Mama is changing her name!

Hello, yes, finally another post from Bahama Mama. But this one a short note to let you know Bahama Mama is changing her name and moving over to Mrs G by the Sea.
My subscription thingy wasn't working here so I have created a new blog. I'm also including some recipes and pics.
Enjoy and I hope to catch up with you on the Life and Fabulous Times of the Griswolds...
(Mwah!)

Warming my heart

I have come to a conclusion: The Darling Husband is hot.


And before you start rolling your eyes and snickering he really is. Let me explain a little better.


Earlier this week, after a rather physically strenuous job, the man dragged himself home later than normal. He had dinner and then, while I put the Boy to bed, he took a shower.
After I'd kissed a hundred teddies and hugged the Boy 10 times and finally switched the light off, I walked through to the bedroom to find Hubby sprawled out on the bed. His light was almost out too.
So, as a good wife, I made him a cuppa tea and left him to an early night.


I still had a little work to do and maybe some tv to catch up on. Upstairs, on my own, it was quiet. The tv was off while I worked, but I worked quickly as the prospect of the remote all to myself was appealing.
OK, work done, couch beckons. The cat sits quietly waiting in the corner for me to sit down before she makes her move to claim my lap.


I flick through the channels and remarkably nothing worth while is on. Something is missing. The room is cold. And I'm lonely.


If The Husband was up here with me, like he usually is, I'd sit a while longer. But he's not.
I realize he warms the room for me, he am comfortable when I'm with him, and I want to be with him in that room, any room that he is in. Even if we sit, as we often do, with him in the study and me in the lounge within glancing distance of each other, absorbed in our own thoughts, he makes me feel safe and at ease. And not so alone.


And I'm so grateful and thankful and blessed to have such a special humble man in my life.


And yes, I think I have been listening to too many country songs today.

Just Being Awesome

This morning, as usual, I dragged myself out of a warm bed.


{Lord, thank you for my job. Lets not think I'm ungrateful.}


I go check in on the Boy and discover he is awake.


He opens his bedcovers and slides to the back of his bed.


"Get in, Mommy, get in. Put your feet inside", he invites me.


I cuddle with him and squeeze his little bum.


I pull myself away with the reasoning that I need to shower.


"No mommy, you must sleep." He disagrees.


I cuddle a little more.


This is how I am always late.


I eventually get out and he gets up too and starts rummaging through his toys.


He calls me to come help him retrieve some bits and pieces from underneath the bed.


Getting down on my creaking knees, blowing away a very washable strand of hair and huffing and puffing my delightful morning breath into our delicate atmosphere I manage to drag the 2 desired Smurf figurines out from their hiding place.


"Thanks, Mommy! You're awesome!"


Almost purring with pleasure I dust my face off and beg ask for confirmation.


"Is Mommy awesome?"


Pausing for a second he answers - "Yeth."


So for all you mamas out there going through the motions, feeling less than glamorous and gorgeous and just plain boring - your kids see you in a whole different light.


You. Are. Awesome. Beautiful. A princess.


Please keep that in your mind today.


Just keep on being awesome.


But lets brush our teeth first.

Boy-isms

Our children provide us with a wealth of laughter and amusement. And blog fodder.
I need to write some of these memorable moments down before I forget them (not too difficult when you're Mama G.)
I don't expect everyone to be rolling on the floor with my natural storytelling gift as alot of these gems are the "you had to be there" variety.
Here goes...

*
On our way to bed and ticking off the bedtime routine checks, we brush our teeth and then its  time to make a wee.
"I don't want to wee, I don't need a wee, ...see??" He opens his pants and shows me his "empty" boy bits.
Thanks, dear, we can all sleep safe tonight.

*
In the car and on our way to school I commiserate on his sniffy snotty nose and the thick snorting he was doing.
His answer was "I not snotty! I a pig!" accompanied with more snorting and suitably exaggerated piggy noises.
People passing me must have wondered what I was laughing so much about.

*
Tucking the Boy up in bed and handing him his bedtime bottle he notices a fresh new teat on it (yes, I buckled and prolonged the bottle weaning project). He studies it for a second and then explains to me - as if I'm a bit dim - that "I not a baby, ... I Lukey S!"
{To avoid confusion at school all the Lukes in his daycare are addressed with the first letter of their last names. I might need to change his name to Lukey G. And it seems we chose a popular name 3 years ago.}

*
Collecting him from school, Aunty Laura informs me the Boy was beating up on some of his fellow inmates and she had to check him and swatted him on his hand. She then relates how, in a huff, he then cheekily advised her that he wasn't coming to school the next day...!
(so there.)
The Boy has kahunas, even I'm scared of Aunty Laura.

*
Driving along scenic Boyes Drive on our merry way to somewhere, the Boy is looking out the window and in a most jolly expression exclaims "We're all going to die! We're going to die!" The Husband and I exchange mildly perturbed sidelong looks and shrug it off as hopefully misunderstanding our doomsday progeny.
Since then I have come to understand that he considers falling as dying I think. His imagination must have been getting the better of him as we flew along the high mountain pass, pretending we were going to go over the edge, all with a grin and a twinkle in his blue eyes...

*
In benevolent moments I call the Boy my angel or my darling.
And in petulant moments he answers with " I not an angel!" or "I not a darling!"
Yes, I will probably be reminded of that fact in years to come... and maybe even a little sooner.

No doubt there will be more amusing anecdotes (to me anyhow) to follow.
Watch this space.

A morning with the Griswalds

Sunday started off rather well. The Boy slept a little later and then came to creep in with us. I think he may even have nodded off again, such was the warm and snug ambience in Mama and Papa's bed.


I eventually got up and made some filter coffee and quietly paid some bills online. Bleh.
The Husband finally roused himself and rustled up some bacon and eggs and we sat and ate breakfast at the table while enjoying the bright winter sunshine streaming into the lounge.


Later the Darling Husband called me outside to check out if some of the paints he'd dug out were suitable for my latest project (gutting our cave of a bathroom, well at least just painting it and sprucing it up a little).


Even though I may aspire to being Super Mom regrettably I do not have super vision and actually need to read labels to discover what the tin may hold. In order to do this I tilted the paint tin ever so slightly, confident that the lid was securely fitted.


Obviously I was wrong (a rare occasion) as the Husband tried to alert me to impending chaos and tried to right the can before half its contents dribbled out on to the driveway tarmac. But not fast enough to prevent a litre from splattering onto my 2 delinquent dogs' heads who, as always, have to feel they are included in every movement we make, and were standing on my feet and, as it were, below the full paint tin being swung around by me.
This resulted in the Jackson Pollock look...

Of course we couldn't leave them looking like this with paint stiffened fur so I filled a bucket with warm water and lugged the dog shampoo outside onto the freshly mown lawn. The Boy, spying a potentially delightful wet and soggy play opportunity raced over to "help Mama".


Coaxing the dogs toward me was not working too well - imagine that - so running after them and dragging them back to the Evil Bucket Of Clean Water proved to be quite an energetic exercise in itself. I had a big cup that I filled with the warm water and poured over them, one at a time. The Boy offered to pour the raspberry coloured shampoo into my hand. The volume he poured could have washed 20 great Danes but he was happy to keep helping. Luckily the paint was water-based and washed out easily. The lawn still has white smears of paint where the dogs went and rolled before having their spa treatments.


Sucker for punishment, I got hold of our third dog, a little Jack Russell and plonked her in the bucket and washed her too. She thanked me by going to roll in the sand.


Meanwhile, the Husband's brother J has poked his head over the wall and asked if he can bring his car for a interior valet (part of the Husband's cleaning services business). While observing our jolly dog washing capers he may have got an inkling into our circus-like Griswald home life. He was very quiet. Or disturbed. Who knows.


To top the shenanigans, the Boy is quietly discovered dropping stones into the Husband's industrial vacuum cleaner's motor. Hiroshima had competition with the Husband's nuclear reaction to this act of potential disastrous sabotage. (Its happened once before resulting in expensive repair costs).


Dragging the Boy out of harm's way we decided to visit Ouma next door, who was cranking out her Solid Gold vinyl tunes, and bug her entertain her with  The Boy's enthusiastic musical ability.

I think the piano's keys are all still intact.


Just another Griswald morning at home :)

The Boy's Ear Saga - the final chapter

Driving along the freeway I felt much more at ease. None of the butterflies that usually accompany me to the Red Cross hospital seemed to have gotten the memo about this morning's follow up appointment and, despite rush hour traffic, I enjoyed the trip to the children's hospital.


Maybe it was the free flowing traffic, or maybe it was one of my all time favourite songs, Johnny Clegg's Spirit of the Great Heart, turned up loud and enjoying some airtime on the radio. 


Maybe it was the Boy chatting to me and waving at pushy taxi drivers and declaring Johnny's unofficial South African anthem as "lekker!"


Maybe it was because I wasn't rushing, knowing the snail's pace at which the queue of waiting little patients would be moving. 


But mainly it was because I was pretty confident of a favorable outcome. 


The Boy has not suffered any ear infections since his grommet operation and his teacher is happy to confirm that he is a very chatty happy little boy, stuff I already know. His vocabulary is always expanding and he makes me laugh at a lot of the funny things he says.


We park the car and scoot off to the ENT ward, hand in the Boy's patient card and settle down to wait. And wait.


The Boy had insisted on bringing a fleet of his toy cars and begged to pack them out to play with. Soon he had an audience of interested little people helping to distribute his toys among themselves. Dubious as to whether he would get his toys back he started to whine. And whine. Luckily the moms were very intuitive and prompted their kids to return his toys. 


Safely packed away, the toys were swapped for peanut butter sandwiches, 2 apples, 2 lemon creams and some juice. He sat on the blue plastic folding chair swinging his legs and humming and munching while an avalanche of crumbs collected on his chest. Still having a tiny corner of his stomach not yet filled he discovered a chip on the grubby floor dropped by the child behind us. Before he could pop it into his mouth the child's fast thinking daddy offered him the last chips from their bag. He kindly polished that off too. Because, of course, we don't feed our child enough, just look at him...(!)


Finally we get to see the audiologist, it is the same lady we saw last time.
She explained the same game she needed the Boy to play with her - drop the blocks into the bowl when he heard "the birds singing". She held the hand-piece in front of his forehead and started the test. He must have been waiting for her cue because he seemed hesitant to drop the blocks, almost as if he couldn't hear her.

Mama starts to feel the butterflies waking up.

She decided to whisper some questions to him from behind her cupped hands. He answered all her questions and I was slightly more relieved. She seemed happy with that but not yet convinced. She asked a colleague to come help her by distracting the Boy while she stood behind him and used her bird singing device.


Set on the lowest softest frequency she held the thingamajig just behind and next to each ear and waited for a response from him. Mama was as tense as a tightrope and let out an audible sigh of relief each time he turned his head towards the noises. Hallelujah! He could hear it!
Then I get pissed. The audiologist is happy with his hearing however, since he didn't seem to grasp what she wanted him to do right at the start, she suggests I take him for a developmental assessment. According to her he should be understanding her requests. Now I know he is just fine, I have no concerns about his development, his teacher is a friend and she would fill me in on any concerns she may have.
The Boy is big for his age and is often mistaken for being older than he is but being just 3 and a bit I reckon he was just being polite and waiting on a cue from the therapist. She fills in a form for the developmental ward and attaches it to his file.

We go outside to wait again, this time to see the ENT doc. We don't wait too long. A good thing too as I've now had enough.
The doc checks the Boy's ears and declares him to be just fine. I resist the urge to hug him.
The receptionist nurse fills in the paperwork and declares, with a smile, that the Boy is indeed discharged. Elation!


We head down to the Developmental ward, me dragging my feet. Do we really need to do this?
The waiting room is much smaller with a handful of people waiting. The toys are strewn across the floor and the cushions on the benches are dirty, hardly what I want to sit on for any extended length of time. A fly lazily cruises the room.

I hand my file and form over to the receptionist and she informs me that processing my request and getting an appointment can be a lengthy exercise and she could probably only phone me back in about 6 months. Really? Fabulous.

I leave it at that and decide that if, and when, she phones me I'll decide what to do then.

The Boy and I head out of the hospital, leaving the doors swinging shut behind us.
My little Great Heart has done well, and hopefully his ears will remain trouble-free.

This chapter is over.

The End

Madness

She was mad. And frustrated once again.
She was opening up herself for criticism and the misunderstanding that she was perhaps ungrateful for all that she had been blessed with. Not the case. The frustration with her pathetic inability to make a decision based on various factors had her climbing the walls.


The need to acknowledge her feelings and write them down was felt when a sensitive nerve of the decision about having another child was pricked and raised one night.


"Do you really want to go through that again?"
He asked the question over a dinner of chicken vienna hot dogs and sweet mealies.
He was referring the whole luxurious state hospital experience.
He'd been reading the spreadsheet of hospital fees from various private hospitals she'd contacted for maternity costs, just to get an idea of what a birth would cost them outside of a state hospital and to do some research on various health insurance. They still had to pick their collective jaws up off the floor.


But that wasn't the core of her mad-ness. Or at least she supposed it was part of it, she mused.


She was mad that the decision to have a baby was, at that moment, directly linked to how healthy their bank balance was. That the gift of giving their son a sibling and themselves another child seemed to hinge on how much money they had, or rather, more accurately, how little they seemed to have.


She was mad that their business was still in its fledgling stage, and despite working back- breakingly hard, it was unable, at that stage, to provide enough of the stability they needed.

She was mad that she couldn't stretch her own salary sufficiently to cover all their monthly costs and give him the chance to build up their business capitol.

She was mad that she was too tired in the evenings to sit down and take on a larger freelancing load.

She was mad that she was not younger and could afford to wait a few more years for things to improve a little. Nearing her roaring (or was it raging?) forties her baby-making time was running out and her depleting eggs were heading ever closer to their expiration date. Hell, did she even have any left?


She was mad that so many more mundane things had to take priority over this big decision. 
Fixing her aging car, trying to play catch up on all their bills that just never seemed to want to be caught and killed, monthly necessities like school fees, utilities and a mortgage - all these stupid things seemed to be take precedence over being able to add another little person to their clan.


She was mad that she felt guilted into considering how others would possibly react to their "happy news".


She was mad that, if it were to happen, some of the people closest to them would throw up their hands, raise their eyebrows and whisper their concern to the others closest. "Why have another child when they can't even keep up with all their costs now!?" That made her particularly mad , and incredibly frustrated, so much so that she could weep.
Because she understood their concern.
Because it was what she also got anxious about.


And it wasn't that the family wouldn't welcome another itty bitty clan member, quite the opposite. It was just that these people had already helped them so much already and she would be mad with herself if she ever put them in a position that they felt they needed to step in and help her out yet again. 


She was madly frustrated when people encouragingly said "oh you will never have enough money so just go ahead and do it". That's all very well and brave but she's living in a very real world where diapers and daycare and formula don't grow on trees and {surprise!} cost real money. 


She understood that the world was experiencing hardships everywhere today, nearly everyone was struggling and her financial issues were probably just like a million others, nothing special.


But a decision to try for another baby was very special to her. As it should be.


She was mad because she felt they needed to make this decision soon and she hated being rushed.

She was mad because she is aware that tomorrow might find them in not such a bad place as today's but the decision has to be made now, a decision that would affect them always.

She was so mad because she was so frustratingly confused. That was the crux of her emotion.


And then she went into her toddler son's room later that night to check on him before taking herself to bed. Bending down, she kissed his forehead and breathed in the warm smell of sweet baby sweat. She gazed at his red lips pouting in sleep, dreaming of bananas in pyjamas and bold pirates, his arms flung across the pillows in complete abandon. And she knew she wanted a whole lot more of that.


Because - at the risk of sounding like a Visa card commercial - .... it was priceless. Beyond measure, invaluable.


And she was afraid that if she gave up the hopeful chance to have that all once again she would, indeed, be mad.