5 Reasons why parents should ‘babywear’ & the 5 actual reasons why most parents do.

Parents interested in the theory about carrying their baby whether they’re new or not to the parenting club, will come across the same sort of information.

Without getting into a detailed bibliography, in a kind of readers digest style, it seems to come down to 5 main points why parents should carry their baby;

1) Creating a stronger bond with their child.

2) Carried babies will mature into empathic, selfless people who are completely intune and comfortable with their world.

3) Carried babies can develop a higher degree of emotional intelligence and develop social skills quicker than their ‘left alone’ counterparts.

4) Turns parents into their own ‘baby whisperers’ because parents don’t miss their baby’s cues.

5) Baby is far more settled, which in turn makes parents more confident, which in turn establishes a peaceful harmony of love, trust which in turn will lead to world peace, the end of all wars and life forever more will be a fantasmagorically wonderful Utopia.

OK, the last part of number 5 is a work in progress, but you get my drift? There are some truly wonderful benefits of ‘babywearing’,

Realistically though, I can guarantee you that  in any  home across the world where you find a new family, theory  is the last thing on that new parent’s mind. ‘Babywearing’ might have already been on the family plan in the beautiful bloom state of a first pregnancy, but once baby is born reality sets in.

It happens to be almost comical why most parents will get into ‘babywearing’ anyway.

The 5 real top reasons why parents ‘babywear’ anyway.

FIRST Reason

Babynoia – like paranoia, but at an entirely new level.

There’s no term in the medical encyclopaedia called Babynoia, but to all parents past & present, it is a very real phenomenon. The experience of thinking you hear your baby cry, even though you know baby is asleep, just as you want to do something important.

Take showering? Who hasn’t heard their baby cry the moment you step under the water? Or taking out the rubbish, checking the mailbox or while hanging up the washing.

If showering hasn’t messed with a new parent’s sanity, hanging out the washing will.

Particularly detrimental on the first timer, who may have checked on still sleeping baby a few times already, the ‘abandonment guilt’ side of Babynoia sets in.

Thoughts like ‘I know my baby is sleeping, but what happens if our pet cat/dog/hamster/mongoose lays across baby’s neck’ or ‘Did I leave the iron/heater/left the chips cooking and a fire is starting?’.

Who would have thought in their pre-baby days that hanging out the washing could be so stressful.

Most parents will eventually rationalise that anxiety by either,

* Ignoring it, but still hanging out the washing at Olympic gold medal speed,

* Deny it, what washing?

* Or chill it, by placing baby in the sling, hanging up the washing while swirling around, rocking & possibly singing made-up nursery rhymes about little singlets & cutesy clothes. Singing does amazing things for neighbour relations, if you have a good voice.

A curious thing happens after parents get a handle on the Babynoia, some go ahead and have another baby or few.

 The SECOND reason

Family Management - Why most parents go running to the cupboard to get their baby sling out of storage – more kids!

Life changes when there’s more than one. Parents might find themselves in similar situations like -

* Turn back on newborn & toddler for a split nanosecond only to hear a strange gurgling sound. Find baby in the pram choking on a mouthful of Smarties. Do all manner of panic induced Smartie extractions while toddler says “I was only sharing mummy”. Couple more incidences like that and you don’t need to be Einstein to figure out that new baby is much safer carried under your nose than left anywhere else for the time being.

* Toddlers have the uncanny knack of timing urgent toilet needs just as baby is about to be fed. Always happens.

Mums have to precariously hold baby on the breast with one hand, handle toddler clothing & potty placement with the other.  Or if bottle fed, have bottle wedged under chin. And not forgetting the wash hands war afterwards.

To outsmart toddler toilet timing, savvy parents have their baby already nestled in the sling just before feeding time.

This is what legends in feeding time are made of.  Breastfeeding mums have baby securely attached to the breast supported by the sling, can breeze through potty urgency with both hands free (bottle feeding parents can still have one hand free) like a cool, calm, ‘I have this nailed’ pro.

*Preschool drop off. Some older siblings are absolutely grateful to get a day away from a noisy baby at preschool. They almost can’t get into the school fast enough. I remember seeing one preschooler jump out of the car, race towards the entrance arms flapping in the air, screaming out “FREEDOM!”

OK, He might have been a happy freedom seeking chappy, yet some others, well… have adjustment or jealousy issues.

When this happens, it’s not the most pleasant part of the day for any parent. It can be very, very hard to walk, prise off leg & combat all the pulling & tugging & crying & screaming from an unwilling preschooler with a baby in one arm.  After a few ‘ground hog’ mornings like that, parents can have battle half won with baby in the sling, a few deep breathes & the resolve that this too shall pass.

The THIRD reason.

Vanity!

Chuckle all you like, but when it comes to hiding the post baby jelly belly, nothing hides it like a sling. One of the oldest vanity tricks in the book. To hide a plump belly, use a large tote bag, with new mums, it’s a sling.

By carrying baby in the sling out in public, attention goes straight to the baby and not on the new mum’s lack of Miranda Kerr post baby body.

In all my years of giving birth to my greatest creations, I have only ever seen one woman carrying baby out of hospital while wearing size 8 jeans. I would like to think that she was in fact a proud new aunty carrying baby out to the car for the new parents. There was far too much spring in her step to convince me she gave birth 48 hours ago.

Also, carrying baby, breastfeeding & eating right actually help to fast track baby weight loss anyway. Just not within 48 hours.

The FOURTH reason

Personal space.

And it is very personal. In regards to how much you care if every Tom, Dick, Harry, Nigel, toddler Timmy & dear old Edna touch your baby.

Well meaning people quite readily approach a pram or shopping trolley for  a peek at the most beautiful baby in that parents world, but they also inclined to start pinching baby’s cheeks, toes, while coughing &  spluttering without any thought sometimes.

When parents get to the point where they are sick of producing instant razor sharp talons while snarling out a matching Sabre tooth “STEP AWAY FROM THE BABY” roar, the sling becomes baby & public defender all in one. Almost newsworthy if you think of how a journalist would put the headline…. 

“Sling used as a diplomatic solution in a near hostile stand-off between a parent & a stranger’.

Having baby in a sling, people usually don’t cross the invisible boundary of

adult personal space; no more  unwanted touchy feelies or having to pin a sign on your baby’s chest that reads ‘Please do not touch the baby. Trespassers will be slapped’

The FIFTH reason

Mobility.

‘Have sling & go where no pram can go before you’

Sounds a bit Star Trekky, but all sling parents love this one. Impatient parents are empowered by the speed, often secretly snickering at parents encumbered by burdensome prams as they zoom past. Also on the travelling parents top priority list of must haves, not only is the sling a lightweight baby transporter, can be used as a change pad & a cover on dubious surfaces.

Use a sling, and you won’t be held at the back of the line for an elevator any more, even if you did get there first. How many able bodied people rudely slipping in just as the elevator door opens, does a pram burdened parent have to sneer at before realising a sling is far more practical to manoeuvre in a crowd. Pram rage can only get you so far. Not denying there is a certain amount of satisfaction in ramming ankles, but using a sling, a parent can slalom around the 2 legged ant populations with stealth.

How a baby sling can help you lose baby weight

During all the years I spent carrying my 5 children during their younger years in the sling, I managed to return to my pre pregnancy weight.

I was always on the go. Maybe that was it.
I put it down to our lifestyle, all that healthy eating, out & aboutness, pounding the pavement seeking new clients, running from not so willing prospective clients, chasing the parking- pick up the kids-get to uni deadline and the markets.

All with a baby in the sling, a suitcase and filled to the brim mother's bag.
All that accessory weight I was carrying around.
Other mums were going to the gym.
But I was never far from my size 8 jeans.


Shape? well maybe not so much... the boobs got bigger!

Almost 20 consecutive years of breastfeeding probably added to their size, but really, I have my mother's & grandmother's genetics to thank for that....Good on ya Mum!

When I inherited the nickname of Dolly Parton, I cut off my long blonde hair and dyed the last little bit red.
The strangest thing happened - my husband didn't notice that 12 inches of hair was missing, or that it was a completely different colour, but he did ask, "Are you wearing a new bra honey?"
He never did live that one down.

As much as no one, least of all my appreciative hubby, complains about the size of my voluptuous set of kahoonas, except for me, I'm proud of them & my tiger stripes (stretch marks) of courage too.
They've done some awesome work, truly awesome work.

Just as the kids are growing older, my body parts are sagging south too.

Whilst I've discovered the strangulating joys of shapewear, my size 8 jeans have been packed away.
For some time.

Its been a few years since I carried any of the kids around in the sling for hours on end daily.
Kids have this rather annoyingly bad habit of growing up.

Though I walk every morning, getting back before the family wakes up, which gives me my daily  pep boost, so that I can jiggy jig the Harlem Shake to an audience of none when making the families lunches in the kitchen.
But it hasn't stopped the weight from sneaking on like an uninvited party quest; no one likes those.

I know that going to the gym is like Brussels Sprouts; both are good for me
I don't like either, but I was doing both.
Until I had an accident that damaged my shoulder.

The type of accident you have when you stand on your husband's desk to install a new curtain rail.

An Ikea desk that hubby put together with a 'Mweh I don't need to connect the stabliser bar, it'll be right' after thought.
.
My life flashed before my eyes as the 2 computer monitors, printers, hard drives & all his other shiz coming crashing down on top of me at a furiously fast speed.
One chipped tooth, more bruises than Muhammed Ali after a few rounds and a left arm dangling uselessly later, I still managed to right hand text him 'You didn't put on the f%$King stabliser bar!"

My hubby had an idea once to make T-shirts that read "I can do anything, I survived Ikea instructions"
I'll add to that "I didn't survive my husband's Ikea project"

There went the daily gym visits, and much to my family's relief so did the awful  Brussels Sprout pie.

I had plenty of time to fill with extra bread, a Choc Top or few, a lot of sitting around and not much moving.

Summer hit and my size 12 shorts wouldn't do up.
I used up 2 boxes of tissues that morning.
My husband paled at every sob.

After 4 weeks of dieting, some weight started to shift, but not a lot.
I needed to do a type of exercise that my still recovering shoulder could handle.

Enter a personal trainer trainee from down the road who was dying to get in some experience & the hospital physiotherapist, they have me sorted.
But the weight wasn't showing much interest in budging, until I told the PT about my skinny years with the babes in the sling.

Her eyes struck open so wide I thought they'd pop.
"Of course, of course! the oldest weight loss trick in the book! carry the extra weight. The body works harder, burns more calories without the extra stress"

Since the beginning of February, PT has had me carrying a 10 kilo bag of potatoes in one of our discarded demo slings on my daily morning walks.

There's not a morning that goes past that I fear that one of the other regular walkers will want to stop to look at my 'baby'.
Its an odd thought I know, but there you have it.

But I did lose 7 kilos during February by using this technique, more than triple what I was losing before. My size 10 skinny jeans are little lose this morning, so I'm dancing the happy dance.
Actually I'm pirouetting between paragraphs.

Having spoken to PT further about this & our local Weight Watcher's team leader. By carrying around extra weight such as a baby/toddler in a sling or strapping on exercise weights and walking for at least 40- 45 minutes daily, will help you lose weight.
As long as your diet is a healthy eating one of course.

So get out & about, like our couple in the photo, or use the sling at home for the daily things that you do!

I'm off to find the trunk that holds my old favourite size 8 jeans.
I have a sneaking suspicion that it might be in the attic, and I haven't been in the attic since I watched The Grudge.......
Then again, there's always retail therapy to help with that!

How to start Smoking and Survive living in a Haunted house.

 

This is a true ghost story, but it is also a story of how we readily change our ethics to suit a situation and the excuses we make for it, because all addictions are crutches.

Like a lot of people from my generation, I started smoking in high school. It was cool to hang with the gang just outside the school gates, smoking cigarettes, especially those pilfered from an unattended parent pack.

Jump a generation into the future and it’s just not cool to smoke any more, period. The last handful of a soon to be extinct social group, smokers have descended to Leper status.

I gave up when I fell pregnant with my first child, completely out of duty. It never entered my head that one day in the future I would smoke once again. Completely impossible-Nada, never, no way!

18 years later, a day after New Year’s Eve, not long after my beloved father died, sitting somewhat lonely on the back step outside the most haunted house I would ever live in, I struck up a cigarette.

I had chosen a Winfield Blue from the array of packets before me. 6 of my friends had the night before held true to their resolutions and handed me their packets of unused cigarettes to dispose of. I was the most convicted non-smoker they knew. I never realised how much of a turncoat I truly was.

Really, all I wanted was an excuse not to go inside. I never believed in smoking indoors, in cars etc.

If I was smoking, I couldn’t go inside could I?

The light was fading, my head was spinning; deep breaths in and long breaths out, in between the coughing & spluttering, the bile of acid rose in my stomach to greet my windpipe with a punch. Ah! Still it was heaven, albeit, a long forgotten one.

The kids were at their dad’s for the weekend, and I alone except for the ‘others’, no one would know of my naughtiness. I had enough stash to keep me outside all night. 

I must have fallen asleep at some time.

As the first rays of light hit my face and my neck was stiff from leaning against the back door, I heard a crunching munching noise in front of me. One sticky eye opens to a rather large bull chomping on my marigolds a couple of metres away. He was staring right at me.

At that moment I was more scared of this massive beast than I was of the ghostly squatters that occupied the house with us.

I wasn’t to know that Henry, the neighbour’s bull, was rather tame - I was a city girl recently turned country.

I slid up the door ever so slowly, holding panic at bay, till I reached the handle and fell backwards into the house, kicking the door shut with my foot as I lay on the ground. My stash of cigarettes left behind on the doorstep. Damn!

A phone call revealed that my neighbour wasn’t home. Henry thought my backyard was a feast and wasn’t willing to leave anytime soon. If I hadn’t been smoking I would have cried at the devastation of the lost flowers, ripped out grass and the huge pats of steaming dung, but I was more concerned on how to get my precious smokes. 

No amount of shooing, booing and banging saucepan lids together from the sanctuary of the kitchen window would get Henry to move back to the paddocks.

Great, I have only been smoking for a few hours & I am already going through the anxiety of withdrawal.

An hour later as Henry finally turned his head from the direction of the back door step, I opened the door with slow motion stealth, crept down the step, bundled up the packets in my arms and started to crawl backwards keeping an eye on Henry at all times. I raced out to the front veranda and lit up, enjoying it like a treasure hunter finally finding his gold. There was even a euphoric high five jump in the air.

Dry mouthed, I hungered for a cup of tea, but it was such an enterprise to make one. The ‘others’ & I would play on/off tag over & over with the kettle, every time I switched it on, they switched it off.

The first time it happened I thought it was the kettle, so I purchased a new one. It took 4 days after moving in to realise it wasn’t a case of a faulty kettle. No wonder the house had been on the market for over 2 years, empty & hastily abandoned by its previous short- term owners.

Most days I remembered to put a saucepan of water on the stove to boil, which it seemed they didn’t have any control over. This particular morning I turned the kettle on. 2 seconds later it switched itself off. Sigh.

Smokers have a higher level of Serotonin, which induces more Dutch courage than a non-smoker, which is why, when this time the kettle clicked itself off, I let out a string of aggressive threats to my ethereal residents, frightening them into absolute silence & inactivity for 2 days, beginning with the kettle switching back on immediately!

Well! That’s more like it.

Mind you though, the threats only worked the one time. If I was thinking that screaming threats of laying rock salt on the floors and drenching the house in holy water would permanently evict the house of its ghostly tenants, I was sadly mistaken.

Ghosts are not like children; you can’t bluff them as easily.

From that day onwards, now that I had renewed my secret love affair with cigarettes again, I really wanted all the kids in bed by 8.30 so that I could have as much time as possible to spend with my little white cancer sticks. My days tragically changed to counting the hours down till we could meet again.

Smoking seemed to inject a shot of tenacious, enduring courage.

I no longer felt the fear of leaving the kids in my bedroom where we now all slept, shivering with angst as the footsteps of the unseen could be heard along the hallway, or the echoes of long ago conversations filtering through the house, or even when the hairy-backed man with woeful vocals took the liberty of sharing a shower with my 5 year old son.

So many nights I would hear his ear piercing scream “MUM HE’S IN THE SHOWER AGAIN” meant that I would have to stub out my half used cigarette, with a long drawn in breath in frustration. Once I called back having only just lit my smoke “Just close your eyes, I’ll be there in a minute!”

7.5 minutes later I walked into the bathroom finding my little son cowering in the corner sobbing under his wet towel. I could feel with horrible guilt the words ‘worlds worst mum’ being tattooed on my forehead with red-hot flames.

I certainly had my priorities wrong. From then on, I dutifully waited with him in the shower & until he had actually fallen asleep each night before sneaking off to my smoky tryst.

For the 6 months that we lived on the isolated property before I started to smoke again, I would have never, ever set foot outside once it became dark, and never near the granny flat where I had set up my fledgling business. Each afternoon I would lock the door as I walked towards the house and padlock the wrought iron gate heralding it’s entrance. Each night without fail we would hear footsteps stomping down the path, the gate squeak open and the banging of the granny flat door. Some nights, an eerie unexplainable blue light could be seen emanating from inside the workshop.

That area was also the only place that I could smoke undetected. Hiding my contraband under an upturned pot next to the house, I was well within the shadows to have a smoke or few each evening. The first few times, I had my back to the wall, my eyes darting sideways with a certain amount of apprehension, it seemed our ‘granny flat’ residents didn’t like the smell of smoke, as it was a very long time before we heard the nightly ritual again.

I wondered if I should do the same for the house. The risk of being caught smoking by the kids? Hmm, no way!  

Each weekend as the kids left to stay with their father, I moved my smoking spot to the back door step and late into the night, inside the house. The feral animals that moved around the peripheral edge of the bush scrub in the daytime would creep closer to the house late at night. A timid, petite woman alone was fair game.

Many a night I lay awake listening to the animals rummaging outside the house or the ghosts doing their own thing or dealing with the nocturnal animal problem themselves.

I swear one night, alone in the house shivering with terror under my blankets listening to what seemed to be a feral dog clawing at the back door, one of the male ghosts shouted out “Get out of here you f***ing mangy dog!” and possibly the sound of a gun shot thereafter. I sat bolt upright, not at all sure what I heard was real or not. I must have smoked the entire packet before dawn, but at least the house was ‘quiet’ for the remainder.

My weekends became a smoky sleepless affair.

There would come a time when the kids would find out. The stale ashtray smell hovering around my persona should have betrayed me much earlier or maybe the kids were in denial, that their mum was less than perfect.

One night, squished between 2 sleeping beauties, a snoring buffoon and a fecund farting arse, I just couldn’t sleep out of sheer discomfort. Leaving the jungle of 4 bodies behind, I headed for the kitchen.

On my way I passed a watery apparition in the hall. I took one look at it and snarled “Not now!”

The kitchen light was on, even though I had turned it off before bed, but that was nothing unusual. 

Down in one of the abandoned bedrooms I could hear a stereo softly playing, even though it wasn’t plugged in, but that was nothing unusual either. 

I chuckled when I recognised the tune “Keep on Moving” by a boy band called Five. I even found myself singing along.

I perched myself up on the bench, lit a smoke while waiting for the saucepan of water to boil when the shower in my bedroom ensuite started and the hairy backed man with the woeful vocals commenced his dreadful repertoire. 

All 4 kids came running out faster than superman, one after the other. Huey, Dewey, Louie & Moe stood before me with mouths agape, and I, mid puff. Oh crap, sprung.

Arguments arose from all 4 mouths that turned into a cacophony of sound, what no one realised was that the wannabe opera singer and the boy band down the other end of the house had completely stopped.

It took a great deal of convincing my offspring that by me smoking bought a few precious hours of peace each night. I was almost going to mention that by my sacrifice to a life of smoking, I would be protecting my darling loved ones from the perils of a supernatural force. I thought that might be going a little too far.

It wasn’t until I mentioned the very obvious fact that in ghost movies, it’s only the people that don’t have a smoke in their hands that get attacked. You never see anyone puffing away get done over by a ghost. The fact that considering our current living arrangement, our poverty meant we didn’t have a TV and even if we did, I wouldn’t allow them to watch horror ghost movies anyway, they logically believed me.

It took sensible daughter to question what was funding my vice? The then $8.95 packet of cigarettes would buy milk & bread for us for the week. We had a strict budget, I cringed, um, I had scrimped on other things?

The funny thing about addictions is that no matter how impoverished one is, there is always money to buy the addictive substance. I still can’t figure out how I managed it, being a single mum of 4 kids, a uni student and making only meagre portions of money to sustain us all, yet we survived.

We had everything money couldn’t buy – Poverty, Love, and a uniquely large collection of ghosts.

The locals, as they had done with all the previous tenants, laid down their bets as to how long we would stay. After a year they were left scratching their heads “Strewth! No one has lasted this long!”

As long as there wasn’t any strange red slime dripping down the walls, we were staying put.

We never indulged the locals how many times we packed the car ready to leave. The times we all sat quietly listening to ghostly conversations, ghostly sweet laughter of a once happy child, sharing showers with apparitions, how the lights would brutally flicker for long agonising moments. The list of so many other disturbing occurrences was so long it would take a month of blue Monday’s to read through.

The strange thing was when I met my future husband; whenever he visited the house it was completely quiet. He never once experienced anything, zip, zilch, nix!

“Are you sure this house is haunted?” questioning our experiences.

I asked him to move in.

The moment his belongings arrived the haunting completely ceased to exist.

The next 3 years, life became normal until our baby came along. Within the month after her birth the ghostly occupants became active again or returned home, even hubby’s dog Pollie experienced the bathroom ghost. Never saw the dog move so fast out of the house with her tail between her legs.

I’m not sure whether it was because we had both stopped smoking due to the baby, but hubby seriously suggested we move.

“I don’t know if the dog can take it much longer” cradling the whimpering large dog in his arms. I’m glad he didn’t call her Lionheart or something similar, which would have been rather embarrassing.

With that we packed up the family and moved to normality.

Out of revenge I chose the same realtor to act as leasing agent. She suggested a few times if I had considered using a new agent down the road. Letting her know with a large Cheshire smile, I had been so impressed with her previous service I couldn't think to use anyone else, she paled.

Filling out the forms, she automatically ticked non-smoking tenants. “Darling” I intervened, “I actually prefer smokers. The survival rate is higher” 

She gulped.

Postscript.

All families go through tough times at one stage or another. I'm quite sure just like my own family, there are many stories to tell, as diverse & as varied as there are people that walk this wonderful planet.

The most important relationships we have stem from the families we create. Families are the people that we gather around us, people that we share our lives with, related or not. Families are our real crutches in life, once that is acknowledged any addiction can be overcome.

Enjoy!

Another blog written smoke free by a Haunted House Survivor. All photo's have been gratefully sourced from Google Images

Should a man give a 'Push" Present or not - Um yeah!

The Rite of the Birthing Present or the Push present or how not to get hit in the head by a Frypan

When any men ask me about giving their wife or partner a ‘push or birthing’ present, I always advise ‘To stay out of the silent doghouse I would strongly recommend you show her some gold”.

Joe, another business owner in our complex, and I often share a ‘cuppa in the car park’ each morning. He was telling me the other day when his wife was pregnant for the first time, he sacrificed 2 beers a week to put away some money to buy his wife a ‘baby bauble’ gift.

“It was difficult but I managed the sacrifice but buying the gift was a painful labour of love” he quipped, cheekily adding that after a mammoth, complicated, scarring 27 hour experience (showing me where his wife gripped his arm so hard and left nail marks that after 10 years are still visible), he needed to buy her a bigger better gift. Something the size of a baby’s head in relative proportion he gathered.

In Europe the wonderful act of a father giving an heirloom gift, usually some form of jewellery, to the woman who just gave birth to his child is eons old. 

Here in Australia though it is still somewhat contentious.

When my grandmother was born in 1903, in a tiny bedroom just above where the cows were housed in a little farmhouse in rural Holland, my great grandfather presented my great grandmother a sapphire ring surrounded by 10 little diamonds. The 10 diamonds were to represent the amount of children he’d hoped to have. I wondered if he had to rethink that ring when the 17^th child was born many years later, well after my own mother was born.

In Holland, there is an unspoken rule that if a man fails to present his wife the obligatory ‘birthing present’ all the women in the community would line up armed with their frypans and clout the man into submission. Let’s say a few men over the course of history didn’t live to rectify their error.

The other rule is that when the mother passes over, the child inherits that heirloom so that they too can pass it down. That’s how I got to have my great gandmothers ring that I still wear today. Someday it will go to my oldest daughter, Missy Zip.

My mother was born on a very cold November day in 1930 in the heart of Amsterdam, as her mother lay in her bedroom, puffing & panting surrounded by her mother, sister and several female neighbours, the young male neighbour who lived directly above them was pounding his floor with a broom “hold up with the moaning already!” sending debris on top of the labouring group.

In Holland women give birth at home and except for small pockets of rural areas, everyone lives in apartments, packed in like sardines with paper-thin walls. Women of the block usually mind older kids and stand at the ready whilst the men are sent outside to play chess or mostly go to the cafes to drink Beer and smoke Drum tobacco, waiting for one of the messenger kids to tell of the good news.

Once my mother was finally born, her grandmother armed with the frypan from the kitchen marched upstairs and pounded on the door. When he opened, she greeted him with the frypan; she had walloped him that hard, it knocked him out cold. She left him on the floor where he fell.

He hid in his apartment for 4 days too scared to face the furore of women waiting outside, all armed with their frypans and unforgiving tempers.

Having watched the movie ‘Tangled’ last year, I have to wonder if the writer is in anyway Dutch?

My grandfather presented my grandmother a beautiful marquisette brooch to commemorate the birth of his first daughter. Hailing from a good Catholic Spanish descent Dutch family, the other tradition is the inheritance of the family first name; names that originally belong to the descendants. That’s why my mother has 17 Christian names and we her children, thankfully only got one.

I only remember the first 6 or so; Frederika Maria Teodora Fransica Margueritte Eugenie (pronounced OO-shon-ee, she was quite adamant about that) and when it came to filling in official forms that required her full name, she would look at the 10cm of line space and say “Well that sucks”.

On my first wedding day, mum presented me with her grandmother’s ring, her mother’s brooch. As I slid down the isle, I wore jewellery from 3 generations of women, women that I owed my very existence to.

As the last child in my family, unnaturally, I was the first to procreate, as my much older brothers were very good at shooting blanks. My son’s birth was a long awaited occasion, so my parents hit up his father as to what the ‘gift’ should be.

Being very young & just plain dumb, he naively replied “Huh? Nah, we don’t do that here”.

Unfortunately for him, that conversation took place in my parent’s kitchen. Mum pulled out the frying pan, tossing it around in her hand when my future ex-husband said,

“That’s a good idea, I’m pretty hungry after such a long night. What ya gonna cook Rika”

Dad suggested he run instead.

A few hours later with a noticeably large bump on his already receding forehead and a major headache to match, he emerged from the local jewellery store (in close escort of my tight lipped, narrow eyed, unhappy parents) with a lovely black onyx & cubic zirconia necklace & earring set.

At the hospital, I asked him what happened to his head.

“I had an argument with a frypan and lost”

When my parents suddenly left the room and echoes of their hysterical laughter filled the hallway, I assumed he had tried to cook something for himself, which he had never, ever done before. In that moment, I was so proud of his attempt I gushed with chick flick gooy-ness.

With the following 3 kids I managed to acquire a bracelet, diamond earrings and a watch. All very special, all very meaningful to me still to this day.

When I met Maurie and Little Miss Mischief was on her way, Maurie & my kids searched everywhere to find the elusive ‘gift’. Nothing seemed to be quite right, till Missy Zip spotted a ring in a bric- a- brac store. That was it.

They paid a pittance for it but it was perfect in everyway. Some years later a wedding band was crafted to fit in with it, as I never wanted to get engaged, because I never wanted another ring to replace it.

18 months ago, on a cold June Sunday, I was gardening when I noticed that my hands were bare. Panic erupted along with a tsunami of tears and unstoppable wailing on my part; everyone took to digging up the garden. Nothing.

The heartbreak took hold at times, as I had nothing to pass down to Little Miss Mischief other than my love and a portfolio of unsold artworks, which I’m pretty sure no one else wants either.

This Christmas just gone Maurie & little Miss Mischief, giving up the idea of finding my beautiful rings purchased a gold necklace with a pendant that says “I Love You’ instead.

That afternoon after the truckload of guests left, he asked if I had fed the guinea pigs yet. If looks could kill, I’d be organising a funeral right now.

The guinea pigs are such great lawn mowers, we haven’t physically mowed in months; we just move their bottomless cage around the yard every morning & night. With the Christmas frenzy they were left in the same spot for a few days and the result was a bare ground patch, completely devoid of grass and weeds, just their poop.

Maurie took out some carrots and celery sticks and came running back inside, in his hand was my wedding band!

I can just imagine the guinea pigs frustration - “Hey humans! We wanted 9 carrots not a 9 carat for Christmas!”

Two full days later and that area of the garden became to look like an excavation site, still nothing.

Maurie, the gem that he is and rather determined that we find my precious ring, ordered a metal detector.

It arrived this morning…......fingers crossed, here’s hoping hey?

Keep you posted.

Photo's are from personal files, my uncle Dolf Krugar and the rest greatfully sourced from Google images

Enjoy!

When a Pet Dies

I thought we'd share an email we were sent about a heart warming act of kindness by a stranger who helped a broken hearted child, when they beloved pet died. Children have such a strong bond with their pets, more than we can imagine at times, but when they die, the heartbreak is something as parents we need to help our children through.
One mother decided to help her 4 year old daughter write a letter to God to look after their dog Abbey. She never expected an answer!

So here's the email, you might need a tissue though!

Our 14 year old dog, Abbey, died  last month. The day after she died, my 4 year old daughter  Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey.  She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey  got to heaven, God would recognize her. I told her that I  thought we could so she dictated these words: 

Dear  God, 
Will  you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with  you in heaven. I miss her very much. I am happy that you let me  have her as my dog even though she got sick. 
I hope you will  play with her.. She likes to play with balls and to swim. I am  sending a picture of her so when you see her You will know that  she is my dog. I really miss her. 
Love,  Meredith 

We put the  letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith and  addressed it to God/Heaven. We put our return address on it..  Then Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope  because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter  all the way to heaven. That afternoon she dropped it into the  letter box at the post office. A few days later, she asked if  God had gotten the letter yet. I told her that I thought He  had. 

Yesterday,  there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch  addressed, 'To Meredith' in an unfamiliar hand.. Meredith opened  it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, 'When a Pet Dies..'  Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to  God in its opened envelope. On the opposite page was the picture  of Abbey & Meredith and this note: 


Dear  Meredith, 
Abbey arrived  safely in heaven. 

Having the  picture was a big help. I recognized Abbey right away. 
Abbey isn't sick  anymore. Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your  heart. Abbey loved being your dog. Since we don't need our  bodies in heaven, I don't have any pockets to keep your picture  in, so I am sending it back to you in this little book for you  to keep and have something to remember Abbey by..

Thank  you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping  you write it and sending it to me. What a wonderful mother you  have. I picked her especially for you. I send my blessings every  day and remember that I love you very much. By the way, I'm easy  to find, I am wherever there is love. 

Love, 
God 



Wow! how something kind of wonderful is that!, it blew me away reading this email, albeit with a tissue in hand. A stranger at the postal dead letter office went out of their way to ease a broken hearted child, a blessed soul!


We lost our faithful dog Pollie,  a grand dame  of 16 years nearly 2 years ago. A framed photo of Pollie is mounted on the wall next to Little Miss Mischief's bed. Each night she says 'good night' and plants a kiss on the photo. Last week when it was her dad's birthday, the restaurant had some helium balloons on the table as a centre piece. LMM took them home, which she wrote on one


"Dear God, please give this to Pollie, she loves balloons and I miss her so much"


We walked outside in the dark, holding a candle in one hand she let the balloon go in the other. The breeze took hold of it and it floated upwards, then seem to hover at one point, not moving further upward.
Under my breath I said with fingers crossed behind my back "please keep on moving......please" then whoosh! it flew away. Phew!.
LMM said "For a moment there I was worried that maybe God doesn't allow balloons Mum in heaven".
Then she asked the question that I think is long overdue
"Can I have a puppy for Christmas?"
I looked my treasured garden and gulped...............


Have you had a pet that has died? what did you find hard or how did you explain it to your children?