let's talk about colouring*

*And no, I don't mean colouring ...

Colouring-in has gotten a bad rap over the years, the premise being that it stifles kid's creative drawing, use of imagination etc etc blah blah blah.

We're in a big colouring phase (I'm trying to type with a straight face here) and I think it's great.
Firstly, it's super easy to print pages off the internet depending on what they're interested in - in the last month we've been through unicorns (of course), fairies (of course), frogs, bee's, eagles and a medley of patterns and floral designs.
Secondly, what they're learning about colour and shading, and the pencil-grip practise they get puts paid to all other concerns.

Thirdly, they're still totally drawing freehand as well.
Fourthly, printing out and handing them a stack of blank, inspirational pages buys me some time to do other things around the house - and what's not to love about that?
And lastly, we've seen such a huge improvement in Sunday's colouring skills in just a few weeks. From random scrawls, to real progress in keeping between the lines and using different colours etc.

My favourite thing at the moment is to listen in on them working together. Real discussion about colour choices and the personalities of the figures they're colouring or the stories behind their pictures.

Imagination, creativity, sisterly bonding - all of this is good. Now if someone would invent a self-sharpening pencil crayon I'd be completely happy.

self portraits

Saturday morning drawings.

Friday: I'm an angel Mum, bringing joy and happiness to the world. (Wise ass.)

Sunday: I'm a monster.

From the mouths of babes. Anyone who'd like to tell me again 'shame, it must've been those bad ears which was making her so difficult' should come and spend a couple of days in our house #justsaying.

cake of macabre magnificence

On the strength of the fabulous cake we made for Friday's birthday (no apologies for the brag), a good friend asked us to make her a birthday cake this weekend.
She has a taste for the macabre does our Janine, and requested something a little twisted. We were happy to oblige ...

This was our first time making a themed cake for someone outside of our immediate family and I have to admit it was a teeny bit stressful - I don't think I could ever do this for money, or to a strict brief. It's fun to have an idea and then just go with it, never sure quite how it'll work out.

But as with the birthday cakes we've made for our daughters, the best part was thinking fondly of the recipient as we made it, chortling at how much she'd love it. As weird as it may be to imbue a blood-splattered cake with warmth and love, this one was splattered with both.
Happy birthday Janine!

And some notes for those interested ... the 3 tiers were standard Victoria sponge (double mixture), sandwiched in this case with strawberry jam and iced (by my husband the master icer) with white buttercream. The edible blood was a bit of a coup - after researching many recipes online (most of which called for cup of corn syrup - eeeuwww), we made our own by modifying a chocolate glaze recipe which we've used often before, this time using just a little bit of cocoa powder and lots of red and green food colouring.
Artfully applied with a basting brush, the glaze harden beautifully, looked super gory and tasted delicious!

cute coffee stop

Driving down Constantia Main Rd the other day (which incidentally, and appropriately, as to be the most la-di-da Main Rd in Cape Town, not at all what we expect from a Main Rd really) - in fact, I didn't even know it was called that until recently - you know, the road which goes from Constantia Village all the way up to Constantia Nek?

Okay, wait. Driving down Constantia Main Rd the other day I came upon this, near the High Constantia Shopping Centre:

How cute?!

Not the cheapest coffee in town but it was delicious, and total props for style ...

... and you get a loyalty card that only needs 5 stamps to get a freebie! I like.

An inspired initiative by a Hout Bay coffee lover (who also serves tea). Go support him!

big girls and small girls

Raising girls is challenging!

(You know what else is challenging? Not having reliable internet for over a MONTH. But I'm trying to get over that, and proceed as if nothing happened. Which it did, for a MONTH. Thanks a lot Telkom.)

Anyhoo. Girls. Challenging.

Yesterday evening for example. I accidentally smashed an empty peanut butter jar all over the floor, and it took me 3 times longer to clear it up due to the inordinate amount of distracting glitter twinkling and shining all over the place.
Girls.

But I loved this article I just read off Facebook today. The forgotten years of girlhood. 10 to 14 the author reckons. Years in which girls should be sorting out some of the fundamentals of their personalities, while probably being at their most easily distractable ever.

It was the line about 'learning to be women' which really struck me. As the author says, there are so many inappropriate ways for girls to learn about womanhood - glossies, most TV programmes, their peers who by definition will be floundering just like them - that it's really important to consciously introduce more balanced influences.
Enter the Aunties.

My womanhood was, is, so strongly influenced by my mother, her friends, and a life time's observation of the the relationships and dynamics between them. These aunties - strong, creative, funny, intelligent, sometimes vulnerable women - taught me so much.

Which is why I was so happy when, after my birthday tea in May, an afternoon with some of my closest girlfriends, Friday declared that 'I love your friends Mum. I wish they were my friends too.' And even happier when I could say, 'But they are sweetie, I think they'd all call themselves your friend', and she beamed with delight.

I love my friends. I'm so grateful to them for all the ways they've supported and spoiled and saved me over the years. And now I'm grateful to them for something else. For being strong, creative, funny, intelligent, sometimes vulnerable women in my daughter's lives too.

Chicks rule!

always be a unicorn

Last week Friday turned 6. I think I gloated enough about the wonderful child she is here, so I'll just say this:

She is magnificent.



The awe and wonder on her face here is magnificent.

Also, how could it not be when presented with this?

And playing through our heads the whole time last Friday evening, after a morning in hospital with the grommets, and at the tail end of a super busy week, as Husband flexed his exceptional icing skills and I painted plastic unicorns silver and filled ice cream cones with sweets and hung streamers and packaged the last of those %!&## fizz balls ...

Always be a unicorn my sweet girl!

grommets

It was late one night, whispering to her in the bedroom she shares with her sister, asking her to move up, or roll over or some such, when she suddenly turned and looked at me with wild eyes, as if she’d not known I was there, that I realised it.

She’d not known I was there. She’d not heard my voice. She was deaf.

Our pediatrician recommended an audiologist but I went straight to an ENT. Confirmation: radically deaf in both ears.

It’s probably only been a few months, I’m not allowing a blanket excuse for some of the behaviour we’ve suffered through this year, but a deaf little girl is not a happy little girl and I was relieved by the surge of tenderness which welled within me. My poor baby.

So last week, sandwiched between her sister turning 6 and an epic unicorn birthday party to celebrate this great milestone, we woke frightfully early in the morning and stumbled off to Claremont Hospital.

She was a star. She didn’t ask for breakfast, she didn’t protest or complain. She gave the nurses a special smile she’d prepared for the occasion (she has a selection of smiles in her repertoire – one for me, one for family, one for friendly car guards etc – all different), she watched wide-eyed as the younger patients returned from theatre in tears, and when it was her turn she lay, ever so small in her big hospital bed, as a friendly porter wheeled her through the halls, and gently succumbed to the anaesthetic. The only sign of her apprehension a raptor-like grip on my finger; so that even once the rest of her was floppy and limp I had to prise my hand away.

Grommets in, adenoids out.

I lay next to her as she slowly floated to the surface back in the children’s ward. A nurse was talking to the young boy in the furthermost bed from ours, offering him a selection of treats from the hospital menu.

Sunday’s eyelids fluttered, she raised her head a little to look at me and croaked, ‘Mum, did she say jelly?’

She had. I ordered some for my little hero and a while later we trundled home.

‘I can hear Mum, I can really, really hear.’

I’ve not heard anything sweeter for a long time.

madiba

Last week I was driving, listening to an EWN update on Nelson Mandela's condition, and I burst into tears.

Like, burst.

Naturally I've been thinking about him, following the updates. The death of my own grandfather at a similar age is recent enough that I can quickly draw on the associated emotions, my heart knows how this feels. But I didn't expect the wave of emotion I experienced that day and in that moment, it made me feel a little sheepish.

Sure he's Nelson Mandela, but did I have enough of a connection to respond like that? Was my grief credible?
But here's the thing about Mr Mandela, he has always been all about validating each individual's experience.

He visited Betsy Verwoed because her experience of the end of apartheid was valid. He celebrated with all South Africans when we won the Rugby World Cup because our experience was valid. Terrified white business men? Valid. Remorseful prison guards? Valid. Angry youth? Valid.
Nelson Mandela taught us all so much, and not least of all to own our experiences, to share them, to acknowledge them, good or bad, and use them to move forward.

Losing someone is so much about losing the person they allowed you to be. This is at the heart of all of our grief about his imminent death. We already miss the world in which he lived, in which his spirit resided.
Nelson Mandela made us feel free and idealistic, while he is still alive we know that lives on within our nation, when he dies we fear that spirit will become completely eroded by the sobering realities of the work ahead.

I was 15 when he was released from prison. 18 when I helped elect him President. The perfect age to learn lessons in forgiveness, humility and courage. The perfect age to learn to believe in miracles.

He gave me that, and so much more. He gave that to us all, and I think we're all allowed to be very, very sad when he goes.
Go well Madiba, and thank you.

found in my notebook

Turns out witnessing someone learn to read and write is just as exciting as it was watching them start to walk and talk all those years ago.

The world just opened its arms to her a little wider.

diy fizz ballz: don't do it!

In preparation for Friday's 6th birthday party in a couple of weeks we've been making fizz balls (bath bombs) to go in the party packs.
'Something I've Wanted To Do for Ages' meet 'Perfect Opportunity'. I'm sure you'll be very happy together.

Or ... not.

Frankly these were a mission, and after 4 batches (mostly unsuccessful) and still a few hearts short of the number we need to fill all the party packs, I'm SO OVER THEM.

Don't be put off by the vast quantity of ingredients - they're all easily obtainable (brandy optional, not actually for the fizz balls you understand) - and the instructions I followed here were very clear and helpful.

And the ones that worked are very cute and pink and rose-smelling. Friday has carefully labelled them all 'bath' due to concerns that her friends may eat them.

But each batch was tryingly hit and miss and I'm not really sure why. Obviously sometimes the mix was too dry, sometimes too wet - but we measured very carefully, honest. Possibly the recent weather was a factor too - rainy days are not very conducive to drying powder.
I'm tempted to say that all in all the project was a bit of a balls up but you know ... cheap joke.

Luckily similarly to baking experiments, there are always those in this household prepared to make the most of the failed attempts - the girls have had some very pink 'n fizzy baths recently.

But still we must make more! Just a few more ... and then NEVER AGAIN I tell you, never again.