Liam recently insisted on getting a new pair of sneakers, he no longer wants the velcro kind, he wants proper shoe laces.  We went to Woollies on Sunday, the three of us, within minutes Liam found the perfect pair of shoes.  Army camo...high top sneakers no less.  Happiness.  Keeping these shoe laced tied when you are almost five and unable to tie them, well lets just say that that is a story for another day, when you have more time... Luka in this time found her own shoes...she walked past pink, blue, purple, black and brown boots - she walked past Wellingtons, past pumps, sneakers, all lovely in their own right, straight to a pair of boots .  Not just any boots, these are boots made from leopard print fabric, covered in glitter, pink trim, fur lined, imagine the blingest boots on the planet, now multiply your wildest thoughts with about 100 and you may just have some insights into what I am talking about. She put on said boots, probably two sizes too big, ...

A miracle happened in the past week and a half.   Luka went from being an utter little shit to a rather cute little girl.   We are still reeling with shock, waking up every morning waiting for an earth shattering blood curling tantrum, and then she calmly walks into our room, gets in bed with us, cuddles a bit and drinks her tea and off she goes.   We are literally dumbfounded by the turnaround in our little girl, and we are too scared to even speak about this, let alone tell strangers on a blog about this.   Luka is just different.   Not a single teacher ever described our Luka without using words like ‘feisty’, ‘strong willed’, ‘determined’.   Good when you are Margaret Thatcher or Helen Zille dealing with issues like unemployment and corruption, bad when you are a two year old girl with a mom and dad short of patience. What changed? I think two things happened, Luka started speaking much better and clearer than before, so we are better able to ...

Hi, my name is Niki and I am addicted to ... It is utterly smutty, sounds like slutty, and yes, that would probably have been the right word to use too.   I do not know how or when this happened, but I am utterly in love, smitten, addicted, you can use almost any word here…and I will admit it freely.   I am utterly besotted and obsessed with Sylvia Day and EL James and their respective Crossfire, Renegade Angels and Fifty Shades trilogies.   Yes, I am addicted to badly written books with weak plots and even weaker characters.   I have some of the books on pre-order on Amazon, and I have the release dates on my calendar.   How is it you might ask that a seemingly normal happily married mom of two becomes addicted to literature of this nature. As with stretchmarks and loss of mental capacity  I place the blame solely on the shoulders of my two kids.  My take on this, when you are a mom, wife, and hold down a steady job, you simply have no t...

My husband left for the UK last night, business class to Heathrow, and he tells me that it is not fun at all, that it is a time of stress and work and that he will not sleep well, and that he would much rather remain home with the three of us. Well here is a thought, lets swop, yes, really, because see after I cook, clean up after two kids and a dog, after I have bathed everyone, put on pajama's, handed out snacks, smacks and heaven only knows what else, just the time in mid air seems like a holiday. Four additional nights in a hotel where someone feeds you and cleans up after you, that sounds like an island holiday to me. This morning I was literally up and down the stairs a hundred times all before the clock struck seven.  One wants tea, one wants bread, the dog ate her bed, the milo was too cold, the tea too little.  I was contemplating taking them to gym, but heaven only knows, it feels like I have been running the London Marathon.  I made a grave mistake t...

I once again do not know just how this happened, but Luka turned two today. In typical second child fashion, her party consisted of her and her brother, two friends, one cake, hello kitty cups and plates and some sweets and the lesson learnt, for a child of two, a party of this nature is just as much fun as a party costing thousands of rands with twenty or more friends. We are at Zebula for the weekend and Liam had an unfortunate situation yesterday where his friend hit him with a golfball, he lost a tooth and after a visit to the emergency room has four stitches and looks like he lost the fight.  The poor child, at least the tooth fairy visited Liam first, out of all of his friends.  He is of course milking the situation, and keeps reminding all of us about his ordeal. Otherwise life goes on, its almost winter now and as we start to get the red wine and boots ready (the two only redeeming things about winter if you ask me) I am amazed at how easy we are settling into li...

Why on earth would two adults in possession and semi-control of two kids decide to get a dog? Normal people who still carry the scars and the bloodshot eyes of an almost two year old little girl who only recently started sleeping through the night.   People with a four year old boy who still wakes up at 5 am every morning, including mornings spent on holiday, at the seaside, or the day following new years eve… Because they felt guilty about finding new homes for the three dogs and a cat that they previously had.   Because the elder of the two kids decided that he wants a dog, and because we are still being guilt tripped about giving away said original pets and moving to Australia, that’s why. Liam has been nagging us for a dog for quite some time and we finally gave in, and got a dog immediately christened “Lisa” by her new owner Liam.   So we have Liam, Luka and Lisa residing with us now, people will think we have three kids, and when heaven forbid Luka also gu...

Everytime I get on an aeroplane, I get this unbelievable sadness that just totally surrounds me, and I think back to the start of 2012 and the four of us getting on a plane off to Sydney.   I vividly recall all the crying and hanging on to a couple of last sad chats via bbm.   Gerhard and I sat at opposite sides of the isle each with a kid in tow and I just felt despondent.   So I am never truly surprised that we never made it in Sydney, actually more shocked that we actually did it. Looking back at 2012, it has actually been a truly amazing year for us and in many instances we learnt a lot and I like to think that we grew, all of us, not just Liam and Luka in length and mommy in girth.   We have come a long way, left home and back, found jobs, a home, cars, furniture, schools etc, some of these things twice over the space of literally weeks.   We made some radical changes, we have different jobs, a different style of décor going, I have way less shoes...