Kids

I am still around.  And now I’m a mother of two.  A gorgeous girl and the most handsome little man ever.  Life is good 🙂

 

Milestones

Every mom needs to brag about their kid occasionally, right?

MY KID IS POTTY TRAINED!!

And it only took 2 weeks too.

I’m so proud of her (and so happy about the money we’re saving on nappies).  She still uses a night nappy, but we might take her off that soon as well, seeing as she has woken up with a dry nappy every day for the past week.

Potty training was one of the things I was most anxious about when we embarked on this whole parenting journey.  I wasn’t looking forward to cleaning up accident after accident, or being stuck at home with a kid who needed to be taken to the loo every 15 minutes for weeks on end.  I should’ve known that it wouldn’t be like that.  Sienna has been the easiest kid on the planet to raise up to now.  Potty training was no exception.

Bring on the next thing 😀

Sienna’s Favourite Things

Okay, so I’ve seen this on Jenty and Louisa‘s sites and thought that I’d like to do one too.  At least it’ll get me posting again 😉

TV Show: Spongebob Squarepants, ad nauseum.

Meal: Its a toss up between 2 minute noodles and toast with Bovril on. Easy kid.

Fruit: okay, maybe not that easy.  She likes those dried fruit sticks at least. Real fruit is a no-go for now.

Vegetable: erm, potatoes?

Breakfast: this one isn’t so hard.  Sienna loves oats and cereal.  She normally eats a very hearty breakfast that lasts her until well into the morning.

Drink: my kid has always loved any form of liquid.  Her favourites at the moment are milk with the Purity powder in and Oros.

Drinking yogurt flavour: I must admit that I haven’t tried giving her drinking yogurt yet, but she loves the eating kind. Strawberry is her absolute fav.

Sweets: somewhere along the line, Sienna started liking chocolate.  It’s not something she picked up from me.  Her favourites are Chomps and the little chocolate bear vitamins that she gets every day.

Chips/crisps: I much prefer salty snacks to sweets and most of the time Sienna’s the same.  She’ll eat any chip, even if it burns.  We usually get her Cheese Curls or Flings.

Toy: this changes daily.  I don’t think she has one toy that she prefers over anything else. (I’ve been thinking about this for 10 minutes and I still can’t think of any toy that she likes more than all her others)

Colour: As far as I can tell, it’s always been red.  She loves wearing red clothes and notices red things first.  Her favourite outfit is a red dress.

Something that happened yesterday:

I was off sick with a tummy bug yesterday, so I don’t really know how many cute things she was doing around the house while I was hiding in bed.

She did do one really cute thing though, I’d gotten back into bed soon after her dad brought her home from daycare, and she proceeded to climb up onto the bed.  The next moment she was snuggled up under the covers next to me.  It would’ve been lovely to keep her there if she could lay still for longer than 2 seconds.

The end of an era

I’m in the process of coming to terms with the fact that my mom is moving away.

My parents have travelled throughout South Africa quite a bit over the past few years, and they fell in love with the Eastern Cape.  Three years ago my mom started making noises about buying a house in Port Elizabeth or close by to use as a holiday house and maybe to retire in one day.  Then suddenly in December, they bought a plot and started building a house in Jeffreys Bay.

That’s when things started changing.

My mom started getting very unhappy in her job.  She held a fairly high position in the company she’d worked for for 10 years.  She made very good money and mostly enjoyed what she did for a living and the recognition she’d received over the years, but it wasn’t quite the same.  She complained daily about the childish politics and the ridiculous workload that her boss kept increasing (the hazards of being very, very good at what you do).  She and my stepdad went down to J-Bay as often as they could to check on the progress of the house, and she was miserable every time they got back.  She’d had enough of the rat race that had been her life up to this point.  She wanted to start her own business.

In August, she got an opportunity to attend a seminar about women in business.  She told me that the two days of the seminar where real eye openers (and this from a woman who wasn’t all that keen to go a few days prior).  She had a one-on-one session with the presenter and told her about her plans to maybe open her own business at the coast in a few years’ time, being very non-committal about it all.  The presenter then turned around and told my mom that the only thing holding her back is herself, and that she’d have her business up and running in three years or less.

Not even two weeks later, things at her office started going awry.  She’d been called in to attend a disciplinary hearing for a mistake that her department had made, which she would have to defend as the department head.  She’d been placed on suspension until the hearing could take place.  She phoned me the Monday morning to tell me that her hearing was on the Friday and that she might lose her job.  My heart skipped a few beats before the tears started streaming down my face.  My mom had been through so much in her life and had worked so hard to get where she was, just to have it all taken away from her again.

She never made the hearing.  She resigned on the Thursday, choosing to take the severance package instead of being fired.  She’d decided that she was going to follow her dream and start a business, and that everything that had happened over the past year were just signs telling her that it was time to go do what she wanted to do.

So this is it.  My mom is leaving for J-Bay tomorrow.  Leaving to go to her new home.

I wish her every happiness in the world and I’m so excited for her, but I can’t shake this feeling of sadness that I’ve been carrying with me since hearing that she’s moving away.  I’ve never been so far away from my mom for any length of time.  I’ve always been able to get in my car and get to her house in an hour or less.   Whenever we’d go visit my in-laws, we’d make a stop-over at my mom’s house on the way home.

My family and I spent the day at my mom’s house on Saturday, having a bit of a farewell party.  This past weekend was their last weekend here and all my brothers and sisters were there to say goodbye and to wish them luck on this new era in their lives.

We stayed there as long as we could, leaving at 10pm that night.  I took one long last walk though all the rooms in the house.  I spent some of my happiest years there.  I’d loved and lost there.  I’d said goodbye to beloved pets and welcomed new ones into my life.  This was the house where my husband and I had told my mom that we were getting married.  It was the home my mom had created for me after a very hard time in both our lives….but it was time to say goodbye.

I’ve shed many a tear over the past few weeks, knowing how fortunate I am that my mom is only moving away.  Knowing that I can still call and email her every day.  Knowing that I’ll see her again in December when we go down to spend a week or two with them.  Knowing all of this, my heart is still breaking at the thought of my mom being so far away.

Good luck Mom.  I know how excited you are and how hard you’ll work to make a success of this new venture.

I’ll miss you.

xoxo

To Caz

It’s My Birthday, Mommy

(Dedicated to Sophia Grace)

I wish you could see the balloons, Mommy

There’re so many all around

Smiles and laughter and happiness, Mommy

Not one single tear to be found

There’s a big cake just for me, Mommy

And so many presents galore

Everyone’s dancing and singing, Mommy

There’s glitter all over the floor!

I wish I could show you these things, Mommy

I wish you could see my smile

I wish I could dance in your arms, Mommy

Even just for a little while

But, I see my Father each day, Mommy

And though I am missing you too

I know only happiness here, Mommy

And I’m patiently waiting for you

Happy birthday Sophia.

xx