So Close

The conforming non-conformists

 

I live in Cape Town, a city flanked by oceans all around and there is a big surf culture here, especially among the youth. This sub-culture has always fascinated me.  Not just because I am SO not a surfer type (all that sea sand up your butt crack and the not washing thing is just not me), but because I find it so ironic that the surfers (like the Goths and other sub-cultures) would be so anti mainstream conformists; they positioned themselves as alternative, different, unique, very definitely non-conformists.  And yet at the same time they were the biggest conformists of them all. They all dressed EXACTLY the same (only Billabong, Island Style etc), they all hung out in the same places, listened to the same music, dated the same kind of blond, tanned, surfer-hanger-on girls.  So much for being unique and non-conformist. The same with the ‘alternative scene’, the Goths etc. Even worse!  You could wear whatever you wanted as long as it was black and baggy, you wore white pasty make up and you listened to horrible heavy rock shite.  But oh! They were so cool, so non-conformist. It used to amaze me that they never saw the irony in that. 

 

I see the same thing happening among the so called ‘non-conformist’, alternate, pseudo-edgy blogs.  There are bloggers out there who love nothing more than to decry what they consider mainstream, boring, popular blogs and bloggers.  Apparently it is cool to say you don’t like / read / buy into a blog that many others do.  Even cooler to rip into the bloggers and say crappy things about them. As if being popular or mainstream makes you a fair target for criticism. (And I am not talking about my blog, I am not nearly popular enough, although sometimes special exception is made for me) They pretend to not buy into any thing that these mainstream blogs stand for.  They don’t kiss ass, they don’t ‘go commercial / get paid for blogging / run ads’, they don’t …… (whatever it is they think is conformist), and yet, they are doing exactly the same thing, in their own way.  Forming their own little set of standards, their own operating practises and norms, their cliques.  And their faithful readers / commenters, who, by the way, accuse the commenters on the other blogs of ‘kissing ass’, do exactly the same thing to the ‘non-conforming’ blogger. Where’s the difference? All you’ve done is swap one set of norms for another?

 

It seems stupid to me. I don’t get it. So what if someone is normal, average, conformist, mainstream.  So what? If they are happy, then can it be all bad? Why is bitchy the new cool?  I don’t know, I don’t understand the need to be angry and bitchy all the time. But then again, I am just a normal, boring mainstream conformist ;-)

 

Sometimes it really is perfectly fine to be average / normal / happy. 

 

Genus: Cooter

Sent in by the intrepid cooter researcher, G&D blog reader Miranda, who captured this image on a field trip to her local zoo.

Happy Birthday cousins Rebeka and Sofia

Happy 4th birthday Rebeka

Happy 2nd birthday Sofia

We love you lots.

Love Adam and Kate

I want another child

Before infertility, I never really thought about how many kids I would like to have one day. But it was always more than one. Probably around 3, maybe more. I come from a big family and I wanted that too.

 

Then infertility struck, and while I wanted as many children as I could have, I would have been grateful for just one living baby.

 

And then the babes were born. And I had newborn twins. And I have never been so overwhelmed and scared in my life. So scared, and so overwhelmed, that I went on the Mirena (birth control/IUD). Even though I was infertile, I was THAT scared I would get pregnant accidentally. The first few months were rough. I swore I would never have another child again.

 

But now, now that the babes are getting bigger, and better and so much easier, and now that I am experiencing the exponential power of the mother love, now I want more.

 

I want another child.

Oh dear...

This doing the rounds here on email.  V funny.

Soccer. Better than sex.

 
In another world first, Marko refused the offer of a free shag last night. (Free as in I didn’t owe him one, it wasn’t his birthday and he had no Free Passes left.)

 

He was watching Ukraine play Switzerland and I walked into the lounge and lovingly enquired whether he wanted to engage in some gentle love making. 

 

Me: Wanna shag?

 

Him: Are you mad! I am watching the soccer.

 

Me: Well, you can carry on watching while we do it.

 

Him: No, go to bed. Move! You’re in my way.

 

Me: How rude.  Bye.

 

I will be sure to hold this against him for at least a month.  “Oh you want to shag NOW?  Sorry, I offered and you refused. You’ll have to wait until I am in the mood again” WHICH MIGHT BE NEVER.  Only joking. ‘ish.

The way things work around here

aka Tertia’s Blogging Rules

I thought it might be a good time to have a little chat about the way things work around here.  Not for any particular reason other than the fact that Typepad have introduced this cool new thing where you can make a post ‘sticky’, keep it on top or something like that.  Anyhow, I have been thinking about this for a while and I’ve decided now might be a good time to talk about this.

Adam’s toes

 

Since he was little, Adam has had problems with his toes.  He has funny (as in odd) toes, must be from Marko’s side of the family.  He has had slight ingrown toenails.  The fleshy bits next to the corners of his toenail were red and slightly inflamed when he was just a few months old.  The paediatrician said he would outgrow it, and he has, mostly.  He no longer gets the inflammation and it isn’t puffy.

 

However, he doesn’t like us to touch his toes.  If I press against his toes he pulls his foot away.  I don’t think it is painful, but I do think it causes discomfort when you push on it.  Yet he totally doesn’t mind wearing shoes. In fact, he likes it.  Although that could be because I am always making a fuss and telling him how handsome he is when he is dressed up. Actually how ‘pretty’ he is. It is too confusing to have two words, ‘handsome’ and ‘pretty’ so we just use pretty.  We love dressing them up or putting scarves on them and saying “ooooooh, PRETTY!!”  They now do it themselves. Call themselves pretty.  Clearly they get that from my side of the family.  I plan on teaching them to say gorgeous and divine soon.

 

Back to the toes. The kids hardly ever wear hard shoes. They either walk bare feet, or they wear those soft leather shoes, those ones you told me about, Robeez or whatever, except here we call them Shooshoos.  And I make sure they don’t press on his toes. And I never put them in tight socks. I am very aware of his toes. So I am doing all the right things, I think.

 

But, being the anal, paranoid type I thought I would have his toes checked out by a podiatrist.  I took Rose and Kate with. It was an interesting experience.  They clearly aren’t used to having toddlers in their offices.  Trying to get Adam to sit in the exam chair was a nightmare.  He thought it was a slide and keep climbing up and sliding down again.  And grabbing the instruments. Chaos! I must have a look at those restraining harness thingies.  Haha!

 

The podiatrist said that there isn’t much they can do now, we just have to watch it and that unfortunately in some kids the nail is too big for the nail bed.  He will probably have to have that operation where they cut the nail bed smaller – poor baby.

 

But because I know you guys are a mine of useful information, I would like to know whether you have any advice or info for me.  Do you think it might come right on its own?  I can’t bear the thought of my poor baby having to have his little toenails cut into. Ouch!

 

Any toe tips for me?

 

Bosom Buddies Update

 

Thank you to all of you who expressed an interest in helping out. The always wonderful, ever generous eggdonor and Boulder helped set up a blog for my sister. There isn’t much new there but as soon as my sister gets online she will update with new news and pictures. Unfortunately my sister doesn’t yet have access to the internet. However, she does have an email address set up that her husband checks for her. It is doulamel@gmail.com I am hoping this will be an incentive for him to get his ass in gear and sort her out with some net access. HURRY UP GARY, THIS IS THE 21^ST CENTURY!!! Sorry. But she has been waiting for a while already. EDITED TO ADD: She got Net access today!!!  At last, so you are welcome to email her directly.  Hallelujah, praise the lord and all that.

 

My sister said to thank all of you for your kind words of support and generosity. A few of you have been asking me what the moms and babies need.  My sister says the things she needs the most include the following:

 

For the babies she needs vests (do you call them vests? The things the babies wear under their clothes to keep them warm?), and babygro’s – those all in one, footed sleeper things. Just simple things to keep them warm.

 

Then, she needs sanitary towels for the moms. At the moment she is buying a pack of ten and dividing them up between two moms but she says she would really like to give the moms a bit of dignity by having their own pack of sanitary towels/pads.

 

She has a few old ladies in old age homes knitting baby blankets for her (the old ladies love it and it makes them feel as if they are contributing, which of course they are) and so she also needs to buy wool –  that is an extra expense. Oh and apparently fleece for blankets as well.

 

Then, she would like to stock up the preemie room with milk, coffee, tea and sugar, and somehow manage to provide the moms with at least one other meal a day. 

 

Then, big ticket items for the preemie room, the moms area and the nurses station (aka the toilet) include a microwave, a CD player / radio and a iron and ironing board.

 

There were quite a few of you who wanted to help and for that I thank you. There are a few ways you can help.

 

1. The one way is to send any used baby items you might have, especially the simple, warm, basic things. You can send them via my sister’s husband’s USA office to:

 

Gary Novitzkas

c/o Philip Antoniadis – VeriSign Inc

487 East   Middlefield Road

,

Mountain View

,

CA

94043

- M/S MV6-1-2

 

I think he will probably wait until there are a few things and then ship them over in bigger batches.

 

2. If you don’t have things to send, but still want to help in some way, you can donate a dollar or two via the Paypal account Boulder so kindly set up (I’ll put a button up on my blog and on my sister’s blog). The money will be used to buy the basics mentioned above

 

3. Or if you would like to send some goods directly, you can go online to one of our biggest grocery stores, Pick n Pay, or  and shop and send the goods over to my sister. A very very kind blog reader H did this, and apparently it is quite a rigmarole. But if that is what you want to do, then give me a shout and I will help you.

 

4. If you have any thing you would like to send the moms, or the stillborn moms, then please send them to the address above. Sure-fire hits would be things like lotion, talc, shampoo, toothpaste etc. 

 

Some of you asked what the moms and the babies needed, and to be honest, these moms have nothing. Literally nothing. So the very basics are what they need. Anything would help. Oh and someone asked about cloth diapers – there is no way these moms could afford disposable diapers, so they only use cloth diapers.

 

I am going to try and find some time to show my sister how to add blog posts and update with pictures etc, and then hopefully she will do her own thing from then.  Please be patient though, she is still learning how to go online and do stuff.

 

Although I am not churchy or a happy clapper, I am sure that my sister would say that she would put in a good word for you and if you do have a direct line to the man above, perhaps you could mention her efforts and ask that good stuff happens to her efforts. You know, lordy stuff like that.

 

From me: Thanks guys, you aren’t a bad lot. For a bunch of a’holes that is ;-)

 

My sister's blog can be found here

You can email her here

Home! Alone!

 

In a world first for the Albertyn family, I am home alone, sans kids.  I had another radio interview today and asked Marko to take the kids out.  Well, he happily packed up their bags, took the pram and left an hour before the interview, and he is not home yet.  He is ALONE, with BOTH kids.

 

I am not sure whether to be terrified or grateful.  I’ll go with grateful.

 

(Although they better come home soon or I will start worrying.  He is alone after all, with BOTH kids)