wordless wednesday 14

Impossible is Nothing

It's amazing how children's personalities develop at such a young age already.We have decided that Sumayah's slogan in Impossible is Nothing. She is one fearless, willful and super determined little girl. When we put her in her playpen, she has started trying to lift herself over. Of course this is not possible because the top of the playgym is at her eyebrow's height, but that won't stop her from trying. She has even managed on a few occasions to lift her body off the ground for a second, hanging only by her fingers! Yep! i am not exaggerating, that is how strong she is. When she's not in her playpen we try blocking her path to the t.v with objects such as the rocking chair and the playpen, but when next we look she is on the other side of the barrier! Somehow she always manages to wiggle her way through the smallest space to get to where she wants to be. Yesterday I had such a good laugh when I caught little miss prison break in action. We have one of those safety gates at the bottom of the stairs, because madam has figured out how to climb the stairs. Yes, at 8 months she thinks can do anything her brother can, so when he goes upstairs, she simply follows him! So anyway, the safety gate is up and while working yesterday she was playing around my feet, then she went to the gate which was behind me. Knowing that it was closed I didn't pay too much attention, but when I turned around to look at her... she actually managed to get her head through the little gap between the gate and the wall and was very expertly trying to manoeuvre her body through. Of course the minute I screeched "oh my word Sumayah! What are you doing?",  it was as if she knew she was doing something she wasn't supposed to and tried to pull her head out.... but it was stuck. So alas I couldn't get the camera to capture the moment because I had to help miss alcatraz get her head out of the bars. She hasn't tried it again, but not too long ago I caught her fiddling with the suction screws that holds the gate securely against the wall!

Oh, did I also mention that she loves eating paper and moving furniture around, particularly the dining chairs. And yes she actually does move them around the dining room! She also broke her play mobile (you know the one that stands on 4 legs that they supposed to lie under on the floor as babies?)... yes well she broke that in half! When we were in Cape Town we could take the one Bilaal had as a baby out of a box in almost mint condition. And I don't bother with expensive brand name bottles, because it's R100 down the drain when she cracks the bottom of the bottle because she is very fond of chucking it (with purpose and force I might add) onto the floor when she's had her fill!

Yep, that's our little Sumayah for you. Can you imagine how much fun we gonna have with her when she starts walking?!

wordless wednesday 13

A funny story

The other day we were at the petrol station filling up and the attendant graciously cleaned the windscreen. Yaasier started grinning and started recollecting a very funny story to the attendant about something that happened on our wedding day, 8 years ago already. See the attendant pouring water over the windscreen reminded him of his grandmothers brother who had decided to give his car a quick wash on the morning of our wedding day. Now picture this... his wife was sitting in the passenger seat, window rolled down, waiting patiently for her husband, dressed to the nines for the wedding. Her husband takes a bucket full of water (which he just used to sponge the car off).... and decides to give the car a rinse by hurtling the water onto the car. Unfortunately for the wife he was standing on the passenger side and managed to throw the water directly in her face!

wordless wednesday 12

Fun in the sun at Sun City!

On Sunday took a day trip to Sun City. Wow! what an awsome, fantastic day! The weather was glorious and we all had so much fun, as Bilaal kept saying throughout the day, "This is the happiest best day of my life!"

Wordless Wednesday 11

Busy times ahead

I have been graaaduallly  entering back into the world of work. Last month I started running OT groups at Headway (brain injury charity organisation) once a week. This month I add two more days of work, tutoring Wits OT students at their fieldwork placements twice a week. However, this also entails marking at home so I am going to get very busy soon! So far Sumayah is doing very well with Abegail in the mornings so I am very relieved for that and Abegail seems to be quite fond of Sumayah too. So here's to a productive month :D

Comments Form Fixed

Thanks to Karen for letting me know via our other point of contact at mommalicious mammas that the comments form wasn't working on the new template. Had to delve into the deep dark world of CODING hoooo! And Success! I tested it and it works, so please whoever takes the time to read my blog, do comment. I love comments :D

Lay down your sleep head...

The other day when the dstv was out, we found ourselves watching a bunch of home movies from when Bilaal was a baby. With all this talk about sleep and sleep training, I thought I'd share an extract of one of the videos, where Bilaal is falling asleep all on his own. Of course this was the one and only time he ever did this as a baby! It's actually quite funny if you could see me trying to get it on video. I didn't want him to see me so I was hiding next to the cot holding the camera up just enough to capture him without him seeing the camera. Although the clip is only about 3 minutes, in total it took him about 10 minutes to fall asleep. Enjoy!

"Mommy, is there such a thing as a white person?"

HUH?!

That was my initial reaction when Bilaal asked me this the other day. After I found my jaw on the floor and erased the question mark from my forehead, I asked him, "Why do you ask?".

He proceeded to tell me how his favourite girl friend that he used to play with last year (she left the school to attend grade R this year) and her cousin (also a girl) once told him that he could only play with them if he was a "white person".

So I asked him, "So what did you say?"
To which he replied, "I told them you don't get such a thing as a white person. Do you mommy?"

And that is how we entered into our first discussion about race. Interestingly the reason for his perception that there is no such thing as white person or a black person is because he only views colour differences in terms of lighter and darker. So you are either light or dark, no coloured or indian or black or white. And him being a little Cape coloured boy views himself in the light category! The conversation then extended beyond skin colour as I was trying to explain to him that he shouldn't choose his friends based on how they look or what they wear or what they have, but rather how they treat others and are they nice to be around. We even touched on disability seeing as there are 2 children at his school with disabilities, one with Down's Syndrome, one with autism. All this while he was having lunch and I was folding washing!

I asked him, "So how come they played with you anyway, R was then your best friend last year? And doesn't E then play with S (indian girl) ?"
Bilaal: "Yes because when I said there's no such thing they just said 'oh' and then we played"

Aah the simplicity of childhood!

Wordless Wednesday 10

Not Measles After All!

Fortunately Bilaal doesn't have measles. Apparently Bilaal's throat infection didn't completely clear, the doctor let me have a look and there were huge critters sitting around his tonsils. So now he is on antibiotics AGAIN! But, the doctor said he can go to school tomorrow and I needn't keep him from swimming. But I think just as a precaution I will skip the swimming lesson tomorrow and wait till next week.

Can this be Measles!

On Friday Bilaal complained that he wasn't feeling well, soon followed by a fever and the sniffles. My initial thought was, "sick, again!". I assumed it was the flu because he's main symptoms were that of blocked nose and fever so we didn't go to the doctor. I gave hims meds for the fever, but it coming back, until finally yesterday morning the fever broke and I thought... 'aaah finally now he will start getting better.' Luckily I phoned the doctor and made a tentative appointment for today in case he didn't improve, and whaddaya know, last night he broke out in a crazy, itchy, welty rash on his chest, arms and groin and redness on his cheeks too. It must have been itching like crazy because he was scratching himself open and moaning in his sleep. Luckily I had some Advantan Milk the dr prescribed for Sumayah when she was about 3 months old. It's a cortico-steroid for littlies and it worked wonders. So I googled the symptoms of measles and it seems to match and with the measles outbreak in Gauteng with immunization roll-out this week, it looks very likely. It supposedly starts with the sniffles or a cough and mild fever which lasts about 3 to 4 days. When the fever breaks, the rash appears. Apparently if it is measles it is infectious for the 4 days before the rash appears and then for 24 hours after the rash disappears. There is no pharmacological treatment for measles, only rest, good nutrition and plenty of fluids. But I guess i can only summise that it indeed what it is until I see the doctor later. This morning the rash is completely gone, but he still has the sinus problems. All I can do now is wait and see.

Long Time No Blog!

We've been having trouble with the internet connection for the past few days so I have been suffering a bit of blogger withdrawal! Didn't think blogging would be so... so ... well addictive is too strong a word, but it will have to do for now. There's quite a few things I wanted to share, but I guess I will share gradually over a few posts. Also i have been trying to revive my movie editing hobby. I feel so bad that Bilaal has 4 movies from the 1st year of his life and Sumayah... well Sumayah has none. And everybody says 'it's always like that with the second one, but shame I don't want her to be little aspoestertjie. The dstv was out last weekend (I know horror of horrors over super 14 time nogal!) so we were watching some videos of Bilaal. I.ve been trying to upload some of them to share, but the bloody internet keeps disconnecting on me halfway through. But I shall keep trying and hopefully have them up soon.