Living 'our' dreams

Phil seems to be living all the dreams I thought we shared
then last year I realised they were my fantasies
but now I am so confused
As he is living with a girlfriend
buying a house
settling down

I thought that is what we wanted together
then I thought that it must have been what only I wanted
and he wanted to just be playing around
but now this

it is hurting all over again

Bearing gifts and baring hearts

Mom, will you marry me?
I love you so much
and I just want to kiss you

Uncool Mom Awards

A letter in the pigeon hole yesterday morning told us that today would be occupations day at school. I forgot about it till this morning when i asked young E what he wants to be

A robot, mom!
Ok, so I converted a paper box
he was very excited about taking it to school
until we got there and he saw all the builders, office workers and the like
then i had to disappear very quickly
with the box in tow

The Navigator

E doing what he likes best - reading the map and telling mom where to go at our last 4x4 daytrip. More photos coming later, it was quite a scary crazy day

A hound called Puppies

Just look at how she has grown

This is the little girl that I brought home with me the first weekend in May. At her first vet's checkup and vaccinations she weighed in at 4.5kg

Puppies just the other night: At her second check up and vaccinations she weighed 14.5kg....uhm yes, she is going to grow into quite a big dog

Not much has changed

There were no surprises during our Parent-teacher conference at Elrich school this week. Elrich is a lovely child to have in the classroom and he is popular with all his friends. He is (still) a perfectionist and fairly difficult to engage with in an exercise where he has to be taught. He prefers working on his own and the following little incident were used illustration;

E is busy working on a mat and his teacher approaches him to talk to him about what he is doing, after she sits down and opens the conversation he looks at her and says:
Excuse me, I am busy working here, please would you leave me alone?
All apparently in a very respectfull tone of voice, if slightly irritated that his concentration was interupted. The teacher just laughed as she told us this and said that is a perfect example of how he is during their worktime.

But he is doing well and fortunately because of the montessori system of mixing the age groups he is soaking up a lot of information from the older kids and he loves learning with Keabewtse (his best friend and a year older than him). He still prefers the science and maths section over the language stuff and can spend hours working with the magnetics and the number rods. He also really enjoys the geography section and understands the difference between continents and countries and can identify most of them.

Outside he is very confident on all the jungle gym equipment and can balance on the balance poles, slide down the firemans escape and in general has very good muscle development and coordination for his age group. And apparently he loves learning Zulu, the school has an extra curricular zulu lesson on a Friday afternoon for the primary school children and Elrich has started to attend the lessons and absolutely loves it. Even though he cannot read or write, he joins in all the stories and loves engaging everyone in zulu - I am very happy to hear this as I want him to be fluent in more than two of our official languages (of which we have eleven).

So all in all, a great report for a loveable little boy

Please, no more training wheels

Mom, it is not fair
I am tired of being a little kid
I want to be a big brother
so I can drive a faster sports car

A revelation

My feelings of loss, disappointment, anger and denial at the failure of our marriage does not really change that much. It is my ability to cope with these feelings that fluctuates. The two things that directly affects my emotional well being is the level of stress I am under, work stress and personal stress and the frequency as well as intensity of contact with Phil.

So in a perfect world, I really should retire in Crete ;-) John is convinced I am not going to want to come back.....

The faces of poverty

Today I joined a friend and her mom on a little charity drive to an impoverished white community living in a squatter camp just down the road from us. I so wanted to take photos, but I could not. I just could not invade their private suffering like that. The hollow questions in those light eyes, the children running around in wild abandon.

What was interesting was how well organised the operation was. There is a soup kitchen/delivery area for all donations. Which gets written up in a book, with contact details and a person responsible for the equitable distribution of all the stuff. Clean spaces everywhere between the tents, little fenced of gardens. The homes were tents, corrugated iron shacks, caravans and wooden structures. A ray of hope in the middle of drawn faces, emaciated bodies.

I see poverty on an almost daily basis - seeing white poverty affected me differently. What does that say about me? Is the desperation just so much easier to read in those light eyes? The wrinkles more prominent on a white skin? Is it because it could be me? My family? Does black poverty look different because I dont understand all the cultural nuances and the language is foreign? I am thinking I would like to go back there, armed with a notebook and my camera. I would like to go and capture some of their stories.

A pyromaniac?

Mom, whispers E
If you do that again, I am going to burn your house down
WTF???
Where does my kid get his ideas from??

Can I move on now?

Please, I am so tired of this rollercoaster
Up and down
Up and down
Yesterday was a very down
Today, at least I have the vision to
do the dishes
take puppies to school
and spend time with John for Fathersday

Maybe tomorrow's charity visit to the impoverished white community living in tents just down the road from me will be a good reality check. A good reminder of how fortunate I really am. How safe and secure and blessed. A warm home, a healthy child, parents that love me. A good job that I enjoy, a man that cares about my wellbeing, the list really is long......

Bull Rider!

My kiddo sure grabs life by the horns!

Please mom

Just kiss daddy
Just for once
He loves you

Oh dear :-(

Today I totally lost my cool with Elrich, he just would not stop farting on my leg and cackling like a lunatic. I screamed at him, shook him and told him that he can be an irritating brat if he wants to. And this was all happening during our supposedly mommie and Elrich time. Trying to work on our letters....I should have just stopped the exercise as he was just all over the place in anycase.

And then I went to pick Phil up to go to the Police station to get them to stamp the letter with his signature giving me permission to take E out of the country, a requirement for our visa applications. And I wished again so badly that this was all different. That the quiet cameradery I still felt between us was because we were really still together. The comfortable conversation we shared, the way he held his kid tightly against his chest.

Tonight I will go to dinner with John, and he will hug me tightly against him and I will hug him back.

The Pox

I was slightly irritated with Phil when E came home on Saturday covered in what I thought was mosquito bites. Later that day when I bathed him I noticed little spots on his groin area as well and thought...ok that is it. There must be a flea infestation at 'daddie's big new house' so I covered my kid with Zam-Buk...a tried and tested local herbal ointment that works for everything from chapped lips to insect bites. As I walked into school this morning, near on two hours late....another story all together ;-) I was informed by the school secretary that chicken pox are doing the rounds at school and near on half of E's class had to stay at home. A light dawned on me slowly. So after permission from the school, I dashed of to my meeting at a farming community (80km's north) and dashed back to pick my infected offspring up from school.

Did I mention that I have deadlines stacked the one on top of the other until I leave for my Greek holiday in July?? That E will now spend most probably the next ten days at home with me...... and that everything that went wrong in the house this afternoon got blamed on 'the black circle chicken pox made me do it mom'

Practically Grosse

E has entered the age of practical jokes. And the more anal they are the funnier he thinks it is
Like farting against your leg
Wagging his penis around and acting like he is going to pee on you
all the while chortling hysterically
Or saying in a sweet nice voice
Mommie please can I kiss you?
Only to give you an Odie lick all across your face
Chewing with his mouth open
Or licking his food like a dog
....and his personal favourite
Blowing his nose without a tissue ;-p