So Close

Looking back, going forward

2006 has been a big year for me. So much has happened. Both good and not so good. 

It has been a year of tremendous joy. The first year of babyhood was not that easy for me. Newborn twins are tough. But the second year is so much fun. It is such a joy to see how your children grow and learn and take delight in discovering the world around them. I still look at my children in wondrous disbelief – I am awed by how incredibly lucky I am to have these two beautiful children. How on earth did I manage to get this lucky?? I am unspeakably grateful. 

It has been a year of great achievements (publishing a book), moments of great opportunity (appearing on TV twice, doing three radio show), great exposure in the print media (reviews, interviews or excerpts in just about every major local magazine and newspaper). Lots of ’15 minutes of fame’ for me this year.  I feel a great sense of pride in myself for pursuing this. 

It has also been a year of big change on the job front. Moving from being a big fish in a small pond, to being a small fish in a very, very large pond (IBM). A change in mindset, and going forward, perhaps a change in focus. More work, less play. 

It has been a challenging year on other fronts. At a time in my life when everything seemed to be going right, I was hit by depression once again. The timing of it was hard to deal with. Why then, when everything was going so well? Learning that I am at higher risk for bouts of chemical depression was hard to hear. Even harder has been the struggle to find the right solution for the depression. It has been a tough few months. But I am determined to be well. 

It has also been tough to find the right harmonious balance in my marriage. Parenting brings with it a set of stresses and challenges to the relationship that I never anticipated. 

I’ve learnt a lot about myself this year. Things I hope to learn and grown from next year.

I am not going to do new years resolutions. I never stick to them anyway. And anyway, I’ve stopped smoking and I am hardly going to stop drinking, now am I? What other resolutions are there?

Instead, what I would like to do is set focus areas for myself for 2007:

1. The main one being my health. I want to focus on being physically, emotionally and psychologically healthy in 2007. I am going to promise myself to take whatever steps are required to make sure 2007 is a healthy year for me. I neglected my health in a big way in 2006. And I suffered for it.

2. My marriage: I need to work hard at making sure my marriage is healthy too. I want us to be together, happy, forever. And that doesn’t happen automatically. Good marriages require care and dedication. And hard work!

3. My career: I would like find my niche at work, my ‘groove’. Find the thing I enjoy doing, that I am good at, and then excel at it. It’s been a while since I have done something at work that has excited me.

You will notice that I haven’t mentioned motherhood or my kids in my 2007 goals. And that is because I intend on continuing doing what I did in 2006, being the best mother to my kids I could be. Motherhood was the one thing I did really well in 2006. It was a job I adored doing. Unfortunately it came at the expense of the three things above. My children got every single ounce of me. And everything else suffered. This next year I need to learn to continue being a good mom, but also to focus on being good to myself, my husband and my job. My kids will always come first, but the other things need attention as well.

What are your 2006 reflections and 2007 aspirations?

 

A quiz to while away the time until next year

Not sure how accurate this is, although it might just prove the long-held believe that I am a materialistic, hedonistic, narcissistic bitch extrovert.  Quite fun.  Do your one and link to your blog entry, I'd like to find out a bit more about you.  How crap is my work-ethic thing!  Gawd, hope boss doesn't read this.  MUST be an error in the results.  Stupid survey ;-)  Any of my 'results' surprise you?  I must say the work ethic one does. I do have a strong work ethic; when I am at work  It is not however my main priority, my family is.

Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion |||||||||||||||||| 80% Stability |||||||||||||| 60% Orderliness |||||||||||| 46% Accommodation |||||||||||||||||| 76% Interdependence |||||||||||| 43% Intellectual |||||||||| 36% Mystical || 10% Artistic || 10% Religious |||||| 23% Hedonism |||||||||||||||| 70% Materialism |||||||||||||||| 63% Narcissism |||||||||||||||| 63% Adventurousness |||||||||| 36% Work ethic |||||| 23% Self absorbed |||| 16% Conflict seeking |||||||||| 36% Need to dominate |||||||||| 36% Romantic |||||| 30% Avoidant |||||||||| 36% Anti-authority |||||||||| 36% Wealth |||||||||||||||| 63% Dependency |||| 16% Change averse |||||||||||| 50% Cautiousness |||||||||||| 43% Individuality |||||||||||| 50% Sexuality |||||||||||| 50% Peter pan complex |||||||||||| 43% Physical security |||||||||||||||||||| 83% Physical Fitness |||||||||||||| 57% Histrionic |||||| 23% Paranoia || 10% Vanity |||| 16% Hypersensitivity |||||||||||| 43% Female cliche |||||||||||||| 56%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Stability results were moderately high which suggests you are relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic.

Orderliness results were medium which suggests you are moderately organized, hard working, and reliable while still remaining flexible, efficient, and fun.

Extraversion results were high which suggests you are overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense too often of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity.

Trait snapshot:

social, outgoing, worry free, optimistic, upbeat, tough, likes large parties, makes friends easily, rarely irritated, open, enjoys leadership, trusting, dominant, thrill seeker, strong, does not like to be alone, assertive, mind over heart, confident, controlling, feels desirable, likes the spotlight, loves food, social chameleon, hard working, concerned about others

(I'd say the above is pretty accurate - fun quiz! Do one too.)

We love our new hooded Lion towels

More new photos here. Including one of Marko in the pool!

Look mom! A (tr)fuck!

The kids are having an amazing spurt in their language development. I can't believe how much they are talking, it is so cute.

 Kate's absolute favourite expression in the whole wide world is “Mamma!  Look here!” I have to “look here” ALL THE TIME!  She also loves "come here", "hide away", "hold it" and "Adam! Naughty!"

 Adam’s favourite is to give a running commentary on the other road users while we are all in the car. “Car! Car! Car!” “Motor bike! Motor bike!” “Bus!” “Digger!” He loves all things car related.  And it is not good enough for me to say “hmmm”, or “yes”.  I have to repeat what he has just said so that he is sure I took note of what he just spotted.

 However, out of all the road users, his all time favourite is a truck.  He loves trucks. Except that he can’t seem to pronounce it just quite right.  It is hysterical. Marko and I can’t wait for a truck to go past so that he can tell us what it is. We giggle every time. We even bought him a (tr)fuck for Christmas just so that he could say (tr)fuck in front of the grandparents.  V childish, I know. I swear I didn’t teach him this!

(terrible quality, apologies! taken with my 1975 cellphone, on a bumpy road, with Afrikaans news bulletin in the background)

 

MyBlogLog - Addictive

When I went to the Geek’s Dinner last Friday night (was great fun – geeks are cool!), I heard about this MyBlogLog thing.  It was touted as one of the ‘things to watch’ in 2007. Being a widget whore (I love those widget things, although I know they do slow  my blog down. I am going to delete some of them soon, promise), I decided to have a look at it.

 Well, now I am totally addicted to MyBlogLog. I have absolutely no idea at all how it works, but it is damn addictive.  People keep adding me as contacts, so I go and check them out, read their blog, sometimes add them as a contact, or join their communities.  

 I’ve probably spent at least five hours just surfing around the site, checking out various people, searching for communities etc. For someone who is VERY technically lazy and hasn’t a clue what the whole thing is about, that is pretty good going.

 Here is my MyBlogLog profile – do you have one?  Actually, can anyone explain to me how this thing works or what it is supposed to achieve?

Things I would invent if I could

I wrote a similar post about this years ago, but I can’t find it. Irritating. Ha!  G&D blog reader T found it for me! Thanks dahlink!

 If I could invent any thing I wanted, anything at all, these would be top of my list of inventions:

 1. The Failsafe Blue Fingernail Pregnancy Indicator: The very second implantation happens; your fingernails would turn blue. That way you would know immediately that you were pregnant. You would not spend the entire two week wait thinking you could be, hoping you might be, terrified that you might not be pregnant. If, god forbid, something happened to the pregnancy, and you were no longer pregnant, your finger nails would immediately cease to be blue. You would know, straight away. A pregnancy in trouble would immediately be apparent by the fading of the blue colour. A sign that you need to get your pregnant ass to the doctor RIGHT THIS MINUTE.

 2. A Pain-o-Meter: (can also be used to measure how ill someone actually is i.e. a cold vs. pneumonia) This little device would be strapped to your wrist, like those heart rate / distance monitor things that the exercise nuts use to measure how hard they are working out. The Pain-o-Meter would give an exact, quantifiable, measurable, objective reading of exactly how sick you are / how much pain you are in compared to your husband. Who swears his illness is worse than yours. This device will give you a reading of your illness / pain, and your husbands, which would once and for all prove that men are bigger ninnies when it comes to pain / illness

 3. Doors that shut completely silently. I am so sick and tired of taking 445 minutes to tiptoe out the room, slooooooooooooowly pushing the handle of the door only to have some mechanism or spring or something in the bloody door creak / groan / ping or whatever, thereby waking the child. Meaning you have to start all over again. I want a door that shuts without a single sound. Preferably by remote control.

 4. Instant boot ups / start ups / whatever you call it: I want to invent a computer that is ready for use the second I push the ‘on’ button. I don’t want to wait for what feels like hours for the thing to start up and get ready. It’s annoying and seems v old fashioned.

 5. A bed that massages you and realigns your spine while you sleep: I want to go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning with no muscle tension, sore back, knotty shoulders etc. Either that or be rich enough to afford a full time masseuse. (Off to physio today, my back is killing me!)

 6. A weight loss pill that really works: A pill that you take at night and you wake up in the morning 5 pounds lighter. If you take two pills, you wake up 10 pounds lighter etc. In the right places. And firms as well, of course. You could take a lose-five-pounds-around-my-belly-but-not-my-boobs flavour, or a ten-pounds-off-the-ass-and-5-pounds-off-the-hips flavour. 

 In fact, it would be good if we could add a nail-growing, hair-conditioning, leg-waxing, wrinkle-reducing pill as well. I.e. go to sleep at night and wake up refreshed, thin and hot.

 7. An obedient husband: A husband who did as he was told, but also did things out of his own, spontaneously.  A husband who would want to chat about feelings, but only when you wanted to.  A husband who was in touch with his feminine side, but in a very mannish way. A romantic, but not a sap. A husband who was good at giving massages; without leading him into all sorts of lustful thoughts.  A husband who just wanted to hug sometimes, but not all the same.  A husband who did all the chores around the house, without being asked.  A husband who could cook. And clean up afterwards! 

Actually, scrap that last one.  Some things are just too far out there to even contemplate.  There has to be SOME possibility of it ever existing.

Ok, so the last few are silly. What I really want is the blue finger nail thing and the silent door thing. The one would have made my life much easier before the other will help me out tremendously now. The creaking door thing drives me crazy! And no; no amount of special door oil etc helps.  Somehow or other, no matter what we do, the bloody door makes some kind of noise.  (Last night, as I was slowly tiptoeing in reverse, I hit my elbow on the door handle by mistake – CRACK!  Silent FUCK!!!)

What would you invent if you could any invent any thing at all?
 

You are going to see what you want to see

Isn’t it silly. I was going to post what I thought was a really sweet picture of what Rose did for the kids.  Her ‘surprise’ for them. And then I thought I better not, because without doubt, there will be a group of derogating defamers who will masturbate themselves into a frenzy at how ‘elitist’ I am, and how I am so ______ and ________.  Fill in the blanks with any of the following words: Exploitative, rich, vain, self-obsessed, attention-whore’ish, spoilt etc etc. Actually, choose any word. Can’t remember them all. It all gets a bit blurry after a while.  Yawn.

And then I thought fuck them. It’s sweet and I want to post it.  They can do what they want.  They will anyway.

For those who can see how sweet this was:

The day before Rose left to go on her vacation, she said I had to keep the kids away from the lounge because she wanted to do something.  She then called us in; she had laid out a ‘breakfast banquet’ for the kids. On their little plastic table, covered with a special 'table cloth' (old sheet). They were so excited. They had fruit, cereal and little toast squares. And two roses from the garden. Isn’t that sweet!

 It was as if the kids knew Rose was going away for a while. I have no idea how they knew this was any different to any normal weekend, but after I dropped Rose off, they kept asking for her.  I started telling them that she was “going home to her mommy” but I could see they were completely confused at the fact that a grown up could have a mommy.  So I settled for “Rose is going home, far far away”. (Rose’s mother lives about 1400km’s /900 miles away.) For the next few days they kept telling me that Rose had gone “home, far far away”.

 I hope Rose is having lots of fun with her mommy, far far away. Best Nanny Ever!
 

Ho, ho, bloody hot ho!

Merry Christmas to all those to celebrate Christmas.  Hope your day was more relaxing than mine.  It was good, but it was exhausting. And hot!  Why our family insists on eating a full on hot meal in the middle of the scorching heat, I’ll never know.

 Have uploaded a few new pics to my Flickr account if you are interested.

 Apologies for the very light posts recently. Promise to get back into things a little more diligently once I’ve drunk all the wine and champagne in the fridge.

 In the mean time, here are two sweet pics of the kids:

 

Shattered

I am completely shattered. I thought I lost Adam in the mall today.  It was absolutely terrifying.

Marko, the kids and I were in a shop together.  Marko was busy chatting to the guy at the counter, enquiring about something.  The kids were playing on the little ramp in the shop, chasing each other and laughing. I was keeping an eye on them. Kate then ran out the shop, laughing, waiting for Adam to catch her.  Adam stayed with Marko while I ran after Kate. She had run only a few steps (into a pet shop, wanting to see the birds). I scooped her up and we walked back to the shop.  Which was situated right at the entrance of the mall, with the parking lot feeder road running past it.  As I walked in the shop I said to Marko “where’s Adam?”  He looked around wildly and said ‘I don’t know’. I felt sick.  I ran outside to the parking lot and started screaming hysterically “ADAM!  ADAM!” Marko ran in the other direction. I had visions of Adam getting knocked over or someone kidnapping him.  I felt absolutely ill. Then the guy from behind the counter comes out the shop and says “he’s in here”. He had been two steps away from Marko, playing behind the counter. 

 The whole episode probably lasted about 30 seconds, but it was absolutely fucking terrifying. I was completely shattered afterwards.

 I know this probably happens to almost every parent at some stage, and I know I am a totally paranoid parent, but it finished me.  I kept thinking “I can not lose another child, I can’t” I sobbed my eyes out afterwards.

 When my kids were babies, another twin parent said to me “having twin toddlers is like herding cats”, they were so damn right. 

 I don’t want to be a paranoid parent (too late), I don’t want to be over-protective and turn my kids into namby pampy timid little things, but good God, I’d rather be a bit over-paranoid than be mourning yet another child. I’ll never survive it again. 

 These kids of mine, they will make me old(er) before my time.

Day Two of the Vacation - Spectacular!

Life's a beach

Went to the beach with the kids today.  For only the second time ever.  The first time was a year ago (last summer!) when they weren't mobile.  The place we went to isn't a great beach, but Cape Town is SO hectically busy at this time of the year with tourists that it was the only place we knew would be relatively quiet.  Kate loved the sea.  She was shivering and her lips were blue but she refused to get out.  Unfortunately Adam got knocked over by the first little wave that hit him and refused to go back in the water.  "Water! No!"  Marko's fault of course because he was supposed to be looking after Adam while I was trying to stop Kate from swimming to Robben Island.  Grrrrrrrrrr. Kill husband, kill!  With Adam you need to introduce things sloooowly, or else he gets overwhelmed and flips out.  Being knocked over by a wave is not going to do it.

Day one of the Quality Time Vacation with husband going exceptionally well!

PS: Getting new cell phone soon, one with a v zooty camera, so no more fuzzy photos!