Protected: Finally
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Swim fishy swim…
Round about this time last year we started taking Aaron to swimming classes. We took him to a teacher who had a few kids in the class and was a little kooky and crazy. Aaron loved him. The swimming? Not so much.
Aaron and I spent about 2 months, one lesson a week arguing negotiating how much of Aarons body he would allow to get wet. By the end of the year we were sitting on the step but only during the last 10 minutes of the class.
In December the teacher went on holiday and told me that he would call me when he was back. He never did. I think he just didnt want to deal with Aaron and his water issues. I then had Faith and I never followed up with lessons in the new year.
Ah yes, water issues. Lets go back a few years to bathing a new born Aaron. He screamed. He cried. He really did not like bathing. He especially did not like getting his head wet and to this day washing Aarons hair is a trauma akin to bathing 10 cats in one go.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago.
With summer upon us, swimming lessons became a topic of conversation once again. Paul got the number of a swimming school from one of the moms at Aarons play school and I gave them a call. We arranged to have two 20 minute lessons a week. There are three instructors and each instructor has no more than 4 children at a time.
The first lesson was a disaster. Aaron screamed blue murder. We left.
The next lesson he agreed to sit on the side of the step with his feet in the water. Half way through his ‘lesson’, the one instructor from the ‘baby’ class came to sit on the step with him. She chatted to him and got him to throw some toys onto the step and then get up and walk to pick them up, she even got him to sit on her lap in the water before getting out the pool.
The next week the same teacher asked Aaron if he would like to come sit on the step in the baby pool with her. (There are two pools, a large regular pool and a smaller baby pool with two steps and a shallow end, no deep end). He agreed. He threw toys on the steps and sat on the top step for most of the lesson.
The 4th lesson was amazing. He blew bubbles with his face in the water and even let the teacher hold him and take him into the water.
Yesterdays lesson made me cry with pride for my big boy. He not only got onto the pool noodle (which he had point blank refused to even touch before) but he ducked his whole head under the water. He even let me go sit in the car instead of by the side of the pool.
I think he is learning to love swimming 
I cannot wait for tomorrows lesson!
Where has the time gone?
My little boy is growing up!
He has a school friend over today for a play date. They are having an absolute blast!
My baby girl has a tooth!
Thats right, a tooth, on the bottom left side. I can just see it poking out. It came out of nowhere.
three sixty five
I cannot believe how fast the last year has gone by!
A few days before mothers day last year we found out that after a year of trying we were finally pregnant with Faith. I was about 4 weeks along.
On mothers day last year we had our first family shoot with Jenty.
Look how much Aaron has grown…
From this:
To this:
From 3:
To 4:
I truly cannot describe how blessed I am.
Back to work and guilt (Its not what you think…)
Today was my first day back at work. I took 4 months maternity leave as well as 2 weeks of annual leave before Faith was due. So all in all I have been away from work for about 17/18 weeks.
The first day was ok, a bit long for someone not used to sitting behind a desk all day. I came back to a small crisis but that is being handled and I have stayed out of the details of it and am just helping where I can.
Tomorrow is a half day for me (Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays by default as we finish at 2pm anyway) so that makes it a bit easier to be motivated.
Onto the guilt…
I dont feel guilty about leaving Faith to go back to work. I know I have to work and I know if I dont do something during the day I will go nuts. Im glad that I work 3 half days, it definitely makes going back to work easier.
In order to explain my guilt I have to give you a little back story. As you may or may not know I suffered from PND after having Aaron. When my 4 months maternity leave was over I could not wait to get back to work. It wasnt that I didnt love my baby, I did. It was more about getting away from a place that I was not in control of and going to a place that I was in control of, a place I felt was ‘safe’ I suppose.
*Please note that its only now, almost 3 years later that I can articulate these feelings, at the time I just felt a fantastic sense of relief at being at work and not at home*
My guilt back then wasnt that I was leaving baby at home, it was about the fact that I didnt feel guilty for leaving him. The fact that I felt I was running away from him to go to work.
This time I am not running away, yes I miss Faith but I know she is happy and well looked after and that its not full day every day. This time there is no guilt that I am not feeling quilty.
This time the guilt comes from the fact that I am petrified that the difference in how I have handled going back to work after Aaron and after Faith will effect my relationship with them in the future, especially with Aaron.
I know that it wasnt my fault, I know that even though I was depressed it wasnt for lack of love for my son. But the cold hard truth is that it took me a long time to bond with Aaron, a long time for me to not want to run away to work. I just hope that as he grows older and more aware he doesn’t feel like I love him less than his sister. I hope he understands, even if its never said, that it wasnt really him I was running away from. That it was my own demons.
I hope that even though it wasnt ‘me’ that one day I can forgive myself.
Have your cake and eat it!
Aaron has been asking to make a cake the whole week so I looked into the cupboard and found that I didnt have my trusty Moirs cake mix, I did have flour, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and milk so I figured I would try making a cake from scratch. Aaron wanted a chocolate cake so I found some cocoa powder too.
I found a recipe for a chocolate butter sponge in an old International Goodwill Cookbook (7th edition). I made a few small adjustments but it turned out really well.
Ingredients:
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup castor sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla ( I just poured in a splash)
- 1 ¼ cup flour
- 1/8 teaspoon salt (I threw in a ‘pinch’)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder (I use 3 teaspoons but I know in my kitchen I have to increase baking powder)
- 1 heaped tablespoon cocoa
- ½ cup milk
- 45g butter
Method:
- Beat eggs, add sugar gradually, add vanilla and beat with a hand held beater for 3 minutes.
- Sift dry ingredients 4 times (at this point I have to ask whose socks the creator of this recipe was smoking, I sifted the flour once, straight into the wet ingredients, that was it!), and stir into egg mixture, blending thoroughly.
- Bring milk and butter to the boil and add to mixture.
- Mix well with an electric beater.
- Pour into 1 large or two small tins and bake at 180°C for 40min (large tin) or 25min (small tins).
- Allow to cool before icing.
For the icing I decided to make a ganache. Mainly because I had some bitter sweet chocolate from Pesach and I wanted a really chocolaty icing. Unfortunately I didnt have any cream so I used margarine (purist dont hate me, I know its not even BUTTER!!!) instead.
Ingredients:
- 250g bitter sweet chocolate
- 250g margerine
- icing sugar to thicken
Method:
- Break chocolate into pieces and place in a microwavable bowl.
- Add margarine.
- Place bowl in microwave for about 1min depending on microwave strength.
- Mix the icing until the chocolate is melted into the marge. You may need to nuke it a bit longer.
- Once the icing is melted add a bit of icing sugar and mix.
- Keep adding icing sugar until you reach the thickness you want.
- This icing will also thicken/harden as it cools, so you may want to leave it to cool down before adding any icing sugar.
- Once its ready layer it onto the cake, starting in the middle and spreading it towards the sides.
- It may drip over the sides or you may need to spread it depending on thickness.
Eat and enjoy!
Chocolaty goodness!!
H.o.l.i.d.a.y. Say it with me!
In two sleeps, Paul, Aaron, Faith and I will be flying to Cape Town for 6 nights.
I CANNOT wait!
It has been almost 2 years since our last holiday…
I cant wait to see Ash and Megs.
I cant wait to walk on the beach.
I even cant wait to see your moooouuuuuuntain Cape Town.
I really really cant wait!
What goes up must come down…
… but how do you explain that to a 3 year old?
Ok moms of boys, I need your help.
Before I had Aaron I had no idea that pre-pubescent boys could get an erection. I have since learnt that it is entirely normal and a part of his development.
My problem is that Aaron freaks out. He tells us his ‘peepee’ (yes we call a penis a peepee, we also call it a penis it just depends on the situation) is going up (his words) and seems genuinely distressed by it. When we try explain that its ok and that it will go back to normal he gets even more upset and yells that it wont, he seems really scared that he will be stuck that way.
So, any advice on how to explain it to him, how to calm him and assure him he will be fine?
Moms with Cameras
Jenty of Jeanette Verster Photography hosted a workshop this afternoon at Stepping Stones Garden Village.
Most of the moms had ‘real’ cameras but a few of us had ‘point & shoots’.
I have a Canon PowerShot SX100IS, I also have no idea what that means
The workshop was fantastic, Jenty showed us how to set aperture, shutter speed and ISO as well as giving us tips on composition and basically how to take pictures of monkeys kids.
I need a lot more practice but I had great fun trying to get good shots of Aaron. My biggest issue is focusing on him and not the background. 
Also a huge thank you to Angel for coming to my rescue with a set of batteries
Look who’s talking!
When we fell pregnant with Aaron we looked into signing as a way of communicating with him before he could talk. Due to a few obstacles, lack of resources on the web and locally, being overwhelmed by the new addition to our family and suffering from PND, signing with Aaron fell by the wayside.
To be honest I didnt even think about signing with Faith until I came across this website!
Wow! What an amazing site. Simple, concise and easy to use, not to mention free, makes this site a win.
So far we have been signing ‘Mommy‘, ‘Daddy‘, ‘brother‘ and ‘milk‘ to Faith. I am going to teach Aaron how to sign ‘brother’. Tonight we will all be learning ‘Uncle‘, ‘Aunt‘ and ‘Granny/Bobba‘ as those three people will be having supper with us.
Oh yes, ‘dog‘ will also be a sign that is used frequently in our house
I really hope that Faith picks up signing easily as Im pretty certain that it will reduce a lot of frustration between us as she gets older and is able to communicate more effectively.
Edited to add: The sign language being used on the website above is based on ASL (American Sign Language) and that is what we will be teaching Faith and Aaron. Unfortunately I cannot find any effective online resources that are based on South African Sign Language (SASL). According to Wikipedia (see links) SASL is based on Irish, British and American sign language, while both Irish and American sign language seem to be based on French sign language. Perhaps one day we will explore SASL.
