I am Tamiya…

…of a Darwin Award – almost…

Yesterday, on the way home, my little car’s petrol light started flashing. That normally means that I’ve hit the reserve tank, and need to put in petrol very soon. I knew I could reach home, and then the garage this morning without too much of a worry. I didn’t have cash on me yesterday, and most garages don’t accept the debit card, except the BP, which is way out of my way (and I’m not keen on supporting BP at the moment anyway). Never mind, got some cash from TD stopped at the garage on the way to work this morning.

He gave me a little bit extra, because a. we weren’t entirely sure how much it would be and b. so that what ever is left over could be my lunch money for today. The garage I stopped at, sells awesome Chaywa Hot Chocolate, so I just *had* to get me one. Went in the shops while my car was being filled, got a HC, paid for it, went back to the car, paid for the petrol and left on my merry way to work.

Halfway down Linksfield, I get this sudden chill in the pit of my stomach, my heart skips a beat and I realize with a sudden smack to my face, I left the car keys on the counter at the garage!!! How could I have been SO stupid?!?!? As it is, I’m already late for work and now I’d have to turn back to go fetch the keys, which will add at least another 10 minutes to my travelling time… ARGH!!! So while I’m busy plotting where would be the best place to turn around, the next wave of realization hits me: “You’re already DRIVING your car, you stupid Twat!!”

Much love x 3.5

…Of apology – to my Belly Buddies (Class of 2010)

Hello gorgeous beautiful Mamas,

I know I have been quiet of late, and I’m sorry. I haven’t stopped loving you and you haven’t stopped being special to me!

A feeble excuse would be that I’ve been busy (which is not really really the case, although that is also true) or the fact that I have hit the 30+ weeks depression/slump (which is even more true than the first excuse) or perhaps it’s that lately the outlaws should be declared even more outlawed than before…

But no, I think the realest (yes, I realize I’m making up words) reason of all would perhaps be because I am jealous of you. All of you! Being the baby of the group – the last one of us to fall pregnant – means that whilst you guys have all given birth already, I’m still stuck here, feeling uncomfortable, experiencing the immense heartburn, the ligament pains, the being-kicked-to-smitherines (which is comforting in a way that’s uncomfortable), the constant need to pee, the waddle walk, the I-cant-sleep-on-my-back-OR-my-front, the out of breathness, the sense of loss of body space and stress of the impending birth.

You gorgeous Mamas on the other hand, have already met your babies. You know what they look like. You’re starting to get to know their little personalities. You get to spend all your time with your own beautiful little miracles of creation. Most of the healing should be over for you, so you can just enjoy their sense of being. You can move without bumping into stuff, you can sleep whichever way you want, you seem to all have gotten the whole breastfeeding thing down pat (which is something that’s scaring the bejeezes out of me, for fear of failing at it again!).

Logically, rationally, I know that you all spent equal amounts of time as what I am going to being pregnant, and that you all had your fair share of being pregnant and I am not being punished in anyway by being pregnant any longer than you guys were, but emotionally, I’m not doing so well right now. Point is, whilst you’ve been there, done that, got over it, I’m still here, by myself, alone. Right now, I can’t chat with you about any baby stuff really, because I’m not there yet…

I know there are tons of newly pregnant ladies on Twitter right now, but that’s the problem: they’re newly pregnant, Class of 2011, only at the beginning of their journeys, whilst I’m nearing the end of mine – undergraduate of Class of 2010.

I also know you will be there for me, regardless of what happens, I just need to ask, but right now, its not the same, it doesn’t feel the same. Not right now. Perhaps in 5 weeks, when PlusOne is here, things will go back to the way they should, but that’s only in 5 weeks from now – 36 sleeps actually. It feels like forever!

Please don’t be mad, and please don’t feel sad, and please don’t forget me. I AM feeling all Saartjie Suurtiet/Jannie Jammerbal, but its not your faults. Not at all!

Please remember, I am SO super happy for you guys, for the joy you are experiencing and the love that you feel! I wish those feelings upon you tenfold! You may just see my jealousy as a compliment really… Its not meant in a bad way, never!

Bananaramagirl, AngelinAfrica and Caz, you ladies have been a blessing. I’m glad you’ve become part of my life. It means so much to me, and have helped make this pregnancy a really special time in my life! I love you!

I WILL be back!! Soon soon, I promise

xxx

..about pregnancy rules you’ve broken/adhered too and such and so forth…

Since I’ve been almost completely pregnant twice now (only 5.6 weeks of sleeps left before PlusOne arrives), I reckon have some Au-thor-o-tay to speak on this subject.

With Boobah’s pregnancy I may have been slightly more careful than I am with this one, but I never really completely adhered to any formal dietary guidelines during both pregnancies. I kinda figured, if I fell pregnant whilst living my lifestyle, then I can probably carry on doing my thang, getting my groove on…

But without further ado, here’s the lowdown:

Normally: I prefer my steak a nice Medium Rare, more Rare than Medium (sorry vegetarian-folk)

Boobah: If and when I did have a steak, TD or my FFIL would insist that it be cooked half to death, and what was presented on my plate resembled a piece of charcoal almost to the T! So I sort of stopped ordering steak, purely for that reason.

PlusOne: After seeing an episode of Carte Blanche where they tested all kinds of every day things for germs and such, it was found that a solid cut of meat is sterile on the inside. And you cook the outside, so that heat kills the germy things, which means my steak is edible, right? Right! So, lately that’s been my excuse/reason for having a steak almost as I like it. I have compromised some, and order it Medium lately, but that’s still MUCH MUCH better than before! (Oh, and 5c copper coins are sterile/germ free, just so you know. Something about copper being anti-bacterial or something. Who says TV isn’t educational?? )

Normally: I like my biltong the same as I like my steak, and I LOVE biltong

Boobah: My biltong intake was pretty much limited throughout the whole pregnancy, unless it was so uber-dry it looked like a piece of cardboard.

PlusOne: I have had craving upon craving for biltong and droe wors since the start of this pregnancy. In fact, that was one of the first indicators/symptoms/reasons-to-believe of my subsequent pregnancy. And I’ve been scoffing handfuls of it at a time. Initially, I was slightly concerned about it, and then tweeted about it, and vegetarian ExMi pointed out that she also had bucketloads of it during her pregnancy with The Kid, and her kid turned out pretty awesome! Also, I reckon all the salt they use is enough to kill any nasty that may decide to miff my vleis, you know?

Normally: I absolutely NEED a cup of coffee or tea when I wake up, or I can’t function for at least two hours

Boobah: I tried to do the decent thing and switched to Decaf Coffee (Jacobs I think) for the odd cup I then allowed myself to have. I tried to drink more water and failed miserably. I tried to cut out some teat-times, and replace normal black tea with rooibos tea – I also failed that miserably. It made me feel like such a terrible person, and I was constantly feeling guilty about being such a horrible mother-to-be

PlusOne: Screw that! I’m STILL drinking tea and coffee, however and whenever it is presented to me. Now and then I’ll have a cup of Green Tea (because I feel like it) and most nights lately, we’ve been having Milo – for Winter’s sake and all.

Normally: I smoke. I’ve been smoking for roughly half my life – shocking, I know, seeing as I’m not really all tht old yet…

Boobah: I cut down and smoked lighter smokes than my usual PS Blue, but I didn’t stop. I moved down to Number One’s or Infinites etc. I kept that up for a few months after the birth, and then gradually worked my way back to PS Blue.

PlusOne: I’m still smoking. Using the same method as with Boobah, I’m on No. 1′s again, but point is, I still smoke. This is the one thing in my life that I REALLY REALLY hoped would make me SO super sick with All Day sickness, that I would have no choice but to stop, but no such luck. I still smoke. **And if you have never smoked before in your life, you are not allowed to judge me on this! And if you were/are one of those people that stopped when they fell pregnant, I truly wish I had your kind of will-power!**

Normally: I would have a drink or two here and there, and can’t really resist a nice cocktail – Jam Jars and Teapots from Primi being my latest favorites

Boobah: Was conceived during my 21st Birthday Weekend Celebrations, where copious amounts of alcohol was consumed for the duration of the celebrations. Also, I was young and clubbing and just generally doing what people that age does. But as soon as I found out, I stopped. Completely and utterly and that didn’t bother me even one bit. I didn;t even have a glass of wine, even though some medical experts believe it’s okay to have the odd glass of wine here and there. If you’re someone who does/did that, great, but I couldn’t. That was the one uncompromisable thing for me throughout! And I’m not much of a wine drinker anyway…

PlusOne: Again, as soon as I found out the little man is swimming in my belly, I stopped all drinking promptly. No issues, no hassles, no questions! Except, lately, I’ve really really been craving a glass of Amarula, served over crushed ice, to be sipped slowly and enjoyed and savoured. But I haven’t yet, and I won’t either, until this boy has seen the light of day!

Yeah, yeah, I know, I’ll smoke but I won’t even sip a small liqueur, but that’s just how it goes in my head, okay? Okay.

Sproutsmom also mentioned something about runny eggs and viennas and such… I always eat my eggs sunny side up, and dip my chips in the runny eggy bit, but I don’t eat the whites. I don’t like the taste. And I still eat viennas. It forms part of Boobah’s staple diet, after all. And vieannas are pretty much the same as polony, right, and THAT I have almost daily – on my 1/4 bread or latest discovery from the cafe around the corner – vetkoek. Vetkoek, with polony, chicken or fried and cheese – for 7 bucks!! Bargain breakfast FTW!!

Anyhoodle, I have to run, seems it’s home time and they want to lock the office.

Much love x 3.5

I haven’t given you one of these for a while.

And I know I owe you the previous weekend’s updates for Saturday and Sunday as well, but for someone who doesn’t work very much, or very often at work, I’ve been pretty busy lately and there seems to be no end to everything anywhere in the near future…

But back to an update on PlusOne. We saw my ancient doc again on Monday, and after finally having passed the 30 week mark, he did all the necessary measurements and checks and we/he now:
• Weighs 1.6 kgs
• Clocked in at 31.4 weeks on the machine, compared to my calculations of 32.2 weeks and the doc’s calculations of 31.2 weeks
• For the moment, we’ve decided the C-Section date to be scheduled for 2 September. There may be an ever-so-slight chance that I could perhaps go into labour before then, but the doc seems comfortable with our choice of date. We’ll just monitor the white spots (some type of indication of early labour visible on the scan machine) closer to the time.
• As of today, there’s only 7.1 weeks left before meeting PlusOne – if all goes according to schedule.
• It seems as though I’ve managed to keep my weight gain to a kilo every 4 weeks. I’m happy and the doc seems happy with it too.
• ‘Hello Heartburn, my old friend…’ has become my theme song of late. I’ve been living off Rennies for the last week or two due to the constant, persistent heartburn. I do prefer Rennies to Gaviscon though, besides it being cheaper, it also swallows easier and is just as effective.

That’s us in a nutshell. Besides my slight panic attack on Sunday, when I experienced a constant dull, thudding ache in my lower back, paired with short, stabbing pains in the front, below my belly on the left, leaving me in snot and trane and puffy eyed and blotchy faced, which turned out to be normal ligaments pains. The doc comforted me some, by saying it’s all quite common and normal and to be expected. And then he proceeded to burst my bubble, by adding that it may or may not get worse in these last few weeks – emphasis on the may…

Hope you’re all doing just as fabulous as we are!

Much love x 3.5

…In which I share with you a Super Proud Mommy Moment!

Boobah, who is all of 3 years and 2 months right now, can hop on one leg. Yes, hop-hop-hop-hop

He just put on a big display of his hopping skills and manged to do 4 consecutive hops before losing his balance! And it wasn’t by fluke or luck, as he did a repeat performance three times! The more I squealed in delight, the more he hopped.

My mum taught Boobah yesterday as they were playing and spending time together before she left for her island this morning.

I’m such a happy, proud mommy right now!

Much love x 3.5

So remember last week, I told you that I had won 2 night’s stay at Badplaas Golf Club, Guesthouse and Lodge? And that we were going away to GolfAtBadplaas this weekend past? If you do, GREAT! If you don;t, never mind, because I’m going to tell you ALL about it now anyway!

I’m going to do this in 3 parts. A post for each day of the weekend. Because you know mos I love to talk and talk and talk…

When I won this prize a month or two ago, we immediately chatted to TD’s golfing buddies to hear if they wanted to join us for the weekend, and then the men could sommer make a whole golfing weekend out of it. They were all very keen and the arrangements were made. We ended up being 11 adults and 1 little boy and 1 little bump.

On Thursday night we were halfway packed and almost ready to go. There was still some clothes in the wash and some ironing that needed to be done, but no biggie, I figured, because our cleaning lady could do it Friday morning, right? Wrong! After leaving her a nice note asking her to please focus on the washing in the morning, because both TD and I will be home early and I want to pack the clothes, she, also pregnant, threw a complete hormonal hissy fit, wrote me back a note saying she thinks I hate her and left without letting me know. I tried to phone her to find out what the problem was and why she got so upset, but she ended up avoiding me for most of the day. So me, also pregnant and hormonal, sent her an SMS saying that because she had left without telling me, I’m taking that as her resignation and she doesn’t have to come back on Monday. Eventually when I got to speak to her, after sending another SMS that she should answer her bloody phone and stop avoiding me, it turns out that she took affront in me telling her what to do. Nevermind the fact that we PAY her to clean the house and I sure as hell don’t have to explain my requests (few and far between, mind you) if and when I make them. Long story short, I’m now back to cleaning the house and doing the washing and ironing. Two fortunate things: TD is not adverse to helping around the house and cleaning and stuff, and I’m nesting, so I’m quite happily doing all these chores

Anyhoodle, after I calmed down, we rushed to pack the last of everything, load the car up and we left not too long after our initial planned time of 14:00. Okay, so we left at 15:00, but that’s still pretty good considering. The drive was uneventful, except for the time we had a fight about my directions and that we ARE on the right road!! How do I know?? Because I researched the route to death!! I had Google Street View map printouts of important landmarks, I had printed directions with distance in kilometers before each turn and we were following the route as per the Google Maps App on my BlackBerry! Regardless of the fact that I forgot *all* the printouts at work, we still had Google Maps and I had very nearly perfectly memorized the route in my mind. And you know how MOST men won’t EVER stop to ask for directions? Well, TD is not one of those men. The first traffic cop he saw, he pulled over, and went to ask for directions. Needless to say, JUST as I had told him, we were almost at the turn off which would’ve taken us through Carolina – some shoddy one-horse town with 5 pharmacies and 8 liquor stores that we had to drive through. He should’ve just listened to me. From that point on, I refused to give anyone any further directions, because what do *I* know anyway, right? I gave my BB to my FSIL, and she had to navigate from then on. It went fairly smoothly from there, because it’s actually just one long straight road. Until the moment I knew the turn off/entrance to the Golf Club was coming up, and I mentioned that it’s right up here on the left, and TD didn’t believe me – AGAIN – and we drove past the entrance. He would rather listen to his mates, who he phoned as soon as it happened, because they got there slightly before us. I was right, yet again…

By this time, it was already dark and we had to maneuver through valleys, over rivers and up mountains. Luckily we were there in the Terios, so I had much fun pretending we were on one of those 4×4 Adventure Courses. The road wasn’t so bad though, as even an Atos managed to make it’s way up to the Club House. It was still fun pretending. Eventually, we made it to the top and Sharon met us at the door and gave us such a warm welcome. It felt great to be there, and also finally have some time to have a proper conversation with her. I also met her fiancé - an awesome guy – and he also got to meet who we are – Boobah and Boobah’s Mom It’s always nice to put a face to a persona. And to check if the picture you have in your mind of someone, from just reading their blog, matches up to the actual person in real life. Mostly they do, but sometimes they don’t.

We were the last of our party to arrive, so we had to go through the whole shebang of greeting everyone at once and kissy here, huggy there and also introduce my FSIL to everyone. Everybody was where they felt most comfortable – at the bar. And this is also where we spent the rest of the night. The guys played pool and talked shit, the ladies had good conversation, Boobah was hanging around playing with one of the cats and taking photos with his camera and I was socialising as well as looking after my child. Sharon and Leon left us quite early, as they had more guests up at their house. Slowly but surely, everyone except Boobah and I were getting absolutely hammered. This is nothing new though, as these people really party hard on weekends.

At about 10-ish, Boobah and I went to our room to get into bed. It had been a long day for me, and was also just past Boobahs’ normal bed-time and by then, I really wasn’t feeling the drunk-vibe anymore. Everyone was still pleasant enough, but one can only laugh so many times at the same joke… We fell asleep fairly quickly, only to be woken up at about half past 3 from TD and my FSIL stumbling into the room, giggling like school kids. I wasn’t awake for long though, and easily fell asleep again. But I’m really glad my FSIL got on so well with the other people, because it just made the weekend so much easier for her, and for me. I have to say though, TD’s friends really are awesome people, very easy going and the women aren’t the jealous type. I like hanging out with them.

So this ends Friday’s story. Stay tuned for Saturday’s installment.

Much love x 3.5