cape point vineyards

My car has been acting up. It's going fine, as long as I don't get stuck in traffic. Crawling along at slow speed quickly leads to great belches of black smoke and funny noises. Getting it fixed is on the To Do list ...

So when I realised the girls and I were 'stuck' in the Noordhoek area until after evening traffic abated yesterday, we decided to find somewhere to have a little supper.
And by happystance stumbled upon the Cape Point Vineyards Thursday Food Market.

Not a bad little spot to wait out the traffic right?

It's TOTALLY Cape Town. Vegan patisserie, craft beer, lily white patrons and views so profound your eyes and brain have to use every colour in their paint box to try and do it justice.

Vineyards, pretentious food, kids called Tucker and lots of hippies in BMW's. It's Cape Town see?

But the beauty. I can be grinchy about many things, but every day I have pause to gasp at the beauty of this place we live in - and there's an uncomplicated purity in that which appeases my cynical old heart.

The Cape Point Vineyard is a damn fine place to be briefly appeased.

Even that silly old car had a view!

three going on thor

She'll be three in 10 days time and I've had NO idea what to get her for her birthday.

What do you get the kid who has four dolls, plays with them regularly, but ALL their accessories are imaginary? An empty box full of 'baby clothes'?

What do you get the kid who basically wants to be read to ALL day long, in a house already bursting with books? A paid drama student to read to her with all the appropriate voices?

What do you get the kid who has an older sister so there's one of everything she could want in the house already? Tea set - check. Dolls house - check. Blocks, books, dolls, puzzles, mini-kitchen etc - check.

What do you get the kid who has everything she needs really, but must have something to unwrap on her birthday morning right?

What do you get the kid who's currently a tyrannical torturous tantrummy tot with VERY SPECIFIC notions of what she does and does not like? A gift voucher? Ha ha ha.

I was at a dead loss until a few days ago when she declared, out of the blue, that she'd like a sword for her birthday. To fight dinosaurs, monsters, big frogs for mummy, baddies and dragons - in that order I think.
A sword.

So my question really is: would it be so wrong to get her a sword? Obviously not a proper goblin-made one, I can see how she doesn't quite have the fine motor control for that, but a nice hippie Waldorf one?

My mother is horrified, presumably at the notion of giving a 3 yr old a weapon. Husband is not supportive, declaring rightly so that a wooden sword can still inflict a lot of damage - namely to her sister.

But I'm more than a little tempted. I think there's something empowering about it, I like that she's casting herself as the hero in this particular imagining. I like that a sword can be a prop for an expanding selection of games including knights and vikings, intrepid explorers and swashbuckling adventurers.
Aren't we always told that the princess fantasy is a weak one, playing the victim waiting for a knight to swoop in and rescue the helpless maiden? Aren't we encouraged to teach our daughters they can be anything, they can be the rescuers, they can hold the power? Would there be as much objection to a boy wanting a sword for his 3rd birthday?

A year ago I'd have rejected the idea of giving a 3 year old a sword purely on the basis that I believe you don't give children weapons. But now, as she talks about her sword daily, and her birthday approaches, I'm not so sure.
What do you think?

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.

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.

she's leaving home

Sunday's starting at a small playgroup this week.

In another classic example of what people have been known to call 'Molly's Luck', the place just fell in my lap via a much more jacked friend whose little girl (same age as Sunday) will be starting there too.
(Actually it's a new little school opening up a few doors down from my friend's house so maybe it kind of fell into her lap too.)
Anyhoo, I've been very excited about it - loving the idea of Sunday playing with other little kidlets 2 or 3 times a week and blissfully anticipating an extra free morning for writing - happily telling people that she'll be starting school 'next year'.

But, now it is next year, now in fact she's starting this week and I am, naturally, now riddled with guilt and emotion and feeling more than a little weepy.

Friday was two and half when she started preschool. She'd been talking for 18 months and we'd been chatting about school for many weeks before she started.
She totally got the concept, was very excited about it, knew I'd be back to collect her in a couple of hours. When I dropped her off that first morning she happily scrambled into the sandpit without a backward glance while I wept pathetically behind my dark glasses and sat outside in the hot car for a completely unnecessary 15 minutes just in case she noticed I was gone and cried for me (ha!) and fought the urge to phone my mother and blubber incoherently.
Obviously I blame all this emotion on the fact that I was 8 months pregnant at the time.

With Sunday. Mah baby.
She'll only be two in March, she's still prattling away in mostly incoherent baby talk. We understand her but will anyone else? Her bottom lip quivers when I leave her with her beloved nanny, she still cries as she drives away with my Mum, whom she loves. She's a clinger, this youngest daughter of mine.
How on earth will she take to being left with virtual strangers?

The thought of her navigating snack, peer interaction, adult guidance from someone other than the 4 or 5 key grown-ups in her life, hurried mornings getting ready and mostly, my leaving her there and driving away, suddenly has me feeling very wobbly.

I know that so many parents have weathered this experience with much younger children than Sunday, and I know there's a whole bunch of reasons she'll be fine - not least of all that she's watched her sister happily go off to, and come home from, school for ages now - but still ...
She doesn't have to go to school. This is not a necessity born from my work situation or a lack of other child care options, and that's why I'm feeling conflicted about it.

Sunday's starting playschool 'cos it suits me, because I've decided it'll be a good idea. Are my motives selfish? Am I potentially putting her through premature separation anxiety for all the wrong reasons?

No. She'll love it, even if it does take a few traumatic goodbyes. And I've no doubt the trauma will be more mine than hers.
She'll love it and she'll thrive and in a few short weeks I'll look back at this post and laugh at myself and my indulgent parental angst.

As usual this is my shit, which I'm trying to disguise as concern for my child. This is my baggage and my baggage is this:
I've realised this last week, that 2011 was our last year of having a baby in the house. I am 100% confident and sure that I don't want another one, but I'm shocked at the finality of the thing - no. more. babies.
By the end of this year Sunday will be nearly three, she'll be losing those baby curves, her face will be that of a little girl, she'll be talking and doing and growing so very much more independently of me. Mah baby.

My baby's taking her first steps off into the world. Come Thursday expect to find me weeping in a hot car.

10 alternative NY resolutions

I don't make New Year's resolutions. I don't believe it setting myself up for failure really. But I did have some fun today thinking of a list of resolutions I wish I could make, and act on.
You know, if I wasn't such a conscientious citizen, loving mother, supportive partner, all round nice person yada yada. If I had less concern for consequence and far less regard for my fellow (hu)man.

In 2012, in an alternative universe, I would pledge to ...

1. embrace my inner road rage and start acting on it
2. swear more (if that's possible)
3. allow my kids to watch heaps of trash TV
4. buy a deep-fryer, and use it copiously
5. never return calls
6. start smoking, again
7. say what I'd really like to say on twitter
8. spout unfounded vitriol and pessimism about the 'state of the country' and bemoan what will become of us
9. boycott Woolworths entirely for the year on the basis of them being unethical thieving shmucks
10. not cook a single thing unless I expressly feel like it, or could use my deep-fryer.

Wouldn't that be nice? Or at least selfishly indulgent and satisfying.
Which by its very nature would be nice.

In fact, I think I might commit to two of the resolutions on this list after all. One has to start a new year with some goals right?

Whatever your resolutions, plans or secret desires may be, I hope some or all of them come true this year.
Ahoy 2012!

you know, THAT girl

The one who just can't say No. That's me.

Not about stuff like begging for sweets in the supermarket, or wanting one more cupcake, or Happy Feet for the brazillionth time that week - oh no, I'm cold as ice on that stuff, doling out No's with a firm, decided (and sometimes even smug) tone. Holding my resolve in the face of tears and entreaties and sticky-outy bottom lips.

But it's the requests to play which I struggle with. Being begged to read one more book, getting unwittingly cast as the mother/baby/monster/etc in one of the endless imaginary games, being asked to review the anatomical legitimacy of a play-dough snake.
Often it's just my presence that's required.
'Please Mum can you sit with me?' (while she happily builds a puzzle alone)
'Gnh Gnh GNH!!!' (as I try to sidle out the playroom)

I feel a huge amount of guilt turning these requests down. I feel like denying them the presence and attention of their mother is a big parenting fail.
I tell myself this is because my primary role is as stay-at-home-mum to them, my main job as it were is to be their companion, their playmate, to just ... hang out and be there.
But this is the same reason I often resent them for it.

I am here for them so much of the time. Shouldn't I be like that TV that's always on, you know, the one which theoretically is eventually completely ignored? I envy that TV.
Bet that TV doesn't feel bad about feeling resentful that it's always on.

I know kids have to 'learn' to play by themselves, to create their own entertainment. My girls don't have any problems with that, they just want me to be part of the games they create.
I should feel flattered right?

So why do I feel guilty saying no? And then exasperated when I don't? And then guilty for feeling exasperated?

Oh riiiiight, because I'm a p-a-r-e-n-t. It all goes with the territory.
Joy.

waste vs waist

It's probably a combination of growing up in the 80's, the horrors of the Ethiopian famines the benchmark against which we measured our well-fed privileged childhoods, and living in a country in which we witness great poverty every day, but I HATE, just HATE wasting food.

I'm that person who heats and eats an assortment of leftovers for lunch as I can't bear to see them spoil in the fridge. I'm the one who freezes browning bananas, juices turning oranges, toasts the last slice of bread. I'm the crazy person who bakes a batch of cupcakes rather than waste a last bit of chocolate icing.  I know!
More often than not I don't enjoy these scraps much (except the cupcakes of course), but I eat them anyway.

Similarly I can't bear to throw away the scraps the girls leave from their meals. I used to think this was one of the top reasons for having a dog - getting her to polish off the plates - but since she's recently been diagnosed with a dodgy pancreas and is not allowed any more scraps, ever, her list of uses has dwindled down to security, finding new ways to try my patience and of course, for laughs ...

So I find myself polishing off bits of full-cream yoghurt, the last quarter of the cheese sandwich, the last few mouthfuls of mac 'n cheese, a stray cracker here, half a sausage there.

And so the wastage slows but the waist she grows ...

What's the solution? Get less precious about the leftovers? Get more fierce about everyone finishing their food (and thereby adding another nag to the endless list of motherly nags)? Get more self-control? Get a pig?

What's your policy on leftovers?