The 12 hour flight

I recently took the very brave 12 hour plane ride alone with a toddler to visit my family in the UK. For weeks building up to the flight, everybody (myself included) was worried about how I would cope with little miss tjankie on the plane. We even tried to get a doctor's prescription for something called Valagan which is supposed to knock the kid the hell out. Eventually the date of departure arrived and I settled on giving her 2.5ml zyrtec, 2.5ml stopyne, and sister Lilian's trusted homeopathic rescue rest remedy. Our flight was on the night 22h40 and fortunately they had the good sense to let all the many many passengers travelling with babies and children to board first because as they diplomatically put it we "may need a little more time to board". This worked out great, because it gave me time to get us all settled and then while everybody else was boarding I could put Sumayah to sleep standing in front of the seat (always ask for a bulk head seat when travelling with kids). So by the time we had to buckle up for take off Sumayah was fast asleep. She is too big for a bassinet, so I had to sit with her sleeping on my lap the entire time. But I didn't mind one bit, because she was a little angel! She slept and slept the entire time while the 4 year old behind us screamed her little lungs out midway through the flight. The hardest part was when she was awake the last 3 hours of the flight, but at least most of the passengers were waking up by that time. So I walked up and down the aisles with her a few times and she was so cute, because she would see the people sleeping and and put her finger on her lips saying 'sshh!'. Of course when we landed I had to wait till everybody passed us in the aisles so I could collect all our things and get myself comfortable. I took my pram along expecting it would be ready when we exit the plane, but they had already taken everything to the baggage claim. Anybody travelled to UK before know what a looong walk it is to the baggage claim area, so it was not fun to carry Sumayah and my coat and my nappy bag and handbag all that way. Fortunately I had a backup plan, I bought a carry thing at pep stores for 39 bucks that allowed me to carry Sumayah on my back while I filled out the arrivals card. The perk of travelling with a child is that you don't need to queue at emigration. The minute they saw me with my parcel on my back they sent me straight to the front. Then finally, the best part of my journey... walking through the terminal doors and seeing my brother, sister and parents standing at the end of the stretch eagerly anticipating our arrival with huge smiles on their faces. And the moment Sumayah met her grandparents for the first time... priceless. Apparently we brought just a little bit of warmth with us because the temperature bumped up from the minus degrees to a whole 7 degrees... believe me, that is warm here. So here I am posting from the comfort of my parents' home while my daughter enjoys getting to know her ma, papi, uncer meez, and aunty... and of course the cat Casper (known to Sumayah as Gabber).

Jozi Girl!

Sumayah hates the beach, she hates the sea sand, she despises the wind! And of course Cape Town is not known as the windy city for nothing! The poor child clings onto me for dear life if even a little wind blows her way, so you can imagine what happens at the beach where the wind tends to be even more joyous. Take her to a pool and she is totally happy. Guess we just have to accept that she is our little Jozi Girl! 

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Bilaal's first dentist visit

Yes, I know some of you might be thinking 'isn't it a bit late?' But you know the dentist was just never on the top of my to do list. I first made an appointment in Jan last year and kept postponing to make room for more pressing events until eventually I just cancelled altogether. I guess because Bilaal is very good with brushing his teeth and his not obsessive about sweets he's got lovely pearly whites and has never complained of toothache. But given that he is going to Grade R next year and he will be 6, the year children generally start losing their milk teeth, I figured I should better take him for a check-up and polish.

Bilaal has heard about visits to the dentist from children at school when they were learning about different professions, and we have some books and have had discussions about losing teeth, and he's even observed me undergoing root canal... but his first dental visit was still a huge deal for him. He wasn't scared at all, more curious. It was quite funny though, because he is quite a chatty boy, but when he is in a new/exciting situation he becomes more so. Usually patients get annoyed when the dentist keeps asking them questions while expecting them to say aaahh, but in Bilaal's case it was he doing all the talking in between each tooth being checked or polished. He was especially curious about the X-ray and kept insisting that he take it home!

In the end he was very proud of his certificate congratulating him for taking such good care of his teeth. He is still making up his mind though whether he would like the mouse or the fairy to visit him when he loses his first tooth (debate courtesy of Elliot Kid on Nickelodeon I think it is!)

movie clip monday 3

This clip was taken in July 2010 right in the midst of world cup fever. Sumayah had just turned 1 that month.

Body language of a wasvrou

I can handle mischievious, I can handle naughty, I can handle the physicality of a wild reckless child who writes on walls and tries to 'climb' the curtains. But what I absolutely cannot handle, the thing that really makes my blood boil... is THE SULK. The sulk that says "I don't care what you do for me or give me, the only thing I care about is that one thing you said 'no' to". It's the behaviour that can really turn me into a ranting crazy woman, usually in the car, and to no effect at all! But what I realised just the other day, is that while I am 'losing it' in the privacy of my car, my body language displays this to everyone NOT in the car. I was shouting at Bilaal again while driving home from the shops and while shouting, I noticed the man in the car alonside me looking at me, but then he drove slightly ahead and I continued on my mission to get my point across to someone who wasn't listening to me anyway no matter how loud I 'spoke'. Then we stopped at a traffic light and I pulled up alongside same said driver. He looked at me again, and then his expression changed from a casual glance in my direction to shere fright. I swear all I could see was white eyeball as though he had just seen a ghost. All the while I was continueing with my rant, the other part of my brain was simultaneously registering that, hang on, the source of this man's fear... was me! As he was slightly ahead of me, looking back at me in the driver's seat, he couldn't see my kids in the car. All he saw was this crazy wasvrou with anger and frustration seething out of her eyes and they were glaring in his direction! Poor guy, he probably thought I was scolding at him! Now I know I should try to practice more patience and restraint with Bilaal, but boy is it hard, I just don't have the willpower. But this incident, while in retrospect I see the humour in it, has made me realise that I need to have even greater resolve to find the softestness and patience in me that for some wierd reason people always assume I have. Aah ya ne, we'll see if I can post all about my success in this regard in future.

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Strictly speaking it is already thursday because it's past midnight, but for some reason I have been struggling to upload pictures onto blogger for weeks now, hence the lack of wordless wednesday posts. I also can't seem to figure out how to rotate the damn pic, I rotated it before uploading but it still keeps uploading in the original position... very frustrating. Nevertheless, here is my pic of Sumayah almost 3 months ago already shoo, how time flies! 

Well clearly this is also turning out to be a not so wordless post after all!