the flip-flops of efficiency

A few weeks ago I bought Friday her first pair of flip-flops.

I know, I know, 4 years old seems very late for this but I have such lurid memories of tearing my feet apart with plastic shoes as a kid that I'd delayed buying her some 'til now.

She opened the bag, gave me her shy/proud smile.
'Aren't you clever Mum. Flippy shoes just like you and Dad.'
 
She's been proudly wearing them in ever since, being very sensible about changing shoes if they start to hurt, and telling anyone who'll listen that she's got new flip-flops, often followed by, 'Have you got flip-flops? No? (then with genuine sympathy) Shame.' 

She loves that they've got stars on them and she loves that the straps are hot pink (duh, she's 4 - of course she does) but the thing she loves most (besides maybe me, for buying them), is the sound they make when she walks.
The first time she wore them to school I stood at the gate watching her walk up the pathway, then called out to her softly, 'Flip flop flip flop flip flop.'
She turned and flashed me her biggest smile.
Hot damn I earned mega brownie points with that purchase.

And my favourite thing about the New Shoes? Because she likes to move in them she's taken to sudden flurries of 'packing away'. Bustling round the house putting away toys and clothes and moving books back into her room. All the while enjoying the crisp sound of efficiency. Flip flop flip flop flip flop.

I could listen to that sound all day.

Gratuitous, and total unrelated, picture of lavender in the setting sun light.

 I don't have a photo of the flip-flops, they move too damn fast.

the 'burbs: observatory

Observatory is often referred to as 'colourful'. A nice word, a word used to paint over the exceedingly grimy cracks in this old suburb's facade. A bright and cheery word to describe a 'burb which could in all fairness also be called 'grimy', 'seedy', 'rough' - you get the idea.

There are other nice words used by estate-agents and the like to describe this old Grande Dame of Cape Town ~ 'bohemian' is a favourite, 'diverse' is a nice trendy one, 'unique' is utterly transparent in its patronising glibness.

Obs is Obs, she embodies and defies all of the above labels, and warrants far more too, good and bad.
But 'colourful' is the one she deserves the most, not least of all in the most literal sense of the word.
Colour. Full.

 

  

  

  

Some residents even like to match their house colour to their car ... or maybe the other way around?

 

She might not be a pot o' gold, but she's home.

one girl and a chicken

Sunday celebrated her Heritage this weekend.

She's an Anglo-Saxon so she likes the hunt ...

She's a Boere-meisie so she likes handling livestock ...

She's an African so she likes the chicken ...

Chicken: What the cluuuuuuuuck?

 

 Rolling eyeballs of nervousness ...

Hey man, I saw what she did to that chicken!

Don't you just love the fearlessness of an 18 month old?

ten signs of summer

1. Painting my toenails.

2. Running the cold tap for a while, waiting for the water to cool (and thinking about coming water restrictions).

3. The wheelie-bin starting to pong 3 days before rubbish collection.

4. Taking the dog for a walk on the beach and coming home with all of us wet and sandy, even those who'd not intended to swim.

5. Salty hair.

6. Flies.

7. Mosquitoes.

8. 2 bare girls running round the house.

9. Salad for supper. (Actually this is more of a fantasy. Obviously I'm the only member of the family who thinks this a viable option ... )

10. Random moments - catching the scent of summer, the feel of changed air on bare skin, gazing at the haze on the mountain as dusk falls - and feeling a deep peace and happiness.

Summer is my happy place. It's going to be a good one.

nice or naff? the sticker family

No doubt you've also been seeing these all over town?

The Sticker Family - 15 options of Mums (shopper, worker, breeder, sporty - not a jelly belly in sight), 15 kinds of Dads (including a Muscle Mary), various kiddies and babies and pets.

I'm not sure how I feel about them really. They've very ... white? Middle-class? Suburban?

If we had a Sticker Family it would've looked like this this morning:

Sticker Dad on bike - looking well-groomed and calm

Sticker Mum in tracksuit with cap over unwashed hair (not pictured) carrying ....

Sticker Big Sister out to the car, crying 'cos she didn't want to go to school, under mistaken impression that if she stayed home her morning would be full of TV and ice-cream cones and devoted mummy-time ...
AND, under the other arm ...
Black plastic motorbike which MUST GO EVERYWHERE WITH US AT PRESENT.

Sticker Little Sister trailing behind happy and bright until she realised she wasn't able to actually sit on black plastic motorbike in car whereupon she screamed and thrashed and planked while Sticker Mum tried to do up her car seat belts and Sticker Big Sister whined on and on and on in the background and Sticker Dad looked cool and Sticker Dog tried to take advantage of general distractedness to escape out the gate to check her wee-mail.

Maybe that's what I've got against the Sticker Family, they all look so damn happy all the time.

What do you think? Nice, or naff?

whose hair is it anyway?

I recently found two of Friday's baby curls I'd dutifully kept from her first hair cut. I gazed at them with such fondness, remembering my soft-cheeked curly-headed girl.

I went to find her to show them to her, my lean long-legged very big girl. She immediately reached for them but I snatched them away,
'Don't touch sweetie, they're precious.'

'But Mum, they're mine.' she answered deadpan.

Ja, um, I guess they are. Way to make your mother feel like a twat.

construction party

We went to SUCH a great birthday party this last weekend. One of Friday's classmates was turning 4 and his parents arranged a really clever, simple and well-executed Construction Party on the beach.

They were lucky with the weather, especially this time of year, but c'mon we live in Cape Town, I like it when people have the gall (balls?) to take a chance and arrange an outdoor event.

Party elements included black and yellow balloons (very striking), a DIY hot-dog table, plastic traffic cones demarcating the sand-castle building area, a smattering of hard hats, some enthusiastic digging Dads and this fabulous cake.

Lego accessories, an excavated chocolate sheet cake, honeycomb quarry walls and some chocolate tools. I love it!
(And I have to applaud the braininess - the chocolate tools were moulded in the plastic packaging from a toy tool set the birthday boy received a few years ago. His clever Mum diligently kept the packaging for just this purpose. Way to go W!)

And one of our first mornings on the beach this season. Could we have been any happier?

Incidently, Small Beach (or Kleinbaai) is a great beach option for kids. Wide white sand and slow lapping waves, lots of not-too-rocky pools. It's just next to the renowned Blue Peter (so good for a beer/milkshake after the beach too!). Directions here.

who you calling stupid?

Ah the sins of a four year old. Still so sweet, so innocent.

Friday came home from school a few months back calling us all 'stupid'. The perfect example of a boringly responsible parenting moment.
'We shouldn't call people stupid Friday. It's not a nice thing to say to someone and you can hurt people's feelings.'

The trend continued for some time, we carried on gently reprimanding her, but we didn't want to turn it into a biggie and I was pretty sure the novelty would wear off. (Or, more likely, move to much worse words. Ack.)

The girls and I went away with some friends for a few days and the 'stupid' bug spread like wildfire, putting me in the unenviable position of The Mum of the One Who Started it All.
Don't laugh, you'll get your turn one day.
Soon the climbing frame was 'stupid', the cereal in the bowl was 'stupid', the stones on the path as we went for a walk were 'stupid' - and it was getting boring.

I upped the discipline, tried banning the word, having quiet to-the-side (as in 'now I'm serious and lest you be afraid') chats but egged on by her peers, I honestly wasn't having much effect.

Help came from a very unexpected quarter. Late one afternoon as the kids sat drawing at the dining-room table of the seaside house we were staying in, the peace was shattered by Friday screaming; 'Mummmmeeeeee, a baboon! Mummmeeeee, a baboon!'
I ran in from the kitchen to see a large male baboon sitting shamelessly on the table, eating crayons. The kids scattered as I stormed him, yelling and clapping my hands.
He nonchalantly jumped off the table and sauntered out, taking a box of puzzles for closer inspection on the verandah as 3 women, a dog and a bunch of kids shouted at him through the (now closed!) door.
Eventually, having tried and rejected several cups of tea, the puzzles, a tub of baby-food and a tomato sandwich, he moved off, and we tried to calm the kids down.

There were tears and re-enactments, claims of bravery and terror. Juice needed to be drunk and bathrooms visited, lots of hugs were required - I could certainly have done with a gin - but after some time, when we'd all calmed, Friday said quietly from her place on my lap,
'Mum, that baboon was really stupid hey?'

And I had to agree that he was.

Since then we've hardly heard the word. It occasionally crops up, but now her usage is almost always completely correct.
It seems what was required was a context, a real self-experienced context, for her to decide for herself the meaning and appropriateness of the word.

I'm certainly hoping future life lessons won't be quite so dramatic, but I'll not forget what I learned from this one:
Contextualise always. Let her find her own way, she almost always will in the end. Remember the baboon, use the baboon - this story will have many other applications in the future.

Sorry 'stupid' bab, you had to be the fall guy on this one.

toyi toyi

So I'll admit it ... I failed the 7-day Toy Cure. Sometimes toes just won't toy the line you know?

Wait, that's not right ...

I mean, some things are just not meant to be toyed with.

Some toys just won't tamed.

Some toys just need a good wash and they're good as new.

I did gather a box of bits and pieces for the Rural Child, and I did a fair bit of sorting and rotating of books and craft materials, but I wouldn't use the word 'cure'.

Nope, sometimes it seems you can't just throw your toys.

All photos by moi, some posed, others not - bet you can't guess which are which!

these arms of mine

You have to read it like the original Otis Redding. You have to feel the yearning.

For my arms are feeling it when I hold my small girl close, when I feel the recognition in my muscles, the knowing how to hold this little body, and the sadness these arms feel already, knowing she won't be so little for much longer.
Mah baybee.

It's so ridiculously biological it's almost laughable.
I'm not a big baby fan, both my girls I've enjoyed so much more after their first birthdays. I don't miss breastfeeding (much), I don't miss having that small being ON me all the time, I love being able to communicate with words, I love watching them grow more independent.
But my arms, they refute all of this when I hold my Sunday close, especially in her warm and floppy moments, and the muscles sing with yearning, with already full-blown nostalgia, with the shattering knowledge that the next baby, if any, that I'll hold with this kind of kinship, will be a grandchild.
Mah baybeeeeeeeee.

She's becoming such a big girl.

She LOVES a doll. In fact, the more the lovelier. Whereas Friday's only ever had one doll, and was never particularly into playing dolly, Sunday has a host of 'babas' - all of whom get canoodled and paraded around and pushed in the pram/wheelbarrow/random box.

She HATES orange food. Barring cheese, she won't even look twice at butternut, carrot, peach, melon, pawpaw etc.

She HATES hats. She LOVES cats. She SCREAMS when outraged and SQUEALS when happy. She LOVES/HATES/LOVES/HATESbutmostlyLOVES her big sister.
She wields a mean bitch-slap, can scratch like a tiger and likes to bite me.

She LOVES her dad and wanders disconsolately around the house carrying one of his slippers calling 'Daddy?'

She's a big little person, our Sunday. I love watching her develop, but I wish she wouldn't grow so fast.

Wish she'd stay my little woman for just a bit longer.