Josh, We Welcome and Love You

On Wednesday night we welcomed a little baby boy into this world. I was honoured to witness his birth, an experience I will write about a little bit later. But for now, enjoy the memories as captured in these pictures

Booked into the birthing centre and waiting for the magic to happen. We could not sleep so at 3am we had a photo session in the garden
Starting to come to terms with the idea that this is becoming more and more of a medically assisted birth

A new born baby on mom's chest, Josh spend about the first half hour of his life here, it was beautiful.

The first morning after his birth, a content healthy little boy

aaah isn't he just the cutest thing?

John is quite the wordsmith

A poem that appeared in my inbox yesterday

Die Meisiekind

She's cheeky as hell
But cute as well
She's sexy and smart
And has a good heart
My lover and friend
the perfect blend.
She can make me mad
but never sad.
xxxx

To conclude a weekend in which we both expressed our need to have a loving relationship, rather than just co-excisting in the mad rush of life.

Maybe Just Maybe

We are in the market to purchase another property. Now I know that we have not even taken ownership of the land we bought last year.

I am seriously excited about the new prospect.....see it is an equestrian property in the heart of horseland. There is very little on it. Just an old cottage and a huge garden. If we take it, it will be a fixer upper and a serious project for us.

I have no idea what we will do about the other land in the estate. Suppose it remains a good investment

We Are Familyyyy

An interesting dynamic is created when two (previously) single children are thrown together for a weekend. Both are intelligent and well mannered, but they are just kids, competing for the same person's attention.

In this case John; and even though Nikyle and John have a good relationship, the emotional attachment between Elrich and John is far more evident. I think this is just a natural result of the histories shared. John came into E’s life when he was three years old and we have spent a lot of time together as a little family. Whereas Nikyle only spends a couple of hours on a Sunday at John’s place, playing a computer game and going for a sandwich. I normally do not join them, unless E is with me and we go somewhere together as a family.

The result is that John is a bit distanced in his role as a father in Nikyle's life, I don’t really have a relationship with Nikyle at all and we have not even begun to blend as a family of four. I never really thought about this or realized it, until the Christmas weekend we spend at my parents. Even though the weekend was relaxing and fun it became clearly evident that, if we want to ‘play house’ we will have to do something about the configuration of our family.

When I am big

I am going to find dinosaur fossils and build their skeletons back together so we can figure out what they looked like and what happened so they all disappeared.

Was the conclusion my kid came to after he interogated me for more than half an hour about what happened to the dinosaurs and why he cannot go to see them.

We definitely have some research work to do

The Good Samaritan

As I crawl along the corrugated dirt road towards my client, I am amazed at the number of insects scurrying across the road, super sized shongololos, piss-krieke with their antennas waving around in a mad dance and beetles of all shapes and sizes. All the while thinking, careful now, we do not want another flat tyre, this is a little city car and not a big bakkie. Then the shongololo appeared out of nowhere, I turned the wheels slightly to the left and....dwah, tsssssssss

I just knew it. I busted that wheel. Totally busted. Fortunately I was just about a hundred meters from the gate of one of my new clients. A very small, marginal chrome mine. I told the security guard about my predicament, he had one look and shared the news that I don't have one flat tyre but two. Yikes, and only one spare. The general manager of the mine appeared around the corner, covered from head to toe in dust, sweat and grime. Told me that he is on skeleton staff because of the season and that something needed fixing in the plant so he is the boilermaker for today. As I shared my predicament, he looked at me with patience in his eyes and told me not to worry about a single thing. Then offered to take me to my client in his own vehicle and promised that the car will be ready by the time I am done.

When I phoned him a couple of hours later he told me my car is ready, where can he deliver it to? So I fetched it, thanked him profusely and am still struggling to understand how somebody in that position with so much work pressure and so little time can still be so patient with someone that is basically a complete stranger that landed unannounced on his doorstep.

It is South African hospitality at it's best. And it humbles me, because I get so impatient and so ratty when I am stressed and under pressure.

Peeking over the fence

When we show cased our new web based reporting tool at a recent mining convention we were approached by a Canadian company mining in Zimbabwe. That short conversation led to an invite to visit them onsite and explore possible synergies and opportunities for business.

But life was hectic here and by all accounts even more so there and two months passed in a wink of an eye before we, my business partner and I, found ourselves standing outside the hanger, cause an airport it is not.....slightly bewildered and very bemused by the fact that we never even thought to confirm the actual arrival and pick up arrangements. That after the receipt of our e-tickets about two weeks earlier. E-tickets that had us staying in Zimbabwe from the 16th of December 2009 to the 17 November 2010. Uhhu yes, a slight mistake. After a short caucus we decided we will not panic, we will keep a cool head despite the 37C, the overgrown gardens and clear signs of neglect. Never mind that we did not get our phones on roaming and even if we did, we did not have a local number to call.

Turns out, our pick-up did arrive and was as surprised to see us as we were to see him. And how honoured we were with none other than the general manager of the mine, a smallish but successful operation about an hours drive from the airport. Which were exactly where we headed next, on an excuse of a tar road. Taking turns to drive on and off the road to allow enough space for vehicles to pass from the front. Our driver telling us all about live in Zim and how everything has changed in a short period of time. The pleasure of dealing in US $ even if the locals think nothing of charging 10$ for everything. I suppose if you are used to charging a gazillion 000 behind everything then one zero must look very cheap - just imagine paying 20000 zim dollars for a loaf of bread.

What an informative afternoon, walking around those old mills, hearing people talk of the economic energy building up. Turn- key solutions for new mills to be installed in the new year, 24 hour shifts to build up a stock pile. Tongue in cheek warning and safety signs posted at the gate. The high density village where children ran around, white teeth shining in vaseline round faces. Naked fat babies toddling in the sand with men standing around and watching these two foreign looking women talking and peering through windows. Learning how dependant the community really is on the mine, treating the managers as respected elders in the community. Managers that speak with international accents even though they grew up in the community with parents doing community work. People with a real heart for their country. That wants to do what is right because it is right, and not because legislation so requires.

Our challenge - to work outside the box of our legislative framework. The ability to think laterally and design a solution that will add value to their operation - and do so cost effectively and within a very short period of time.

The next day as we were sitting on the tarmac, waiting for our plane to return from Zambia, where it had to refuel before the trip home, we were mulling all these ideas around. It is going to be exciting and I can see a big learning curve coming our way but an opportunity is knocking on our door and we are all in agreement that we need to grab this opportunity with open arms.

Yay!! New wheels

Life has been crazy hectic working 16 hours a day sleeping very little piles and piles of deadlines all lined up the one after the other

but at last good news

welcome the latest addition to the mad cap family of mine - she is sexy and savvy and lots of fun with low down torque and diesel economy.

If only I could take photos like E - the boy has a really talented eye!

Active active active

I love sport and movement and the feel of sweat and sore muscles. I am determined that E will be active too, he does not ever have to compete or win anything but move..... he will. And even though the bakkie and outdoor travel experience has been put on hold for a year or two, outdoor fun is still to be had

First it was the children’s cycle race and this year there was just no stopping E. After all the excitement of getting his race number pinned and awaiting our turn (with 500 other would be enthusiasts) E bolted away and went down that 800m track with great gusto.

He was very proud of his medal and the buzz took a long time to pass, I am sure that bottle of energade he got at the finish line helped us a bit as well ;-p
A family photo with Oupads, Ouma, mom and a very proud little boy


Then mom eventually made it to her first little show with Shiloh. It was so much fun and I was really pleasantly surprised by the guts and enthusiasm my normally rather docile little horse showed all those cross country fences. John was my back up groom and the city slicker walked my horse, carried teff-nets and water buckets without complaint. He even commented at the end that it was so much fun that he would not mind a horse of his own. Now that really impressed this horse girl no end!!

Boys will be boys

Having fun on the small holding

E said to me this weekend
I wish, I wish upon a star
that all the baddies goes away
and we have our bakkie back
and everything is back to normal

we are all taking a bit of strain with this car thing at the moment

It is about all the S'ss

At Salt Rock, we are enjoying the sea, sand, sun, sex, sleep, strolling and slow meals.It is beautiful and very relaxing

The view from our hotel balcony

Taking a walk down to the beach just as the sun rose through the palm trees

Oh, how I love early mornings at the sea

Running a Race

So on Saturday we were all gathered together to support Elrich in his athletics day. It was fun and relaxing for my family to share the blanket with Phil's family, having Elrich between us and even running together in the parent's races.

We have to admit though that our son is like a puppy whose feet are too big for his body. Not lacking in enthusiasm and sporting spirit but barely able to stay on his feet for long enough to finish the race. But he loved it, and we loved it and that is all that mattered.

Adin spend the entire morning doing push ups, that kid is ready to crawl

The end of a chapter

I am very sad to say that other people that know nothing of the meaning my car had for me, decided that they need her more than I do. What for, I do not even want to begin to imagine, but she is gone. For me, at least.

This signals the end of a period for me and even though I am very sad at it, I also have peace and an inner knowledge that this happened for good reasons. Whatever that might be.

I bought my bakkie exactly two years ago and she was my birthday present to myself. A celebration of my new life as a single mom and a very visual message to all that cared to see of my new found independence and search for adventure. I loved all the road trips I ever undertook with her and she helped me to come to terms with many fears and insecurities. Driving my truck on the long open road always opened up my heart and my thoughts, it transported me to freedom. I never felt lonely when exploring with her. The sheer size of her forced me to slow down. I will miss her but I do understand that I need to move on. That I need to develop new skills and that the near future for me will look slightly different. This does not mean that I will never replace her, just that the timing now, dictates something different.

Playing Hopscotch

In the beginning of this year E's teacher recommended that we take him to a neuro-cognitive specialist. The reason for the recommendation was that his development was very advanced in certain areas but he was also seriously struggling in others. This significant gap in his abilities was a concern and could lead to learning difficulties in later years as it might be indicative of other developmental problems.

So we did and she assessed him and said that he needed to work on certain areas, the most important of those being the development of laterality. Now, I have to admit, I do not really understand what that means, just that we had to play lots of fun games every day for the last seven or so months.

Hopping and jumping, waving our arms and skipping all over the place. With the latest favourite being hopscotch. Drawing the game on the sand in our garden brought back a plethora of childhood memories. As a kid I absolutely loved hopscotch and played it for hours. I have to admit, our game every afternoon is the highlight of my day as I hop along with my kid, my hair bouncing in ponytails at the back of head. Transporting me back more than 30 years.

What is really interesting to me is that the exercises we have done had an almost immediate effect on E’s abilities. He had a language explosion and started to read almost effortlessly, from the first level reader to level 8 in one sitting. Not that he was expected to be able to do this at school as he really only need to read next year. He just walked into the reading corner and started to read and he has not stopped. It is as if the exercises plugged in a little cord and switched language and comprehension on for him. I am so glad we took him and that we stuck to the programme as I am sure this year has made a huge difference to him and I can see it in the self confidence it has given him on so many other levels.

Loosing an internet friend

I recently lost a very dear internet friend to cancer and I keep checking her blog obsessively on a daily basis. Each time hoping and thinking that the last entry will be different. That she will still be around, sharing her life and her family with me. But she is not.

I do not even want to consider what her family must be going through to try and deal with and accept the loss of her. We miss you, Cari

Has it been a month already?

I cannot believe it is more than a month since I last did a blog entry. Sheesh, all of August gone in the blink of an eye. So what have we been up to down South?

Working and traveling, mothering and building relationships.

It is fun living in South Africa let me tell you, this truly is the land of opportunity. Providing you manage to keep your sense of humour and your eyes on your surroundings.

On working:
So we got the opportunity to demo at another really big mining operation, this time totally out of our experience as the client is very influential in the building industry as well and the commodity is low cost high volume as oppose to the high cost low volume of the platinum industry. To prepare properly I had to work right through the night at Phil's house (this is a post all by itself) and by 9:00 the next morning, just a couple of hours before the demo, our laptop packs up without warning. I phone the client to try and postpone the meeting but alas, she secured the attendance of a couple of their executive and to postpone on such short notice is just not possible. So we packed up the server and two other support laptops and turned their boardroom into an IT showroom.

All was well until one of the managers questioned the integrity of a company working in transformation that has no ownership representation from the black African community. How to explain to this woman in her highly paid position that our company is newly formed and we cannot even pay ourselves a salary, let alone support additional people? I did not even try to defend us, it just left a bad taste in my mouth and definitely made me decide that building relationships with the smaller operations is time better spend.

On traveling:
My parents, Elrich and myself went back home for the first week in September. Now in the South African context,' home' is not necessarily where your furniture is. Home is your roots, it is manifested in the acceleration of your heartbeat when you smell and hear your childhood sounds. The humid green of North Zululand forests, the sting of sea-sand on your ankles, little round faced children waving and mothers whispering 'Sawubona' as you inspect their handicraft. Night jars and bush-babies competing with each other all night long, the elegant dance of a wild Nyala bull and the heart stopping cry of a fish eagle as it flies over the Hluhluwe river. This is my country, this is my soul.

It was a nostalgic experience for me, taking E to a place where my memories are filled with scenes from my childhood, and as a teenager laughing and sharing a carefree existence with Phil as we played in the waves and listened to the night sounds together. Sometimes I got a bit caught in a time warp but never did I want the ‘now’ to change. I am very happy with my life and I can truly say that I have moved on emotionally - that I am living a new reality.

On Mothering;
Oh the challenges of mothering a 5 year old. This is an interesting time for us, E has left his small childhood years behind and he is a young boy now with all the challenges and fun this entails. He is a very funny kid and we are all learning how to best express the range of emotions that inhabits this life stage. His barely controlled desire to explore and learn new things closely coupled with the fear of 'getting it wrong' and 'not looking so cool'. I do not remember ever being as image conscious as my kid is now and can only assume it is an attitude picked up at school. Some of the fun things my kid said this holiday was

'mom, you know what, I don’t want to be human anymore. Humans are not cool' yip I share that sentiment, but what to do about it?

Another funny was as a result of my dad, who suffers from flatulence, letting a stinker of in the car on the way home. E exclaimed loudly, opened his window and said ‘Eish…these noxious gasses will kill us all!!' Resulting in hysterical laughter by everybody in the car

E starting every second sentence with ‘Eish’, which is a very African South African expression, is the most honest reflection of my child’s multi cultural friends.

On building relationships
Believe it or not, but I have started to really communicate to John and guess what? He has responded, not by ignoring me, but by communicating back and even though we have by no means changed much in the relationship, as all the challenges remain to be challenging. But at long last, I have come to a place where I am prepared to be emotionally vulnerable around him. Now that is a very big thing for me. Recognizing and feeling those emotions I have for the longest of long times just ignored, has really affected my life on many different levels.

For one, I can actually relax, just relax. My tummy is not in an anxious knot 100% of the time. I am not as driven to be perfect anymore, a perfect mom, a perfect consultant, a perfect driver, a perfect partner. I am ok to be just me. And guess what? My kid does not have to perfect either – we are all just incomplete imperfect humans. Living closely together, enjoying each other. I don’t have to be anything different to be loved, or attractive or anything. And lastly, let me whisper this …..for the first time in a long time I can actually enjoy sex. Yip…… see, I am ok. I don’t have to perform to please, because I am pleasing just as I am. Now that was a revelation if ever there was one.

The Challenge

A Greek boy (first generation) and a South African girl (third generation)
Mediterranean passions vs French/Victorian principles
The one is loud…the other controlled
Emotional….rational
Spontaneous and explosive…….analytical and calculated

Yes, you are right – it sounds like dynamite…but wait, there is more

Mix into this DNA soup some personality and you get
Territorial………explorer
Slow to change….where is the next challenge?
Stubborn…X2

But what we share
Our values
Sense of integrity
Life philosophy
Commitment to each other
Fun loving silly kiddie side

However, for it to work well for us, we need to learn
To accommodate our different cultural heritages
Better communication – always better communication
Trusting the relationship

Like my friend said this morning, yes, it is easier to be on your own, but then you don’t get to share in the togetherness. She is right, that sense of togetherness is priceless.

I'm just a scaterboy

E got his first scateboard for his third christmas and it has been an uneasy love affair ever since.

Hahahahaha it gets better

So this weekend was freeeezing cold in Jouies and I did nothing but stay in bed, read my book, watched TV - I NEVER get to watch TV. And then I got to do all of that all over again on Sunday. E was with Daddy so it was a splendid weekend of just me and some John time - like a nice dinner on Friday night, and watching the Springboks annihilate Nieu Zealand in the Rugby on Saturday night.

Needless to say, I awoke ready and roaring with energy at 6am this morning. Finished the preparation for my 10:00 meeting, bathed and got ready to jump into my truck. Turned the ignition and.....the sweet sweet sound of absolute silence. No gentle rock and purring, just nothing. She has been charging for over an hour and is still dead. I missed my meeting and had to email the client the very rough draft document, which we can work through after his return from Tanzania

Did I mention something about a competent consultant?

Blah

Today's day is a blah day
The reasons I think
are numerous
onerous
tasks

And my head is stuffed
to the brim with
memories
thoughts
fears

A friendship - lost
A love - betrayed
A father - died
A baby - born

Maybe a new love - Reborn?
Dreams and fantasies
Are they real or
just my musings?