Sweet baby seth

I know, i know, two posts in one day is overdoing it. BUT i found these cute pictures of little baby Seth when he was six weeks old and he was just SO cute that i had to share them. He is such a big, bouncy two going on three year old now. I cant believe that he was so little. Just as i struggle to remember Gabby when he was Seth's age. Stop growing, wont you!!!!

Soft, sweet, precious baby boy, I love you more and more each day. You are such a happy child of sunshine, laughter and joy. You teach me every day not to take life too seriously, with your quick hugs and volunteered kisses. You are boyhood personified but are still so kind, caring, compassionate. You are the first to throw your arms around any of us if you sense any pain or unhappiness. As little as you are, you will defend your older brother passionately, if you feel anyone is messing with him. Your momma sure loves you, sweet thing!!!

Things i am loving right now.....

• The pile of new books that i picked up at the second hand shop for a song yesterday.
• The beyond cute little chinese suits that i bought for my boys. Both are made of silk, Gabriel's is black with red dragons and Seth's is royal blue with gold dragons. I will post pics soon.
• The fact that the spring promise is revitalising me and i managed to take about 200 pictures on the weekend. YES, i did! I also popped into the scrapbooking shop and they were having a huge sale. I stocked up and i am planning to scrap this weekend. I find that all my craft trends come and go, in about an 8 week cycle. I will crochet madly and neglect my stitching. Then move to scrapbooking.
• The fact that we are all well again. It is so good to have no germs around.
• My garden is coming alive again. Everything is just springing green.
• Our new trend is eating fruit and veggies again. I find it is a real spring, summer trend.

What are you loving right now?
Al

Special ordinary moments

Sometimes special moments are ordinary and ordinary moments are special:

• Waking up to the sound of birds.
  
• The joy of laughing with some female friend - colleagues until your tummy hurts.
• Coming home and finding that your hubby has come home early and that you are able to cook supper together and eat leisurely at the table...
• Having your cousin stop in for a quick cup of coffee.
• Buying some nice new body butter that smells of summer and putting it liberally all over you after a hot shower, while your hubby baths the littlies....
• The kids playing peacefully while you get to blog.
• Seeing the promise of spring in the early blooms at your door.

I had a very special, ordinary day.......

Family

We cannot destroy kindred: our chains stretch a little sometimes, but they never break. ~Marquise de Sévigné

The thing is that i am highly sentimental, especially when it comes to family. Blood family, chosen family, people that make life bearable. One thing is certain - life can be a lonely journey. Other people make it manageable, bearable, fun.

Today for some reason i finding myself thinking of family lost, those who have left you already. They leave a space in your heart, your life, your world that can never ever be filled. You pick up the pieces, move on, continue with the every day business of life, children, cooking supper, paying bills, washing dishes. But the space is there, a ghostly reminder that something important is missing. Sometimes when you pause, take a breath, stop for a second, the memory of that person arrives, hits you, taps you on the shoulder and says: "I am still here". Like the line in the counting crows song that says: "The price of the memory is the memory of the sorrow that is brings."

Today i am thinking of my mother and my grandmother. How they are gone but not really. How i wish they were with me this morning for a cup of coffee and gossip. How i would love to talk about my kids and share the pains of being a woman, wife, mother with them. Tell my mother that i always think of her when my Gardenias bloom or my grandmother when i do my baking. How i am tied to them in so many ways. That they go on because i go on.

My grandmother's kitchen. My mother's bedroom. Spaces that live tangibly in my mind, still fill my senses. I wish i could sit at my Ouma's kitchen table and drink coffee with her. Laugh at the stories that she shared with me about the family. Sit in my gown on my mother's bed. Talk and laugh in complete,accepting togetherness.

I always tell my children that i am bound to them with magic heart strings that cant be broken and i believe it to be true. I believe that we do lie nestled, protected in a nest of magic connections to those who came before us and those who will come after us.

Today i celebrate those connections.
Al

And i feel fine!

Hurray, i have beaten the germs! I feel like a gladiator!

Spring is in the air, the sun is shining, the sky is blue. I love African summer's. There is something so magical about living here, with the heat, promise shimmery skies. It is amazing what good the last two days of self care have done for me.

And all my monkeys are well. The littlest one is pictured above, jumping from his table onto my couch..... The joy of boys. So sure, i am now officially on first name basis with my doctor after seeing him every week, but the point is we are all better and well.

I have dug up my huge cross stitch UFO and am busy working on it. I will share some pictures soon. I have also started a crochet shawl.... which is completely wonderfully irrational considering that it is almost spring. But it was cute and when i looked at it I felt all motherly , domestic goddess in a Victorian manner and i could not resist!

Good wishes to you all,
Al

Lessons from my dog

What a day. I had to go off to the doctor today and get antibiotics. So when i returned i took the handful of prescribed medication and went to die gracefully on my unmade bed. It was a real pity party! As i was lying there, half dead, i glanced out the door and saw my unapologetically happy lab, rolling on her back on the lawn, looking up into the branches of the tree, tail wagging for no particular reason and it struck me.... it really is a dog's life. Okay, granted, i do have one of the fattest, happiest dogs out, but i think the lesson is sound. Life should be simple and the big joys are the little ones. So friends, let me introduce you to Indigo, the chief food gobbler and face licker around her. (She calls it kisses).

Some lessons i think that i could learn from my dog:

• Dont sweat the small stuff and it is all small stuff.
• Make time by doing nothing.
• Its okay if they shout at you for chewing up stuff, it will soon be 6pm and they will feed and pet you.
• Lying in the sun with your belly in the air can cure a lot of heartache.
• Dont withhold love, the more you give, the more you get.
• Make friends with everyone, even the cat.
• The best place in the world is your kennel.

So thanks Indigo for the life lesson. I am off for the rest of the week and am looking forward to it. I have dragged out some craft projects and hope to rest my body and soul this week. The kids will be back at school tomorrow, for which i am grateful. I really need some out time.

I hope your week gives you some unexpected gifts and remember when it doubt, go and roll on the lawn!

Al

Saturday morning plans....

Or lack thereof to be precise.

Its a long weekend here in South Africa, with Monday being a no work day. I need to work tomorrow as we have a women's event on. But today is ripe with possibilities and only minor chores. The one downer about being a working mother is that Saturday's are crazy, involving shopping, going to the bank, the library and a zillion other things that need to be done. Today i only have minor things to do and I plan to be home and resting by 11am. The rest of the day is mine.

I am decidedly ok right now which is good. The weather here in South Africa is fantastic today, warm and sunny. There is something about blue african skies that cannot be beaten. I thought that i would share the following thrifted items that i got a couple of weeks ago. The first one is this beautiful hand stitched table cloth. My poor photo does not do it justice. It is really fine work, all done in blue on white linen. The second is a new apron, never used and also hand stitched. The table cloth cost me R15 and the apron R5 (About R8 to the $).






How could you bring yourself to sell such a thing? I cant even bring myself to wear it although i think that i would be stepford wife fabulous in it!

Anyway think of us today as we have thrown out Seth's dummies. It is D day and we are getting ready for a big drama of a day. He is now 2 and a half and they are affecting his speech so they need to go..... Heaven help us all! Gabriel just gave them up voluntarily, Seth has fought all efforts. I am a mother who hates to "force" children to give up things as mostly they seem to just do these things on their own. Gabriel gave up the bottle, the dummy, potty trained and self soothed himself to sleep with very little effort when he chose to. Seth sleeps so well, is doing well with the potty training. But his speech is affected by the dummy and so it must go. I am being sneaky and cutting holes in the front of the two that remain. I give them to him but he hates them because they dont "suck" properly. Another milestone......

Wishing you a good restful day....
Al