So Close

I am the favourite child

For many years, I have known that I am my parent's favourite child.  I am the first born, the best looking, I have the smallest nose and I am clearly my parent's most loved child.  It is not their fault, it must be very hard not to have the child who is clearly so superior as your favourite child.  My young brother Paul tries to claim that he is the favourite as he is the only boy and the newest of the children (he says you love your new stuff much more than your tired, old stuff) but I gently explain that I am the first born and you love the stuff you have had for longest the most. New shoes are nice but old comfy shoes are the best.  The middle sisters (aka known as the ugly sisters) clearly have no chance.

In order to illustrate this, I often phone my parents and leave a message with the housekeeper to tell them that their favourite child phoned and they should call back.  Oddly, sometimes the call back takes a while (no idea who they could have phoned first) but they always call back.

However, what has finally cemented the evidence that I am the favourite child is that the last of my competitors siblings has left the country, leaving me ALONE with my parents.  Paul has been in London for the last 11 or 12 years, Nina left South Africa about 15 years ago and has lived in London, Lagos, Taiwan, Korea and is now living in Singapore. And sister Mel, my last remaining local support is buggering off to Singapore too!  I told my parents they better make sure I have the biggest slice of the will after the other children have abandoned them.  I also told my parents to stop acting like teenagers and stay home and play bingo or take up knitting, but nooooo, they insist on buying a camper van and fleeing from me touring the country and the continent. 

Hmmm, I wonder if there is a message in that......

Anway, dear sister Mel is moving to Singapore soon and she has started a blog about her experience.  She is packing up her life and her kids and is making the big move - very exciting and very nerve wracking for her.  You can read the traitors blog here:  http://singaporefling-mel.blogspot.com/ Please go and show her some love.  Traitor. 

 

Keeping secrets

I desperately want to have the type of relationship with my children where they feel they can talk to me about anything, without fear of judgement, admonishment or embarrassment. I don't want to be best friends with my children, I don't want to hang out with them, dress like them, be their peer - I want to be their mother, but I want to be the type of mother they trust - someone they feel safe enough to tell their secrets to, to talk about anything - good stuff and bad.  

At the same time, I never want to keep secrets from my husband (besides how much I spend on buying stuff for the kids, how much I spend at Woollies and other budget related issues - some things are not meant to be shared).  He is my partner in this parenting thing.

So what do I do when my daughter tells me a secret and asks me not to tell her father?  

In this case, the secret was fairly innocent - she got into trouble at school for talking in class.  (Third warning for talking in class, so has to stay in during break time. Fairly serious punishment*).  She was quite embarrassed by it and so asked me not to tell Marko in case he got cross.

This 'secret' is fairly innocent but it made me think long and hard about what I should do if the situation was more serious, when both she and her secrets get bigger.  And I am not sure what to do. I don't want to betray her trust, I feel quite strongly about that, but I don't want to keep secrets from Marko.

I don't believe in lying to my children - about almost anything. I understand that some lies are necessary to protect them, but I really do try to stick to the truth as much as possible.  When they ask me if something is going to hurt or if it will taste yucky, I always tell them the truth. I want them to be able to trust me, it is important to me. 

What should one do when your child tells you a secret and asks you not to tell their other parent?  

* Note that on the same day as Kate got her Serious Punishment, Adam came home with a certificate for good behaviour.  Which just about perfectly sums up the twins at the moment.

Baby-Led Weaning

One of my biggest parenting failures is that my children are terribly picky eaters.  When the twins were babies, I was so paranoid about them getting enough to eat that if they didn't like something, I quickly made something else. If they didn't like that, I made yet another meal. In addition, because Marko and I are terribly boring eaters (we like the same few meals all the time), the children have not been exposed to a variety of tastes, smells and flavours.  As a result, they only eat very few things.  Adam is the most adventurous, he will at least try new things.  Kate eats almost nothing. Not only doesn't she eat any proper meals, she doesn't even eat burgers, nuggets etc - food that kids are supposed to love!  She eats pizza, but without the cheese, without the tomato base, without any toppings except for a bit of garlic butter. With the garlic scraped off.  In other words, an almost dry pizza base. Great. Max is just as bad. Which provides overwhelming evidence that it isn't them, it's me.

So one of the things I tell new moms is don't do what I did!  Try to get your children to be a bit more adventurous in their eating habits.  Don't pander to their pickiness.  Do as I say, definitely not as I do.

And so when my good friend who has a 8 month old baby told me a bit about baby-led weaning, I thought it sounded like an excellent idea!  In essence, it is about putting food in front of your baby (from about 6 months) and letting the baby play with and taste the food, eventually letting the baby feed herself. No mushing or pureeing. 

The problem is that she is getting a lot of resistance from friends and family.  Objections range from "what a load of nonsense, what is wrong with the way we were brought up?" to "it is extremely dangerous and irresponsible, SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN AND IT WILL ALL BE YOUR FAULT!". Like any new mom, my friend is trying to do her best but is also filled with doubts herself - is she doing the right thing? The naysayers are making her question her instincts. And making her cry, which is really horrible.

So I said I would ask all of you for your advice and input.  What is your experience with baby-led weaning? Have you done it yourself? Do you have any good resources for her? Is there anyone who is open to emailing my friend for a bit of advice and support? 

Being a new mom is damn hard, we need to help each other out where we can, not make each other cry.  After all, it takes a village.

Indulging in a bit of 'woe is me'

If 'boo hoo' and 'poor me' are not your cup of tea today, please close this window immediately because I am about to beat my chest and wail about how miserable I am feeling at the moment.  

Before I begin with my bleating, let me just say that my life is awesome in a million different ways and I am incredibly lucky to have what I have.  Seriously. I know this and I am grateful every single day.

Good, now that we have that over with, let me tell you how much my life sucks at the moment!  

I have had a cold for a week now which will not go away.  I feel constantly woolly headed and snotty nosed.  We are having a heatwave at the moment (hello Summer, like WTF?  Didn't you say goodbye a few weeks ago? What's with the redux?)  Nothing worse than having a head cold during a heat wave.  

My children are badly behaved, each one of them, and it is all my fault because I work too hard and spend far too little time with them, even though I work from home and am around just about 24/7.  Adam is having emotional meltdowns (STILL!! At age 7!!), Kate is having serious attitude problems (think teenager attitude in a 7 year old) and Max is bloody naughty at home and at school.  They also eat shockingly and I worry constantly that they are getting enough nutrients and whether I am scarring them for life because it is obviously all my fault that (a) I can't / don't cook and (b) I am too soft/busy/stressed to force them to eat vegetables and proper food. All I can say is thank god for vienna sausages, yoghurts and cheese because otherwise my kids would starve to death.

Oh, and Max is still not potty trained because his mother is too useless and too busy to have potty trained him yet.  Can you spell L O S E R!

I am worried about some big (and small) stuff that is going on in our personal lives and in the personal lives of really close family and friends. Stuff that I obviously can't talk about.

I am not looking after myself properly, even though I know I should because I am either too stressed or too busy. I feel flabby, spotty, wrinkly, too thin and too fat at the same time. Oh, and my hair is getting frizzier by the day.  WTF?!?  Frizzy hair, spotty skin and too thin/too flabby body - I just know you feel immensely attracted to me right now. 

Last night I spent half the night walking between Max's room and my room and the other half trying to sleep for longer than 5 minutes in whatever space I could find - my bed / Max's bed / the passage.  So I now look a hundred years old.  Which goes really well with spotty, frizzy and flabby.

And to top it all, I had a (minor) argument with my husband last night even though he was just trying to be nice to me. He made a joke, I didn't think it was funny, I snapped at him and hurt his feelings.

So that is pretty much my life at the moment.  Sucky, busy and ugly.  

All I can say is that at least I have a friend in Chardonnay.  "Ye shalt not walk alone (or upright) with Chardonnay at your side".  Cheers.

Some photos of the good things in my life (even if they are naughty)

A rare 'family bath' (normally Kate refuses to bath in 'boy water'). I love how different their complexions are.  Adam is fairly dark, Kate is medium and Max is fair.

Adam is very into his sport now, so we play cricket a lot.  Kate and Max relaxing under the tree (don't worry, we played with a soft ball in this game)

Here we played with the hard ball. Which unfortunately hit him on the leg. OUT LBW!