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.

parenting in public

I read an article a few weeks back, an opinion piece really, wherein the writer was commenting on some kid's atrocious behaviour in the KFC. I've searched but I can't find the article to link to - sorry - but the point was that the writer, and most of those who left comments were taking the old 'in my day we just got klapped good and proper for bad behaviour - what's wrong with today's parents?' line. Yawn.

Whether you're a spanker or not, if you're a parent you'll know from experience or observation that 2% of the time a swift slap will silence an unreasonable child, the other 98% of the time? He or she'll just scream even louder.
Not the end goal you're hoping to achieve in a public place right?
Also, again whether you support spanking or not, I think that to spank in public is a very different kind of punishment than spanking at home. In public you're adding humiliation to the pain you've inflicted, on top of whatever emotion got the kid acting out in the first place.
Of the list I feel humiliation is the most harmful.

My take on the KFC-screamer was that the kid was over-tired, needing a poo, or hungry - hungry for real food I should add. These are the 3 main reasons my girls act up, though like all children, they're totally capable of pulling new reasons for losing their shit out the bag anytime.

All of this I considered as, under the watchful eye of a good dozen other parents (and knowing that whether in judgement or sympathy, they're definitely gauging my response), I had the rare delight of extracting my kicking and screaming, hungry, over-tired (and probably needing a poo - because don't they always in a public place anyway?), big girl from a restaurant over the weekend.

Here's how I did it:
I left husband to pay bill and handle non-screaming child
I told screamer firmly and quietly that she's disturbing the other diners and needs to calm down and come to the car. NOW.
I offered to carry her (a diffusing tactic which usually works - she's so big now that carrying is a treat)
But when it didn't, I scooped her (and her long, long kicking legs) up, and carried her to the car in a calm and dignified manner
At the car, I chucked her in the back seat, slammed door shut, locked car and while she thrashed and foamed at the mouth inside, sent this tweet:

And it really did.

I was proud of myself that I didn't lose my shit. That I didn't make any ridiculous threats, that I remained calm, that I didn't flash too much flab at innocent bystanders as I wrangled my girl, and crucially: that we didn't cave on the ice-cream issue which had caused the furor in the first place.

But I know enough to not regard this as a precedent set. I'm lucky that I can count on one hand the number of times my girls have (so far) caused a scene in public, but I'm under no illusions that I'm out of the woods on this one. And I know that my response hinges on as many factors as their behaviour does - very possibly this time the large G'nT I'd enjoyed with my meal made all the difference.

What I did learn is that parenting in public carries a whole set of different challenges to parenting at home, and that decisiveness, swift action and feigned nonchalance (to the freaking kid and the inevitable audience) is definitely my game plan. And maybe a stiff drink where possible.

Let's see if I have occasion to eat these words.

And btw - we don't have the pox! Yippeee.

bookcase dolls house

It's been a bit of a week ... my small girl turned 2 on Sunday and last night my 92 year old grandfather passed away peacefully in his sleep. Makes for some mixed emotions, but all of them around celebrating family - and what greater thing is there to celebrate really?

For Sunday's birthday I ambitiously tackled a bookcase dolls house, as always greatly inspired by Pinterest. Not having a handy IKEA from which to purchase the perfect bookcase I scrounged around furniture stores in Woodstock and stumbled across this beauty ...

... not.

But, voila! Lookee here ...

I lucked out on the kalahari.net Educo sale and got the bathroom, kiddies room and kitchen dolls house sets at 50% off, used some other bits 'n bobs we had around, some pretty paper (wouldn't I love Orla Kiely wallpaper in my own kitchen?) and some pieces carefully saved from my childhood dolls house (made by my beloved departed grandad). The whole project cost well under R500 and is, if I do say so myself, magnificent.

The bathroom has proved to be the most popular with a certain birthday girl who took it upon herself to potty-train the week before her 2nd birthday! All the dolls house inhabitants seem to be suffering some terrible tummy bug judging by how often they're on and off the commode. Plenty of showers being taken too.

After a short but furious debate with my co-architect (ie Husband) we I decided to fore go partitions between the rooms. We can always add those later but for now the open-plan layout works well for little hands.

It's all about celebrating families round here.

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 ...

zen christmas

I could bang on and on about how utterly sublime Cape Town has been these last few days. Windless, warm (but not too warm), clear, blue and gold.
But that could get you hating, and I wouldn't want that.

So I'll just bang on about how relaxed and ready I'm feeling about Christmas, and you can be hating on me for that instead.
But really, I'm as surprised as anyone. I'm genuinely calm, prepared and feeling totally zen about this silly season: Christmas, school holidays, endless empty days to fill  - bring it on.

Molly's SmugFace Guide to Christmas Preparedness:

1. Schedule 3+ weeks of family sickness for November. This enables you all to get really used to spending lots of time at home together. And gives you some time for holiday crafting to distract you from killing your children, or yourself.

2. Do one 2h trip to Osman's sometime far away from pay day (way too busy then) to sort out all stocking fillers, extra tinsel and tree bling, and the necessary couple of small friend gifts. Yeah, I know we should all be buying handmade but frankly, I can't always afford that.

3. Agree with your friends not to buy each others kids presents. We give and receive generously for our children's birthdays, and with all the family gifts they receive at Christmastime I don't think they need all that extra loot too. Sometimes we bake for our friends around Christmas time, sometimes we don't - there's no pressure and no one should be keeping score.

4. Order one kid's main gift from Kalahari (or similar online outlet), source other kid's gift on the web and go straight to the source to buy it in one easy excursion. Visit Reader's Warehouse or similar for a couple of books.
(Our girls get stockings from 'Father Christmas', and one or two presents from us. I'm loving the 3 gift concept too - something to wear, something to read, something to play - but if summer thus far is anything to go by they'll be stark naked until February, so I'm skipping the 'wear' one.)

5. Luck out on finding one source for all family gifts (us adults all buy one small gift per couple) - and earn bonus smug points for a) buying them all in under 30 mins and b) supporting a local industry.
Oh and, persuade your siblings not to breed - it really helps when you don't have nieces and nephews to buy for.

6. Wrap as you buy. I'm new to this (and I'm not joking when I say I'm as freaked out by this newfound efficiency as anyone) but what a winning concept. Buy a gift, wrap it when you get home/ that evening/ while they're in the bath / while talking on the phone. It only takes a minute and it's easier to stash a wrapped gift than an unwrapped one.

7. Start making a list in October of what your kids need or want so when you get the inevitable queries from relatives you've some answers at the ready. I've yet to meet an aunt or granny who's not appreciative and it means I have some control over the kind of kak, I mean, presents which come into the house.

8. Pledge, and stick to it, not to go into any malls after end November. So far I've managed this and my god it's making a difference to my sanity levels. The Garden Centre doesn't count okay!
[Ack, went into Cavendish yesterday - but took the lift straight down to Woolies, bought shoes for both girls and got the hell out. Relatively unscathed.]

9. WALK AWAY. What can't be done, won't be done. Don't promise nothing to nobody but yourself - I've had years of practise letting myself down, it stopped hurting long time ago.

10. Throw candy, not money, at any problems which come your way. Or alternatively, your own face. Frequently.

Ah the smugness. Annoying hey?

Yeah, I'm too zen to let that bug me. And too busy frantically finishing a handmade stocking for Sunday.

What is it about this time of year?!