Month: December 2010

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2010 – a recap

I am stealing this from the ever fabulous Wenchy 🙂  In fact I stole it last year too 😉

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?

Nothing really stands out.  I guess I had a pretty standard year…

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I kind of did… you can read about it here.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

A whole lot of Twitter babies were born this year.  I may not know their mommies IRL but I feel like we are all so close even if it is just in the computer 🙂

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My granny.

5. What countries did you visit?

I didn’t venture out of South Africa.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

A real holiday.  At the coast or the Drakensberg.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory?

12 Dec 2010, the day Faith was born.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Completing our family with the birth of our daughter.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not being a good enough friend.  Letting friendships drift.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I have never before been so sick with colds and flu as I was this year.  It was horrible.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

The first outfit I bought for Faith.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Aaron.  His #aarontantrums have all but disappeared.  He is really growing up.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

Some of my family has made me want to move to a remote location where I dont have to deal with any of them ever.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Food, nappies, food, bum cream, food.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Falling pregnant.

16. What song/album will always remind you of 2011?

Greenday’s 21 Guns

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

  • Happier or sadder? Happier
  • Thinner or fatter? Fatter, but it took me 9 months to put it on, pretty sure it wont take so long to lose 🙂
  • Richer or poorer? About the same.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

I wish Paul and I had spent more alone time together.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Procrastinating.

20. How will you be spending Christmas

We spent it at home, we did spend the Monday after Boxing day with my mom.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?

If by phone you mean BBM, then definitely Wendi and Roro 🙂

22. Did you fall in love in 2011?

Yes, with my beautiful baby girl.

23. How many one night stands in this last year?

None.

24. What was your favourite TV program?

So so so many, CSI NY, Haven, Lie to Me.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No.

26. What was the best book(s) you read?

Again, so many books, I loved them all.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Nothing really new.

28. What did you want and get?

A baby 😉

29. What did you want and not get?

A holiday.

30. What were your favourite films of this year?

Nothing really jumps out.  Inception was pretty good though.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 31! We had a picnic, it was great fun 🙂

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

I cant think of anything.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

Whale like??? No seriously, I wore what fit regardless of if it looked fashionable.

34. What kept you sane?

Cipralex!

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

This guy…. Om nom nom nom 😉

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

None, I am so not into politics.

37. Who did you miss?

My brother Matthew, my brother-in-law Asher and his girlfriend Megan.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

So many people, mostly from Twitter.

 

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.

Take each day as it comes.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year?

“Here comes the sun…” – George Harrison, from The Beatles’ album, Abbey Road, 1969

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Pick n Pay Real Baby – A Review

As I said before I wanted to keep most of the Pick n Pay products I received to review for when our baby was born, this happened a little sooner than expected and we have been using the products for just over a week now.

My overall impression is that these are great quality products at a reasonable price.

But lets break it down shall we…

 

Junior #5 nappies

We started using these for Aaron at night mostly as he still isn’t fully potty trained.  The quality of the nappy and the materials used rival any of the big brands on the market.  I found the fit of the nappy very good and the retention (liquids and solids) excellent.  I did notice a bit of a rash that has formed around the waist band area, we are treating it with rash cream and hopefully it is unrelated to the nappy itself.

 

Cotton Wool Pleats

I like the idea of the cotton wool pleats.  They are easy to tear off but I found that the size of each pleat is too big for our needs and halving one pleat makes it too small.  I also didn’t like that at each tear section the cotton wool has a hard edge.  In terms of what cotton wool is supposed to do, I have no complaints.

 

Wipes

I LOVE the wipes.  The smell is subtle and pleasant.  They were easy to remove one at a time.  They have just the right moisture content that I like.  We usually use Pigeon brand wipes and the Pick n Pay wipes are the closest I have come to that quality.

 

Cotton Buds for Baby

I have never used a cotton bud for a babies ears but I found that these buds were just perfect for dipping into surgical spirits and cleaning Faith’s umbilical stump.

 

Nappy Cream

Personally I did not like the nappy cream.  Its a perfectly serviceable cream but I found it no different from a body or hand cream.  For me a bum cream needs to be more of a paste, a barrier cream between baby’s bum and the wet in her nappy.  I found that this cream absorbed almost immediately and that Faith started to get a small rash on her bum so I stopped using it and went back to our usual Fissan Paste.

 

Baby Lotion

I adore the baby lotion.  Again, it smells lovely and it absorbs beautifully.  Faith particularly likes it when I use it after her bath for a massage.

 

Body Wash

I love the body wash.  A little goes a long way with this product and we have used it every single bath Faith has had.  In fact I like it so much Im tempted to use it for my own bath tonight.  I also used this to wash her hair and so far it has left her hair silky and smelling beautiful.

 

So far those are the products we have used.  As we use the other products we will let you know what we think.

And just because I can and I know you will all go awwwwwww, here is a pic that the very talented Jenty took of our beautiful girl 🙂

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Our beautiful girl has a name :)

Faith Sigal Jacobson

A few people have asked why we waited to name her so here is the story.

Boys are named at their bris (circumcision) on the 8th day.  Its not forbidden to announce the name before the bris but in a metaphysical sense the child only ‘receives’ his name during the ceremony at his bris.

The naming of a Jewish girl is a very spiritual moment.  The naming ceremony is linked to the public reading of the Torah.  This is usually on a Monday, Thursday or Saturday morning.  The blessing begins with a prayer for the mother’s health. It continues with the giving of the baby’s name and a prayer that this new Jewish daughter should grow to be a wise and understanding Jewish woman of goodness and greatness.

Since Faith was born on Sunday, Paul should have been in shul on the Monday to name her but the service started very early and he wasnt able to make it as he was looking after Aaron.  Today is a public holiday and as such Shul started a bit later and one of the teachers from Aarons school offered to look after him while Paul was at Shul.  So Paul named her today.

Traditionally Ashkenazi Jews name children after a deceased relative, not only to honour the deceased but also to inspire the child to live up to that persons name.  Serphadi Jews name after living relatives as well as deceased relatives.

We are Ashkenazi and as such chose to name Faith after my grandmother who passed away almost a year ago.  Her ‘english’ name was Fanyse and her Hebrew name was Feiga.  Faiths second name is Sigal, it is a hebrew name meaning violet (sigalit is a type of violet in Israel) or meaning treasure.  We chose Sigal to honour my late grandfather Sydney and Pauls late aunt Sandra.

Her hebrew name is Feiga Sigal bat Nachama (Feiga Sigal ‘daughter of’ Nechama – my hebrew name).

So, in a nutshell, Faith received her name today at shul in honour of two great grandparents and a great aunt.

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Pictures!

So I am home, I have my laptop and internet access…

Here are a few pictures I took with my phone, most have been up on Twitter or Facebook already but I thought I would add them here again.

New ones coming shortly 😉

Big brother!
Dad
My family 🙂
With Uncle Cliff
Bobba (Pauls mom)
Nana (my mom)

P.s. theSQL will be named in Shul tomorrow morning.  Its tradition to name a baby girl during a Torah reading and the next one is tomorrow 🙂

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Surprise!!

So Friday 10th was my last day at work. It was also our housekeeper/nanny’s last day of work. It also happened to be my OB’s last day at work.

Anyone seeing a pattern here?

We went to my MIL for shabbos dinner and on Saturday we did some shopping, visited my granny and went home for lunch. We had booked tickets to see the new Harry Potter and my mom agreed to look after Aaron in the afternoon.

When we got back to my mom to fetch Aaron he didn’t want to come home. I jokingly asked him of he wanted to sleep at Nana knowing that the last dozen times we had asked he said no. Well he surprised us and said yes. My mom agreed and Paul and I went home alone.

We made dinner, caught up on a few episodes of CSI New York, closed up the house, settled the dogs and went to bed. Well, Paul went to sleep and I stayed up a bit playing on my laptop. Just before midnight I put the laptop away and turned off the lights. Not 5 minutes later my water broke!

Now I had been having contractions very erratically for a few days and theSQL was definitely head down and in position but I really didn’t expect her to come so soon. Especially because that’s pretty much what happened with Aaron at just over 36 weeks. I mean really, what are the chances of it happening twice?

Pretty darn good it seems…

So I woke Paul up and the darling man got everything together and in the car while I waited in the bathroom. I had called the hospital and they were expecting us. Paul drove us in record time through the rain and we arrived at the hospital shortly after 12:30am Sunday morning.

The lovely sister in charge, who happened to be a midwife too, hooked us up to a monitor and confirmed a strong foetal heartbeat and regular contractions. She did an internal and could feel her head pushing against my cervix.

The OB on call was spoken to and within an hour and a half of arriving at the hospital we were waiting outside theatre ready for theSQL to make her appearance.

The spinal was quick and not so painless but worked like a bomb. Paul was called in and at 2:23am on 12 Dec 2010 our beautiful baby girl was delivered into the world weighing 2.91kg and measuring 48cm long.

She has a full head of dark hair and latched on to the boob straight away. She is already on her own schedule and wakes up every 2 hours or so for a feed.

Aaron is in love with his baby sister and tells us at every opportunity that he NEEDS to hold his baby. I think he will be quite protective of her.

Right now I’m about to try catch up on some sleep since I’ve technically not really slept since Friday night…

***fixed the picture now that I have my laptop 🙂

A few hours old!

 

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Day 10: 1 confession

Im doing a 10 day meme!

I tell myself stories in order to fall asleep.

They are usually Mills & Boon-ish type romance stories.

The hero, the heroine, I imagine the setting, what the characters are wearing, how they speak, where they are.

I usually fall asleep before anything interesting happens, which is probably why I can never put pen to paper and write a story out.

Part of this confession is that I would really really like to be able to put pen to paper and write out the stories in my head.

 

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Pick n Pay Real Baby

A little while ago Pick n Pay asked me if I would like to review their new range of baby products.

With an active 3 year old and a new baby on the way I jumped at the chance.

This is what arrived for us last week:

  • 1 x pack Junior #5 nappies (46) – R119.99
  • 1x pack Mini #2 nappies (44) – R82.99
  • Cotton Wool Pleats (100g) – R13.99
  • Cotton Puffs (50g) – R13.99
  • Wipes (72) – R27.99
  • Cotton Buds for Baby (50) – R10.99
  • Aqueous Cream (250ml) – R12.99
  • Petroleum Jelly (250ml) – R13.59
  • Baby Soap (100g) – R5.29
  • Nappy Cream (75ml) – R15.99
  • Baby Lotion (200ml) – R18.99
  • Body Wash (400ml) – R23.99
  • Baby Oil (200ml) – R17.29
  • Baby Powder (300g) – R17.69
  • Hygiene Liquid (500ml) – R24.99

*prices taken from the Pick n Pay Online Store.

I was totally blown away by the package that arrived for us.  The best part is that these are not sample sizes but the actual sizes you will find in store.

The eye catching yellow, white and grey packaging is great, and Aaron was all over the bottles and tubs naming the cute animal drawings on each product.  I was excited to see that all the creams, lotions and powders have chamomile extract in them, this soothing extract is wonderful to help put niggly babies at ease (and its smells great too).

I must admit we haven’t tried any of the products yet.  The reason being that we had just opened a new pack of nappies for Aaron and we are waiting to finish those before opening the Pick n Pay ones.  As for the other products, poor Aaron is missing out, Im being selfish and hanging onto those for theSQL.  She should be here in the next 3 weeks and I am so grateful I dont need to buy any toiletries for her now.

I did open almost all the bottles and tubs and they smell divine, the chamomile extract is delish and Im sure its going to be very soothing for the baby.

Watch this space for our review of the Junior nappies in the next few days…