San Diego Fun

We spent a few days in San Diego, cause I seriously needed to get out of Utah for a little while. It was definitely what I needed.

San Diego Zoo - Loved this place, and so did the Tazling.







Swimming at the hotel - Miss Madam LOVES water.


Sea World - At the Shamu show, they do this whole thing where you have to put your hands together and wave your arms up and down to make Shamu splash you. It was all smiles and giggles, till Shamu splashed our side of the auditorium. Would you believe that the splash came in a straight line and hit only one person in each row of seats. Its true, and guess who the one person in our row is who got doused - exactly! The person on my right was bone dry, and Mack had a few drops on his shoulder. I however looked like a drowned rat and had rivulets of water running from each butt cheek when I stood up. Good times, Good times!


(Mack feeding the seals - Taz did not appreciate the noise)

(Taz checking out the bat rays)

(The bat ray that touched Taz's foot and made her FREAK out!)




(The infamous Shamu splash - I still can't believe I was the one that got wet - Mack was the one that wanted to sit in the splash zone. I can still feel my damp jean clad thighs rubbing together. At least it was a nice warm day.)

Santa Monica Beach - we spent a couple of days in LA with Gillian.






Lego Land - We didn't have much fun here cause little missy was too small to go on any of the rides. We'll visit again when she's 5 or so - then she'll have a blast!


(she did not appreciate the coolness of being in the sharks mouth.)

(Moi looking super cool in a borrowed hat - I sunburnt my scalp the day before - looking like a dork was far better than getting a double burn.)

Summer Fruits

Tamsine LOVES fruit. I cut it up and put it in her little - no choke - fruit pouch thingy and away she goes. She particularly enjoys oranges and nectarines.

Figured It Out

I've been wondering about Tamsine and her screaming fits when we put her down for bed. It just didn't make sense that she would go down for her naps no problem, but that she would scream at night.

I've been wondering if it had something to do with the darkness. We always have a nightlight on, but her room is still pretty dark. So, tonight I put a single bulb lamp in her room which gave her a little more light, but still kept the room dim enough for her to know that its night.

AND, lo and behold.......NO TANTRUM!!!!! My little girl is afraid of the dark. That's why she's been freaking out at night. Poor kid. I feel so bad. But at least we figured it out and now we can both relax.

It Starts...

My mother told me that having a little redhead was God's way of getting me back for the grief I gave as a kid. AND Tamsine's hair gets redder by the day. Jeesh!

She isn't even 11 months old yet, but the battle of the wills has already started. Who will win? Right now that's anybodies guess. I know how stubborn I am, but I'm still learning how stubborn my offspring can be.

Nap times during the day are fine. She's tired, I put her in her cot, she lies and moans for a few minutes and then goes to sleep.

Going down for the night though is a COMPLETELY different story. She's tired, I give her a bottle, she about falls asleep drinking, she realizes that its bed time, she wakes herself up, she smiles coyly, she arches her little back and lets out a spine chilling screech, I put her in her cot, I turn on her lullaby music, she starts to wail, she pulls herself up and knaws on the side of her cot while wailing, I put her down, I put her dummy in her mouth, she rolls and squirms and screams, I pat her little bum and try to shush her, she slaps at my hand and screams some more, I start to mumble threats under my breath, she screams some more, I then walk out the room to see if she will cry herself to sleep, she goes into berserker mode, I listen to her scream for about 20 min, I walk into her room, I pick her up, I quiet her down, she rubs and rubs and rubs her little eyes, she pretends to be asleep, I put her in her crib, she arches her little back and screams, I mutter a few death threats (to or regarding no one in particular) and curse a little, she screams. 2 hrs later we're still doing the exact same thing, until I pick her up, she screams, arches her back, and promptly falls asleep.

WHAT THE???!!!!!???

I've wondered many things about what I might be doing wrong, if she's in pain, and on and on. The things is, that if I bring her out to the lounge she proceeds to smile and gurgle and act like the cutest happiest baby ever. I've realized, she just doesn't feel the need to go to bed at a normal hour and give me a little break. BRAT!

So as I said....The battle of the wills...It starts!

Now That's What I'm Talking About

I'm Melting

Taz and I have been enjoying the bike seat. It helps me get some exercise, and helps tucker Taz out so that she takes lovely long naps. We usually bike to a park where we have a little picnic lunch and then play on the swings and attempt climbing on the other equipment.

We were biking around the other day, and as I took a corner I said "weeeee", and the next thing I heard this little "weeeee", come out of my tiny passenger. It was so adorable!!!!

Now everytime we take a ride she sits and says, "weeeeee". When I hear her, I just melt.

Mouse in the House

We have alot of construction going on around our house, and also a really large open field behind it. Both of these factors contribute to there being an abundance of furry little critters being disturbed in their natural habitat. Add a very frisky Phoebe into the mix and...I think you can see where I'm going with this.

So last night I noticed the cat staring intently at the corner of Tamsine's room, I wondered about it, but was too tired to really care. Then, this morning I found mouse droppings and pee in the container we keep Taz's nappies in, in her top drawer of her chest of drawers. I was not amused, but had been witness to Phoebe's conquests before, so I started looking everywhere for the mouse carcass. Nowhere! Argh!!!! I have a baby in the house and need to know where to spray copious amounts of Lysol disinfectant. THEN, I noticed the cat completely fascinated with the hall cupboard where we keep the vacuum. I thought - Aha - so opened the cupboard expecting the cat to jump in there and pull out the mouse. Instead she attacked the vacuum. Our cat (let me correct that, ) Mack's cat is a strange one anyway, but I figured there was something to her taking a dislike to the vacuum suddenly.

On closer inspection, I found the mouse had crawled up the vacuum hose and died there. Now isn't that a considerate mouse. I wish they would all do that!

So now instead of having to douse the whole house in Lysol disinfectant and have it dripping from the ceilings, I can just spray in the area's that I figure the mouse went.

Sweet New Ride

As summer approaches and the days begin to warm, I have been overcome with the need to get out into the sunshine and capitalize on the great weather. I seem to suffer from seasonal dysfunctional disorder here and go into a complete depression during the last few months of winter in Utah (which feels like about 9, maybe 10 months of the year).

Anyway, I have always enjoyed a nice bike ride or two. You know the kind - the ones where the wind is always in your favour and there are no uphills anywhere to be seen. Yip thats my kind of bike ride. But, this year so far I have been unable to follow my whim of biking around my parking lot a couple of times because of the dear munchkin.

I started researching bike seats versus bike trailers (which I have found are hellishly expensive). I found the perfet bike seat for the little missy, one where I can talk to her, where she is safe, where she doesn't throw my center of balance off, where she doesn't have to look at my wobbling butt the whole ride, and where I can see if she's uncomfortable or not.

So to make a long story short - meet Tamsine's new ibert. Even though the weather wasn't the best today, we had to take it for a test run. She LOVED it.

So come on summer, Taz and I have some serious biking to do - I might even try a slight incline or two!

Taz all kitted out and ready to go!

Virgin voyage of the ibert.

Of course we had to stop off in the park so that..ummm, both my kids could play on the swings a bit.


Just look at that happy little face!

Good Times, Good Times

I have to write this down before it becomes a distant memory - mainly because its my favourite memory from this last trip to Cape Town.

This is how it happened. Jeremy, Taz, my Mom and I went to breakfast with some of my Mom's friends. We arrived back at my Aunts house and heard the most awful noise (sorry Alana) coming from her sunroom area. Confused and just a little concerned we walked into the house, and found my cousin Alana sitting cross legged on my Aunts couch singing at the top of her lungs along with a karaoke style game called Sing Star. My cousin Brenna and her boyfriend Alexandre were just as into the game. Surprisingly, Alana's favourite song to sing to was Dolly Parton's 9 to 5. I think Lana was chanelling her!

But, to make a long story short, it felt like old times back in Cape Town. The cousins all hanging out together acting stupid and not caring. After only a few minutes we were all haggling over who was going to sing which song, getting excited about beating one anothers score, and teasing each other. Jeremy was a little reticint at first, which was surprising because out of all of us, he has the best voice, but seriously with all of us together, excited, singing off key, it was only a matter of minutes before Jeremy was sucked into the thick of things. And boy was he sucked in! Alana was so addicted that she was late for a dinner appointment - her husband had to call 3 times to remind her she needed to make her way home.

Ahhh, the good old days. I miss you guys!

I Should be Sleeping...

Hanging with Dad

While in Mexico last year, we bought two chair hammocks for our balcony area. They really are super comfy, and if the sun would ever shine maybe we could use them more. We did have one sunny day this year so far though.

When Things Go Quiet...

I should have known better, but I was just so glad for a little peace while packing the groceries away. That's when I realised I should know better. When the house is void of little noises, it means that little noises are way too preoccupied doing something they shouldn't be doing. And that's when a mother turns around to find the cats water dish completely void of water, and this lurking under the dining table.

My Mom's Side of the Family

A very drooly Taz with her Uncle Jeremy and Ouma

All we're missing is Darren

My Mom and her siblings (Phinnie, Antoinette, Marie, Billy)

Ouma and her self confessed favourite grandchild (I say rude!)

Tamsine and her Oumagrootjie (big little grandmother)

Four generations

The Four Girls (Aunty Net, Ouma, Aunty Phinnie, My Mom)

Ouma and all four her children

My Mom, my child and my Ouma

Happy Easter!!!!

I love Easter. Really, I think its the best holiday. It may be because I have such great memories associated with Easter. Easter is a pretty major holiday back home.

Let me take you back into the Easters of my childhood: Easter in South Africa is in the Autumn. The weather is barely starting to cool, the days are just starting to shorten, and the children have a week off school. For the adults, Easter is a 4 day weekend. The shops are stocked with fresh Hot Cross Buns, marshmallow Easter eggs, and the highly coveted White Beacon Eggs.

My family and my friend Jenni's family would pack up the car, bakkie (truck) and caravans and go camping in the mountains along the Bainskloof pass. The saturday before Easter, my mom and Jen's mom would take a walk around the mountains leaving clue's for us to find. The next morning we would all wake up bright and early and start scampering around the mountains searching for and solving the clues left for us the day before. While we were out searching for clues our parents would hide our eggs around our campsite, in trees, under rocks etc. (if they hid them the night before the baboons would get them). We would then all return to the site for the big egg hunt. Sometimes we would find lost eggs from the year before, but mostly we would just have fun. The rest of the day would be spent in chocolatey, sugary bliss, knowing that we didn't have school the next day. It invariably rained one of the days over the Easter weekend, which meant that all the mountain streams were in flood. We had some really exciting times tubing down the flooded streams, and a few really hairy occassions when Darren and my cousin Jason almost killed themselves. But, because no one was actually hurt those are now fond memories.




A couple of pictures of the mountians along the Bainskloof pass - Memories of Easters Past.

I only wish that I can make Easter as significant and enjoyable for my kids as my parents made it for us!

Too Bad Its Just Not True

For my birthday, Gillian gave me a fantastic, light weight, earth friendly water bottle, with all these motivational sayings all over it - like:

"Dance, sing, floss and travel."

"Creativity is maximized when you're living in the moment."

"The conscious brain can only hold one thought at a time. Choose a positive thought."

"Friends are more important than money."

You see. You do feel all motivated and positive when you read them. Then they threw in this one:

"Children are the orgasm of life."

Whoa! You see and suddenly I have to disagree with my water bottle. If the latter were the case, I believe there would be alot more women walking around with perma smiles on their faces, and I'm just not seeing those smiles.

Water bottle - I feel let down.

With a Mother Like Me.....

With a mother like me, did I expect Tamsine to do things normaly? Ummm, no comment.

Tamsine now has 4 teeth. I knew she was teething, but was completely perplexed at how long the teeth were taking to come out, till she bit me yesterday. Silly me, I had been feeling for her central incisors, but when she bit me, it was with a tiny new little lateral incisor. Weird? I thought so, so I googled "teething out of order", and found out that its not usual to teeth out of order, but its also not unusual. This was my favourite post about it that I found.

So my little sweetie has her bottom two central incisors and now her top two lateral incisors. Its a good thing she's too little to know she's going to look funny for a little while.

Whew!!!

So this is why I haven't been posting lately.

When we left for South Africa, we took a midnight flight from Salt Lake to Atlanta, then spent about 8 hrs in the Atlanta airport till we boarded our plane to Dakar, Senegal. 8hrs on the plane, then a 2hr layover in Dakar. Then another 8 hrs on the plane from Dakar to Cape Town. Flying with an infant in arms = minimal sleep on the plane.

We spent 10 days in South Africa, where I averaged about 3 hours of sleep a night due to a jetlagged baby. Two of those days were spent driving from Cape Town to East London (it took us about 16 hrs each way).

Then, we boarded our flight back to Dakar, except our plane was delayed by two hours. We arrived in Dakar, disembarked, were on the ground for about 1/2 hr, then reboarded the same plane (we were supposed to switch planes, and then fly on to Atlanta, but the Atlanta flight was overbooked, so they put us back on the same plane and had to fly to New York). Our plane was delayed for another 2hrs in Dakar, then finally took off. We then had about a 6 hr layover in NY, then another 6hr flight from NY to Salt Lake. All this once again with an infant in arms = minimal sleep.

We were finally in Salt Lake, but then I drove my mom home (the opposite direction to my house from the airport), and then I finally drove home.

I arrived home to a husband with a temperature of 103 F. And, I had a jetlagged baby. Mack's fever took over three days to break. He slept about 20hrs a day, the poor guy. I got about 3hrs broken sleep a night. Mack finally started feeling better, but was still completely fatigued when Tamsine got sick. Every time I tried to put her down (even to go to the loo) she wailed. She was so congested that she wouldn't sleep unless I was holding her, and she too ended up with a fever of 103 F. After a visit to the doctor and some prescription medication her fever finally broke, but she was still really congested. Sick husband AND sick baby = mother getting NO sleep.

This puts me at about 23 days of little to no sleep. THEN on Friday night I woke up to Tamsine screaming. I walked into her room and was almost knocked over by the overwhelming smell of marajuana in her room. Now I'm just speculating, but it could only have been our upstairs neighbours sparking up a doobie (or two) in their apartment. We called the police, but by the time they arrived the smell had dissapated and they couldn't smell anything. Long story short, by 5am we had driven to Mack's parents house with the munchkin to get her out of our drug infested apartment.

By Saturday morning, I was beyond wrecked, I wasn't even a zombie, I was practically comatose I was so tired. I could barely formulate a three word sentence. I was so tired I couldn't sleep anymore. My body was in overdrive and my mind just wouldn't quiet. Mack's mom gave me some lovely homeopathic drops and a couple of very cute little pink allergy tablets and FINALLY, I was able to sleep.

And that's why I haven't blogged lately. Do you blame me?