Halloween!

Oh, did we have fun this Halloween!!

After a few glitches (my son wanting to dress up as a fairy) … (my son’s extreme disapproval of my ghoulish makeup and black nail polish. Especially the black nail polish), we were good to go!!

Adam was a little apprehensive at the first house, but got a great reception (helps when you have lovely neighbours), then, as soon as he discovered people were GIVING him SWEETS, he was on full throttle excitement!

There were plenty of kids running around and we got the scoop from them on what houses were dishing out sweets. I enjoyed prancing around in my witch outfit, although some little brat asked me to take off my mask so he could look at it… *snotklap*.. Here is my death-knight testing out my broom!!

The Death-Knight and Daddy cruising the streets, scoping the neighbourhood for treats.

His little orange pumpkin was filled to overflowing by the time we were done!

And look at the stash!!!!!! I was totally impressed with the spirit of the people in the complex! (this is only about half of it).

The Death-Knight was particularly pleased with his bag of blood and took great delight in “painting” his mouth with “blood”. The stuff was sickly sweet and, after all the sugar, he was bouncing around on a massive sugar high. After all the excitement and sugar, needless to say, bed time was a little tricky!

Adam

Of all the photos that I have edited today, here are a few of Adam that I thought I would share.

I love my landscape photography – but this is still my favourite little subject…

Feeding Daisy (look at the delight on his face…). Excuse the odd editing – I was bored after all the colour of the landscapes earlier!!

Sitting in the grasses in the setting sun

Little monkey – copying what Mummy does with her tripod…

WAKA WAKA!

Mzanzi for shorrrre!!!

Can you feel it?!! For the rest of my life I will remember waking up on 11 June 2010 to the sound of vuvuzelas blaring. What an incredible way to start the day!

It is here!!! A nation united. For real. I have never felt such a fever pitch of excitement in my life. The Rugby World Cup Final is the only thing that comes close.

We blew our vuvuzela too (check out the vein popping in the neck)!

Shapa Bafana Bafana Shapa!! South Africa is ROCKING!

It is time! It is Africa’s time!

Hola Bafana Bafana Hola!

Show dem South Africa Show Dem. Today we make the Circle Beega!!!!

Persistence & Determination

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. - Calvin Coolidge

Today Dave ran the Comrades Marathon. It is such an enormous achievement that my brain still struggles to comprehend it. 90km. He was running from before the sun rose (5:30am), right through the morning, right through lunch and into the late afternoon. I have known many people who have had big dreams and aspirations (and I place myself at the top of that list). I know people who have wanted to do things, wished to do things and hoped to do things. But there is a huge difference between wanting to do something, believing that you can do it, and actually putting in the work and effort to do what needs to be done to reach your goal.

Dave really is an inspiration to me and I know that one day he will be an inspiration to his son too. I can’t even begin to comprehend the sheer determination and effort it took to get up day after day and run the kilometers needed to get him to this point. No Excuses. No Bullshit. I really hope that Adam will inherit his father’s character and not mine!

We tracked his progress throughout the day and when he finally crossed the line I was probably just as emotional as he was! He finished after 10 hours and 43 minutes of running! Exactly as planned.

Adam and I made Dave a good luck card and wrote on the front, “You are my hero Daddy” … and I know it will be true for Adam, today and always…

Crazy-Meds Please!

What was I thinking. In the name of all that is good and true…

What possessed me to (((volunteer))) to be an adult chaperone on a Grade-00 visit to see Pinocchio at the Baxter.

I am to be in charge of Adam and three of his co-horts. If I can’t keep one Adam under control, what am I going to do with four of them??

For an entire production of Pinocchio…

Oh, make it go away!

SOS From Mummy-Ville….

Please send re-inforcements!! Mummy needs re-inforcements!!

Or maybe a glass a red wine.

Or Two.

Make that two bottles…

Anyway….

Reporting back on the adventures of Mummy-hood this week, four notable encounters are worth mentioning to convey the depth of my…  [[[[insert suitable description, I was going to go with "suffering", but perhaps that's being overly dramatic...]]]]

Oh, fukkit, let’s go with “suffering” for now.

• Incident One: I have realised that all children learn to play the “play-play” game at some point. By “play-play” I mean some variation of “house-house” or similar. The common interpretation is that kids act out what is going on in their understanding of their world. Little children will play “house-house” or “school-school. Just how they all magically come to name their games some double-barrel version of reality eludes me. It just makes me more convinced that they are all conspiring against us adults and have some secret society and shared consciousness that only they understand. So, kids may play “nurse-nurse” or “mommy-mommy” or even ”shop-shop” etc. All good and groovy. It’s normal behaviour, because they are replicating their experiences… so, please tell me… why, oh why, would my child — of all the options available (doctor-doctor would be my profession of choice) — why would my child turn around and announce “Mommy! Let’s play naughty-naughty”… where did I go wrong…??

 

• Incident Two: Took Adam for a walk around the neighbourhood for a lovely late afternoon stroll. Lovely weather. Perhaps a little too cool, but hey, we brave bone-chill winds and hypothermia for the sake of our children (don’t we?). On our walk we came across two dead trees. I proceeded to explain to my child that the trees were dead. (oh, why didn’t I see the vast chasm opening before me and stop myself…) … My innocent statement was followed my the inevitable  “why mommy”. Ah, yes, the concept of death… [[[fuckit, fuckit, fuckit]]] ”Well Dear…” I proceeded to pull apart a few alive trees to expose the green, moist interior. We then compared out stalks with similar stalks from the dead trees. Brown, hard and dry vs. green, soft and moist. My child observed both and was able to comprehend and explain the difference between dead and alive (mental patting on the back). Feeling well chuffed at my parental capabilities we continued with our day. Later that evening my child managed to allow his finger to find its way into his nose (don’t look at me like that… if your kids don’t do it, they will soon…). When I spotted him and reprimanded him, he proceeded to tell me “it’s okay mommy, the snot is dead, I must take it out…” … … … … (dead as in dry and crusty,… not moist and … uggggggghhhh).

 

• Incident Three: God help me, I have the most observant child in the universe. Driving home the other night he announces “five more lights mommy” [[eh??]] Not one to ignore my child, I say “what do you mean baby?”… “four more lights mommy” [[WTF??]] getting slightly frustrated I continue to probe “mommy doesn’t understand what you mean, tell me another way”… “THREE MORE LIGHTS…” [[[Seriously... WTF??]]] … “Umm… Addy, Mommy doesn’t understand…” … “TWO MORE LIGHTS TILL WE’RE HOME”… it dawns on me that the kid knows how many lightposts it is untill we get home… and he started counting down before we turned the corner, so he knows this shit from memory. I am still slightly spooked. I mean, I have been known to count things, and I should be programmed to understand it, but …????

 

• Incident Four: More on the observant front… the other day my child noticed that the moon had moved in the sky. Yes, within the space of 2 hours, he had noticed that it had moved. Of course, following this observation, we had the dreaded question… “why mommy…?” [[[fuckit, fuckit, fuckit to hell]]] I tried to explain, to a three year-old, to the best of my ability, that the moon moves around the earth and that is why it looks like it moves in the sky. I demonstrated with my fists and some expansive circular arm movements. He seemed satisfied with the explanation and we moved on with our day (mental patting on the back). Blow me down if, yesterday, between the morning and the afternoon, my child has realised that, not only does the moon move in the sky, but the frikken SUN does too… “why mommy…?” [[[fuckit, fuckit, fuckit to hell three times and back or more...]]]… I think my answer to that one was “oh, look!!! a plane…..!!”   

Please send large quantities of red wine ASAP, my nerves are shot and I have used up all my mommy-mental-agility.

I.NEED. HELP!!!

Cupcakes

Adam (I provided guidance) made cupcakes on Mother’s Day. He did all the measuring and pouring and stirring.

He switched the oven to the right temperature and he sat and watched them get “tall”. He decorated them with much diligence and ate them with much delight and enjoyment.

It’s moments like this that mean the world to me.

Puddles & Mud

Following on from my earlier post about the rain…

(forgive the archive of photos, but me and my photoshop – we had a passionate moment!!)

After the downpour, Adam and I donned our winter woolies and went in search of puddles (a Caroline inspired one-handed photo, hence the off-centre):

The monkey in full winter regalia – you would think it was 15 below!

We found a few puddles outside, splashy enough, but not what I was after… I wanted MUD!

Off we went to the vlei to look for MUD… and boy did we have fun!! Dirty, dirty mud + permission to play in it = heaven for little boys:

A Running jump

And yes, the pants were soaked up to the thighs and there was more water in the wellies than out!

And I got in on the action too. I was barefoot the whole time…

Gooey, squelching, oozing mud. Between my toes.

I was dreading having to do it. It was one of the things on my list that I really thought I could do without. But now I would tell everyone – take off your shoes and walk through mud puddles. Do it now, do it tomorrow. There is something primal and elemental about walking in the mud barefoot.

# 8 of 101 Walk barefoot in the mud

Grrrr…. is for Grumpy

Three Things

1. My Laptop stopped working
2. My ipod stopped working

Those two, on their own, enough to send me over the edge… then my son does this to me:

When driving home this weekend, he leans over and rubs me appreciatively along my arm and side. (Have I mentioned my child’s affection?? It is beyond bizarre. It is both inexplicable and incredible that the offspring of two decidedly stand-offish, emotionally distant parents is a positive fountain of emotional expressiveness. It must be a recessive gene.)

Anyway, I digress. My child rubs me and, as he is wont to do, declares how much he loves me, and rubs me again. I say: “Thank you my baby – that’s a lovely rub”. To which he replies “no, it’s not a lovely rub, it’s a blubly rub” (I also need to mention that my baby has a speech problem we are trying to sort out). So I ask: “what do you mean – a blubly rub?”. He rubs me again along my side and tummy to demonstrate: “not a lovely rub mummy, a blubly rub”, and the meaning sinks in.

Not a lovely rub. A bumpy  rub – commentary on my fat rolls. The little snot.

So,

1. laptop
2. ipod
3. bumpy

= G.R.U.M.P.Y.

Little Drummer Boy

Even though these photos were also taken as Spier. I thought they deserved their own post.

Adam loves his music. One of his favourite things to do is to allocate an instrument to as many people as possible and then have them follow behind him in a “band” while he sings (usually The Grand Old Duke of York).

During out travels at Spier on Saturday we walked past these drums and he couldn’t resist.

He picked it up pretty quickly too:

First Attempt: Straight Arm Jab

Learning Fast: Watching Intently & relaxing those hands…

getting the hang of it… (still watching)…

Getting into it… getting the rhythm going…

Happy Boy!!!