So Close

They might be slightly henpecked, but at least they are warm

Mel: What are you going to get your husband for Father’s Day?

Me: I have no idea! And it is bloody Marko’s birthday next week as well. I don’t know what to get him

Mel: I think I am going to get Gary some nice warm pajamas. I’ve got him to love pajamas now.

Me: I’ve got Marko to like pajamas, thermal underwear and sheepskin slippers

Mel: Our poor husbands

Me: I know. There is nothing quite like emasculating your husband, is there.

Why it is important to check on the kids if it suddenly goes quiet

(Updated to add more info because my husband just called me to say WHAT IS THAT WHITE STUFF ON THE KIDS, IT BETTER NOT BE PAINT!  The white stuff is butt cream! An old one they found in the cupboard. Luckily it wasn't all over the carpet.  Apparently Adam was the Doctor and Kate the patient)

I think my dog needs Dog Ritalin for her ADHD

It is ball achingly cold here in Cape Town. I woke up this morning and saw everything was covered in a blanket of white – OMG I thought, snow in Cape Town! Global warming! The end is nigh!  No wonder it is so bloody cold. 

Except that it wasn’t a blanket of snow. It was a blanket of a million tiny pieces of chewed up foam mattress.

Shelley has entered the ‘terrible twos’ of puppy world. She is a whirlwind one-dog destroying-machine. Nothing is safe. Not the beautiful foam filled cot mattresses I so loving put in the kennel, not the nice warm blankets which are now lying in the mud outside, not the toys, the foliage; not even poor Bruno whose only wish is to spend his retirement years in peace and quiet.

The scary thing is that I have at least another 12-18 months of this kind of behaviour left. I am not sure my garden and home will survive it.

She is damn lucky she is so cute.
 

  

I better mind my Ps and Qs, and especially my Fs

Just when I wanted to reduce my hours at work, I’ve been put on several big cross country projects. Grrr! Although I shan’t complain too loudly, I secretly love being busy. Plus I get to do these projects from home in the comfort of my PJs and sheepskin slippers. 

As you might know, I do comms for a division of IBM (who by the way, have nothing to do with this blog and whose opinions, views and thoughts are in no way reflective of mine and blah blah usual disclaimer stuff*). Now, on the spectrum between extremely staid and like, totally chilled dude, IBM are probably closer to staid than they are to laid back. Which means I’ve had to curb my natural exuberance, potty mouth and toilet humour somewhat when I send out my comms, newsletters etc. But even with my marked restraint, they all think I am totally mad and seem to enjoy my goof ball sense of humour. I think I’ve broken them in. 

Like for example, I sent out a questionnaire thingy for my newsletter to a few people on the sales team. These were some of the questions in the interview:

Which parts of your job gets you excited? (besides the exceptionally exciting possibility of seeing me at the office)

What is the hardest part of your job? (besides having to deal with the disappointment of not seeing me)

If you weren’t doing this, what else would you be doing? (fishing / travelling the world / telling Tertia how gorgeous she is etc)

But this new project is a whole different ballgame. South Africans are one thing; foreigners are a whole other kettle of fish. I know the British and Australian sense of humour (much like ours) and I know the American sense of humour (50% of the people have an excellent sense of humour, the other half are too busy being offended to be amused). But now I am dealing with people like the GERMANS and the SWISS – are they even ALLOWED to have a sense of humour? Zat vas a joke, ja!

I am going to have to think grown up thoughts and do my best to be business like at all times. I guess that means no xxx at the bottom of my emails or risqué innuendos. Goodness, I hope I manage. 

*I got into BIG trouble recently for mentioning IBM and my boobs in the same interview. (The NYT interview) Please note that IBM have nothing to do with my boobs, nor are my boobs reflective of the views, thoughts (proper or otherwise) or opinions of IBM. 

My blog is a browser crasher

Help!  Apparently my blog is crashing several people's browsers (I think those on IE). I have no idea why. I don't think I've added anything new recently so no idea why it could be doing that. Anyone have any idea how to fix it?

UPDATE: I emailed the lovely people at Typepad who responded really quickly to my cry for help. Really excellent service! They seem to think it is one of their widgets that could be causing the problem. I've removed it and things should hopefully be ok. Apologies about that and let me know if it is still causing problems.

PS For those who aren't already on Firefox - do yourself a favour and download it now.

Family comes first!

Marko works incredibly long hours and has been away from home quite a lot lately. If I wasn’t such a lovely domesticated wife who gave him lots of sex and home cooked meals, I would be worried he was having an affair. Oh…wait….

Anyway, the poor guy works really hard and so it is really unfair of me to get just a tiny bit cross that he sees so little of the kids. But I can’t help it. I want him to tell his employer that he has a FAMILY, a young family at that, and he can’t spend 12, 13, 14 hours a day at work. Marko says that is just how it is and employers don’t care about the fact that you have a family at home. I think that’s BS and there is no way on this earth that I would accept not seeing my kids. 

I know, I know, it isn’t always as easy as that, and I am very lucky that I can work the hours I do, but dammit, I think that sometimes we (read him) need to put our foot down and say ‘this is my family’s time’.

I am going away for two days soon and my mom can’t fetch the kids from school. Which means I am going to have to ask Marko to do it and I am already stressing about asking him because I know how stressed he get about it. If it was me, I would say “listen Boss, I have to fetch my kids from school. End of story.” But I know Marko will get all stressed about the fact that he has to actually take a lunch break that is longer than five forking minutes.  

I know I shouldn’t get cross about it, it isn’t fair towards Marko. It is just that I miss him and I know the kids miss him too.  Am I being an asshole? I probably am, right? Blech. Don’t you hate it when you are cross about something when you know you aren’t really allowed to be cross? It makes you even more cross!

I know some companies and countries are better at work-life balance than others. IBM for example is really great about it, and I think it works both ways – it benefits the employees AND it benefits the company. Gone are the days where you were expected to give up your whole life for your job. Well, at least for me.

Tell me what your work / life balance is like in your home / job / company or country. It is good? Bad? Fair? (Apparently the Americans only get two weeks paid vacation time a year? The horror! We get at least four weeks. So perhaps I should stop complaining about how hard my poor husband has to work.) 

What your magazine reading habits say about you

Before my mother in law selfishly retired, she used to work for South Africa’s major magazine publisher. It was a complete win as I would get a free (LOVE that “free” thing) copy of just about local every magazine to devour at my leisure (i.e. the five minutes I get on the toilet.) But since she now spends her days inconsiderately enjoying the fruits of her hard labour, I am forced to PAY for magazines. Horror!

Being the tight-fisted bastard that I am, I hardly ever buy magazines any more. But every now and then Marko will buy a magazine for me, as a treat. Coincidentally, it is usually at the same time as he spends 400,000 million bucks on the latest Car magazine. Funny, that.

Recently, after exhausting all the interesting bits (more on that later), I found myself reading through the only remaining unread bits of the mag, the recipe section. Fascinating stuff. I can’t believe there are people out there who WILLINGLY subject themselves to this stuff! The ingredient list reads like a foreign telephone directly and the instructions are more complicated than a Korean DIY instruction manual. Why on earth would you CHOOSE to make this shit yourself? Why not just BUY the stuff ready made??? I don’t think I will ever get that cooking thing. (Please people: This is not a cry for help or an open invitation for you to send me your fail proof recipe. There is no recipe on this earth  that is immune to my innate ability to Fuck Things Up.)

Anyway, it got me thinking about how other people read magazines*. I mean, they wouldn’t put that recipe shit in the magazine if some people didn’t enjoy that sort of thing. It’s like the fashion pages (my second to last bit of the magazine that I read): is there anyone out there who actually looks at those pages and says “OMG! Those lime green plastic pants and that maroon and pumpkin crouched blouse are TO DIE FOR! Quick! Let’s go buy it NOW” 

So, how do you read your (general / common or garden variety) magazine? Which bits do you read first? Which bits are your favourite?

This is how I read mine: I first flip through the magazine briefly so that I have an executive summary of what is contained inside, and also to create that delicious feeling of anticipation of what is to come. Then I read the ‘readers letters’ section. Then I read the editors letter. I then read any personal or real life stories / first person accounts. I then read any tips / advice / consumer tests / product service reviews.  Then any investigative journalism. Then the health / body section. After that, the back page, the book reviews, ‘dear mary’ stuff. The magazine usually gets tossed after that. But if times are tough and magazines are few, I will haul out the old mags and read the beauty section. If I am bored, I might give the fashion pages a once over. Only if I am really constipated, there are no other magazines around and the kids are watching Cartoon Network will I finish up with the food / cooking section. 

It is actually quite interesting, I think, and it is the same reason I have taken blogs and blogging in such a big way, because things like letters (comments), real life stories (blogs), editorials (posts) etc are the things I really enjoy.

So what do my magazine habits say about me?  That I enjoy the people stories, that I have a strong connection with other people.  And that clearly fashion, cooking and beauty do NOT feature big in my life. 

So how do you devour your magazine? 

* Am I the only one who always thinks “I wonder what other people think / do when it comes to ____________” That is why I love my blog. It is ‘I wonder if it is just me?’ benchmark.

In which she spills the beans

Speaking of babies - guess who has a brand spanking new one!! Go on, guess! I have the most wonderful news for you.  Someone we are very fond of (even though she is an even bigger asshole than I am, and MUCH, much older than me) has a brand, spanking, absolutely GORGEOUS (I've seen pics) new baby!  Guess who! I am going to tease you a little longer. The news is too delicious to just throw out there. 

AND THE ANSWER IS.......

The Mommy Love addiction, or 'why I want more of the love'

You are all absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for your wonderful comments on my last post. I am really touched. You were all part right, some perhaps more so than others, but there was much wisdom in your words.

The reason I want more children is because the awesome, amazing love I have for my children is so wonderful that I think to myself ‘how can I not want more of this?’

What does Marko want, some of you ask? He wants whatever makes me happy. He is perfectly happy with our family of four, but if I want more, he would be perfectly happy too.

 

My life at the moment is exactly as I want it to be, or as close as dammit. My family does not feel incomplete, nor does there feel as if there is something missing. And yet, I don’t have that strong “I am done” feeling that some of you describe. I think I might always have a yearning for more children, but I think that would be true of whether I have two, three or more children. I honestly don’t think I will ever feel ‘done’. That is just me.

On every logical, financial, marital, sensible level, I should not have more children. My life is perfectly complete as it is now. The thing that is keeping me from taking that next step (going on the pill, closing that chapter) is the fear that one day I will come to the regretful realization that life is more than the logical, financial and sensible. That when you are old and your time left on this earth is few, you will realize that all that really matters is the richness of love that family, and especially children, bring. And I will be sorry I didn’t have more.

I can’t just stay off the pill and ‘see what happens’. I want to live in the present, I want to enjoy my life and be fully present in this moment in time. I need to make a decision, I am just so terrified I will realize one day, too late, that it was the wrong decision. But, after reading all your comments, and taking to heart each of your points of view, I am probably pretty much decided that I am done. I just wish I felt more certain about it. But then again, what in life is certain?

All that I know for certain is that I am incredibly lucky to have my two children and that my life is immeasurably richer for being their mother. Which is exactly why the decision not to have more is such a difficult one to make.

The Pros and Cons of having another child

(Ok, this post is starting to mess with my mind. I can NOT fix the table or the font so it is going up as is. It is starting to make me cross and we can't have that. Please look past the appalling formatting. EEEKK!  The table is too big to leave like that. I am going to have to do a 'read more' thingy. I know you hate it, but until I've fixed that forking enormous table, it is going to have to do)

This has been weighing on my mind very heavily the last few weeks. I feel as if I am at a point in my life where I need to decide whether to have another child or not.

In a bizarre turn of events, it would appear that having sex with my husband could in fact, lead to pregnancy (you should try it, comes highly recommended!)   I’ve suggested that we cease and desist with immediate effect, but to date he has shown a marked lack of enthusiasm for my suggestion, selfish bastard that he is.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I need to decide whether I am going to leave the factory open and entertain the possibility of another child, or whether to draw a line under that chapter in my life and stick with being a family of four.

I need your advice. I need you to step outside your current situation, and tell me what you really think. I am going to give you all my pros and cons, and I need you to tell me what you would do, if you were me.

Now, I want you to pay careful attention to the following two VERY important safety announcements:

1. What I am about to say is NOT a judgement on you, on your choices, your circumstance or your situation. If I say I feel ABC, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me and MY situation. Ok? I’d appreciate the same type of tolerance. Ta.

2. I need you to not think about yourself and how many children YOU have or you would want to have. If you have three kids, saying that I should only have two does NOT mean you don’t love your third child or wish that you could swap him or her for a bucket full of cash and a new car. Got it?

The emergency exits are marked clearly and are being pointed out to you now.