see you soon ...

Such a busy few weeks ahead - birthdays, weddings, school registrations, DIY projects and ... trying to do some 'real' writing for a couple of deadlines.

Don't wait up, but don't forget me neither.

pants on fire

I remember, years and years ago, watching aghast as a friend of mine told her then 6 year old daughter that she couldn't ride in the back of my bakkie (pick-up?), 'cos the canopy door 'was broken'.
In my pre-parental naivety I felt the size of the lie was hugely disproportionate to the issue at hand, such a blatant untruth merely to prevent a possible melt-down?

Now that I'm a parent I have a whole lot more sympathy. I now realise that this could have been one in a series of power-plays which had been taking place all day, that my friend possibly knew her daughter was hungry or tired and that getting into a debate just wasn't worth the risk. I now know about picking your battles. I know how fragile a child's young ego is, and how a parent quickly learns to tread gently around it, often risking other people's judgment and disapproval, but trying to ignore that in the knowledge that you know your offspring better than anyone.

I also know how easy it is to lie when you're tired, or hungry, or your ego is feeling a bit fragile.

But I'm determined not to. This is not a judgement, or something which makes me feel sanctimonious and holy.
Lying makes me feel crap, and I don't like feeling crap.
Not lying makes me use my imagination, and I like using my imagination.
I want my kids to trust me, and I credit them with being bright enough to learn quickly if they can't.

It's not possible to tell the blatant truth all the time. One can't be honest about the truly horrific birthday gift (at least not to the giver), or exactly how many Smarties one may (or may not!) have eaten last night while baking cookies for Friday's school bake day. But this doesn't mean one has to lie.
'What an enormous vase!'
'Not as many as I could have.'
These are both legitimate, and honest, answers. And both true.

If my children are to learn from me, from my example, then I want to teach them the classiest, most imaginative, most respectful way to navigate the world as truthful human beings.

I want to be able to say 'I never lie to you' and mean it. I want them to trust me on that.

muffin of holy delicousness

'Parsnip Muffin'

Could anything sound less appetising? (Okay, maybe if you watched the Survivor food challenge this sounds kinda tasty - sea slug smoothie anyone?)

It's not like I've anything against parsnips per se. I've tasted some delicious parsnips in my time but then they were grown in frost, drenched in honey and roasted to perfection by my English auntie. Parsnips in sunny South Africa are ... dull. And not an ingredient I'd think worthy of baking.

But I've a bit of an instant gratification issue when it comes to food. I find a recipe which gets my taste-buds excited and I just have to make it, like right now.

And so it came to pass that my taste-buds lit upon this one in the Sunday Times on the weekend and yesterday ... I made them.

Except not with parsnips. Blergh.

I substituted carrots (as suggested in the recipe, I can't claim original thought on this) but what really hooked me on the concept of these muffins was the diabolical instruction to melt the sugar (treacle or demerera) in the butter. Can you say carameltoffeefudgeohyeahbaby?
This is a whole other dimension of carrot cake y'all.

Go forth and bake. Seriously.

Notes ~
1. I'd use 150g of butter instead of the suggested 200g. My only criticism is that they're a leetle oily.
2. Recipe suggests cream cheese icing, I'll do that if (when!) I make them for a party but they really don't need it.
3. Sub naartjie for any other sweet citrus if you live north of the Limpopo.
4. Don't bugger around with the slice of naartjie at the base, unless you're all fancy. I'm not.
5. Seriously. Make them now.

the crossing

This week I got back on my bike for the first time in months. I've managed 3 cycles in 5 days - not long distances but I've been pumping it, making those sessions work.

I'm hoping to cycle Sunday to play-group some mornings. It's about 2.5 km away, perfect distance to transport a chatty small person on the back of my bike and a good 5 km round trip for me.
Most of the route is along the recently established Liesbeeck Parkway cycle route, a nicely paved designated pathway well away from the busy road.

However, to get there I have to cross the railway line. I have 3 options.

1. Over the very busy (at that time of the morning) Station Rd bridge. Narrow pavement, fast cars and delivery vans, tricky exit at the bottom.
2. Train station subway. 1000 steps down, 1000 steps up. We'd both have to dismount and I'd have the joy of maneuvering bike and toddler up and down through hurried morning commuters.
3. Tunnel subway a bit further down the line. No steps, rancid smell of piss, potentially insalubrious encounters.

I'm thinking the bridge?

I did a test run with Sunday yesterday morning, a bit later in the day so as to avoid the worst of the traffic. She loves being on the bike, cruising along singing softly, remarking on the passing sights.
Until a very loud and stinky truck passed us, revving it up over the crest of the bridge.
There was silence behind me, and then a small whimper.

Or maybe that was me ...

Cycling Sunday to school is going to be just the same as every other aspect of parenting in a city - a question of trying to make the best informed choice from a series of options each with their own risks, and hoping like hell that you've made the best one.
Wait, maybe that's just the same as Parenting. Anywhere.

Or maybe that's just Life. Eish.

a little valentine's craft

As a firm non-believer in Valentine's Day I never really pay any attention to it until it's upon us.

(Oh wait, I lie: this year I did send an early V-Day present off to my bestie - but how attention-grabbing is this?)

But when it's here I do suddenly have a hankering for bright red hearts. They're just so ... hearty. You know what I mean?

I found a link to these toilet-roll heart stamps on Pinterest (of course) and the girls and I had some fun with them (and some potato stamps) yesterday afternoon.

The full how-to is here, on Rust & Sunshine's blog. She's got some other lovely ideas too.

Great fun for all ages.

I had to share the exuberance.

And I wasn't joking when I said all ages.

So now we have some Valentine's Day cards for ... next year?

first look

Not sure what invited them, but I spent lots of time this weekend visited by memories of the first time I laid eyes on my children.
These are memories one imagines you'll always have, how on earth could I forget those first adrenalin-fueled, surreal, painful, magical, weird moments? But I've started feeling paranoid that I might.

The present version of my girls always takes up so much space in my world that I can't think they're not all branded onto my memory. But the mind is not as reliable as the heart in this case, and as life starts moving faster and faster (Sunday will be 2 next month!) I find myself folding over the corners of our days, desperately trying to bookmark moments, words, feelings before we finish this chapter.

So to go back to the beginning ...

Both my births were emergency C-sections, so both my first looks were over the green curtain of surgery, both were through the disembodied (literally) haze of spinal blocks. I met my girls in the company of a half dozen strangers, strange masked half-faces hovering in my periphery, voices in the background, machines and strange smells.
And of course their Dad, present for both, his face on my right an enduring memory, one which I have no fear I'll ever forget.

Friday's birth, being my first, was still all about me. The decision to Caesar was made so fast, the adrenalin from my water's breaking and labour starting (3 weeks early) still coursing within me, my brain still holding the complete unknown at bay, that when they held her up over the curtain - impossibly quickly - I couldn't process what I was looking at.
This tiny (3.2 kg) purpely thing - what was it? Had they removed an organ I wasn't aware of?

I stuck out one finger and touched her. So warm. And then she opened her mouth, impossibly wide, and shrieked - and became a person.
She was taken to be cleaned and weighed etc. Her Dad went with her and although I couldn't see her face from where I was lying, the enormity of her was written all over his.
I looked down at my finger, still goo-ey from touching her, and wiped it on the edge of the surgical blanket.

Hours later, alone in my hospital bed, her asleep in the nursery across the hall, I rubbed my feet together and felt like her. It's not really possible to describe, I refuse to bow to the corny 'my heart walked outside my body' sentiment, but I felt like her. A part of me was, I guess, apart from me.
The next morning my husband told me that in our bed at home he'd felt the same.

For Sunday's birth I knew to expect an actual person at the end of it. The process, although also being my first real experience of labour, was so much more about her - namely getting her out safely. As we were attempting VBAC we knew there was the possibility of complications and ten hours in, when her heart rate started dipping and we were heading into theatre, I was overwhelmed with excitement at meeting her.

It was a difficult Caesar and it felt like forever before she appeared over the curtain, much paler, much bigger (3.8 kg) than her sister, one eyeball rolling wildly.
Although she'd been in distress I was allowed to hold her briefly and apparently, as she was handed to me, I said, 'Aw, let's have another one' to my husband - the anesthetist reckoning that was the soonest he'd ever heard the sentiment expressed, and not one I've ever repeated since!

Sunday was born in the morning (Friday late at night), and I think that's part of the reason those first 24 hours have so much more clarity. She hardly left my side, she latched well, we co-slept, I handled the pain meds better.

Friday's birth was a massive experience, on every level. It rocked me physically, emotionally, it rearranged the foundation of my life.
Sunday's entry (while my doctor would disagree) was somehow so much more peaceful. She slipped out of my body and onto the crook of my left arm. She slotted into an anticipated space in our lives, and that life went on, fuller and richer.

I need to remember this. I write it to remember it.

baking brags # 2: cake pops

Sunday turns 2 next month. And naturally my thoughts have turned to birthday cake ...

I've long professed this is one of the main reasons I have children: birthday cakes. Friday got these awesome (yeah, it's called baking brags for a reason see) penguin cupcakes for her 2nd birthday. And last year I made cake pops for the little birthday celebration we had for Sunday's 1st.

As soon as I'd made them I knew they could be improved upon. I think this year I'll have to do just that.

You know cake pops right? Crazy, mad, nut-so concept. You bake a cake, smash it up, mix with frosting (you actually have to go with the American terminology on this one) 'til you get a, uh, cake dough consistency, then roll mix into little balls, poke with a stick and dip in melted chocolate.
Who does that?
Turns out, me.

Of course someone's already brought out a Cake Pop Maker, why wouldn't they? But I prefer a more authentic hand-rolled pop myself.

Now to decide on look and feel ... oh, and of course, taste ...

suspended reality

I wake in the night, needing a drink of water and a pee. Liquid in, liquid out.

Slide from my bed - comfy, warm, partially filled by my favourite person in the world. Our room is large, pretty empty for two people who've cohabited as long as we have. It's cool too, I'm already looking forward to coming back.
Down the passage, two soundly sleeping cats on the back of the couch, smooth wooden floorboards under my feet.
In the light from the patio the tree-tops whipping around, but all is very still inside.

Our dog in her basket snores in perfect unison with the whrrrr of the fridge. She doesn't even seem to know I'm here.
The tap turns, water fills my glass. Relief floods my throat.

I stand for just a minute, staring out the window. Keeping myself dozy, there's still a lot of night left.

Back down the passage, a quick check on the girls. Their door creaks and I pause to listen to the sounds of their breathing. Blindfolded I could tell who is who, I probably shall 'til the end of time.
They sleep with the sprawled limbs of supreme security and peace, their brows uncreased, fingers relaxed.

Their butterfly mobile dancing in the draft is the most active thing in this house.

And it is while standing there in the dark, in my house of comfort and love, that the crushing weight of my privilege suddenly bears down on me.
My heart seems to buckle - guilt, entitlement, horror, rage, indignation, justification - the emotions which one must continually counter-balance when living a good life in a world where so many don't. The knowledge of one's innate privilege is always there, it must be always there, but like a cancer or a conscience one can't live in its light all the time. One must suspend this reality and just ... live.

I force myself back to bed, to sleep. I leave these thoughts buried in the dark of the night. Where they remain, for remain they must.
Sadness, unease, discomfort, guilt - we need these things to throw the goodness in our lives into relief, to be grateful. But we can't, I can't, live with them every day.
I bury them in the dark - keep the knowledge of them active, confront them when I must - but try not to let them leak out into the light.

Reality suspended like a trip-wire in my house, waiting for me to get up in the night.

the sticker oke

A while ago I posted about the Sticker Family, and how I think it's kinda naff.

But today I saw this one, and I think I kinda like it.

Not a great photo (with my phone, in the traffic - the light was red okay?), but can you see it in the left hand corner?

Just one dude and his bakkie and his sticker of him braai-ing a big fat steak.

Maybe he's a confirmed bachelor, loving life, meat and the great outdoors.
Maybe he's a dad and this is his ride, asserting his independence from the mini-van full of kids his wife drives.
Or maybe he's lonely, looking for love and would like nothing more than to fill his back window with a sticker lady love, a couple of kids, a budgie and a stupid dog.

Whatever it is, his rear end made me smile today, and for that I thank him.