First days at school...are they more traumatic for the child or for the parent? My daughter, my baby, started primary school on Wednesday. She's 6 years old, still a baby. School started for her the day before already, an orientation hour where she got to dress up in her school uniform, meet her teacher and see where her classroom would be. It was very exciting!
On Wednesday however, real school started. For some mothers, it was just too much, they couldn't remove themselves from the classroom fast enough before bursting into tears. For some of the children, they couldn't let go of their parents' hands long enough to see through the tears to their little tables and chairs. For some, like my daughter, it was a whole new adventure, a new beginning and one that she's been looking forward to for a while now. I'm not the publically emotional kind so saw her to her classroom, into her chair. Kissed her goodbye and left.
The house felt strangely empty after I got back home.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
lolcats...otherwise known as Caturday
Need I say more? If you haven't already browsed this website, please do so now! :)
Hours and hours and hours of entertainment.
Hours and hours and hours of entertainment.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
The Holidays...or Life without the Web...
I've just come home after spending a month visiting with family in Cape Town and Hermanus (www.hermanus.co.za).
My sister doesn't have an internet connection at home and no internet cafes near her home. My inlaws have an antiquated 33k modem dialup that is hardly worth the hour spent trying to log on the one day I tried, but there is an internet cafe. With thousads of holidaymakers vying for the few machines, that too was not worth standing in line.
I suffered, badly.
The holiday was great though, I got to read! A whole book! Ok well it was more like 4 but one was the epic Brisngr and took 2 weeks. I reconnected with my heartbeat and my breathing. Did you all know I can hold my breath for a whole minute before passing out? I learned how to roast a leg of lamb on an open fire. I learned that sometimes life sucks, especially when you have absolutely no control over other people's choices affecting yours. I also learned that I am an art connoisseur, and can actually appreciate someone else's efforts (http://www.artbyestelle.co.za/) enough to purchase.
Overall, the holiday was great but it's going to be a full year before I do anything like that again!
Happy very late New Year to all.
My sister doesn't have an internet connection at home and no internet cafes near her home. My inlaws have an antiquated 33k modem dialup that is hardly worth the hour spent trying to log on the one day I tried, but there is an internet cafe. With thousads of holidaymakers vying for the few machines, that too was not worth standing in line.
I suffered, badly.
The holiday was great though, I got to read! A whole book! Ok well it was more like 4 but one was the epic Brisngr and took 2 weeks. I reconnected with my heartbeat and my breathing. Did you all know I can hold my breath for a whole minute before passing out? I learned how to roast a leg of lamb on an open fire. I learned that sometimes life sucks, especially when you have absolutely no control over other people's choices affecting yours. I also learned that I am an art connoisseur, and can actually appreciate someone else's efforts (http://www.artbyestelle.co.za/) enough to purchase.
Overall, the holiday was great but it's going to be a full year before I do anything like that again!
Happy very late New Year to all.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Racism is alive and well!
Ugh! I grew up in Cape Town, fairly liberal town where being gay, lesbian, black, coloured or Indian didn't mean much to white people, colour and sexual orientation was just another part of your life. Until the forced removals in the 60's, we all got along with everyone and life was great until the government stepped in. The day that Nelson Mandela was released I drove alone to Cape Town, drove through the masses of people waiting to see this great icon of the struggle against Apartheid. Of course I never got to see the man, there were just too many happy people. It was a great day for South Africa, and living in liberal Cape Town totally reinforced it for me.
That is, until we moved to Pretoria. I finally understood what it meant to be black in this country, how white people could be so filled with hatred towards a people whose only crime it is to have a black skin. Many white people here still carry within them that seed of blind hatred. It's scary. I worked with a woman who prays on her knees every night that none of her children will come home with a black friend, that none of her children will come home saying that they want to date a black person. She'd rather her children become gay and live with a white partner. She prays for this every night.
We live next door to one of the few black families in our community. The day we moved into our home, one of our neighbours came over to introduce herself and to inform us that we better lock our valuables up as we had black neighbours. Our black neighbours have been nothing but friendly, they've looked after our mail whenever we've been away, seen that nothing is out of place and informed our security service of anything strange in the area. I highly doubt our white neighbour has ever done the same.
I tell you all this because this morning, as I left the school grounds, I overheard two white women complaining about the inherent laziness of black people, how it must be because they are black that they have this dislike for hard work.
I sometimes wish that human beings had been created colour blind, where everyone looks the same.
That is, until we moved to Pretoria. I finally understood what it meant to be black in this country, how white people could be so filled with hatred towards a people whose only crime it is to have a black skin. Many white people here still carry within them that seed of blind hatred. It's scary. I worked with a woman who prays on her knees every night that none of her children will come home with a black friend, that none of her children will come home saying that they want to date a black person. She'd rather her children become gay and live with a white partner. She prays for this every night.
We live next door to one of the few black families in our community. The day we moved into our home, one of our neighbours came over to introduce herself and to inform us that we better lock our valuables up as we had black neighbours. Our black neighbours have been nothing but friendly, they've looked after our mail whenever we've been away, seen that nothing is out of place and informed our security service of anything strange in the area. I highly doubt our white neighbour has ever done the same.
I tell you all this because this morning, as I left the school grounds, I overheard two white women complaining about the inherent laziness of black people, how it must be because they are black that they have this dislike for hard work.
I sometimes wish that human beings had been created colour blind, where everyone looks the same.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Update on quad bike boy
Well it looks like the parents were very lucky this time around. The little boy is doing well, there are no apparent signs of brain damage and the little guy has been moved to the children's ward.
May this be a big lesson to his parents.
May this be a big lesson to his parents.
The Mamas
Towards the end of 1999 I joined an online community for the first time, Babycenter. It was a few months after we had lost our baby and I found solace in the loss boards there. After a few years, the administration of Babycenter split and I followed with the rebels to Pregnancy.org, a place that was supposed to be all about the mamas and their babies, free of the strangulation of rules and guidelines at Babycenter. Well, Pregnancy.org became that which it hated - a constrictive, power hungry, ban-happy place where your opinion on topics wasn't valued, where your very words were censored so that ass (denoting donkey) became ***, or mass would become m***, you get the picture.
Just over a month ago I left that site permanently, I can't even log onto the site anymore because my IP has been banned. My crime, posting a link to another, better, site. Oh I did it deliberately, I posted a link to The Mamas, started by a disgruntled member of Pregnancy.org and one that I hope will supass all our expectations. As of this morning, there are 1076 members, the majority came over from Pregnancy.org because they, too, could not accept the censorship and general feeling of being let down by a once great admin team.
Thanks Jen and Jamie for doing this, taking so much of your precious time and starting a site where women can be women (and some men too, we have a handful as well!). Where the word ass means your butt and isn't ******* out. Where we can be adults and hang out without worrying that big brother is watching us.
Just over a month ago I left that site permanently, I can't even log onto the site anymore because my IP has been banned. My crime, posting a link to another, better, site. Oh I did it deliberately, I posted a link to The Mamas, started by a disgruntled member of Pregnancy.org and one that I hope will supass all our expectations. As of this morning, there are 1076 members, the majority came over from Pregnancy.org because they, too, could not accept the censorship and general feeling of being let down by a once great admin team.
Thanks Jen and Jamie for doing this, taking so much of your precious time and starting a site where women can be women (and some men too, we have a handful as well!). Where the word ass means your butt and isn't ******* out. Where we can be adults and hang out without worrying that big brother is watching us.
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