channeling Nancy Botwin

So then obviously something happened today which was totally blog-worthy, and all about me.

Just because I've decided not to share their humiliations on the internet doesn't mean I can't share mine right?

I've been working hard at gardening. And by hard I mean tending to a couple of herb/veggie plants in a motley assortment of pots, and culling small pieces of plants all over the place and sticking them in the earth at home in the vain hope they'll like it here.

Most of them have. Thereby boosting my garden and my self-confidence.

So when Friday's school sent home some seeds weeks ago with instructions to nurture a small plant to return in time for the annual fundraising Plant Sale, I was confident. I got this. I can grow a measly parsley plant right?

Wrong. 

Turns out the bursting new green buds I celebrated, the little shoots I protected and nurtured (Friday, btw, could not have been less interested), the small (but flourishing!) little plant I packaged up and carefully transported to school this morning is not parsley.

It is a weed.

At the school gates I spied a tiny fluffy purple flower on the plant and with a sinking feeling broke off and tasted a small leaf.

Not parsley.

I was nearly, nearly, that mother who tried to sell weed at the school fair. 

the wee one

I'm lying on my Mum's bed while Sunday uses the en suite bathroom. Suddenly I realise the sound I'm hearing is not the comforting tinkle of pee on porcelain. More a discomforting splashing on tiles.
'Muuuuuum?'

Once again, she didn't quite make it.
Is it over-confidence? She's been potty trained for months. Is it stubbornness? She's an ace at that. Is she just distracted? Or is she actually doing this to make my life just that little bit harder?
Some days I'm guilty of thinking just that.

Once, in a fit of exasperation, when she was dancing and knuiping and looking panicky, all the while denying she needed to go, I resorted to: 'Sunday, I can see you need to wee. If you have an accident I'm actually going to be really cross and I might have to smack your bum.'
She looked me in the eye, crossed her arms (and her legs) and declared: 'Well, then you will get wee on your hand.'

Diabolical.

After I'd done mopping up the bathroom my Mum reminded me, 'Now do you understand why I resorted to telling you that if you didn't wee when you needed to your bladder would burst?'
I do. A myth which haunted me for most of my childhood, one which I'd lambasted my mother about a number of times, now makes perfect sense.

One more accident and I swear, as much as I hate to, I'm repeating the lie.

I'm that pissed on, I mean off.

undecipherable play

I really ...

... couldn't tell you what's happening here.

And I'm a little afraid to ask.

bitchslap

So someone called me a bitch this week. Not to my face, not even this week really. Someone called me a bitch (twice apparently) a few weeks ago but someone else told me she did this week. Comprendo?

What I don't comprendo is that the woman who called me a bitch is in her 40's, and the person who relayed this kind message to me, is 6.
Yup, a grown woman called me a bitch in front of her daughter.

THIS is why we women have issues with each other.

There is so much focus these days on raising our sons to be respectful to women, what about raising our daughters to be nice to each other? And let's not forget just raising our kids to be respectful of other people, regardless of gender, or perceived bitchiness.
Let's not give our kids the language with which to hurt and degrade each other.

How's that for a not unreasonable suggestion?

now I lay her down to 'leep

Sunday, aged two and a bit, decided to drop her afternoon nap. Her sister did the same thing at that age.
I was 7 weeks pregnant at the time - can you feel my pain?

I really thought Sunday would hang on longer. She loves(d) sleeping, and was still rocking a 2 hour nap the week before she quit.

But now baby don't nap no more and that, plus the sudden onset of TWO-ness, is making our evenings a little ... strained.

Tonight I lay on her bed in the dark, totally still, totally silent. While she thrashed around the bottom of it, emitting the guttural animal shrieks of frustration and utter over-wroughtness that I so clearly remember her sister making.
I lay on her bed in the dark, holding a fluffy turtle in position with my toe so she didn't bang her head too hard against the foot of the bed, waiting for her to calm.
I lay there and wondered how other parents deal with this, as we always perpetually wonder right?

I know there's no soothing her until she's ready. Strictly no touching her until she asks for it. I know there's nothing I can do but keep that turtle in position, silently apologise to the neighbours and lie there in the dark so she knows I'm there.

And when the shrieks turn to wails, when the thrashing becomes less violent, when the hand beating my leg starts caressing it instead, then at last will come the moment when she whimpers, ''leep wif Mummy', and I can bring her up to lie next to me, head on the pillow, hand on my face, and watch as she drifts off, still sobbing a little.
Then I lie there and let a big tear of my own slide down my cheek.

It was a long day for a little girl. And a long day for this big one too.

a little TMI for now ...

I've mentioned before how Friday's pretty clued up on the whole procreation thing. As illustrated by that experience, to my utmost relief at the time, she's still a little fuzzy about the actual mechanics, but she has the biology down pat.
We've been waiting for the penny to drop, for her brain to tick over and produce the much-anticipated question: exactly how do the mummy egg and the daddy sperm join in blissful union? I've totally been expecting The Question to come at the least convenient and most socially inappropriate time, but I wasn't expecting this ...

A book we checked out of the library on Saturday.

I guess, in retrospect, I should probably have scanned through it first. Before I found myself tucked up in bed with her that evening, innocently charging through this (it must be said, very funny and delightfully illustrated) book. In hindsight it's pretty frikkin' obvious it's a book about where babies come from right?

Especially when we got to this page:

I took a deep breath, reminded myself I'm a grown-up and soldiered through until I flipped pages and ... er ... wham!
 

Come on Babette, what did I ever do to you?

In one fell swoop you managed to;
a) drop me right in the oncoming path of Questions I May Not be Ready to Answer Just Yet (explaining the basics of the sex act just become soooo much more preferable to answering some of the questions these illustrations could inspire)
b) make me feel completely sexually unadventurous and boring (a skateboard??)
c) possibly change the way my young daughter feels about balloons forever.

Never mind all kinds of related queries pertaining to gimp balls, hallucinogenic drugs, bondage, gravity, anatomy and ornithology. Or maybe that's just me ...

However, I think Friday was as gobsmacked as I. She remained silent as I rapidly read to the end and whipped out another book, quickly changing the topic and hopefully her chain of thought.

But I know that little inquiring mind I've spawned. She'll file this somewhere, to be brought out and examined when she's ready. And one day, at the least convenient and most socially inappropriate time, she'll suddenly ask; 'Mummy, why was that Daddy in that book looking so worried while he mated with the Mummy?'

Thanks a lot Babette.

PS, I was going to apologise for how blue these photos came out but hey, it seems kind of appropriate. So I won't.

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.

wild monkey love

I really struggled to think of a title for this post which wouldn’t attract all kinds of heinous Google searches ...

I think I’ve done quite well considering the story (all true) to follow.

A few weeks back, on a weekend morning I was lying in bed with Friday when she initiated one of her endless (and so, so tedious) games of ‘mummy & baby’. This time she was a baby monkey and for a slightly less b-o-r-i-n-g take on the whole game, this time she was ‘still in my tummy’.

Where upon she tries to fold her lanky frame into a little ball on my stomach. Seriously, this is so lame.

I'm trying to place my thoughts elsewhere while she witters away when, clang! 

'Oh no wait mummy, first you must mate with a male baboon.'

Oh. My. God.

'Here comes a male mum, he wants to mate with you.'

Frozen with horror, I desperately try to work out an appropriate response to the next stage of the game while my mind shuts down on me, curling itself into a ball in the corner with its fingers in its ears.

'Wave to him mum.'

I scream at my brain to pull itself towards itself, which it does just enough to send shaky instructions to my hand. Hand waves weakly at invisible baboon lover.

'Look mum, he's imitating you, he waved back.'

Yay.

'Right, that means you've mated. Now I'm the baby in your tummy.'

Shew, that went well. 

Note to self: when she asks the actual Question (coming soon to an awkward scenario near me) I'm so getting David Attenborough on the line. He opened this can of ... baboons?

kirstenturd gardens

You know, I've long thought I wouldn't blog about this, it felt a little like crossing a line and infringing on Friday's privacy.
But then I thought hey, busloads of international tourists have borne witness to her propensity for having a poo at Kirstenbosch, so why shouldn't I blag about it on the internets?

I can name only 2 other outdoor locales in which she's turned to me with that look of immediate intention in her eye, but Kirstenbosch Gardens? I am not exaggerating (and I'll confess to being prone, but not this time) when I say at least 10 times, maybe even closer to 15, Kirstenbosch has been the place where nature has called her to heed its (particularly inconvenient and messy) bidding.

I'm not going to get into details (you'll thank me for that), but I'll tell you just enough to paint the picture of WHAT A FARKING HERO MOTHER I am.

I have dealt with 'kirstenturds' with a sleeping baby attached to my front, and with a wide awake and screaming baby strapped to my back. I have held plastic bags in strategic positions, rearranged ground cover to conceal the evidence, broken 'do not enter flower bed' rules all over the show.
I have fended off tourists with zoom lens, angry wasps, inquisitive guinea-fowl (many, many times), all while placating a troubled little defecater.
I have utilised streams, flora, recycled wax-proof (it is) paper all in the name of personal hygiene.
I have fashioned replacement garments from scarfs and beanies.
I have stoically borne the hilarity, sympathy and disbelief of many of my friends.

And I have always, because of the great respect I hold for the place and my stellar upbringing as a conservationist, always carried out all non bio-degradable fallout (often in my BAG) to be disposed of in a responsible manner (i.e. the first public bin I come to upon existing the gates).

In all fairness I should say that most of these incidents took place in the early toilet trained days, when a small girl cannot reasonably be expected to keep a handle on all bodily functions.

In fact, it was just the other day that I remarked to a friend that we'd not had a 'kirstenturd' for a long time.
So, obviously, ka-zam! this afternoon I walked out of there with 2 plastic bags of poo and a full nappy (thanks Sunday, thanks a lot).
Say. No. More.

Dude, surely not ...? 

I just have to add ...

That it flummoxes me that 'the largest bird park in Africa and one of the few large bird parks in the World', which offers visitors the unique opportunity to view, amongst other wondrous creatures: Marabou Stork, Kookaburra, Cassowaries, Golden Baboon, Porcupine, Duiker, Atacoma, Marmoset, Honey Badger, rare African Civet for goodness sakes, Birds of Paradise, Boa Constrictor etc etc etc ad nausea (that's if you inhale too deeply around the Flamingo), also offers this, in all seriousness.

The Magic Forest.

From the signs you'd think it was the most exciting part of the whole place. Your curiosity well piqued you thank your lucky stars you're not in a school group, make sure the toddler's sturdily strapped into her stroller, take the eldest firmly by the hand and push through the gate.

More promising signs of danger adventure to come.

And then, amongst the well-tended jungly pathways and the spine-tingling mossy gloom, you start encountering these ...

... no birds, no animals, the occasional ill-placed turd and more of these ...

... and sorry wtf is that?

It's unfathomable.

It's inexplicable.

It's uncannily like our lounge-room when the house still belonged to its previous owner, a 70+ yo pensioner with a penchant for hideous knick-knacks and the artful arranging thereof.

I need this one explained to me. I really, really do. Magic Forest of ultimate weirdness.

#blacktuesday

I had another post scheduled for Wednesday (now that I'm doing more regular non-blog writing I'll only be posting here 3 times a week for a while), but I couldn't let today go by unmarked.

Was I the only person who spent this historic day at home with a sick and very cranky toddler, my all black protest garb steadily getting covered in snail-trail stains of snot and tears?
It really felt like it.
Thank goodness for social media. By 12:40 it was clear I wasn't going to make it to Parliament but I got Sunday to sleep just in time to watch the disturbing outcome of the vote on the Protection of State Information Bill 'live' on Twitter.

I know I wasn't the only person who put my kids to bed this evening with a distracted and heavy heart, a bit too much snappiness and impatience, and a real concern for their future.

I spent some time yesterday evening writing an email to a friend who has been really struggling with the 'should we stay or should we go' dilemma lately. I wasn't trying to influence her decision, but I have (as all of us have I imagine) been in that space myself at times so I shared with her some of thoughts I keep in the 'dossier' in my head filed under Open When Despondent About the Future of SA.
This afternoon I almost wanted to mail her again to say 'I take it all back! Flee! Flee!'

But I didn't. Because I don't yet believe that's the only option. Times are bleak but this is our home.

Here's something from my dossier:
My parents brought my brothers and I up as one of few liberal families in a small and very conservative community. My mother tells of having moments of thinking they were insane to be raising kids in the uncertainty and (albeit invisible to our small white village) horror of 1970's South Africa. My father, an intellectual and extremely optimistic man, really didn't think he'd see a peaceful end to apartheid in his life time.
40 bizarre and miraculous years later we're doing more than okay.

There's something else I take from this today - we grew up feeling happy and secure. Whatever my parents doubts and fears, we didn't know about them until we were old enough to understand and process them.
I won't, as I fear I may have done this evening, let my girls suffer from my stress about this again.

Call me naive, no really do - because I'm choosing to be. At the end of Black Tuesday I'm choosing to be naively optimistic, with a healthy sprinkling of bitch-fight angry.
At the end of a day where I was too concerned about the future to be truly present in the now, I'm pledging to try and not make that mistake again.

I'm doing it for my girls.

everybody needs them

Good neighbours that is.

Late one night a few months back I heard the ominously distinctive noises of someone breaking into the house next door. I leaped from my warm bed, peered out the window, just in time to hear glass, a lot of glass, smashing.
It was so loud it even woke Husband. Yup, that loud.

We huddled in the shadows outside the front door, whispering details and our address to the security company on the phone, watching aghast as two figures in hoodies brazenly moved about in our neighbour's front garden.

It was cold, really cold, but we kept our posts, warmed by our conviction that we were assisting in bringing some bad guys to book.

Just before the security guards arrived we realised in distress that the burglars were readying to leave. They carried bags out to a waiting vehicle, parked just out of sight.
Husband crept out from our hiding place.
'They're leaving,' I hissed, disappointed. 'Get the reg number but don't be a hero!'

The car started up, bumped off the pavement and sped away. Giving us just enough time to read the slogan on the side:
24h Glass Repairs.

ADT Security roared round the corner, adrenalin-fulled armed guards jumping out, 'Did they come back?' they were shouting.
'Er ...'

Turns out our neighbours were broken into (for realz) a couple of hours earlier. The intruder/s made off with a DVD player. The cops were on the scene in minutes.
We heard nothing.

Everybody needs good neighbours. Even our neighbours.

but sooooo slowly ...

You know us humans are nasty, self-absorbed little critters. Well at least I am.

As my girls grow up, especially as Sunday determinedly leaves the Baby Zone, every day life is getting decidedly easier.
But do I notice this? Do I send gratitude and squishy hugs out into the universe? Do I? Noooo.

It's only when things get crappy that I realise how seldom it happens anymore, it's only when the universe says 'Oi! Remember this?!' that I take a moment to reflect on how much smoother life runs these days.

Example:
Yesterday I had to drop in at the supermarket with both girls. A scenario I usually avoid but you know, school holidays ...
I had some groceries to buy and a pack of wrong-size nappies to return.

When we got there Friday declared she'd like to wait in the car. Not going to happen. A fast and furious debate followed, her getting more vocal about not wanting to go into the shop, me getting firmer, all the while trying to avoid too much detail about exactly why she couldn't stay out in the car by herself (sometimes I think it would be so much easier to just be one of those parents who says; 'Someone will take you' and be done with it).
I get Sunday out of her car seat. Wet. Through.
Sigh.
Change her nappy on the front seat, put wet pants on dashboard to dry in the sun (I'm classy like that), strap her into the pouch and go round the car to get Friday out.
Discover that she's been spending her sulk picking holes in the pack of nappies I'd been intending on returning.
Lovely.
Finally we leave car, get across the busy parking lot and into the shop when ... my shoe breaks.
Of course.
Let's recap: one (still slightly damp) toddler, one grumpy child, one operative shoe. Groceries required. Mood = foul.

And then I realised, I haven't felt like this in ages.

There was a time not very long ago when I regularly had moments of feeling that life with two small children and their different demands was very trying. I admit to a lot of feeling sorry for myself (like I was some kind of victim - so silly really), and a liberal sprinkling of disbelief when people assured me things would get easier.
I realise now it really does get easier, but as my Mum always says, so slowly you often don't even notice.

I hereby pledge to notice more often. And be grateful. And keep spare shoes in the car.

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?

not-so-free tree

Some well meaning hippie gave Friday a tree this last weekend. We were at the Puppet Parade for the Out the Box Festival, a strange and beautiful event, when a woman dressed as a tree made out of recycled plastic bags started gathering all the (wide-eyed) kids around while her minions handed out Cape Ash saplings.
A free tree accompanied by instant environmental guilt and all-consuming 4 yr old anxiety.

'Mum, I must water my tree.'
'Mum, if I don't water the tree it'll DIE Mum.'
'I didn't water the tree today Mum, I PROMISED that lady I'd water the tree.'

Really? This is how we teach small children about greening the planet? Small children who, I might add, live in a really built up urban area, few with gardens large enough to accommodate a 15 metre tall tree.

It's a lovely sentiment, seemingly good activism, handing out trees at public events. But not so much for small kids.
My Mum was a primary school teacher in the 90's and she used to get really cross when people lectured Grade 1's about the hole in the ozone layer. Just one pfffft of an aerosol and ka-zam! hole in sky, searing heat, all your mummies and doggies burnt to a crisp die die die ...!

Sure we should teach out kids social responsibility in all forms from as early as possible, but I don't agree with burdening them with guilt about things they can't actively influence yet.
Get them to recycle - yes. Teach them not to litter - goes without saying. Explain about trees and oxygen and green spaces - of course.
But only give them what they can manage. A tree in a can is not such a thing.

And so, as a nice conscious middle-class mummy, I find myself watering the tree, worrying about the tree, appealing to friends and family to adopt the tree.
It doesn't even seem to be a Western Cape native or I'd plant it in the forest.

Cape Ash tree anyone? Free to a good home.

baby products - how not to use them

True stories all.

When Friday was just over a year old I managed to lose a small tube of Teejel in her nappy. The child whinged for hours while I got increasingly impatient with her, finally finding the hard metal tube wedged between her soft 'n downy buttocks at the next change.
Bad mother.

A friend stopped up the leaks in her aged VW Beetle for one whole winter using disposable nappies. Using the cheapest brand on the market was less expensive than the repair work would've been.
A good idea once she figured out (as every mother does) that if you don't change the nappies frequently enough they split, filling (in this case her car), with those revolting little gel balls ....
Resourceful mother.

The other night, in hurried end-of-day meltdown avoidance, I liberally squeezed Fissan Paste onto Friday's toothbrush and started brushing. Have you ever had zinc coat the roof of your mouth? Judging by her facial expression it's not very nice.
Distracted mother.

Baby products - really only to be used as per insert instructions.

C'mon, 'fess up - have you ever done anything this stupid funny?

a gross overshare

I realise most of this will be more info than you probably need, and I apologise if we've not known each other long enough to really go here, but when the 6th episode of grossness had assailed me and it was not yet 1pm on Saturday I knew I needed a record, and I was (just) starting to see the funny side.

It started with Friday throwing up in her bed. 04h45 on Saturday morning. She's not a puker so it was as much a shock to her as to me. Blame it on an overly-rich dinner (i.e. blame it on me).
I cleaned her up, got her some juice, tucked her into bed with her (naturally fast asleep) Dad and stripped her bed, taking the sheets down to the bathroom to put straight into the washer.

Dog poo on the bathroom floor. And Sunday's toothbrush floating in a large puddle of wee.
Clear poo, side-step wee, put sheets on to wash. Back to bed.

Morning, proper morning. Friday is fine, dog is forgiven, toothbrush is discarded but ... sheets are not clean. Turns out a domestic washing machine isn't equipped to deal with actual chunks of undigested calamari.
Stand on lawn to shake out (now, at least, clean) chunks. Rewash load.

Unpack dishwasher. Hand wash most of the contents which are not properly clean. Tackle dismantling and washing machine filters.
Swear by all I hold dear not to leave it so long 'til I do that again. Who knew dirty dishes could produce so much filth?!

Clear rotting lemons off lawn. Clear rotting lemon off toddler. Clear rotting lemon from own hair.

Buy veggies and eggs from the veggie-man who comes to our door on a Saturday. Discover hairline cracks on two of the eggs. Break one into a small container - fine - break the next - gag.

It was round about now I determined it would be criminal not to share the delights of my morning thus far.
But the fun wasn't over.

A short while later I hear Friday going off to the loo. Then the telltale eager footsteps of her sister discovering an open bathroom door ...
A scuffle, a shout, 'Mummmeeeeeeeeeeeee!'
Friday, in an attempt to prevent Sunday getting to the loo roll jumped off the throne mid-wee, dousing the floor, herself, and her sister.
Third load of laundry goes on.
It was 12h45.

The rest of the day was uneventful, in the gross stakes at least. I regaled a friend with my tale of woe, stood by dour-faced while she screamed with laughter, had a giggle despite myself.
Then leant on our garden wall and got my sleeve covered in bird shit.

Fun times.

How gross is your gross?