So Liam wakes up this morning, its Saturday and we generally veg around until about 11:00 when we go to Kindermusik.  I ask what he wants for breakfast and he tells me "mielies".  So what do you do?  Do you give in and feed the kid corn for breakfast?  Insist on him eating some sugar coated cereal?  Well, I caved, so he had corn with butter and arromat for breakfast.  About five minutes later he begged me for some biltong, I caved... Bad mommy, I know, at least he washed it down with water, not cream soda. The thing is, I had some crackers and yogurt for breakfast, Gerhard had nothing as he was on his way to the golf course, so really, how can we preach to a kid about what is considered to be 'normal' breakfast type food?  It really is hard enough ensuring that that actually eat something, so when they ask for something other than chocolate - you give in.  I know people who would rather die, but hey, I say if it does not kill them, it makes them stronger...

Spending time away from home on business always seems like loads of fun for people who do not spend time away from home.   As someone who spends time away from home on a regular basis, I must admit that I hate it.   Before getting married and having Liam, I used to spend lots of time away from home.   I once lived in a hotel for two nights a week for an entire year, no problems.   Look, it was not fun, but I did it, it was part of my job.   At my current job, I travel less frequently, but I still spend the odd night away from home.    In fact I just spent a night away from home last night on a strategic session, Liam is now at a stage where I can actually tell him I am sleeping out, I will be back the following afternoon and then I will also usually pick him up early from school and take him out for a milkshake.   I realised that I might be a bit of a control freak seeing as Gerhard offered to buy Liam supper last night and the poor kid asked to go to the Spur.   They were also very

OK, so it has been raining in Gauteng for approximately 8 weeks, two days and three hours, non stop.  No, correction, it does stop about once a week, just long enough to allow the mozzies to hatch from their larvae and come and bite poor Liam to pieces.  He came into our bedroom at around midnight last week complaining about the 'vliegs" (flies) in his room, so we marched the poor kid back to bed.  The next morning when we assessed the damage we realised it was not 'vliegs' but "muskiets" big hairy fellows in it for the blood! The washing will not dry, the house smells really miff, the dirt road that Liam and I take to work is more hole than road, thank heavens for big bakkies!  I literally no longer know how to keep Liam entertained over weekends, it is absolutely crazy.  Now here comes the scary part, working for a company with interests in agriculture, all I hear all day at work is how the soya is rotting on the lands, the mielies are yellow, there wi

I wrote about blackberries a while back.  Well, I got my Kindle yesterday.  My only complaint, it kept me up all night.  This is a brilliant little device, I love this thing, I think I will marry it or adopt it shortly.  And the number of free books that you can get online, I now have access to a host of classics that I have always been meaning to read. My list of books that I loaded include Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice and hey, I even found something for Liam worth reading, the Beatrix Potter classics, Peter Rabbit, Jemimah Puddle Duck, books I loved growing up but forgot they existed.  The amazon shop must be the most amazing virtual place in the world to visit, thank goodness Gerhard set up the account.  I got the kindle for my birthday (now before you fret, don't, you have not forgotten my birthday) the package arrived and my sweet husband could not resit giving me my present a bit early.  So the amazon account already contains his credit card details...its the g

We are having some people over for supper later tonight, so I have literally been pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen for the past three hours non stop.  I made some mac and cheese for all the kids, baked cupcakes with Liam for desert, stuffed some jalapeno peppers with cream cheese to deep dry later on, made a cous-cous and roasted veggie salad, and cleaned up the mess involved after your two year old helps you out in the kitchen.  Gerhard needs to put some meat on the kettlebraai, that is his sole task for the night, I must point out that he does this brilliantly, if we can find all the bits and pieces for the kettlebraai... I am a tad tired after my cooking spree, so Gerhard starts looking on his own, he covers the kitchen and pantry in about 6 seconds, I can see he literally only opens the doors and then if these things do not jump at him from the cupboard, its obviously not there and he closes the door.  I leave him and try and ignore his ineffective searching. After about

I told my husband this morning that "baby" must be the most abused and misused word in the Afrikaans language.  There is not an Afrikaans song that does not contain the word in either the title or lyrics. Let me give some examples, starting with the particularly bad and ending with some more benign song titles: In first place, must be that horrible song called "Sweet Dreams Baby" - This song also has extremely deep lyrics, "Sweet dreams baby, lekker doeks" - why is the only question I have... In second place, a song that goes something along the line of "baby baby baby ek sal jou nooit" and then I don't know the rest by a guy named Nicholis Louw, deep, really deep in third place, has to be that classic "Baby tjoklits" by Gerhard Steyn, just listen to these deep lyrics, "Baby ek laaik jou soos jy is, my hart klop tjoklits as jy naby is, baby, baby tjoklits" Now, I can carry on with this for at least 20 more pages,

A pregnant friend admitted that her husband (a doctor mind you) does not believe that hormones causes any mood swings at all.  Poor man, he has absolutely no idea. This got me thinking, and laughing, because I can admit it now, my hormonal ups and downs were rather spectacular this time around, must be because its a girl... I am the voice of reason, I am the most level headed and logical person that I know.  I do not cry at weddings or when babies are born, I simply cannot stand that phenomenal where women come to work and cry.  Why on earth would anybody go and cry at work.  So imagine my surprise when every time when I am pregnant (both times yes), I start bawling my eyes out for no apparent reason.  I hated this, it killed me.  What was up with me, why were my emotions letting me down so badly.  And the moods, oh my goodness.  It was as if someone had started World War III in our house, firstly I needed to eat on the hour, literally, so imagine Gerhard's shock and horror whe

So call me a Philistine, I only managed to watch Julie Julia over the weekend.  Now I might have missed quite a bit of this movie as Gerhard and Liam were chasing each other through the living room, yes the same living room that the TV is in, one on a push bike and the other screaming like a banshee (no of course Gerhard is too big for the push bike).   The thing is that the part of the movie that I did manage to hear (I could see fine, I just battled hearing) was most excellent.  So inspiring, who in their right minds would attempt five hundred odd french recipes including the likes of Homard a l' Americaine (a lobster dish involving real live lobsters)?  And then have the time for a full time job and a husband.  Well Julie Powell of course.  I was so inspired that I immediately started googling Julie / Julia Child and imagine my shock and horror when I saw that Julie started an affair whilst writing her second book. Why is is that things that we have no control over or did no

As I have mentioned before I have always seen myself as a bit of a career girl, not too much cooking and sewing happening in my house.  Until I fall pregnant that is.  My husband has some serious concerns, he thinks that I am nesting at 24 weeks, and he recons that is a sure sign that this baby will arrive very early.  I honestly do not know what to tell him, the same thing happened with Liam... We have enough money to buy whatever we need for babies, yet, time and time again when it comes to the baby room, I have a compulsive need to start sewing.  I simply cannot help myself.  This time round i decided not to attempt a quilt as I did with Liam, thank heavens I had the vision (or good memory) to buy one and not go through all that measuring again, I vividly recall sitting on Liam's room's floor about 34 weeks pregnant cursing to the high heavens as a result of my poor mathematical skills.  As so many times before, poor Gerhard had to help.  There is something to be said for

I have never been into technology or gadgets.  My poor long suffering sister and future brother in law are both in IT (I use the phrase "in IT" in the loosest of contexts here as I know they have degrees but as to what they actually do, well, they work with widgets and dongles).  These two often receive phone calls from me telling them that the "thingy" on the screen that takes me to facebook is gone, or that my documents have disappeared, yes, yes, I did press delete, but surely it can't be gone, it must still be in the laundry basked somewhere.  So coming from a very low base, I had to learn a couple of things when we moved to the farm a couple of years ago.  Having always relied heavily on the companies I worked for to provide IT (by this I mean the actual computer) as well as support (like my sister, but less irritated with me because they get paid to help me), I was extremely chuffed with myself when I bought my very first laptop, with legal copies of wor

Ok, so I am not usually one to dish my husband, only when it comes to certain small irritating matters such as replacing the tyres on my car. A couple of days ago, Gerhard tells me that I need to go and replace the tyres on my car.  Today he phones and asks if I still remember that I need to replace the tyres on my car. Now inbetween all of this, I remember a conversation where he told me that one, I need to get the same tyres as the ones I currently have, two that they cost in the region of R1000 per tyre and three that I need to go to either Tiger Wheel and Tyre or another place (I cannot remember the name).  So, today after already taken time off work to take my sick child to the doctor, I also decide, let me do this, let me make my husband happy.  So I go to Tiger Wheel and Tyre, the one I can remember.  The nice man quotes me R4 100 all inclusive as they also need to balance and align.  I text my husband, he immediately replies to tell me I must not pay more than R930 pe

It is still school vacation - can anyone believe that the crèche shuts down for an entire month in December...so one of the students at Liam's school looks after Liam and a friend at my house.  When I got home yesterday afternoon, the caregiver tells me that she had to wake Liam up from his nap, not a good sign.  He refuses to eat and the glands in his neck are swollen.   This morning at 4, I am woken from already broken pregnancy sleep by Liam standing next to my bed asking for some water.  Now when this happens, you can take the thermometer and stick it in his ear and he WILL have a fever.  This is usually (and was definitely at 4 this morning) followed by some vomiting.  Tonsillitis, arrrgh! Here we go again; this poor child had tonsillitis two weeks ago.  This means another expensive visit to our GP that feels like a member of our family by now.  More antibiotics that will upset poor Liam’s system for the next two weeks.  Fever, medication, vomiting, not sleeping, not sleepin

Today saw the third day of shopping for Luka.  I simply cannot help myself.  I get withdrawl symptoms if I do not buy something pink or maternity related every day.  By the time Luka arrives we will probably be living with Gerhard's parents or in a shack in Diepsloot, but at least we will have many maternity and pink things (we will also have some recycled blue things left over from Liam, calm down honey, its not all bad).  Well, today I went shopping in my lunch hour as you do, and whilst visiting my local BabyCity, I also saw some old friends that I purchased on the spot.  These two are called Breastpad and Maternitypad.  Now, for those without kids, this is the time to navigate away from this page and start reading the newspaper, this is only something that parents will understand.  In the first week or two following Liam's birth, Gerhard being the good father that I always knew he would be, would dutifully phone home before leaving work to ask if we needed anything fro

So I went for my 24 week scan today.  These visits are normally something to look forward to, but in my experience these have never been great as I have received bad / damning news on so many of these.  Well, all is well, Luka weighs 600 odd grams and we could see her face clearly, she looks just like Liam did on his scans.  The placenta is holding and doing its job, so all looks set for an uneventful birth this time - we live in hope!   I also spent the night sewing!  I made some pink cushions for the baby room, amazing how the nesting instinct kicks in when you are pregnant.  I normally hate sewing, but as soon as I am pregnant I cannot resist.  I also thought last night that it is amazing to see life come full circle, Liam fell asleep in front of the television and Gerhard carried him to bed, it feels like yesterday when we were kids and our own fathers carried us to bed.  I am starting to realise every day how we only understand what our parents went through once we have kids

So after a slow start I finally started buying things for Luka yesterday.  I intended buying a single pink duvet case and walked out of the store with an entire trolley of pink things.   Do not get me wrong, shopping for Liam was great, but the problem with boys is that you are really limited in terms of your choices.  If you want to buy duvet covers, there are probably only about two options, the dark blue with aeroplanes or the light blue with trains, that is it.  No more, no less.  Now with little girls, oh my goodness, you can buy light pink gingham with butterflies, without butterflies, with fairies, without fairies, darker pink with hearts and a mix and match combination of all the above.  There are probably about 100 designs to choose from, only duvet covers.  Do not get me started on the rest of the stuff, word art for the walls, words like angel, light, baby, princess.  I can go on and on and on.  Books, clothes, boxes for bathtime accessories, rugs, and I am not even talking