-at-home-mum with a tiny personal income and a BA English degree. A walking stereo-type.
The first time we applied for a bond I was a business lady, in a not quite business suit but with with a folder of relevant docs and a meaningful signature and a sharp haircut. This time I wrote N/A (not applicable) more times then I care to mention on all the forms while attempting to entertain a 2 yr old with some paper clips and a bank deposit form.
As we arrived at the bank I'd turned to my husband and said, 'Damn, should I have power-dressed a bit for this?' He looked at my jeans, sneakers and sticky-faced toddler and said, 'Nah, you're dressed for work.' Then he ducked.

I discover that the standard rules of parenting apply to all situations. The toddler will fill its nappy seconds before the estate agent arrives. The nearly-5 yr old will want to 'be naked' at the most inopportune time. Someone will fall and crack skull and scream hysterically as you answer an all-important call from the bank. Someone will discover the box of toys you've been collecting (with stealth and subterfuge) for the charity shop and declare the contents to be The Most Favourite Toys in the Whole World and How Dare You even consider doing away with them?!

Fun times. Interesting times. We go on show on Sunday. Hold thumbs for us!

a little TMI for now ...

I've mentioned before how Friday's pretty clued up on the whole procreation thing. As illustrated by that experience, to my utmost relief at the time, she's still a little fuzzy about the actual mechanics, but she has the biology down pat.
We've been waiting for the penny to drop, for her brain to tick over and produce the much-anticipated question: exactly how do the mummy egg and the daddy sperm join in blissful union? I've totally been expecting The Question to come at the least convenient and most socially inappropriate time, but I wasn't expecting this ...

A book we checked out of the library on Saturday.

I guess, in retrospect, I should probably have scanned through it first. Before I found myself tucked up in bed with her that evening, innocently charging through this (it must be said, very funny and delightfully illustrated) book. In hindsight it's pretty frikkin' obvious it's a book about where babies come from right?

Especially when we got to this page:

I took a deep breath, reminded myself I'm a grown-up and soldiered through until I flipped pages and ... er ... wham!
 

Come on Babette, what did I ever do to you?

In one fell swoop you managed to;
a) drop me right in the oncoming path of Questions I May Not be Ready to Answer Just Yet (explaining the basics of the sex act just become soooo much more preferable to answering some of the questions these illustrations could inspire)
b) make me feel completely sexually unadventurous and boring (a skateboard??)
c) possibly change the way my young daughter feels about balloons forever.

Never mind all kinds of related queries pertaining to gimp balls, hallucinogenic drugs, bondage, gravity, anatomy and ornithology. Or maybe that's just me ...

However, I think Friday was as gobsmacked as I. She remained silent as I rapidly read to the end and whipped out another book, quickly changing the topic and hopefully her chain of thought.

But I know that little inquiring mind I've spawned. She'll file this somewhere, to be brought out and examined when she's ready. And one day, at the least convenient and most socially inappropriate time, she'll suddenly ask; 'Mummy, why was that Daddy in that book looking so worried while he mated with the Mummy?'

Thanks a lot Babette.

PS, I was going to apologise for how blue these photos came out but hey, it seems kind of appropriate. So I won't.

camping the three

We're nearly home with new fascinating insights into camping, rules of survival and over-shares about abandoned personal hygiene and our dog's predilection for eating poo ... but before we get to that, and if you're not bored to death by our ruddy outdoors-ness yet, one last camping post from yesteryear ...

October 27, 2010

We're just back from a fabulous little camping trip - our first in over a year (bit of a record for us) and our first with Sunday - I've a couple of thoughts ...

~ how is it that the loudest voice in the campsite, or at least the one that carries the clearest, is always the most boring?
This is not when you overhear a revelatory explanation of Derrida, a fascinating political theory or a hilarious anecdote. No, the voice that wafts across to your fireplace is money down bitching about the state of SA sports. Or who should have won a recent reality chef contest. Or rehashing boring previous holiday stories, exactly how many kilometres were traveled between one boring destination and another, how many boring meals were eaten and at what price.
Also, you quickly realise the correlation between how many glasses of wine The Voice has had and how boring it becomes. By the 3rd evening you can almost set your watch by it.
If you were wearing one.

~ this is of course only a problem when you're staying in one of those camping spots where the sites seem to be right on top of each other, just the merest hedge - if you're lucky - separating you from your neighbours. At Addo this last week this is as tastefully done as possible, but none-the-less you are likely to learn far more about your neighbours then you may have chosen to. As no doubt they did about us.
'Are you going to give the baby some boob now Mum?'

~ when you go somewhere like Addo, out of season, mid week, you find all your fellow campers are retirees, living the dream wandering round the country in their camper vans - replete with satellite dishes, fold-out dish-washing racks, homemade curtains and high tech camping chairs. We were surrounded by these and I imagined their hearts sinking as we pulled up with two kiddies live-wired on the back seat.
But of course this combination of olds and smalls worked surprisingly well. The oldies missed their grandkids and smiled indulgently at our girls. And they kept the same hours - early to bed and early to rise. No loud music keeping our kids awake, and no need to hush the children's excited early morning shenanigans.

~ when camping one can often expect strange night time adventures ... Pre-babies Husband and I once lay tense and awake in our tent for long minutes convinced someone wearing flip-flops was creeping around our campsite. Eventually we shone our torch beam out, only to catch the small glinting eyes of a tiny little hopper mouse.
On arriving at Addo I taught Friday to read the different signs for the Men's and Ladies toilets. We were later to rue the pedanticness of a 3 year old when Husband carried her off to the loo at 1am only to return unsuccessful. Even half-asleep she wouldn't let him take her into the Men's, and he didn't want to go into the Ladies for fear of encountering a weak-bladdered Granny. We had to stifle our giggles in the silent dark.

But my favourite nocturnal adventure of this recent trip happened to Husband on the night he spent camping alone on his drive up. The place he stayed at had two horses roaming around the campsite. They were friendly and seemingly unconcerned by him. In the night however he woke to a really strange and undecipherable noise. He could tell the horses were distressed, but what was that clanking?
One of the horses, overcome with curiosity, had become entangled in his camping chair and was getting more and more freaked out, eventually running wildly around the campsite, whinnying and tossing its head. Husband was just wandering what(tf) to do when the horse shook itself free, leaving the chair unscathed in a muddy heap, nothing damaged but equine pride.

Fun times. I like to camp. And we're so happy that our daughters seem to too.

camping the two

More about camping ... (In fact, a camping trip we took exactly 3 years ago! Let's hope we're not out there, experiencing too much of this, while you're in here, all warm and cosy, reading about it.)

April 27, 2009

The thing about camping is ... you never know what you're going to get.

A good camp is a thing of wondrous beauty and infinite soul-delight. A bad camp is, well, pretty shitty.
This was a bad camp. And extremely shitty.
Herewith a seasoned camper's guide to seasonal camping:

Rule 1: Be Game.
Big storms predicted? Bah. Potential very cold conditions? Bah. Arriving after dark and setting up camp with a small child? Whatever.
What's the thing about camping? Yup, you never know what you're going to get. But if you don't leave the house, you'll never find out.

Turns out - in this case - that what we got was a dark dank field, miles from anywhere, with no proper signage, no hot water (which we were promised), no running water (except from the sky - in buckets), and a veritable CARPET of cow shit. Which the puppy thought was delicious.

The next morning. Still raining. We'd picked up a lot of poo. 

Rule 2: Be Prepared.
And if not, be innovative.

Such as, when feeding your small child a picnic supper on the front seat of the Jeep in the dark and pissing rain, and on discovering that you have no spoon and that to get one would involve getting wet and covered in cow shit and maybe the dissolution of your marriage, make a plan by locating said child's toy box in the back of said Jeep and feeding her yoghurt off a small plastic spade.

Rule 3: Stay Upbeat.
I mean, it's not like you're going to turn around and drive home right? Not after packing all afternoon and driving for hours and getting all excited and finding someone to feed the cats. And bah-humbugging in the face of everyone's dire predictions that you'd be rained out ... cough ...


Nah, you push through the rough patch and the next thing you know the tent is pitched, the child is peacefully asleep, it's stopped raining, someone's gotten a bonfire going and you're holding a glass of wine. And right then you're really happy to be there.
Of course the puppy's still eating cow shit but hey ...

Rule 4: See the Beauty.

Protea Aurea - isn't she utterly beautiful?

'Cos regardless of what kind of camping experience you're having, you're outdoors see, and ergo there'll always be something beautiful.

Rule 5: Know when to Quit.
And pack up the kid, the dog, the wet and shit-bespattered tent, and make haste to a friend's beach-house for the rest of of the weekend.

camping the one

We're off camping in the Cederberg this week and next, our consolation prize for not making it to AfrikaBurn this year.
Pretty good consolation prize if you ask me.


We'll be at Beaverlac for 3 nights with friends and then heading further north to Enjo Nature Farm - a farm we've heard much about but not stayed at before.
As I've said before, we're happy campers, so I thought I'd re-post some bits and pieces I've written about camping over the years, and why we love it so much.

January 20, 2009

We spent the weekend in a teepee, at this wonderfully hippie-hey-wow-like-awesome-man retreat, and I have to say there really is something quite magical about these big, circular tents. I did indulge my inner Sioux a little...

I also gave a lot of thought to camping - as a concept - as someone recently told me that they didn't really get the attraction. I think it's one of those things you're either into or you're not. I think this also depends largely on whether you grew up camping.

I could say that you need to be into nature, have a fairly relaxed attitude towards cleanliness, be able to do without home comforts or access to technology, and have a very relaxed attitude towards bugs - but many people have all of these and still aren't fans. It's really not a very easily definable thing.

All I know however, is that I LOVE camping, am never happier than when cooking on a fire (as long as I've got gas to boil a kettle for tea), sleeping in a tent (as long as I've got a comfy mattress and warm enough bedding), waking to the fresh outdoor morning air (as long as the sun isn't directly in my eyes) and getting very dirty feet (as long as there's somewhere to swim). So you see, I'm not as dye-hard (pun intended, sorry) as some campers out there, but I do love to camp, and here's why.....

... there's nothing as soul-satisfying for me as spending an evening cooking and laughing around a big open fire,  slowly rotating your body to evenly toast all your exposed bits, eating crispy braai-ed lamb chops, bread baked in the ashes, a roasted mielie or jacket potato, being among the last to linger as one by one your fellow campers totter off to bed, finally saying your good-nights yourself and padding off through the darkness, following the beam of your torch, a bietjie gewyn, brushing your teeth from an ice-cold mug of water on the side of a bubbling stream, watching the moon hang low and heavy in the sky, quietly opening the flap to your tent and pausing to listen for the snuffly breath of your child asleep inside, then quietly undressing and stepping off the soft grass and into your chilly bedding, snuggling in until it slowly warms, drifting off to the sounds of crickets, the wind in the branches above you, or the deep ponderous silence of a deep, dark night...

.... waking in the early dawn to the back and forth earnest-sounding conversation of two owls in the trees nearby, getting up to make sure your kiddie is still covered up, pulling your own blankets up higher against the dawn chill...

.... waking later to the far-off sounds of children laughing, the clink of coffee cups, the wafts of wood-smoke as the rest of camp awakes, washing your face in cold mountain water, having the best tasting cup of coffee you'll ever have - the one which is brewed and drunk outside - having a leisurely breakfast of the kinds of things you'd probably never eat for breakfast at home, and then finding a dam or river to soak the graininess of the night away, and take deep breaths of pure, untainted, uncomplicated, country air...

 

 You (well I) gotta love it.

the reading bug

My Mum hooked me up with The Reading Bug by Paul Jennings and I'm so grateful to have read it. A blurb on the front says: 'A must for all parents who've ever worried about their children's reading', but I don't think you have to be a worrier to warrant reading it.

Friday's been trying to read since she could first hold a book - no really - and The Reading Bug's been such a great resource for this parent who hadn't the first clue how to gently guide her evident interest onto a constructive path to actual reading.

Just as a baby who is never spoken to will not learn to speak, so a child who is never read to will not show much interest in reading. No surprise that Paul Jennings places a lot of emphasis on the importance of reading to our children. But he does so while acknowledging how busy modern parents are, how people these days struggle to find or make time to read themselves, let alone read to their children.
He does so by saying this, one of the most beautiful things I've ever read about reading, or indeed about parenting itself:

Reading aloud to your children gives them an incredibly strong message. Without words you are saying, 'I am not washing the car or reading the paper or watching the news. I am sitting here with you, reading a story about a little dog whose family don't recognise him when he gets dirty. I am enjoying sitting in bed with you, sharing the fun, the fears and the fellowship of this magic moment. You are the centre of my world.'

And when you look down at the sparkling eyes you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are the centre of theirs.

This act of love forms an association between the child and books. The word book brings pleasure. The feel, look and smell of books is forever linked to feelings of warmth, security and love. You have started a lifelong love affair between a child and reading.

I was reminded of this passage recently.

And realised it need not just refer to a parent reading to a child, but also to a sister 'reading' to her little sister, generating all those associated feelings of warmth, security and love, and making their unobserved mama's eyes sparkle at the sight.

burn out

Until a few weeks ago we were seriously planning on going to AfrikaBurn this year. We've not been before, but not for lack of wanting to.
I even tried to persuade Husband to go the year I was heavily pregnant with Friday, reckoning it would be the Last Time we would ever do anything as wild and free.

5 years later we've found ourselves up for a bit of wild and free again, albeit this time with two kidlets in tow. Our girls are great campers, and have proven many times to be quite happy and secure outside of the comfort zone of home.
We're well kitted-out too, with a 4x4 trailer with roof tent and bells and whistles etc, camping fridge, solar shower - all the pouncy trappings of the middle-class South African outdoor enthusiast.

AfrikaBurn is not for sissies. 5 days in the driest part of South Africa, the Tankwa Karoo, requiring total self-sufficiency: water, food, medical supplies etc. The 10 page Survival Guide warns of dust storms, earth too hard for the mere mortal tent peg, rules regarding taking away absolutely every little thing that you bring in with you (including organic matter), how to share the space with 4000+ other 'Burners', what to do if your camp catches fire (take your valuables and run), the dangers of dehydration.
Plus the expectation that all attendees contribute something to the fun and games.

We were keen!

But then March happened. Two family birthdays, two weekends away, a wedding, a funeral, school holidays and just a whole bunch of logistical and emotional stuff.

And ... while our enthusiasm for the event remained intact ... the mind was willing ... but the flesh started feeling weaker and weaker ...

Eventually we shook ourselves and got busy on the To Do list. And one by one stuff got complicated. Our seldom-used 50litre water tank exploded (literally), the 'simple' repair to the trailer's spare wheel carrier got technical. Our house-sitter fell through. And with each set-back our enthusiasm waned ...

So, we're not going this year. We're bummed about it, but still feel we've done the right thing. And seeing as we'd already planned the leave, we'll be off camping in the Cederberg for a week instead - somewhere with shade, running water, swimming water and much less dust.
It may not be as exciting or as stimulating as the Burn, but I think we'll be quite happy with some calm this time.

We will, however, be building a small sculpture to burn on our last evening. This was the part of the whole event which really captured Friday's imagination, and while she may forgive us for the change of venue - she's going to be mad if she doesn't get to blow some stuff up!

cuteness 101

Not to stand in too stark a contrast to her sister's appalling behaviour on the weekend ... but my god is my 2 year old Sunday just killing me with the cute.

Girl's Gone Child said today that:

'One of the greatest gifts of parenthood is the act of routinely falling harder and even more in love with one's children.'

She also said:

'If this comes off as saccharine and totally annoying, I don't care.'

Me neither.

Sunday has suddenly started talking. Only a year or so after her sister did. But she's started and, as predicted, is straight into it in a big way. Sentences, thoughts, assertions, feelings - I'm in that golden age of wanting to write everything down, all the time. The thought of forgetting any of these adorable utterances is heart-breaking.

She cups my face, draws me close and beams, 'My Molly.'

She endlessly unpacks and repacks her Dad's toolbox while whispering, 'Spannah. Dwiver. Daddy.'

She's finally naming her big sister - just as we were wondering whether Sunday saw herself and her sister as one person, therefore not needing a separate indicator, 3 days ago she started calling her by name.

Cuteness 101 - how to win the whole family over in just a few weeks.