Wordless Wednesday 71

You know you're a parent when...

In my blogging absence I often found myself lamenting via Facebook status updates about parenthood, using the phrase "you know you're a parent when..." as an opening line. It turns out Facebook has redesigned themselves giving you the nifty little tool to check your activity history. You can specify if you want to review only posts from you or on your timeline, photos, videos, comments you've made on any other wall, etc.  So I decided to see how far back these "you know you're a parent when..." posts go and was quite surprised to see the  first one was in March already. Since I am trying to resurrect my blog I thought it would be fitting to post a list of these on my blog and welcome any further additions to the list, so here goes:

You know you're a parent when...

• After 3 days without water, when it comes back on the first thing you think of is to bath the kids and put on a load of washing
• Your Google search history has phrases like 'frequency of poo' , 'stinky farts' and 'is it normal'...
• Just getting everyone ready and into the car to go out is an outing on its own!
• The CD playing in your car includes smash hits like 'hokey pokey' and 'the wheels on the bus'
• You find yourself cutting your own sandwich into 8 triangles out of habit
• You find yourself quoting lines and phrases from Cartoon Network and Cbeebies characters
• You can't use your front door because your foyer is used as a storage area for toys
• You have a conversation on the phone and mid sentence you start shouting and scolding and then just continue the conversation as though nothing happened!
• You develop stalker tendencies, like staring at little kids while they sleep or wanting to know what they are doing and where they are every second of the day
• Cleaning someone's face with your spit often seems like a good idea
• You think getting up at 8 am is sleeping in
• You look at yourself in the mirror and see dried baby cereal stuck to your forehead
• You find yourself having arguments about fashion first thing in the morning...with a 3 year old
• You refer to ears as ornaments
• You feel as proud of yourself as the person who just climbed Everest...because you got all the kids to bed before 9 without a fight
• You think something is wrong when the house is quiet
• The parties you attend serve candy floss, smarties, jumping castles and flings

Please feel free to add to the list :)

Wordless Wednesday 70

Rekindling the relationship with my blog

Dear Blog,

Remember me? I seem to have given you the cold shoulder over recent months, I do apologize for my absence. But as it turns out, 3 kids is no walk in the park. I also returned to work in August, and while I work part time, it requires precision juggling techniques, because I still have to play the stay-at-home mom role as if I had been at home full time. I am not complaining though, because I love that I have the flexibility to have an occupation  and still be there for the kids, and I am also super lucky to have a domestic helper everyday who is amazing with little Yusuf. Needless to say though, the blogging ball has been dropped. But I have missed you dear blog. I have missed sharing my reflections on the mum drum of parenting kids with such amazingly different personalities. So I have made a resolution to rekindle my relationship with you, my blog, and will endeavor to cherish the value you have to me since we first started this journey together 3 years ago.

Thank you for understanding, I look forward to meeting with you again soon.

Lotsa Love,

Tasneem

Wordless wednesday 69

First school oral

I logged in today with the intention of giving a follow up report on Yusuf, but decided instead that this post about Bilaal and his first school oral is long overdue. A few weeks back, Bilaal came home with a homework task of preparing a 2 minute oral called 'My Family'. Bilaal is very confident about speaking in front of the class, in fact in his first week of grade 1 he actually asked the teacher's permission to stand up in front of the class to tell jokes! Never mind that the jokes were not very funny (no hopes of him being the next Joey Rasdien I'm afraid!), but he did it and it was no big deal. I thought maybe he would be a little bit nervous seeing that this was an official school assessment...but he wasn't...not in the least!

So I asked him to think about what he wanted to say about his family, I would write it down for him and then he could sit with the paper and memorize it. This is what he came up with:

My Family

My daddy's name is Yaasier, he is very handsome.
I like to give him hugs and kisses.
I like to play cricket with him.
My mommy's name is Tasneem
She is very pretty.
She takes good care of us.
My sister's name is Sumayah.
She is 2 years old
My baby brother's name is Yusuf.
He is 2 months old.
I love my family very much.

Sweet and short :)

Baby Yusuf goes to hospital

Last week was an exhausting and traumatic week for the Abrahams family, particularly for baby Yusuf. About 2 weeks ago he developed a cold, nothing serious, just a bit of nasal congestion. He was still feeding and sleeping well, and he was still he's usual pleasant, contented self. I did the whole saline and aspitator drill which seemed to help at first, but as the week progressed the congestion became post nasal drip which led to coughing and occasional restlessness. In the the meantime Yaasier, Bilaal and Sumayah were all finishing courses of antibiotics for sinus colds and ear infections. Towards the end of the week Yusuf was coughing quite a bit more and was starting to be a bit crabby during the day. So I phoned the paediatrician to find out if i should bring him in for a consult and after describing his symptoms and answering some questions, the doctor prescribed Betnesol drops and said that if the coughing became more frequent or he didn't improve over the weekend I should bring him in, and when weekend swung around that's exactly what happened! He suddenly wasn't sleeping well day or night, he wanted to be held all the time and if he wasn't sleeping or feeding he was crying or coughing! But what concerned me most was the constant chest wheeze. So off to the doctor we go on monday afternoon, the first available appointment, thinking he'll probably be precribed a nebulizer and maybe antibiotics.

But after examination, Dr Li says something no mum wants to hear, he says, "mom, he's not well hey. He has an ear infection that's why he's been crying all the time, he's in alot of pain. But what worries me is that he has bronchiolitis as well so he's struggling to breathe and because he's still so young I'd like to admit him to the ward now then he'll be discharged by Wednesday". To hear that my 2 month young baby angel has to be admitted to hospital came as such a shock I felt like I was going to burst into tears! But I managed to just barely fight back the tears while trying to listen to the doctor. I started to feel a little better when he said that if I really want to, I can treat at home, but the reason he recommends hospitalisation is because Yusuf is so young so he would prefer if the infection is treated aggressively so that he can recover more quickly rather than putting his immune system under anymore strain and risking further complications. He explained that in hospital they can give him pure oxygen and administer the antibiotics intravenously.

Skip a few hours of admission procedures and making arrangements for the other 2 kids, and we find ourselves in the paediatric ward with Yusuf being whisked away to have a drip put in. While answering the ward's admission questions I could hear Yusuf screaming his head off and it broke my heart! And then they bring him back to me with pipes coming out of his nose and arm and my heart breaks even more! I know it's silly, but I felt so guilty, like I failed him as a mother by letting him get sick. The days to follow were exhausting to say the least, but I have an incredible husband who has an amazing bond with our little monkeys. So while living in jozi far from family support made this time extra challenging, we just got on with it and survived.

Well I'm happy to report that Yusuf was discharged on Wednesday and has been improving everyday. He's still quite crabby, but there have been glimpses of his usual smiley self more and more often everyday. And as frustrating it is sometimes, he's gorgeous smile with those fat kissable cheeks an the way he stares at me as though he is completely lovestruck...that is what makes everything worthwhile!