Happy birthday baby

When I look into your blue eyes, stars twinkling in the sky, when I feel your hand touch mine I feel a warmth so deep and fine. You have a piece of my heart always there when you need me just like I know you are here when ever I need you, an angel sent from above to hold me and help me find my way.

Happy birthday sweetheart, I love you xxx

Missing you

Got this from my boy few days ago.
I thought things were ok, and it was easier than I had imagined it.....until last night.  Then I realised things are not ok. 

I miss him like crazy :(

I cried ;(

Drifting away from ma....

Thank you Mr A for reminding me of this poem and making me cry. 
I found it and I remember we did this at school when we were kids, it means a lot more to me today than back then....it took a few years but I finally understand it! 


Walking Away was published in 1962. C Day-Lewis dedicated this poem to his first son and recalls a day when he was watching him go in to school. 

- Walking Away - 

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –

A sunny day with leaves just turning,

The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play

Your first game of football, then, like a satellite

Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away

Behind a scatter of boys. I can see

You walking away from me towards the school

With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free

Into a wilderness, the gait of one

Who finds no path where the path should be.

That hesitant figure, eddying away

Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,

Has something I never quite grasp to convey

About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching

Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.

I have had worse partings, but none that so

Gnaws at my mind still.  Perhaps it is roughly

Saying what God alone could perfectly show –

How selfhood begins with a walking away,

And love is proved in the letting go.

Jameson Memorial Hall

Your lack of experience scares me my child but ... love is proved in the letting go.

I love you.

Claim to fame

Just the other day I moaned about my beach bum. Now that very same one who we call Moo is to be praised for his achievements.

We got up early this morning to go out and buy a newspaper with the matric results. I don’t know how they do it in other countries but here in SA it’s printed every year at this time; all the schools in the country and every single child that wrote grade 12 final exams get their names printed in the paper if they pass. If you achieved university entrance (and every kid wants that, or most anyway) your name will have a symbol next to it. If you have achieved distinctions (above 80%) in a certain subject then the subject name appears next to your name. The actual certificate with the results you have to collect from the school a bit later in the morning, so the anticipated newspaper is the big excitement from about 05h30 in the morning.

Where am I going with this? 

Well of course Moo did well, very well...all I’m asking is who claims the fame?

Is he gifted or a genius? Maybe, we never tested him for that; and he doesn’t have all the characteristics of a genius; like he’s not scared of the seams in his socks :)

Who does he take after in the family? My side or husbands side?   *at least he has my looks, that's all I'm saying...*

So who deserves to be congratulated?
Speaking to one of his teachers this morning he congratulated Moo and us the parents.

And yes I do agree we should get some credit for it, we raised him and have been teaching him from his first 'ma-ma' syllables. Putting a child through school nowadays is very expensive and a lot of hard work. So I accept the congratulations.

We are so very proud!

Some of the teachers are really dedicated and right from primary school they too deserve some credit for their hard work and dedication in the classroom. Mr Amod who taught life sciences (biology) is my favorite teacher and although he says that teaching Moo was a reward for him in his profession I really think we were lucky and privileged to have known him. And I will take his advise and 'bask in glory' as he says. It is every parents dream to give good parental support and just have an honest hard working gentleman leave the house one day.  

But I had a good laugh today. Even wombat wants to claim her bit of fame too. Wombat (my mother) different to the one in Spud but just as crazy....She says that her grandfather was very clever! LOL!

I’m sorry if you don’t find that funny (it had me in stitches) read Spud and you’ll understand how funny this is.

But seriously now...the claim to fame must be his. 

For every night burning the midnight oil, drinking tea or milo and playing classical music that kept me awake
For every weekend in his room busy with tons of homework or studying

Every Saturday evening when we were in the lounge watching movies and eating popcorn and he was in his room - busy with homework! 
For every weekend that we couldn't go out without his timetable permission. Where does all that school work come from and why is he always doing so much studying?

Results show us where all that hard work has gone. He took seven subjects (some kids can take extra if they like) and he got all seven distinctions!

So Moo, CONGRATULATIONS, you do deserve all the credit, your hard work and dedication has paid off. Well done my boy. 

We are so very proud of you!

   xoxo

My Beach bum

Some time ago I posted about ‘why animals eat their young?’ I came close this morning. Very close. I was hungry maybe that explains my grumpy mood.

So Moo is ready to leave the house, we bought him pots, plates, cutlery etc etc. Spent a fortune this December getting him ready for his move and almost independent life in an apartment flat just under my cousin’s house.

He leaves at the end of this month for his new adventure and new life in varsity in Cape Town.

And so many and I mean so many people tell me he’s going to be ok, I must cut the apron strings, I must let go, he’s a grown man. Blah blah blah.

This morning he asked me to make his ‘bed nice’ in other words make his bed up. Then he came to the kitchen to make his cereal and left the soya milk container open on the counter, the cupboard was open the cereal box out of the cupboard unclosed on the counter the bowl was left on the floor next to the sofa...must I go on?

Yes I flipped, how can he be ready to leave and be independent when he can’t get simple things straight?

I love making his bed nice, and that he asks every morning, I want him to want me and to need me and to feel like he can’t live without mom. But sometimes the laziness just drives me insane, beach bum with no beach!

*sigh*

Any way that was the morning we ended off the afternoon with a good swim all three of us and I look forward to tomorrow morning.  We made peace! Let’s see if the cereal box finds its way back into the cupboard. Should I hold my breath?

Can I hold you one more time?

January 2007 - first day of high school

A milestone is a stage in your life that marks the completion of a phase. It’s a high level event and it could be in your career, spiritual or love life, or it could just be a physical or emotional development you have reached.

When you have a baby you know that any baby book you pick up is FULL of milestones that parents look forward to and if you don’t follow them from a book then you spend your life comparing your children with every other child.  And I don’t mean that in a bad way it’s just the way life is, life revolves around them for a few years and we eat drink and sleep children.  Talk about them all the time even when it is not appropriate somehow they always pop up into the conversation.  Then for some time you stop anticipating those milestones. Hey they can walk and have said so many words and have all their teeth that you kind of forget about them for a while and you just wish they’d hurry up and grow up!

From growing pains to big feet to voice changes and hair on the face it all happened in a blink of an eye. When they reach their teens they become more independent, they know everything, mood swings set in (oh yes boys have them big time). And they form some kind of weird identity that you are not quite sure you understand or like.  They want a lock in their bedroom door, all of a sudden they develop a taste for some horrible music and they can and do choose their own clothes. They express their feelings, tell you when they are angry and give you opinions you don’t like all the time ... pfft as if I was ever allowed to have an opinion when I was a kid!

Milestones this year ... they are too many and too close.

The first day of high school is so close to the last day that it’s scary!

Honestly where did these last five years go?

I blinked and already we have reached that ONE scary milestone in life – Moo has officially finished school! Matric final exams start this coming Monday and then he is going out into the real world.

October 2011 - last day of high school

I’m writing this and my eyes can’t hold back the tears anymore, they are rolling down my cheeks and I ask you my child –
“Can I hold you one more time before you grow, can I do your tie again?  Let me put toys in your bath tonight and comb your hair one last time.  Let me help you with your homework....tell me about your day and hug me again around my waist.
I'll tell you your favorite story tonight and fall asleep in your bed.
I want to be a part of every little thing you do. 
Can I hold you one more time?”

What an emotional milestone we have reached in our lives, my hubby and I, he seems to be coping with it all and I am falling apart. I know, I know this is all part of life and I will be smiling again soon, but today I want to be sad just because I can.  

Tell me my child can I hold you one more time before you grow?

Ouch! Ouch!

That's how I like them...nice, smooth & clean shaven

Hair removal for women is not a walk in the park there are so many promises of pain free hair removal, but nah who are we kidding when we say it’s not sore. 

My under arm has been waxed since my late teens so it’s used to it by now. But the brazilian?!!

I have to do it, I have adopted that motto “good girls wax floors, bad girls wax their bikini line or they do a brazilian.” When that first RRRIP comes...you try to stay calm, conscience and breathe, you pant and hold your breath for the next big RRRIP!!

The funny thing is my lady (I call her Inga, it sounds large and mean and nasty but her real name is Linda and she is actually petit) she keeps saying it’s not sore, the worst is over. Ya right! Ya think!? Come here let me do yours.
Why I endure this pain repeatedly I don’t know.

I’m a real hair fighting champion so I keep going back, what a winner!  The truth is I really hate beards and hairy men (and women). The kind that shave all the way to their collar bones, the ones that have to wear long sleeves and it creeps from under the shirt cuff, or the ones that have these carpets on their back.  Yuk, I’m cringing at the thought, honestly.

So when the boys were old enough to understand, since about five or maybe two :) I have been telling them 'if you are hairy when you grow up you’ll be going for a wax.'  It’s that simple. And in the days of fashionable, modern men that have manicures and facials and wear pink and they still manage look mucho - what’s a wax? It’s just a another thing they have to do to look good.  Sportsmen also wax or do whatever it takes to remove hair for the sake of sports...

So where am I going with all of this? 

Poor poor Tigs, he has more than he needs and I’ve kind of been hoping that he’d grow into it.  He cycles and has been toying with the idea of shaving.  I’ve been tempting him to wax (better option). I won the battle today!  We went for our first wax!

Men are tough, they can hunt, shoot, build and chop, they go for tattoos  - but they are sissies on that bed. My poor child was not cut out for it. Inga was immune to his moans, a ruthless perfectionist making sure every single hair was removed.

Tigs yelped, had a seizure, was shaking, terror in his eyes, foaming and pinching me. He groaned in different languages and his voice changed a few times. 

He has PTSD = Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder! He came home with some kind of tic!

I know that if he does this a few more times it will weaken the hair and lessen it a bit, making him less hairy.  But I have a feeling he won’t be going back anytime soon, his memory will not allow it.
And then what am I and Inga going to do for fun? Oh I suppose we will go back to me and my brazilian.

He won't allow me to facebook about this experience but he doesn't know I'm blogging about it, it's my revenge, for those sleepless nights he gave me when he was just a baby...ha ha. He says he looks like a girl, people are stupid if they keep going back to do this, I think it looks clean and he has awesome legs, good muscle definition, but I am a bit biased....

Men need to feel a bit of pain once in their lives. It's good for them, builds character. 
Now what can I do to Moo so they are equal? 
I'm feeling a bit like an evil mom today...but that won't last long, it too shall pass.
xxx

Brag a little

I don't always brag about my children, sometimes I am so busy with the negatives that I don't always see the positive.  It's not just about them it's the negatives of life, work, finances and just in life in general.  So sometimes we forget the good and the positive even in our children.


And so many times I wish I was part of the animal world so I could eat my young but shame they are really good kids.  And there are many positives and many good things to brag about.


They are home, they are each in their rooms studying; well one of them is, the other might be watching TV with the book on his lap. They are respectful, religious, well behaved teenage boys.  They are very funny and loving. 
And many people find them quiet but actually they talk a lot.  I like to drive them to school and pretend to listen to the radio and instead listen to them.  The stories of what happens in an all boy school is unbelievable, sometimes funny and other times shocking!


So today I am thankful, grateful and proud of the two boys in my house.  You two are beautiful & gorgeous (like me) intelligent (like dad - hate admitting that) and I'll brag about you again soon and more often. 


In this picture are all my kids 'any good friend my son has is also a child of mine' 




My boys & my other children 



love you lots and lots like jelly tots 

Why do animals eat their young?

Ever wonder why in the animal kingdom they sometimes eat their young?   Strange thing, nature can’t always be explained or maybe it can and we just don’t understand it.  Is it cannibalism if fish eat their baby fish?

I actually don’t sit and think about this type of thing until one of my own young starts to annoy me.  Then and only then (I promise) I have this strange puzzling thought …

Kids are taking too damn long to grow up, maybe I should just eat them!

They do nothing by the book! Why? There are a number of books on child rearing, teaching them good Christian principles and values and discipline.  So many good authors and books to choose from.  The problem is that by the time you have read and understood that one chapter and tried to apply it the child is in another age group or milestone altogether and you’ve missed the boat. 

And then they just don’t do anything by the book. They are different.

Why don’t they just come with an instruction manual, it would be available in many languages folded nicely into a little pamphlet that you can never get right again.  

*sigh*

If I had the energy to pick a up a book now on child discipline etc. I would add these notes at the back under the word Tigs –

•      Cute as can be, I can do anything I like my eyes will-let-you-let-me
•      To clean him something else must become dirty
•      The later he stays up the more grumpy he is in the morning
•      Mess in his room multiplies in every available corner
•      If you want him to do something don’t ask, if you ask he won’t do it
•      Patience!
•      Can’t wait to drive a car but doesn't know how to use a lawnmower
•      Hates school and does not see the need to go 
• 
  

This would be under Moo -

• The more time you spend on the meal the less he will eat
• The quickest way to get his attention is to sit down and look comfortable
• Patience!
• Mess in his room multiplies in every available corner, in little neat piles 
• If you want him to do something don’t ask, if you ask he won’t do it

  

Why is the one list longer than the other? 

Well it was Tigs turn to be ‘eaten’ this week, so I have more to moan about – just unbelievable how he can have absolutely no worries about school work.  All the teachers are at fault, of course, it’s not him.  He never has homework, he studies the night before and then it’s no wonder the marks look the way they do.  This week has been one of those where I wanted to eat one of my young or just be like a lion that slaps his cubs so hard they yelp, fall over and come back to play with the temperament a little milder if only for a few minutes.

hmmm this cub looks scared and he might not need that slap and the lion is so much bigger.  In my case the roles are reversed, my cubs are taller than me, they don't look frightened when I stand and stare up at them.  The impact is just not the same.  

The joys the ups and the downs of motherhood.  Wish they were still this size .... little sweeter, little milder, and the desire to eat them then was less.

One day these boys will be men, 
My heart my soul my pride my joy my boys my everything. 
I won't eat them today.

Last few hours...

‎"There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it." Mary Wilson Little

That was life for the past six weeks and I have reached my last few hours of ‘rest’ just as I started enjoying myself and doing nothing.  Back to work on Monday!  *sigh*

Doctor gave the go-ahead for everything including driving.  Yeah that's a plus for me.
Still a little sore and sensitive around the tummy but definitely feeling better.

Oh these last weeks were not all such a failure, managed to read four books and I'm on number five already.  Watched a million movies some really good ones. 

Started my fabric painting, a table cloth that has been in the cupboards for years.  All I have done is one corner, but it’s a start. 

Of all the canvas I had prepared I only worked on one.  Will have to concentrate harder from now on because as usual I have a million little projects to do before the end of the year. 

And then there’s the blog that also happened somewhere in the six weeks.  Not bad at all ! 

And today I spent the afternoon spoiling the boys with homemade cookies.  Made my famous ‘surprise cookies’ and a batch of ‘fudge biscuits’ these will not see the end of the weekend.  And there was still time for another family favorite that will last about a week – my granola. 

granola 

I can share one recipe today and I know you don’t have this one, it’s so easy, it’s child’s play and of course it’s yummy - The Surprise Cookies  

1 cup margarine, ½ cup sugar, 2 cups flour, 1 tea spoon vanilla essence, pinch of salt, slab of plain cadbury’s chocolate cut into small pieces, castor sugar for dusting

Beat sugar and margarine until creamy, add flour and remaining ingredients.  Make little balls and put one small piece of chocolate in the centre.  Roll in castor sugar.  Bake until golden. 

Enjoy  :)

xoxox

July 1993

What happened in July 1993?

An earthquake hit Hokkaido, Japan. 

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical ‘Sunset Promenade’ opens in London.

Jurassic park was released and it would be a movie my kids would watch some years later.   

It was in July 1993 that the date for South Africa’s first non-racial democratic elections was announced (27 April 1994). 

Marcio was born.

On Monday, 12 July 1993 - I was on my way to Mary Mount Maternity.  That was the day my first son Moo was born. 

Minutes after being born

                                               

I know all moms think their babies are beautiful, but mine was absolutely gorgeous!

Moo is 18 years old today!

He’s got his learners and is taking driving lessons.  He is in matric and applications for universities are being filled along with bursary applications *keeping fingers crossed*.

I can’t believe how fast 18 years have flown, you come home with your first baby and bundle of joy and there are a million milestones ahead...sitting up, the first tooth, the first steps and the first real words.  The first day of school!  

  

his temper tantrums are still similar to this one 

And then somewhere in-between it all stops and things just happen with no big fuss.

It’s like time stops for a while although they are growing up and you are most certainly getting older. Life happens all around you and things go un noticed for a while.  Then it hits you like a bomb!  

Those milestones are back.  Your son is in high school and before you know it he is in his last year of school and ready to enter the world of ‘young adult’.  

That’s where we are at the moment.  Of course I’m not ready for it.  My heart is sore at the thought that he might go and study in Cape Town only about one thousand kilometres away.    

I am scared of the day he takes the car out on his own.  And let’s not talk about girls.  My heart is in my throat and there’s a knot in my tummy thinking about that first day at varsity on his own. 

Yuks that’s when you realise just how old you have become, when your children are young adults. 

This is my boy –

Hardworking, shy, giant, quiet, determined, motivated, dreamer, soft spoken, stubborn, cheeky, loving, sensitive, handsome, emotional, sense of humour, religious, genius ....

He’s the apple of my eye and my Moo. I wish he was still a little boy.  I love him. 

He is still my baby

                                                      

*sigh*
lots and lots o' love from mom

xoxo