Category: the parenting bunny

Mother’s Day and the Ad Wizard

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This being Mother’s Day, I have been snowed under with cooking posh meals for Mum and for Granny and then generally tidying up after the whirlwind that is our three-year-old son, who decided he wanted to spend as much of Mother’s Day with his Mum as possible and therefore woke up at [stupid] o’clock and spent the rest of the day creating mess.
Once again, I am exhausted and that’s one of the reasons why you are getting this quota photo. 

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That’s a view from a hospital window looking down across Cape Town’s CBD as dawn broke on the day Alex was born.  It was nice watching the sun coming up on that momentous day – I didn’t often get to see sunrises back then. Alex wasn’t actually born until three in the afternoon, but there was a false alarm and I ended up going up round Hospital Bend at 150kph at five in the morning. Pity help the Ad Wizard if he finds himself in the same situation tomorrow when Mrs Ad Wizard is due to pop out their first one, firstly because he’ll be going the wrong way and secondly because they’ve got speed cameras on there now.

It’s amazing how much our lives have changed since that day. And while you try to explain it to people who aren’t yet parents, it’s not really possible. I don’t mean that condescendingly, because people tried to explain it to us and now I appeciate that we didn’t really get it either. It’s like passing your driving test, but bigger. It’s like getting married, but bigger. And nothing can prepare you for it. Not even going round Hospital Bend at 150kph at five in the morning.
(That’s probably not great preparation for your driving test either, by the way).

Best of luck with it all, Mr and Mrs Ad Wizard. You’re about to find out just what it is that I can’t explain.

Kids & Money

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Kids are expensive.

Your own. To keep and look after, I mean.
Obviously, it’s a given that buying a child on the black market costs a bomb. There are officials to bribe, swarthy men in dark suits behind nightclubs to pay and guilty-looking nurses in squalid third world orphanages who set the whole process in motion. Or so I’m guessing anyway.

With the credit crunch well and truly upon us, I have tried many different ways to cut back on the vast expenses which our children thrust upon us. With limited success, it has to be said. But I have found some pleasure in getting the most out of the money that we are spending.
Take Alex’s playschool for example. Each morning when I drop him off, I take time out to help him paint a picture. And I don’t mean any of that minimalist crap, either. The more paint, layer upon layered layer, the better. It’s a flat monthly fee for the playschool and I reckon that we use up about 75% of the paint budget on Alex’s early morning art alone. Good value.
Obviously, the end result is usually pretty grim to look at: often dark and thick, black and grey and deep purples merging with one another. The teacher has actually suggested a visit to an educational psychologist as a result of reviewing his work, but that sort of specialist help costs money. Which defeats the object. Or objet in this case, I guess.

Today, I took the kids to Westlake Park (which is, in fact, just West of a lake) (genius). Westlake Park is not a park at all. There isn’t a blade of grass, a gang of dodgy looking youths or any dog excrement to be seen anywhere.  What there is, is a collection of restaurants and a giant jungle gym:

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Westlake Park: great for kids, heavy on the wallet

Normally, we would pop down there in the morning, have a cup of coffee or three, maybe a slice of cake; while the kids play happily on the jungle gym. And then demand ice cream. Pricey.
Or maybe dive in there early evening for a pizza and a couple of beers or a glass of wine; while the kids play happily on the jungle gym. And then demand ice cream. Pricier.

Today, I had a great idea while enjoying that coffee. Having whisked the kids off to Westlake, I was sitting and pondering on how we could save more money. And then it came to me. I quickly canceled the cake I had just ordered and chatted to my three-year-old son. You would not believe how happy he was to be asked if he wanted to spend the whole day on the jungle gym. Of course he did!
So having finished my coffee and paid the bill, I nipped off home at 11ish, watched the rugby all day and went back at 6 to pick him up.

Well, that was the plan anyway. The police actually dropped him off here at about 4 o’clock, as the restaurant was closing for their pre-evening break and had noticed he was still there. Alone. While they waited for the police to arrive, he got an ice cream. All I got was a stern ticking off and made to promise not to do it again. Oops!
But that’s a 3-year-old entertained for 5 hours, an ice cream, chaffeur-driven home and a coffee all for the price of a coffee.

Bargain? Bargain.

So guess where we’re going tomorrow? See you there, errant dads of Cape Town!

3D Changes in domestic paste

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One of the gifts which Alex got for his third birthday was a packet of Ben 10 stickers. Ben 10 is, apparently, a kiddie superhero  cartoon character who can be found on Cartoon Network, pajamas, backpacks, t-shirts and indeed, stickers. I have no other knowledge of this Ben 10 character, because Alex is still too young for Cartoon Network.
That, however, has not stopped him from becoming a big fan of Ben 10.

The other thing you should know about these Ben 10 stickers is that they are those cool ones that move (ever so slightly) when you tilt them from side to side a bit. If your hands are fast enough, you can make Ben 10 look like he is having a fit. And anyone watching you will probably think you’re having a fit as well. But that kind of thing is funny if you’re three.
And stickers are great if you are three years old, because you can stick them anywhere you can reach: in your sticker album, on your wardrobe, on your window, the inside of the en-suite toilet bowl, your little sister’s head – anywhere.

Anyway, I am glad that I could identify who and what the stickers were, because being completely honest, the packet they came in wasn’t overly helpful:

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3D Changes in domestic paste – the perfect gift for any child’s third birthday

And, as if to explain exactly what 3D changes in domestic paste is, there are some fishes swimming around some conservatory furniture. Maybe they were thinking fish paste. I don’t know.
To me it looks like there was an incident in the printing department and random words and graphics dropped into the Ben 10 sticker packet machine.

Either way, the stickers are a hit and have mainly gone into his sticker album, where they are making explosions and shooting lasers at the Winnie the Pooh Flat shine on bedroom glue.

Steeling myself

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That’s steeling, not stealing. As in mentally preparing myself, rather than illegally taking myself from my rightful owner. Who I would argue is probably me anyway. Others would certainly suggest that it’s actually my wife. But since I am steeling myself, and not stealing myself, all that discussion is immaterial anyway.  

What I am steeling myself for – as I’m sure many South African readers have already worked out – is the five day working week which is now (sadly) just over Sunday’s horizon. Thanks to Easter (some christian thing or other), Freedom Day (honouring the George Michael song) and Worker’s Day (honouring left-wingers worldwide), together with Julius Malema’s Jacob Zuma Day (bizarrely honouring Helen Zille) on the 22nd, our last full working week commenced on the 30th March. Getting ourselves back into the swing of actually doing stuff is going to be tough.

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M3 freeway pic

The first part of this preparedness was to start all the jobs which were meant to be done in March, but were put off until the holiday month of April. Never mind that we’re now into May already. Procrastination is…

Sorry, just a quick break there to change one of those nappies.
Parents all over the world recoil in horror: “Oh God! He doesn’t mean a…” …but yes, I do – a six-wiper.
For the uninitiated (you lucky sods), 6 baby wipes is the maximum number of wipes one can use when changing a nappy without it becoming a shower-job. A shower-job is thus named because, perhaps unsurprisingly, it necessitates the use of a shower (or hose, if outdoors) to clean the child when the nappy contents have… “escaped” from within the confines of the nappy. 
There is one step beyond a shower-job nappy change, but it requires professional help to aid recovery afterwards, usually in the form of psychotherapy, together with a good painting and decorating firm and a local carpet supplier. To the best of my knowledge, this nappy change scenario has never been officially named, because just to mention it would put people off having kids for life and thus end the human race pretty sharpish.

Anyway, I digress. Often.
Today, being that I now have just over 24 hours of public holiday weekend remaining, I took the recycling to be recycled and I actually went and bought a replacement outside light fitting from Builder’s Whorehouse. This replacement light fitting will now sit in the garage until June 16th (Youth Day) – our next public holiday – at which point I will probably look at it a bit, tut once or twice knowingly while shaking my head and then leave it until August 9th (Women’s Day) when I will ask the wife to sort it out.
I took the photo above while heading back up the M3, because there were all sorts of clouds in the sky, Cumulo cumulus, Nimulo nimbulus and Fluffulo fluffulus especially, together with some grey stuff and some blue stuff. It was just all busy and I like busy skies.

We’re off to Newlands to watch the Stormers losing to the Chiefs this evening, before a big day of more steelage tomorrow. And the small matter of the last games of the Championship season, with Sheffield United’s Premiership promotion dreams in the balance. But more of that in the morning if I get chance and assuming I have steeled myself adequately.

Barely Hanging On…

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Seemed an apt title for this quota photo post, since sleep was at a premium last night thanks to our baby daughter.


Barely hanging on… 

Shame, the poor thing was really struggling with a snotty nose and (probably) the after effects of a vaccination she had last week. That’s not her, by the way. That’s a butterfly hanging onto my windscreen wiper on the way through Diep River earlier this week. K-pu has fewer wings. And she’s slightly larger. Also, she tends to travel in the car.
But anyway, unhappy was the word of the night. That, and awake. Thus, tired is the word of the day.

I used to be so sensible on my own
Now I’m so sensitive it’s a joke
I’m getting by on decibels like a drug
And greet every brand new day with a shrug
I’m barely hanging on

Pål Waaktaar

Snow Patrol are my drug of choice right now. Hands Open and Open Your Eyes. Keeping me going. Just.

However, when it all seems to be too much of a struggle, there’s always something to make it all worthwhile.
Like the fact that tomorrow is (another) public holiday in South Africa. Or even that today is our wedding anniversary. Which is nice, cos I love my Mrs 6000 very much.
And if that little butterfly could hang on all the way from Grassy Park to Bergvliet, then surely – whatever challenges your day holds – you can overcome them.
OK, so the butterfly actually turned out to be a bit dead on arrival, but theoretically, the principle still stands.