New year's resolutions

Yes, I know. We’re a week into the new year. And also resolutions are very, well, 2011. But I’m going to give it a shot anyway.

Lose weight

Partly because I really have to, and partly because no list of resolutions would be complete without this one. This is the little moment where I can fool myself that I’ll accomplish what I haven’t been able to do in the last 35 years: eat less calories than I consume, and end the year trim and slim. Yeah, right. But I’m going to give it a shot anyway.

Exercise more

Strangely enough, this is not as much of a fooling-myself as the weight loss. I started 2011 extremely unfit and ended it very unfit. I call that progress. I have actually enjoyed going to gym and running in 2011 and hope to do much more of that in 2012.

More specifically: In 2011 I ran/walked the 10k section of the Soweto marathon. My friend who did it with me estimated that we ran about 4k of the 10k, in total. If all goes well, I hope to run most or all of the 10k this year. It will take some serious work before I can get there, but it will be good for me, and I’ll probably enjoy doing it.

Bake more

Well, in the last quarter of the year anyway. I love baking, as you know by now. And I have two new recipe books to play with! But in between we hope to redo our kitchen, actually half our house, with all the nightmares that renovations always include. So the baking more bit will have to wait. Except (and here’s where resolution 1 will fall by the wayside) the building won’t start until March or April. So there’s still plenty of time to create some ridiculously unhealthy treats.

Take more pictures

When our oldest was a baby we took about a million pictures per day. The youngest, on the other hand, is lucky if she gets in front of a lens once every 2 months. They are growing up so fast, and I’d really like to have a good set of pictures that chronicle their babyhood and childhood.

Go on an advanced driving course

Like every other adult in the universe, I consider myself a decent driver. Good, even. But I’m very aware of the responsibility that comes with driving my two children around every day. And from what I’ve read these courses really can help hone my driving skills.

Be up to date on the news

I’m terrible with current events. I suppose that’s strange, given that I work in a professional environment with newspapers on many desks and loads of people talking about the news. We did a trivia quiz over Christmas with questions about events that happened in 2011, and while my family did excellent, it was mostly my husband. So I hope to stay more up to date. I did order my new iPhone 4S this morning, so that should help! :)

Write a paper for a professional conference

My colleague Matt and I have been threatening to write a paper on a specific piece of work for ages. If we do well, we might get a trip overseas out of the deal – and even if we don’t it will be good experience. So this has got to go on my list.

So – what’s your resolution for 2012? Want to share?

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!

Granola and all that is crunchy

Like I've said before I tend towards the natural, crunchy end of the spectrum. I just took this test and scored in the second highest category. It always surprises me what behaviors end up on these tests though.

For example: The test I've linked before seems to score you as crunchier if you homeschool than if you don't. Now as I would define it, crunchiness is about sustainable living, eco-friendly choices, taking your impact on the earth into account when you make lifestyle choices. By that definition, the "most crunchy" personwould be one who makes significant personal sacrifices in order to have less impact on the planet - for example selling your car and using public transport. Unless a family chooses homeschooling so that they won't have to drive kids to school, I honestly don't see the impact on the planet. I know a few friends who read this are very pro-homeschooling, so maybe you'd enlighten me in the comments?

Don't get me wrong, I don't oppose homeschooling in the least. It's not a choice that we've made for our family for a variety of reasons, but I could see a different life for us where it would be a natural choice, and I support my homeschooling friends (and sister) 100%. I just don't see how it fits into the definition of crunchy. It's certainly in line with the parenting paradigm that I subscribe to, but just like my choice not to hit my kids has nothing to do with eco-friendly living, I don't see how schooling choices are better or worse for the planet.

Same goes for co-sleeping, selectively/delaying vaccinating and extended breastfeeding, all of which I do myself. It just seems to me like these crunchy lists end up being a list of alternative lifestyles that often go together, but doesn't necessarily mean they're all for the same purpose.

Other things on the crunchy list are decidedly eco-friendly (cloth diapering, re-usable menstrual products, breastfeeding) but my choice to do it has less to do with the planet and more to do with common sense. Sustainable living is very important to me - for example for our home renovation I'm planning to use products manufactured in South Africa as far as possible, because the carbon footprint of imported tiles from Italy and an imported stove from Germany can be pretty big. But I don't cloth diaper in the first place because it's more eco-friendly. It was part of the choice, but the much bigger factor is that it's cheaper - and cuter.

The one factor that these tests often ignore (the one I linked to has one question on it) is the food you choose to eat. It's been proved many times that a vegetarian or vegan diet has a lower carbon footprint - just under half a square kilometer of land can produce enough beef to feed 20 people but enough wheat to feed 400. It takes between 3 and 15 times more water to produce animal protein than plant protein. And of course simply taking a stance against factory farming of meat can play a major role in deciding to decrease your meat intake.

I'm reading a lot about vegetarianism at the moment. Some of it has immense appeal to me - so I may be in for an interesting time ahead.

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.

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...