On Sunday the 31st of August this year, the weather was really crap. We had arrived in Ballito the Friday before for a one week break, and as luck would have it, or not it seems, the weather was revolting: overcast, windy and freezing. We decided to take the kids to the beach for a …
Six
My darling Alex, Six is not a very big number. It is the number of legs on an insect or the largest number of dots on standard dice. Six is half a dozen; or the most harmonious of single digit numbers (if you are into numerology.) According to Winnie the Pooh, it is when we …
Moira
I heard your voice in a supermarket the other day, Moira. I turned around, really expecting to see you standing there. The woman who the voice belonged to regarded me quizzically while I stared at her face expecting yours to materialize. For a moment I forgot that you are dead. There is no light way …
Three…
My Dear Caris It seems like just the other day you were a thumpety-thump sound accompanying a grainy blob on a black and white screen. My surprise pregnancy. My "Oh my God, how am I going to tell your father" baby. I can still feel the tears stinging in the corners of my eyes when …
Ten years
My love, Ten years ago, when we both had fewer wrinkles and less responsibility, I read a poem to you on our wedding day. It speaks of love's fragility and of allowing oneself to be vulnerable to another. It speaks of allowing oneself to trust another completely, of unconditional love. {Photos taken on our first …
The trouble with being little
Barring the last week, Alex has been having a bit of a rough time since school started again this year. Being quite a reserved child, he sometimes struggles to fit in with the crowd. I can relate, because I was never really a mainstream kid. He has always been quite an intense child, we even …
Hello 2014
I'm definitely not superstitious, but I'm starting to think that there is something to this "unlucky number thirteen" thing. In a lot of respects 2013 was indeed a pretty unlucky year. There were many health challenges in my close family / friends. My dad was hospitalized in ICU for over a week with pneumonia and …
Is this a dream?
I started writing this post almost two weeks ago, amidst the craziest, most emotionally draining week of my life. I could not bring myself to hit publish, as if saying the words out loud made them real, and the real-ness of all this was something I was not quite ready for. The temptation to predict …
So this is 40
A few weeks ago, we watched a movie called This is 40. It's probably the funniest movie I have seen in a long time. Probably because of its appropriateness in terms of my turning 40 a few days afterwards. Whilst the movie is probably not everyone's cup of tea (there is quite a lot of swearing …
Pearly whites
Alex was an early teether. At just over four months, the first two little pearly whites made their way through the gums causing much excitement amongst proud parents and grand-parents. (and then they came in two-by-two in rapid succession therafter!) About a month ago, one of those little babies started getting wobbly. I remember hearing …
Baby Makes Six 