Category: home life

Life Lately

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I thought since October is practically over and November is looking at us like, “hey weren’t you just here” I would do a catch up post…

– Firstly this morning I woke up to a strange man tapping on my leg to get my attention. Dressed in a thick jacket and wool hat he kept my gaze as I physically recoiled in shock. He then held out his hand and asked for my train ticket because I had clearly fallen asleep on the train… AWKWARD!!! Not as awkward as the time I fell asleep on the train with a booklet I bought from organization promoting sign language and the person asking for my ticket woke me up and started signing to me.

– On the topic of awkward; yesterday in church the lady sitting behind us was wearing an eye patch and Aidan decided to loudly proclaim: “look mommy a pirate”. When I gently and quietly explained to him that the lady was injured he turns to her and tells her she should go to a doctor because the doctors fix you. He is usually in Sunday School but it was a special anniversary service so he was restlessly sitting with us and when I tapped his fingers for using the bibles and hymnals as building blocks he loudly in a silent church asks “why do you hurt me mommy, I’m so eina now”.  His antics were not missed and at a lunch after church (we quickly dropped him at my mom) people were asking for him and no less than four older members of the church (we have actually only been there for this year) came to us and reassured us that “children will be children” They all thought Aidan was energetic and busy (he kept singing Twinkle Little Star if he didn’t know the words of a song) but also pretty well behaved and sweet and did not come across as naughty. So there is that I guess 🙂 The service was just too long for him.

– I made my own cheese this weekend. It is the easiest and most delicious thing EVER!!! honestly all you do is strain Amasi (South African fermented milk that tastes like cottage cheese or plain yogurt) through a cheese cloth which is in a colander over bowl and leave to strain for about 12 hours then mix in your flavourings and you will love me forever (Thanks Carmen)

– I’m working on one or two Christmas products for Oh!Boykids so far it’s Santa sacks and personalised aprons, just want one more thing, hmmmm wish me luck

– I’ve been sick so my exercising is not going too well 🙁 I am eating better though so there is that!

– I made a graduation outfit for my son…it’s a princess and prince theme and I went the Afro prince route… why should moms of girls have all the fun 🙂

– Aidan is soooo messy these days honestly he lives on the naughty chair due to his need to just unpack, and throw out and make it look like I live with the Tasmanian devil

Have a great day all…thanks for the catch up  đŸ™‚

Laughing my butt off…I WISH!

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Like 99% of women out there I’m not all that happy with my size. I’ve been trying to eat better and exercise, but my health hasn’t been up to it (Anemia and blood pressure issues) I’ve been sooo exhausted it’s just not funny. Believe me if tying your shoe leaves you feeling like you ran a 5k then you clearly have no use for exercise… I have pretty bad iron deficiency anemia, last tests revealed that my iron stores (I know that’s not the medical name, I don’t know medical name) were completely depleted, which meant no oxygen in my blood and me passing out way more than I’d like to admit. Well, I’ve been on meds for a while now and things are looking up, which means I can finally get off my behind and do some exercises. I’m still taking it easy (still get exhausted super easily) but any exercise is better than no exercise and I have high hopes of wearing shorts in December so wish me luck…. Here are some funnies to get me motivated.

A little monster for my little monster

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Aidan is VERY into anything monster related, Monsters and Frozen (what can I say. my kid is an all rounder) He gets sooooo excited , stomps around roaring and making monster hands… It started with Monsters Inc. but now he seems to even notice generic “monsters” anything that has googly eyes or is slightly monstery looking gets his attention (I’m not sure how he classes them) …I thought it might be fun to make him his own monster, this is what I came up with…

I didn’t take step by step pictures, but it’s pretty simple…..

You need:

A old onsie (I used one that was specially made for him and I couldn’t bare to part with anyway)
Scraps of  material
Buttons
Fabric paint
needle and thread
Stuffing (My monster is stuffed with old baby clothes and burp cloths, those I didn’t donate because they were just not cute any more…stained, torn, faded)

How to: 

Turn onsie inside out
sew up openings at hands and feet
turn back right way around
Sew on a face with material scraps
Sew on buttons for eyes and paint on a mouth
Stuff your monster and sew up the neck part
– Next time I will use a bigger face, but not bad for a first try, I think

Picture my weekend…in reverse…

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Yesterday I got to photograph this stunning girl
These are not official pics, I just took these with my phone for reference 🙂
The best thing about Stephane is that although it’s pretty obvious that she is beautiful, funny and smart are the actual first two attributes you think of after spending time with her….

My little assistant…One of these days I’m going to have to get him a camera too..

Speaking about assisting, this is him helping me make some Herb Wraps…
Click HERE for the recipe you will not be sorry
It’s a four ingredient wonder, and a toddler in a dishcloth is not one of the ingredients-more optional extra

My “no shoes thanx” kid finally found shoes he LOVES and wants to wear all the time…
unfortunately it is a pair of wellingtons just in time for Spring
Saturday night was games night with my cousins 🙂 

But before that, we did some redecorating….THIS is the proper way to use child labour…whahahahaha

Another lesson in motherhood…even the sweetest kid can be a terror

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So yesterday Aidan was full on rude and I don’t think I was prepared for it, he is mischievous at most, maybe even a little naughty, but I’ve never been faced with the “blushing while being profusely sorry for my child’s behaviour” type naughty.
At most he is extremely busy and curious and stubborn but nothing really cringe worthy until yesterday!
A good friend came to visit and on arrival Aidan threw a spoon at her (I’m reminded of Austin Powers, “really who throws a shoe” but with a spoon) , a very weird reaction as he usually loves her (Maybe he was annoyed that she didn’t have her adorable blonde daughters with her)
First he was fine with me having a guest and there was nothing out of the ordinary, just the occasional “Mama Mama look at me” behaviour which is to be expected.
I clearly didn’t look at him enough because first he hurled his teddy off his bed then he decided to put his crayons in the nappy bin one at a time followed by wanting to flush his blocks down the toilet. Me stopping this resulted in him throwing himself down on the floor for a “dead man style, I will lay here till I get my way” tantrum. I ignored him and was met with this super fast reverse crawl that made me think of exorcist-creepy I tell you.
He then climbed onto my lap and proceeded to spit on the floor…YES! SPIT! he just lay across my legs filled his mouth with spit/drool and let it drip down…I was shocked and mortified.
I was even more mortified when my friend got up and he happily announced “Bye Bye”  then he kept interjecting our goodbyes by waving at her and saying “bye bye” and even pointing at the door and saying “go bye bye” SERIOUSLY!!!
I know that when it comes to things like this everyone has different tolerance levels, some people would think his behaviour was appalling and that he should learn manners and that he was clearly raised in a barn, others would be like, “arg that’s nothing my toddler just stole my car to buy a pack of cigarettes”… (I’m somewhere in the middle)
So what’s the point of my rant? well I realised later that he wasn’t feeling to well (blocked nose and slight fever) It also occurred to me that my friend arrived at what is usually “our time”.
He didn’t appreciate this. Clearly a creature of habit,  he is not used to me not being all his at that time of the day and didn’t know how to get my attention.
I guess it’s a lesson learnt…a reminder that he is a person in his own right with expectations and needs and not enough verbal prowess to express himself. Also he can be a naughty little bugger.
I must remind myself to try to make it clear to him that his feelings matter while making it clear that there is such a thing as “grown up time”.
Most of all I need him to know that I will always make time for him, even if it’s just a quick game of shadow puppets before bed or a phone call if I’m out of town. I need him to know that he is my first priority and that’s just the way it is, but at the same time he needs to know that this doesn’t mean there are no consequences for his actions or that I will condone rudeness or out right naughtiness….Quite a tough call.

Sheesh this parenting thing is hard…

Little minds, Big ideas – TV and Kids

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I have never thought of myself as particularly prudish when it came to TV. Growing up I didn’t understand  why other kids weren’t allowed to watch Sabrina just because she was a teenage witch or how Power Rangers incited violence.
Personally I could always draw a line between reality and make believe so it was not likely that I would dress up in pink and try to defend my neighbourhood or ask for a black cat to help me with my magic tricks.
 I was never into soap operas (I’m still not) so my parents never told me to turn away during a kissing scene as I’ve seen other parents do (this would make most kids more curious actually-just saying) My parents never had to stop me from watching age inappropriate movies because I was a bit of a goody- two-shoes so wouldn’t watch anything I was not old enough for anyway and since I only like comedy movies  it was not like I was dying to see Nightmare on Elm Street, Chucky or even Die Hard for that matter.
Okay so what is my point?
I always thought that people gave TV too much credit, blaming it for children’s behaviour and I certainly never thought I’d be the type to mollycoddle my kids. But this past weekend with Aidan being sick I saw a different side of myself.  I brought some toys onto my bed and wanted to put on the TV to distract him from the pain and OMW was choosing something to watch that tough.
 At the risk of sounding like a 60’s housewife, ” Kids are just so impressionable!” and I never realised how much “adult themes” there were in the series I watch.
I’m not even into the vampirey, zombieish things, I watch Glee and Big Bang Theory for goodness sake. But yes there are bedroom scenes aplenty.
 Nothing hectic though, nothing like almost every movie I tried, so many cuss words and nudity and those are just the family rated ones…Watching things like that with my kid is almost as awkward as discovering that “interesting” sex scene in Good Luck Chuck with your parents (which I did, the joys).
Aidan has a collection of kiddies movies so I thought I would look into that, but in my already hypersensitive state, I realised that there is a lot of death and loss in these movies and a surprising amount of fighting. I settled on  Monsters Inc, at least no one died (Nemo, Bambi,Up,Frozen)
Aidan loved it, he roared with the monsters, tried to offer Boo his bottle when she cried and then shouted no no no at the screen when a fight broke out.
The no no no response startled me and I asked if the monsters were naughty for fighting to which he responded “Don’t fight”
I realised something there, You can’t protect your kids from the world, you can only equip them for it.
 I mean Tigger from Winnie the Pooh actually promotes jumping off things and he is in one of the “safest” kids shows. Jake from Jake and the Neverland Piratescarries a sword! Handy Manny plays with tools and Dora the Explorer wanders off by herself….
If I’m going to be overprotective I should just not let him watch TV ever (not that he has the attention span to watch more than 5 minutes now anyway) and also I think I could edit some nursery rhymes… I don’t think that Jack and Jill should fall down the hill and Georgie Porgie is highly inappropriate kissing girls and what not….
But in all seriousness he is growing up in the real world and will be exposed to lots of things in lots of ways… No it’s not about to be a free for all in the TV department I just think I want to be less neurotic about things…I have told Aidan countless times that it is wrong to fight I just  never realised that it had sunk in (as he loves to rough house)…but apparently he knows “Don’t fight” which makes me think that as long as  I explain things to him while we watch TV, things should be okay…. But seriously shouldn’t someone be supervising Dora, hehehe