Knowledge (the 5yo version)

So my 5 year old told my husband that she knows a LOT - more than he does, in fact. He asked her what she knows, and here is the comprehensive list:

1. Dragons are not real.
2. The husband can have a ring or not.
3. We don't have to bath every day.
4. We must always wear sunscreen.
5. Fruit and vegetables are healthy.
6. Sweets are unhealthy.
7. Children should not drink beer.
8. We must not give mommy a hard time.
9. We must not touch fire.
10. We should not always play with the same toy.
11. We must wash our hands.
12. When we swim, we should close our eyes.
13. We must have a patio.
14. When it is cold we must wear a scarf and jacket.
15. Water is important.

There you have it!

Permissive parenting

We attended one of Jana's school friends' birthday party today. The little boy turned 5.

Without going into too much detail, I want to say that I've never seen parenting get permissive to the point that I saw today. The mom gave the birthday boy a 20 cm long knife because he insisted on cutting the cake himself, and then left him alone to do so (while he's surrounded by younger kids) - because that's what he wanted. There were plenty of other examples too, but this just boggled my mind. The knife was very close to the face of the kid next to him at times, as he waved it around and explained how he wanted to cut the cake. I just held my baby close and felt thankful that Jana was sitting far away from the cake.

Yeesh.

A parent's prayer

My friend Crystal posted this poem on Gentle Christian Mothers, from a book called "The Gentle Weapon". I think it's awesome:




Dear God,
Teach me to embody those ideals
I would want my children
to learn from me.
Let me communicate
with my children wisely--
in ways
that will draw their hearts
to kindness, to decency
and to true wisdom.
Dear God,
let me pass on to my children
only the good;
let them find in me
the values
and the behavior
I hope to see in them.

4am and the world sleeps

The kids are regularly waking up between 4am and 4:15 at the moment. Yawn.

We've never really had sleep issues, unless you count the fact that neither of them slept through the night before 14 months or so. But my philosophy has always been to make sleep a pleasant experience for them, and it worked out really well - going to bed is never a struggle. It's just the early waking!

Since I'm such an optimist though, I'll share with you what I've found at 4am: There is a certain peace to the world at that time of the morning. The kids are generally cuddly and loving (the super-energetic playtime usually only starts about an hour after getting up), and there is something lovely about how quiet everything is. Having a cup of coffee while the world sleeps, with time to just slooooowly appreciate the start of a new day is actually a blessing. Waking up at 5am means I generally have 15 minutes or so to wake up and then the day starts. We leave home around 6:20. So that extra hour with the kids, while the sleep would have been wonderful, is actually not the worst thing that could happen to me.

We're going to try a few methods to let them sleep a little later over the next few weeks. Most importantly we'll try to move Heike's morning sleep later so that she can go down a bit later with hopefully a later waketime. We'll see - and maybe if it works I'll even miss getting up so early.

Parenting - as viewed by my four year old

In the car on the way home this afternoon, Jana and I had a conversation about her friend John who had given another kid a nosebleed. It went on from there to why we shouldn't hit people, and then turned to adults hitting children and parents hitting children. Jana declared self-confidently that mommies and daddies never hit their kids (while I alternate between grinning and wiping away a few tears of joy that I could raise a child to 4 years old without even knowing that spanking exists). She then went on to say that I will NEVER hit her (correct), so I asked "and what if you do something REALLY REALLY bad? Will I hit you then?"

"No! Never!"

"What will I do if you do something really really bad?"

"You'll love me anyway!"

There are some days when parenting is hard work and difficult and tiring and I feel like the worst mommy in the world. Today is not one of those days.

Holiday!

My mysterious absence from cyberspace for the last week-and-a-bit was due to a long-awaited camping holiday in the Kruger park. We haven't been camping since Heike was born, so we were REALLY looking forward to this. Our favourite camp in Kruger is Tzendze rustic campsite - no electricity, no store stocking curios and overpriced clothing, most of the time no drunken tourists. There is a strict noise rule, so noisy groups tend to choose other campsites (well, most of the time, as we found out).

All in all I have to say the holiday was a bit of a disappointment, in two ways: the game-viewing was really not all that great (with the shining exception of the leopard we saw on our way out of the park), and also it was just way too much work keeping the kids safe and entertained. You'd think that parenting a 19 month old and a 4 year old would have clued us in to the fact that they're high maintenance, but somehow Hanno and I both managed to paint this idyllic picture in our heads of sitting on comfy camping chairs in front of the tent, tending to the meat roasting on the fire, while the kids play quietly and contently around us.

Yeah, right.

If my wonderful in-laws weren't there with us I honestly think we would have packed up and come home about 12 hours into the vacation. They're on their way back to PE as I type this, and more tired than anybody should have to be after a holiday! They might just have saved both my sanity and my marriage in the last week - they were awesome with the kids as always, hands-on and involved and the kids just adore them for it. In fact on our last evening Jana announced that she wants me and Hanno to switch places with Ouma and Oupa so that Ouma becomes her mommy and she'll live in her house. I'm feeling the love.

Anyway, the game viewing was OK but not awesome, we saw lots of elephant, buffalo, hippos, giraffe and antelope, but no carnivores or other scarcities until we came upon a leopard on our way out of the park. That was a HUGE treat, I had never seen a leopard in the wild before. He really only gave us a 40 second or so glimpse before disappearing into the bush. But despite seeing less than we hoped for, it's always special to experience Africa at ground level, so to speak.

I am happy to be back home! We heard on the way back that our plans for home renovation have been approved, and in fact our builder just rang the doorbell so I have to go. Exciting times!

A little wine for the stomach

I know, I owe you a description of German chocolate cake. I've been procrastinating very busy lately so I'll get to it soon, promise! I just need to get the pictures off Hanno's phone and onto the computer.

In the meantime, let me share this little tidbit with you:

My brother found out on Friday evening that he got a job with Thoughtworks, a global IT consultancy. I'm so proud of him I can barely put it into words. I'll miss him terribly, he'll be moving from Johannesburg to Chicago in October, but he's dreamed of this for so long that I can't be anything but thrilled. Anyway, so we had a champagne breakfast on Saturday morning to celebrate, complete with a bottle of Moet & Chandon. I had a small glass and finished it, and then Jana played with my glass and managed to get a leftover drop into her hand and taste it. Queue screwed up face and disgusted comments.

Fast forward about 3 hours. We're in Outdoor Warehouse, shopping for camping stuff for our trip to the Kruger park later this week. Jana has been complaining of tummy cramps for a day or so, which we've been managing with diet etc. Then without warning she vomits her breakfast right in the middle of the store. I take her to the bathroom and leave Hanno to deal with the staff. After she's cleaned up and feeling better, she announces that she vomited because of the "wine" she drank!

Now here's the context: we've had 2 broken arms this year, one for each of the girls. These were the only broken limbs in their creche since we've been involved in the creche. Add to that a 4 year old who tells her teacher that she drank wine until she vomited and we're sure to have a call from someone with a badge and a uniform pretty soon...