What's Up?

My word where has the year gone?

My youngest has just finished his last year at a PHENOMENAL pre-primary called The Humpty Dumpty Squad, and is more than ready for next year. In fact, he is rather upset as the other two still have one week of school (ending this Friday) and he has to sit at home by himself (oh shame, gets to watch HIS dvd's and play Xbox whenever he wants!!!) Poor lamb! He had his Nativity play on the 20th November and starred as Joseph and his best girl friend, Eden, starred as Mary. A gorgeous couple!! Lucky he has me as his mom as his singing was the loudest and his speaking role was loud and clear!!! Our proudest moment as parents came when he was handed a piece of paper, which he then read. It wasn’t just a sentence or two, it was a LOT!!! Took about two minutes, which in 5-year-old reading terms is a long time. The comments from other parents were enough to make us burst with pride, in fact, HRH & I shed a tear or two. They couldn’t believe he could read so beautifully and that all their kids could speak Afrikaans and Zulu (2 of our 11 official languages!!)

The next day was my eldest’s 10th birthday. We woke him up bright and early, as we do on a birthday, with singing and gifts. He was given a Bionicle, which is a Lego monster/robot thingie, a book on the Universe and how it was created, all the stars and planets, very interesting. And then the Lara Croft Tomb Raider Xbox game, (have to wonder in retrospect if that was for Sam or HRH???). He was also given a book on science experiments from a friend and has used up a fair amount of eggs and vinegar trying to make it bounce????? It’s hard to believe that “just the other day” he was this tiny little thing staring back at me as we greeted each other for the first time. He’s very excited as he’s already up to my nose in height. Should he continue at his current growth rate, he should be taller than me in all of two years time!!! Granted I’m not the tallest person around but hey… he’ll only be 12!!!! Yesterday they had the Grade 4 & 5 Prize Giving and Sam’s best friend, Zane Ford, received an award for the Most Generous and Kindest Boy in Grade 4. How awesome is that!!! Sam was very proud of his friend.

Then there’s the Princess… She’s just the same. Life passes by and she flits through it like a butterfly with not a care in the world. She was cast as an ELEPHANT (!) in her nativity play. Mom was horrified to say the least! But Sydney was not fazed. I got her all made up with silver glitter, very blingalicious! And she plodded onto stage with the rest of Grade 1 & 2 and did her thing. Sang and danced to her little hearts content. Oblivious to the 500 odd audience! Where does an elephant fit into the nativity you ask… as there were 297 pupils to accommodate, they did the whole creation thing (moon, stars, earth and ANIMALS) just before getting into the Nativity itself. Today she has her class pool party and is leaping with excitement. By the time I got home at 5:45, she’d had breakfast, was dressed, hair done, teeth brushed and bag packed!!!! I think we adults really ought to take a page out of a child’s book and get more joy for the simpler things in life.

In keeping with that, you should see them Christmas Eve!!!! Oh my word!!!! Father Christmas has a very hard time getting down the chimney as they take FOREVER to fall asleep. They’ve written their letters to him and requested all kinds of things, Sebastian has only one request… an Optimus Prime toy! They are R850!!!! For a toy truck!!! Sure it can transform but for that price it better make the bed and cook too!!!

Tomorrow night is our Christmas Party and we’re off to the Heritage Theatre. It’s similar to Barnyard with a show and food and the show is Party Time! YEAH!!!! Really looking forward to it. Planning on shaking what my mamma gave me!!! 

On Saturday passed a few of the ladies I work with went to Leanne’s (work with her too) house for a Christmas luncheon and let our hair down. It was such fun; even though the weather didn’t play the game we still jacuzzied!!! Want to get me one of those!!! All in all we had such fun, laughed til our sides hurt, threw our names away and laughed some more!

On a very much sadder note, on Monday 7th December at around 1:45, our beloved dog, Harley Davidson Fat Boy, passed on to the great gig in the sky. He would have been 16 next month and while people think “he’s just a dog”, Quin & I bought him when he was only 4 weeks old. He was our first dog together and for the first 6 years, our child. He was a devoted animal, protected me many a time, provided hours of laughter with his “singing” and although not a purebred staffie, had the heart of a lion. Return in Peace my boy. I will always remember you with great love and fond memories.

TraceAngel

I have some of the most incredible and incredibly talented friends. Vanessa Davies designed the TraceAngel logo my blog is now sporting. She has her own Design company along with a WHOLE bunch of other stuff. I admire her creativity, energy, enthusiasm and humour (especially when she accidentally sends Red Bull to school with her daughter!!!)

To all my friends, (and I'm blessed to have MANY) Thanks for putting up with my ramblings, rants, moods, nuttiness, hysterics and tears. You are wonderful. MWAH XXXXX

Assisted Suicide??

There comes a time in one’s life when murder seems justified! Today was my turn and anyone living in the current South Africa will relate.

Today I had the “pleasure” of phoning Ethekwini Municipality. All I need is my water to be reconnected. I make the call…. Listen to their garble and select the correct division…. Then listen to Michael Buble, after a while I think to myself, this is a nice album, perhaps I should buy it… after all I have just reviewed 28 minutes of it… oh hang on… a person…. Right… I state my position, account number, ID, address, DNA, etc., and get told that she can’t help me today unless I send her a fax. I can’t as HRH has relevant doc with him at his faxless work, and she hasn’t the authority to tie up the reference number I give her to the payment … she puts me on hold. Another 17 minutes of scintillating Michael Buble, can’t help but rethink my intended album purchase, and I’m back at the same lady. She can’t help me today. Click, boooooop, boooooop, boooooop, she just hung up on me! I can’t help but get a wee bit angry. I phone back (perhaps this was a HUGE fault on my side) Yay… more Michael Buble, he’s sounding less and less appealing. Wow, talk about speedy service… only had to wait 16 minutes this time. Hey, new chick. Try this again, account number, ID, address, etc., sorry Ma’am, unless you can fax payment through I can’t help you today. You’ll have to phone again tomorrow. Click… boooooop boooooop, boooooop. WHAT!!!!! I phone HRH, FREAK OUT; he calmly does his thing and hangs up. Anyway, after that rant, I feel our local municipality requires a swift kick in the jacksie! Looks like I’m showering at gym again! Swines!!!!

Oh…. And yesterday was a murderously HOT day, my brother recorded 41 at his work in Umhlanga Rocks Drive, Durban, so around 4, in truly awesome SA style, a storm brewed. We had the wind, the clouds and not a single drop of rain. Did I mention the wind???? So our storm turned into a dust storm but it also blew the electricity in Waterfall 1, 2 & 3, Crestholme and Forest Hills from around 5:30 to sometime early this morning. Villa Verster had no electricity, no water and not even a candle!!! I had to drive to the local supermarket just to get a packet of candles and a box of matches. Aaaargh!!

This morning I arrive at work and, as I do every day, look for my make up bag to adjourn to the bathroom to make acceptable, and discover that my makeup bag is gone. I search my desk & surrounds, my car, phone home, no joy. Oh cr@p, the kids have paper recycling day today and suddenly I have this vague recollection of throwing my bag into the box with all the paper which was then tipped into packets and taken to school. So I phone the school office, state my dilemma, wait… is that sniggering I hear…. Yip, the distinct sound of muffled laughter… they phone back, nope, not in Sam’s bag, transfer me to Junior Primary, state my dilemma, listen to muffled, actually this time it’s not muffled, it’s just openly out there… Loud!!! She buzzes Sydney’s class, states my dilemma, now the whole class chuckles, and after a brief search, no luck! So now I’ve spent my day makeup-less!

In a few minutes I’m going to be heading home, doing my momly duties, loading this blog and soaking in a hot bath with a nice glass of red… haha, spot the not!!!!

“Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink”

PS... am home, had 2 glasses of my weakness, kids are sleeping and I'm ready for the chick-flick!!! All better... :-)

Teachers know best???

There are times when parents simply cannot contain themselves. Recently HRH and I had the pleasure of experiencing such immense pride that I truly felt I could burst. Allow me to waffle….

In 2007 we were called into Sam’s Grade 2 Teacher’s office for “a meeting”. She has an Honours degree in teaching so clearly she must know what she’s talking about, right??? Anyway, she said that sam was a dreamer and battled to focus in class and although he’s a bright little boy (duh) he really ought to have an Educational Assessment as she thinks he may be a little ADHD! HRH & I despise labels, ESPECIALLY negative ones towards our offspring. So as all parents do, we lug Sam off to a wonderful Educational Psychologist for his assessment.

Now the bragging starts…. At age 8 (well 2 day’s before his 8th birthday) Sam had a mathematical mind equivalent to that of a 14 year old. His chart was off the wall!!! His lowest score (on the graph thingie) was just above average. All the rest were teetering between way above average and top 2 percentile. So… does this mean he’s ADHD? NO!!!! It mean’s the kid understands his concepts very quickly and bores extremely easily. (HRH mentioned this to his teacher who politely scoffed). Next thing Sam is invited to join the “Discovery Club” which is by invitation only and for very select few in the Junior Primary.

Then at the beginning of the fourth term last year HRH were called in again, (oh crap, now what). New plan… The school is going to try a new type of academic learning from 2009 called the LEAP Unit, which is for a group of 15 very gifted children ranging from Grade 4 to Grade 6 (see www.theleapspot.org.za/node/3 for more information). The kids have to still to do the government regulatory curriculum, write all the same tests etc but then they also do a whole lot of “extra stuff”. Right, so now HRH & I are interviewed and informed that Sam’s amongst the Top 45 of (not just Hillcrest Primary) but all the schools in the surrounding area. WOW!!!! Sadly, came crunch time, he didn’t make it. Fortunately Sam’s quite a happy-go-lucky boy so he wasn’t too fazed.

Three weeks ago, written in red writing in Sam’s homework notebook is a letter to HRH & I asking that we meet with his class teacher. Poor Sam was dragged over the coals. I kept questioning him as to why she wanted to see us!!! Big day arrives and it’s to inform us that a place has become available in the LEAP Unit and Sam is first on the waiting list, are we interested??? Does a one legged duck swim in circles??? Of course we’re interested!!! Next step… meet with the principal who wasn’t available until last week Wednesday (19/08/09) So meeting day finally arrived and Sam (who was off sick with Tonsilitis) was accepted into LEAP. Tuesday morning he was called into the principal’s office where she congratulated him and then taken to his new class. Since then (all 4 days) he’s just flourished. He’s smiling all the time, can’t stop talking and the questions!!!! Oh my word, I feel so intellectually inadequate and this is just the beginning!!!

Round two…. I get a note in Sydney’s homework notebook that her teacher would like to meet with us. So off HRH and I go and what do we hear…. Madam has a concentration problem, is such a dreamer, can’t focus etc. (I hear a subtle label in there). Dear sweet teacher has recommended… an Educational Assessment! Oh my shattered nerves. Well, I’ve booked it for next week and let’s see.

Can’t wait for next year when little Sebastian starts Grade R! Dare I tell them he can already read, count to 10 and knows the days of the week in not only English, but Afrikaans and Zulu???

Other than that, work is going well. I’m loving my job, everyone is very friendly and sweet. We went to the Barnyard theatre on Wednesday night and watched LM radio which is from the early ‘70’s. Music was AWESOME, mood was festive and everyone partied long and hard. I really had a great time.

On the up side… I’ve lost 2.6kg’s this week. Just haven’t felt like eating so haven’t!!! Jane, Heather and I are doing a 5k fun-run on Sunday so looking forward to that. Oh… we never did the Spar Ladies 10k purely on the grounds of WAAAAAY too many people. We did, however, do the Forest Hills 10k, which we thoroughly enjoyed. I did it in around 1 ½ hours which is quite fine for me for now. Will challenge it next year.

Right… I think that’s sufficient for now. Thanks for reading through all my garb. The best thing about this time of year is walking outside in the morning and you get that sweet scent of Jasmine. Nothing compares.

I was hoping end off with some great lyric but all that comes to mind is something from Pink Floyd, “How, how I wish you were here. We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish-bowl, year after year” Profound? Me thinks not!

Been a while....

Again, I've been offline for over a month and to my dedicated followers, my apologies.

In the month i've been away we've celebrated my dear little girls SEVENTH birthday! And in true glamour girl style, we did a Hannah Montana theme. She chose her outfit very carefully and couldn't wait to get dressed up. We gave her a blonde wig and the movie soundtrack as part of her gifts which assisted greatly in the day. Her friends arrived all glammed up and ready for fun. Sydney had practiced certain songs for days so that she could stand on the stage that daddy built her and sing to her friends. But when the time came, she completely clammed up and just grinned at me like the proverbial Cheshire Cat!!!! Poor little lamb. However... when it was photo time, she had absolutely NO inhibitions whatsoever!!! The lad on the right of the photo is my eldest son Sam, and the little one she's leaning on is my youngest, Sebastian. The other lad is my neighbour's son. The three boys were "Security/Bouncers" for the day which they absolutely loved the role!!! Was very sweet to see them taking said roles so seriously!!!!

My dear friend Heather came to the party with the most awesome pink guitar cake, (she's the best cake maker around...) which, for the first time ever, was COMPLETELY devoured. The kids all had a ball, so I was chuffed.

I know this is short, but it's now time for me to go home and therefore must logoff!!!

Thanks for your dedication and devotion to my ever interesting blog!!!

And in the words of Douglas Adams.... "So long and thanks for all the fish...."

Mommy

There's something about being a mom that no book can ever describe. I've recently had a few things which have jolted me into perspective about my role as "MOM".

I give 3 other children a lift to school each morning along with my own two eldest kids. My daughter is dropped off at the Junior Primary and a little bit down the road my son and the other 3 are dropped off at Senior Primary. Sometimes the boys walk down, which is great because a) they shouldn't be so lazy, and b) I don't have to park twice. One particular morning the boys decided to walk and as I gave loves and kisses to Sam, my oldest, the other's started walking off. Sam called out to them to wait and they promptly took off, running down the road to Senior Primary. My son slowly started making his way down and my heart tore into pieces. So I quickly kissed Sydney goodbye, sent her on her way and drove down after Sam. I caught up to him and as he saw me his whole face expressed more than his words and I saw a little quiver in his chin. I took him in and gave him the biggest hug. No words were spoken but Sam knew that I was there for him and I knew that he was hurt. I wanted to call those boys back and give them a piece of my mind but also didn't want to embarress Sam. I phoned my sister almost immediately and told her the whole story, to which she simply replied... "That's just the Mom in you". The next day I casually yet sternly told the boys (whilst in my car so they had no escape) that what they'd done really wasn't nice.

I have a thing between myself and the kids that we hold hands and gently squeeze 3 times, "I Love You", one squeeze per word. Sam squeezed this to me after this incident!

Then along came Mother's Day and HRH wanted to spoil me to a lovely day on the Midlands Meander. Whilst I would have thoroughly enjoyed this, I knew that the kids would have been bored to tears so we decided rather to treat them to the Zoo just outside Pmb. Never been there before and jeepers, can't understand why not. There is such a beautiful array of animals and they are all in such wonderful condition. The kids couldn't get enough fast enough. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves and so did HRH & I. Then we headed off to Phezulu Safari Park for lunch and a visit to the crocs and snakes. They have the oldest known croc in captivity, his name is Junior, he's 104 years old and weighs a whopping 650kg's. HE'S HUGE!!!!!!!

Then we came home and watched good old James Bond Quantum of Solace and ate more junk!!! all in all, a great day. Oh, I've omitted that the kids each made me the sweetest cards with their own drawings and writing. Sam gave me a recipe book (which I'm still to try out!) Syd gave me a painted print of her hand with a poem and Seb gave me a little gold block with Happy Mother's Day attached. I feel so loved and special.

Sorry if this entry was a little soppy, i'm just being a mom!!!!

Slithery things & sqwudges...

I don't mean to state the obvious but it is cold!!! Normally I'm quite capable of getting out of bed each morning but this morning... I had to extract myself from within the comfort and warmth of my duvet by promising myself a good cup of coffee as a reward. Upon my return to my bedroom with coffee for myself & HRH I found my youngest snuggling angelically behind his dad. When he saw me he jumped out and gave me the hugest sqwudge ever. (A sqwudge is not just a hug, legs are wrapped around the recipients waist, arms are wrapped around the neck and the biggest squeeze hug is given.) Sebastian is the sqwudge Master!!! He always laughs afterwards claiming that he's almost sqwudged all my jelly out. (Mom's are made of wood, plasticine and jelly; and then a sprinkled with some magic from God - according to my three).
It's only April. What's going to happen in July???? Perhaps I'm just being a huge ninny, perhaps I just need to put my big girl panties on and deal with it and perhaps they'll keep me warm!!

On Thursday when I got home from work, as usual I asked the kids how their day was. Sam said "MOM... Absolutely FANTASTIC". Hmmmmmm. What's he done now??? So I asked him "What?" "Mom, please can we keep it" "What?" "Don't want to tell you 'cos you're going to make us take it out" oh my god, i think... this isn't going to be pleasant... "Just show me Sam, and I'll take it from there". In one of my biggest tupperware containers is a whole lot of grass, a dish of water, a toy porsche car, a few sticks, and a little slithery thing which they've already named "Strikey" GREAT!!!!! Right, firstly, let's get this thing identified, so off myself and 3 kids go across the road to my neighbour Kevin who is brilliant at this sort of thing. Oh lovely he declares, it's a 3 day old Herald. Not a Red-lipped, just a plain Herald. Completely harmless. Ok, this I can handle. What then crosses my mind is that if he's only 3 days old, WHERE'S MOM???? and she doesn't just lay one egg...
Kevin kindly lends us a glass tank to put Strikey in and informs us that he eats baby gecko's and baby frogs. Guess who spent thursday night searching for bloody gecko's???? On Sunday morning Quinton and the kids decided that Strikey would probably enjoy his life more if he was allowed to catch his own food and slither freely so they released him.

Right, I'm now off to warm myself up somehow...???

Bunnies, Bruises & Boulders (in no particular order...)

On Wednesday night my husband (god bless his soul) "worked late". At 9:08pm I received a call from him saying that he'd had a little prang (South African for mild car accident). Deep breath, keep calm... "Are you ok?" "Yes" "Is the car ok?" "not really" "how bad is it?" "it's bad" "can you drive home?" "Oh hell no, xxx is coming to tow me" "what happened?" "I hit a rock, I think" grrrrrr i think. HRH arrives around 10pm with "pranged" vehicle in tow. Although it seems ok to the eye, one must take into account that it's a 1994 Audi S4 Quattro. a) It's old, b) It's imported therefore UNinsured, c) there's only 14 in the country (and now 13 on the roads!!) and finally d) it's a bloody solid hunk of steel. It now resembles a Mustang! What angers me is that in order to dent the car as much as it is... HRH must have been going fairly fast! AND.... he'd put new shocks & headlights on that very day... He has told the spares shop where he bought the shocks from that he wants a refund as they didn't work. They guys didn't believe him and had a good laugh! Anyway, I must admit that I'm most greatful that HRH is unscathed (by anything other than me!)

Thursday night we had a work team build which this time was Action Cricket. This I can do... I used to play YEARS ago (like 9ish years ago!!!). I woke up on Thursday morning with a gentle throb behind my left eye. this is never a good sign. By 9am I phoned HRH to fetch me. FULL BLOWN MIGRAINE. Is there any need???? Quin rushed to fetch me (don't quite know what work must think????) He brought me home, I undressed and slept. He came back later and took me to the chiropractor (I swear by him) and then home again where i slept again... (and took some genpayne) I woke up around 3pm feeling like a squillion bucks. Quin took me back to work (bearing in mind I'd left my car there). work really must think i'm nuts!!! The whole cricket thing was Used cars (Calcutta Knights) vs New cars (Rajasthan Royals). I elected to be a designated driver as I strongly disapprove of drinking and driving. I was given a Merc Vito to drive (I WANT ONE!!!) anyway, off to Durban north we went. We batted first and my partner & I were 3rd to bat. As I was standing there waiting for my boss to bowl to me, life turned to slow motion and I watched him do the full over arm professional bowling thing... My reaction time is slow motion really isn't very good as I watched the ball gently THWACK me on my upper inner thigh!!!! It's about a 10cm away from my woohoo! Anyway, the Calcutta Knights batted to our hearts content, ran like bats out of hell and got our asses WHIPPED!!! Final score 148ish to 67ish!! Then we went upstairs where our PR lady had laid out an awesome spread for us to make burgers. We had such a blast. Ended up leaving there around 11 and hit Durban! I now had 3 passengers (all slightly inebriated) all trying to change the music and all trying to give me directions. All in all, great fun!!!! I eventually got home around 2:30am, ate Quin's left over's and chatted to him for a while and crashed. Upon inspection the next morning, I have a bruise the size of a small country on my leg! I have taken photo's and will add when i down load them!!!
We also celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary on Thursday but because I was absent, we postponed it to Friday!!! (Quin's so understanding!!!)

Yesterday was Easter... The kids woke us up a little after stupid'o'clock to go egg hunting. Sebastian and Sydney were both very worried that our dog, Mojo, had eaten the Easter bunny as they'd heard the dogs barking a lot during the night!!! Anyway, being the good mom I am, I insisted they have breakfast first while Dad went outside to see what it was the dogs had been barking at!! To the children's delight the bunny had NOT been eaten by Harley and Mojo and had left a wonderful trail of eggs all around the garden. The children also listen to me beautifully and have given me all their eggs in their own packets for me to look after (this is also so that they don't scoff the whole lot in one go and get sore tummies!)

All we've done this long weekend is watch DVD's (Bucket List is AWESOME), eaten, and generally mooched on the couch!!! AWESOME.....

Downloading the white noise in my head...

There are certain things in life a person needs to experience. One being a loose tooth. My dear daughter has already lost her bottom two teeth but has not yet experienced the feeling of sticking her tongue under the very loose tooth only to have it pop out with the slightest twist! Her second (big) teeth decided to make their appearance BEHIND her little milk teeth! This is very unnecessary, however a trip to the dentist, about 8 minutes and R250 later all is sorted. Yesterday she had her second extraction. So last night the tooth was dutifully placed into her little pink slipper next to her bed, and off to sleep she went. I asked the "tooth fairy" to please do his thing as I was terribly tired and worried that she may not yet be fully asleep (bearing in mind it's school holiday's so the kids are staying awake a little later). 12:30am I was awoken to the sight of a devastated little 6 year old sobbing that the tooth fairy hadn't come yet. When i realised that it was literally the middle of the night, I told Sydney that she was probably on her way, a busy night, and that she should go back to sleep quickly so that the fairy can do her thing. Appeased, off she went. I lay there, first cursing the "tooth fairy" that he hadn't done his job, and then waiting until I was certain that she was soundly asleep so that I could assist the fairy. I re-awoke at 2:30 stressing that it was morning and that I'd failed my little girl, only to have the hugest sense of relief when I saw the time. Did my thing then fell back to a much appreciated sleep (which, however, was filled with the most RANDOM dreams!!) Dragged myself off to gym at 5am, did the very basics, including a whole 3 minute walk on the treadmill, this is because I lost all enthusiasm and quit that for the bicycle!! I'm sorry, I'm boring myself here.

Tomorrow is Quinton & my 10th Wedding Anniversary. How are we celebrating??? I'm playing Action Cricket after work with work for our quarterly team build and Quin's baby sitting!!! So we're going to do something on Friday. I must say, 10 years certainly flies by!!! Perhaps I should start writing that book i've always thought about... hmmmmm, dunno how interesting it would be to all, somewhere between comedy, satire, tragedy, more comedy ....

I've still not yet managed to loose any weight. The chart stares at me daily, mocking me because there is really NO CHANGE!!! I'm convincing myself that muscle weighs more than fat which is why there's been no change so then I started measuring myself... alas no change here either... so.... now i'm running (again... i'm convincing myself that walk 1 minute run 1 minute constitutes as running!) This will get the fat off!

I must say I'm looking foward to the long Easter Weekend (noooo, not all the chocolates) but Quin has promised to close shop tomorrow night and reopen on Tuesday. He never does this except at Christmas time so I'm really chuffed. Perhaps a little picnic with the kids at a park or even in the garden.

Last Saturday one of my 6 dearest friends left for Cape Town so on Wednesday we gathered to say cheers. hmmmm, ended up singing horribly awesome karaoke, laughing our sides sore and talking/shouting our voices hoarse. Some of us may or may not have smoke a bit of a cherry hubbly. Apparently very yummy!!!

Aaaah, I think that's enough for now. Sorry it's a little boring, it just needed to come out....

Until next time... have a FABULOUS day......

So many words... so little time

I have been offline for about 3 months. This is a tad frustrating! Anyway, here I am, have soooo much to say, but running short of many things. One is brain capacity as I have had a migraine for the last 3 days. This is not fun! I am a receptionist, this requires me to be happy... all day... this is rather difficult when i feel like my brain wants to ooze out of my left eye! I went to the pharmacy on my way home from work today to purchase my first ever "Migraine Pack", which, I might add, they keep in a secret bottom drawer... clearly this is where all the "good stuff" is kept! anyway, upon arrival at home, I took a long shower and prepared myself to take aforementioned migraine pack, but as this makes one drowsy, I chose to wait until after kids bedtime. Well, now that the time is here, it appears that the migraine has chickened out and left for the day. Let's hope it's not planning on returning any time soon. It really is very inconsiderate!
Right, that's my rant over! (for now!)
The other thing i'm running short of is time. I try to get up every morning at 4:15 to go to gym until 5:45 so in order to wake up this blinking early, I need to go to bed fairly early, which is now! It's 9:26 and I think I should keep you in anticipation until another day.
Have a FABULOUS day!!!

New New New......

Well here I am! It's a new day, new month, new year! and after all the holiday food, i have a new body! what the hell???? My dear friend Jane has had this incredibly brave yet somewhat overenthusiastic idea that we're going to run the Spar Ladies 10km challenge in June. Every Sunday we meet and go for a 20min walk/run. So far we've clocked 2.2km! YAY! We are nowhere near our 10km mark! We've managed to coax another friend Heather into joining us. The problem, Jane and I are about 5foot 2 ish... Heather is 6 foot! I've counted... for every 3 steps she takes, i take 5! I'm being shmockled!!!! No worries! I've created myself a little planner for the year in which each week I WILL lose 200gms, yes, i know, not much, but i shall persevere. At least by the time i'm 35 I should look ok and by christmas i'll be better!!!
So... where was I??? Ah yes, the new year... Our New Years Eve party was possibly one of the best we've had in YEARS! (and Quinton and I have been together for YEARS!!! 16 in total, just entered our 17th together!)
I have to admit, I wasn't too keen to go out partying, was mildly relieved when my youngest broke out into what appeared to be mild German Measles on the 31st, but was reassured by EVERYONE that he's fine and the party shall continue! I managed to convince Quinton that we needed to eat before going out (to line the tummies) so we braai'd around 5pm. We only left home at about 7:45 (with the kids). We went to a friend's house where the kids played until they passed out, poor little Sqwudge (Sebastian) being first at around 9pm, then Sydney at about 10:30 and Sam bounced until 1:30am! but..... I got a call from my cousin informing me that he is now a manager at Harvey Wallbangerz (a cocktail bar) in Hillcrest which was approximately 800metres from where we were. hehe! We left our children with our friends at around 1am and went "clubbing" woohoo! Quin & I cut some SERIOUS rug!!! Dino & Mari (from the UK) showed me how it's done UK style (apparently i'm old!) anyway.... we left there around 3:45am, went back to Brents and then tried to drive a very drunk certain "owen wilson" wannabee home but he decided this was not to be and tried to jump out my car whilst moving! most unwise! so i took him back to Brent's house and told Quin to deal with it. As i'm not a drinker, I don't do drunk people very well and aforementioned "Owen Wilson" was becoming rather faulty! Apparently he walked home!
Then Dino, Mari, Quin & I loaded 3 sleeping children and headed home. By the time they were tucked in it was 4:15 and we had the munchies so we had a very late snack (or early?) Then some stjoopid being (oh wait, that was me!) decided that we may as well watch the sunrise seeing it was only 10 minutes away. So we sat there like 4 eedjits, in the mist waiting. It got light, the birds were chirping and it was still misty. Did I mention the mist????? CAN'T WATCH A SUNRISE IN THE MIST!!!!! When the hardy-daa (Ibis) started his mating call, we unanimously agreed that we'd seen enough and headed off to bed. I left breakfast and dvd's on the kitchen table for the kids (Sam's a superstar!) and crashed! My dear little daughter asked me around 11am if I planned on waking up any time soon! hahaha! So that was our new years party and man alive, it was a goodie!

Oh a very quick last thing...
Every day each of my 3 kids have their specific chores to do (nothing hectic)
It was Sebastian's day to set the dinner table and the conversation that ensued went like so...:
Mom: Sqwudge (his nickname), please set the table?
Sebastian: Mom, stop saying that!
Mom: Saying what?
Sebastian: That... setting the table.
Mom: Why?
Sebastian: 'Cos you're hurting my ears!
hmmm... must devise new tactic...

3 weeks later:

Mom: Sqwudge, please set the table?
Sebastian: AAAAGGGGGGGGG!
Mom: Hey! don't agggg me!
Sebastian: I'm not agggggging you, i'm agggging me!

hmmmm!!! interesting child that!!! shall keep you posted with any new quips!

Kids all had a fabulous Christmas and are loving Dino being over. They're all in for a huge surprise this weekend, so i'm quite excited and will keep you updated.