watch, learn, enact

Years ago I knew a couple who both ran NGO's, both always working to raise the funds needed to pay salaries and do the research they required.
Their 2 year old son started having nightmares about 'funders'.

A friend of Friday's (whose parents travel a lot for work), once initiated a crazed game of 'packing' - running around our house stuffing random things into a small suitcase in a harried and desperate fashion. Friday followed behind, loving the pace but slightly bemused (she whose parents rarely travel) by the concept.

Today, the daughter of a friend who works to create partnerships between various organisations, picked up our little ukelele, and sang a sweet little song with the lyrics: 'Meetings, I've got lots of meetings.'

They really are little sponges, and it's remarkable how much comes out in their play. Or, as the pictures illustrate, and we know from experience, sometimes it's got nothing to do with anything.
Except the insides of their heads. Fascinating little creatures.

celebrating life

That's all we really can do right? Make a donation to the Kenyan Red Cross, hold the affected families in our hearts, mourn for our continent, all the while acknowledging our Heritage (she still loves chickens) and continuing to celebrate the milestones of those we love.
Celebrate life, it's precious.

Beautiful, radiant, exuberant 6 year olds.

Rainbow cake for a dear friend, because I've been hankering to make another one, and she's special.

Brownie and shortbread stack for another dearest bestie.

It was a long weekend of cake, and love, and sorrow, and celebration. It was a big weekend.

hooked on washi

I've long been wary of washi tape. I just knew once I broke that seal and bought my first roll I'd be ... stuck.

Then my Mum told me one day she'd met a 'lovely lady' in the post office queue, 'She sells some kind of decorative tape online? The biggest SA supplier? She lives just down the road from you!'
Uh oh.

I drooled all over her website. But still I resisted. I vowed I wouldn't buy a single inch until I had a specific project in mind.
So when, on the weekend while painting our hallway, Husband handed me the ancient grotty light switch back plate (you know the one which obviously isn't a std size so not easily replaceable) and said, 'Here, don't you have a nice decal or something for that?', my heart started beating a little faster ...

A couple of rolls of tape (plus a couple more because, you know, I was ordering anyway right?), a tutorial found through Pinterest (of course) and 5 minutes on a rainy afternoon and ....

I'm on a roll ... 

Washi tape, I love you like I always knew I would. Oh crap.

free range art

We've been decidedly non-crafty around here for a while. The girls both make and do so much at school that I think that satisfies their creative bent for the most part, and our lovely 'art room' is pretty cold and dark during the winter months - we tend to gravitate to the sunny north-facing lounge in the afternoons.

Having said that, there's been a fair bit of spontaneous, free range art happening and I have to say I love it. Some of it is even collaborative - on Sunday's request Friday drew her a tree to adorn with leaves, apparently this piece is called a 'celebration of Spring'.

Sometimes I'm asked for specific materials, and sometimes I've just left water colours (least messy paint available), glue and silly sticky things out to be 'discovered'.

There's also still lots of colouring happening. How coy is this mermaid? Friday's been stretching her eyeballs practising the look.

And a bit of art imitating life. We've been finding lots of crabs in the garage and front garden lately, we think they must be following an internal GPS, desperately trying to get through the house to the lake out front.
I wasn't that surprised when I found this little sketch on Friday's table the other day.

But I'm keen for a project again, and have my eye on this one from the sweet new Cape Town blog Tuesdays with Megan. I'll let you know how it works out ...

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.

one year on

Friday lost a tooth this afternoon, her second this week, her 6th so far. And as she catalogued the circumstance and location of all 5 prior loses (a ritual she repeats every time), we realised one of those was almost exactly a year ago, the second night we spent in this house.

That one we suspect she swallowed, which she vehemently denied, and we let it go considering we'd just moved house and everything was new and uncertain. We left a note for the tooth fairy, and exclaimed with wonder the next morning at how she'd managed to find us, despite having only just left Observatory.

And now here we are, one year on.

The boxes are all unpacked! With the exception of two ... and one of the last was only opened last week. We've all had a birthday in this house. We've hosted Christmas and celebrated New Year. We've weathered all four seasons, although winter still feels very new.

In fact, lots still seems very new. Despite the world having turned full circle round the sun we're still seeing, smelling, feeling, discovering new things every day, and we still have moments of complete unbelievable awe that we live in such a beautiful place.

Happy birthday house on the lake. Thank you.

PS, thanks to my friend Bronwyn for the street sign shots in the header - all the way from Brisbane!

undecipherable play

I really ...

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

And I'm a little afraid to ask.

gender bender

In keeping with the dichotomy which is this child, the two central tropes in Sunday's life at the moment are
a) how she CAN'T WAIT to have her babies and
b) how she's actually a boy, not a girl.

The boy thing has been around for some time. She loves a pretty frock, likes to think 'pink is her favourite colour' like her sister, but lest you be very careful of using the wrong gender pronouns or she'll rake you over hot coals.
She was having a vaccination shot last week and afterwards the nursing sister declared her to be 'such a brave girl'. Both Friday and I looked up in horror - nooooooo - but it was too late. 'I'm not a girl!' Sunday shrieked as the poor nurse floundered, eventually doling out lollipops to lighten the mood and commenting instead on their 'lovely blonde hair' until Friday told her 'my daddy's black' (what?) and I saw the woman's eyes glaze over with confusion as she ushered us out of her office declaring we'd been the 'most fun she'd had all day'.
In the car on the way home Friday muttered, 'I meant Daddy's hair is black', while Sunday rambled on about how she was a nice lady but 'a bit silly to not see that I'm a boy hey Mum?'

We indulge the phase, knowing from earnest conversations that she does really know what's what, but just chooses to live this fantasy for now. And as a child who really, really wanted a willy for my 5th birthday I'm okay with letting this one play itself out.

However the baby thing has been around for even longer. Friday had no interest in dolls as a smallie, but Sunday's maternal urge is strong. We all recall how when she'd just started crawling she'd collect dishtowels around the kitchen and clutch them to her chest, patting them hard and saying 's, s, s'.
She has a small but beloved collection of dolls, named Eyeball, Cucumber, Zebareba and Su'Lala (I couldn't make this shit up if I tried), and the subject of babies (growing them, birthing them and raising them) occupies a lot of her conversation.
For now she's happy playing with her dolls, but beware statements such as: 'You're such a good Mum.'
Oh no, if asked she's a big brother, a father or a granddad to this special bunch of weirdly-named kids.

So it was heart-breaking to watch, yesterday morning as her big eyes welled up with tears, the dawning comprehension that the two dreams had no clear intersect.
Chatting away about how she's a big boy, she suddenly had a moment of clarity and started sobbing, 'But if I'm a boy how will I have my babies Mum?'
My eyes teared up too. It's a sad thing watching the shattering of a dream, however nonsensical it may seem.

She tried to convince me that 'some boys can have babies' but I squashed that one pronto. There are limits to how much fantasy I consider it healthy to indulge. We chatted about adoption instead.
In conclusion she decided that when she was ready to have babies she might decide to be a girl again after all.
You go my boy.

My big boy, in a fairy frock, holding his her baby up to see out the bird hide.

planet kids, muizenberg

I'm not a fan of indoor play places (sometimes I think I'm such a parenting grinch), but Planet Kids in Muizenberg is truly an exception.

A beautiful building, huge room, high ceilings, wooden floors and lots and lots of creative, original and stimulating play to be had.

Exciting sit-on slide, takes kids up to 35kg.

All manner of ride-on's. These padded platforms with wheels and some gorgeous little wooden cars too.

Lovely wooden puzzles and a couple of fooz-ball tables for some calmer fun.

Great imaginative 'ball wall' - with lots of different sized balls and holes to lob them through.

Plus, two indoor jumping castles - one is a UFO with aliens inside! A corner for smaller kiddies, comfy seating for the grown-ups, coffee, an outside jungle gym etc for sunny days, a fun collection of party stuff for sale and a dedicated room for birthday parties.
What's not to love?

FEAT. socks

So ... I bought husband some socks for his birthday last month. Amongst other things okay? Sheez.

I bought him some fancy-pants socks from Feat. sock co. - a wee bamboo/cotton blend nod to hipsterville and all that he ain't.
His birthday was in mid-July, and last week I noticed one of the socks had a hole in the toe.

So I thought what the heck, and sent them a mail kindly inquiring whether they'd send someone round to darn it?
That was on Friday.
On Monday replacements were hand-delivered to our front door.

Considering he wears biker boots all day they gently suggested he try some from their more rugged cotton/nylon blend range. Probably not a bad plan.

I like this kind of service. I like supporting local brands who take this kind of pride in their reputation. I even like their little sock movie (how cute are those scallop-edged socks for girls?).

And I thought seeing as I have a modest public platform here, I'd thank them publicly. Thanks Feat!