So I have a baby book by a renowned paediatrician than recons an awake baby is learning.  Luka must have an IQ off the charts already as she is awake for the major part of the day.  Good grief, I hardly have two seconds to have lunch, and here I thought second kids are less demanding.  Do not even get me started on the colic...I would just rather not speak about that right now, and besides, I have Bennets colic mixture on my side.  I give Luka some religiously at 15h00 every day and she sleeps right through her colic spells.  We let her surface over weekends, and if she still screams, we dose her again the next day.  Not ideal, but hey, its really the only way for us to keep her, for Liam to love her and for me to not start drinking Jack Daniels...on the rocks...in the mornings. Take today, Luka was up at 05h00, slept for maybe 10 minutes from 08h00 to 08h10, I fed her and off to gym I go.  She stays with Sekai.  When I return an hour later,...

A breakthrough, at last... 2 Nights ago I was ready to sell Luka.  I told Gerhard that I do not for the life of me understand why we decided to have a second baby.  I was absolutely shattered, telling him I hate maternity leave and I cannot wait to go back to work.  I told him that I am counting days  until the 1st of August when Luka can start school.  Not nice, I know, but I also told Gerhard that I do love her, I just wish she was bigger. This is the result of not sleeping for 6 weeks - and add to the mix the fact that Luka got a severe cold and was not sleeping at all for 2 nights in a row.  Man oh man was I in a deep and twisted frame of mind... Well, today is my 6 week check-up, I feel like a new person, you see Luka moved to her own room last night.  Yes, it might seem cruel, but we probably squeezed another 2 hours worth of sleep out of her last night, all due to the fact that we did not listed to her grunting and farting.  We have a...

Gerhard and I are fairly liberal people.  We do not cringe when Liam says things like "friggen", "Shit" and the like.  We do not teach our kids to call adults by that horrible title of "Oom" and "Tannie", we let Liam watch some TV, Liam had sweets before he turned one, you catch my drift. The one thing that we did not introduce Liam to is Spiderman, Ben 10 and other super heroes and violent characters.  So imagine my surprise when I asked Liam at the beginning of the year what sort of party he wanted for his third birthday and he matter of factly tells me a Spiderman party.  The shock and horror, I tried to negotiate, what about Buzz Lightyear, Thomas the Tank Engine, all characters that I am happy for my almost three year old to associate with.  No, Spiderman it was. I tried for many months to change his mind, but to no avail.  As the 27th of June 2011 creeps closer, Liam's mind is more set than ever before.  So a super hero party is on ...

Not too sure if anyone has been following the Steve Hofmeyr storm in a teacup.  To cut to the chase, Steve threatened to use the dreaded k word in the event of the hate speech case against Julius Malema not going the way of white people, i.e. if singing the infamous ANC song threatening to kill people is not declared as hate speech, Steve will go all out and release a song where the k word features. Well as you all know, the k word is probably the most hated, racial, controversial word in the world, so Steve must feel pretty strongly to go this far.  Well Steve, we use the k word in our house too, we now use it freely, at first we were afraid (we were petrified), but we looked at each other yesterday afternoon, and Gerhard and I both started using the k word at the same time, freely, unashamedly, we just used it, let it slip.  It was liberating I tell you, we have been avoiding this topic for close on 5 weeks now, dancing around the issue.  Looking the other w...

I am taking 5 minutes out of my hectic stay at home mommy schedule to come and tell you about my latest addiction, no, I am not smoking anything just yet, because just as I was about to hit the bottle hard last night and give Luka a shot of Jack Daniels, a friend suggested using some peppermint oil in Luka's bath water.  It has a calming effect on the stomach and guess what, it seemingly worked.  So no alcohol (sadly) for either one of us... Gerhard was a bit sceptical at first, getting advice from an aromatherapist, mixing essential oils with milk and then adding this to Luka's bath, but hey, it worked.  Luka slept from 19h00 to 12h30 and then again until 03h30, and then it was time to get up, so all in all a very good night. But I am digressing again.  Being a sahm leaves the biggest part of the day wide open, so I am watching back to back episodes of Brothers and Sisters.  How did I miss this series?  It is brilliant.  The Walker family also mak...

It is a reality, had Luka been the first born, she might have been an only child.  The Lord works in mysterious ways. . . Look, she is very cute and we really do love her a lot, its just that we hardly ever sleep anymore.  Take last night as an example.  We got into bed at 20h00, she had her last feed at 19h00.  So we were up at 22h00, 24h00, 02h00, 04h00, 06h00...need I say more?  And it is not as if the day was any easier, far from it.  She got over tired yesterday and literally did not sleep at all from noon till around 16h00 when I finally had enough of the screaming and gave her Bennets colic mixture.  Good grief, who knew that one very tiny little girl can be so full of shit? The night before last, no different, up every two hours.  Gerhard figured it all out last night, no this morning at 04h00, if you bend her legs, she farts, so he was bending legs to make her get rid of all that unwanted gas, trust a man... Seriously, I know that t...

I think that we try and fix things with medicine that just does not need fixing.  You know we have been having quite a bit of trouble with Luka and colic.  Every single afternoon at 17h00 she would start screaming.  So on Monday, the pead prescribed bennets colic mixture.  Well, guess what, besides the cortisone cream for nappy rash, I stopped all medication, and Luka is thriving.  No colic spell last night, just battling with some wind from 3 in the morning, but at least there is no crying / screaming involved. So I think that often trying to fix one thing, leads to a host of new issues.  Same with life.  You try and fix / appease / help one cause just to end up in bigger trouble than you were initially!

I think the fact that we are not sleeping (Luka is 4 weeks old today, so I have not slept for longer than 2 hours for exactly 4 weeks...) finally caught up with me this morning.  Add to that the fact that I am trying my utmost to lose some weight for Tanja and Jaco's upcoming wedding at the end of June and breastfeeding and all that adds up to my body catching up with me at some point in time saying "enough already!"  So this morning I felt all light headed and had blurry vision.  Now a while back, a good friend told me that visual disturbances are almost always a sign of brain tumors...can you see where this is heading? So I got all teary this morning, looking at Liam and Luka and I literally felt my heart break into a million pieces.  What if something has to happen to me, they are both still so small, I have not equipped them well enough to face the big ugly world outside.  Liam is only starting to learn how to read now.  Luka is 4 weeks old....

Yes, you guessed it, second only after valentines day, that cliche called mother's day was here yesterday, and what a disaster. I have two gorgeous kids and the best husband in the world, yet mother's day did not make me feel appreciated at all this year, and I actually guilt tripped my husband into buying me a very expensive (although gorgeous) pair of earrings yesterday.  But I digress. Let me start at the beginning. A week ago two things happened almost at the exact same time I told Gerhard that I want a decent pair of earrings for the occasion, and Gerhard was bitten on the bum.  We thought it was a tick and was dreading the tick bite fever that would surely follow. I e-mailed Gerhard a pic of the dream earrings and the bite mark on the bum went from bad to worse.  So bad in fact that on Friday, I finally convinced Gerhard to go to the doctor.  Turns out it was a violin spider, poor man ended up having a small procedure done to drain the wound and ende...

South Africa has more public holidays than the average democracy...we just came through Easter, a tyring time for any mother, thank heavens Liam's school does not actually close down during this period. The average South African needed to take three days worth of leave to spend a whopping thirteen consecutive days at home.  Thirteen.  Liam was confused.  He asked every morning if he would go to school today.  If I said 'no', he was sad, he misses his friends.  If the answer was 'yes' he was sad as he wants to stay home with me and Luks.  Not pretty. I find that it is also a lot harder trying to balance Luka with Gerhard and Liam at home.  With Liam there is a two hour sleep possibility window, and Liam and Luka are not yet in sync. It was also Gerhard's 34th birthday on Saturday, he got to spend it at a 1 year old's birthday party, how life has changed...anyhow, Liam got Gerhard some pink sweets from Woollies and a heart shaped candy.  We di...

I love handbags, I am crazy about them, I would forgo food for a good handbag.  Everybody has a 'thing' and mine simply happens to be handbags.  Big ones, small ones, madly expensive ones and el cheapos that you get at the flea market, grey ones hand crafted by old ladies at the old age home, shiny metally ones.  I love handbags. Well guess what?  No, not that Guess, not as in the handbag...I now have a diaper bag.  A red one, and it needs to double as my handbag.  There is just no way in hell that I can manage a two (almost three!) year old, a two week old, a diaper bag and a handbag, something had to give and in this case, it was my poor almost new chunky Louis Vuiton bag.  I miss it already... The thing is, when you have a baby, some things are just not meant to be. At least this time around, I have managed to paint my nails (all of them, fingers and toes) twice, and I have worn make up on at least four separate occasions.  With Liam a...