A weekend of impromptu

This past weekend was divine. And not so divine.

It was filled with lots of impromptu which always makes me happy. As much as I enjoy a planned affair, I always enjoy an impromptu affair so much more.  My DH does not like impromptu very much and our kids also require A LOT of preparation BEFOREHAND, so this does make it quite hard for us to have an impromptu/ lock-up-and-go kind of lifestyle.

We decided on Saturday morning to attend a fundraiser at Child2’s school.

Btw we are those parents who never attend fundraisers, especially if they take place on the weekends. I know it’s bad but I honestly have no guilt about it.  I usually send a donation or something (maybe) which may explain why I feel no guilt. Besides, Child2 doesn’t really cope well with the crowds and so on.

Anyway. There was a bit of forward thinking involved in this one – we were looking at cheap entertainment that included dinner.

We got to the school and Child2 started to scream. He knew that it was Saturday and that we don’t go to school late in the afternoon. Eventually when he saw that we were staying, he calmed down and went to go and play with his friends and his teacher.

It was our first time playing Bingo and we were lucky enough to win some really cool prizes.  Some people are quite serious about their bingo (especially the experienced old ladies) and extremely competitive. Was a lot of fun though and it ended nice and early so we were home by 20:30pm.

Yesterday. I made an impulsive purchase. If you know anything about me then you will know that I don’t easily buy things on impulse. Especially expensive things, hence the not so divine part of my weekend because my DH was completely unimpressed with me.  In fact, he was horrified. Even when I explained my vision wrt said impulsive purchase. Even when I told him that I got it at an awesome price that I would never in a million years get again. Eventually he got over it but not until he told me exactly what he thought.

I also got a call from a good friend yesterday. She’s having a birthday today and was feeling a bit lonely and wanted to go and have a pre-celebration drink. Of course I said yes. So she fetched me and we spent the afternoon together which I really enjoyed very much. We had loads of conversations about friendship – she’s where I was 2 years ago, and it was sooooo awesome to share my friendship journey and insights. We made a friends list there and then which she’ll put on a spreadsheet.

I didn’t get much sleep this past weekend which is probably why I am feeling extremely knackered at the moment. Saturday night the dogs in our street were having a barking competition and last night I was exhausted and just couldn’t fall asleep so ended up going to bed WAY TOO LATE. I did manage to finish one and a half books though so that’s all good. Sjoe. But Deon Meyer keeps me at the edge of my bed – I am officially a fan and I’m about to buy two more of his novels.

This week I have a lot of admin to sort out and I need to clean this house that is driving me insane! In fact, I started to clean my room this evening and it’s at the stage where it’s at the worst part before it gets better. Am trying not to twitch. But. I’m going back to cleaning it just now when I finishing publishing this post.

What does your week ahead look like?

Are you good at being impromptu? Are you impulsive with purchases?

Do you attend school functions (including fundraisers) if they take place on a weekend?

 

Friendship Friday: when friends do stupid things

This story broke my heart. Please do click on the link and read it? It’s heartfelt and sad and so beautifully written.

I think that we forget sometimes that our friends can also do despicable things, not necessarily to us, but to others. Can you imagine the betrayal that this writer must feel? Can you imagine one of your closest friends doing something so wrong that you just can’t fathom what could possibly be going on in their heads? Can you imagine not being able to look your friend in the eye because of a wrong choice that they have made? Can you imagine feeling like you really have no clue about who someone is?

A few weeks ago I blogged about the fact that my DH is not comfortable with me pursuing a friendship with an ex-partner of his friend. There were varied opinions in the comments (all fantastic food-for-thought – THANK YOU) but I feel that I may have been unfair to my DH by not explaining exactly why my DH feels the way he does. I will be as brief as possible because it’s not my story to tell.  I refer to the relevant parties in this post as A and B, so here we go:

A = my DH’s friend.  Or rather, our friend. They go way back (since school days) and they have a really cool, fun friendship. I love him dearly. Always have. Always will.

B = A’s former partner. I liked her but it wasn’t that big a deal to me when she was no longer in our lives.

To cut a long story short, they were in a relationship, she did something very wrong (let’s just say that there was a 3rd party involved), they had an acrimonious break-up, our friend A was devastated. My DH and I had to babysit him regularly during that period.

I had many opinions on that matter but at the time it wasn’t my place to say anything. In fact, it simply wasn’t my business.  I feel that it still isn’t my business. Both A and B have now moved on. We all have.  We still see A quite regularly. And of course I wrote a post about wanting to resume a friendship with B.

My DH is of the view that me being friends with B is a betrayal to A. He continues to remind me of a heartbroken A (who contributed to their break-up in his own way, but of course I’m not allowed to say that) – our argument about this goes back and forth and for now I’ve decided to just leave it for a bit.

My DH says: “I can’t understand why you would want to be friends with someone who can do a thing  like that”.

Now THIS is where my problem lies.

I feel that A and B are adults who have both moved on. I feel that both parties contributed to the relationship breakdown.  I feel that it is NOT my place to judge B. I feel that everyone makes mistakes.  I really do not care what people do, if I feel a connection with them I will go with it. I am not God.  I will leave the judging up to Him. The only time that I will not befriend a “sinner” (oh my gosh, I really cannot think of a better word in this context) is if they hurt kids or animals or if they are rapists – it may not come across that way but I actually do have limitations and boundaries.

Also. There is one more thing that my DH fails to understand – and this is a key point:

Me deciding to NOT judge B for doing what she did does NOT mean that I condone her actions.

It doesn’t mean that I’m OK with what she did. It simply means that I’m prepared to look past it (mainly because it wasn’t me that she hurt) and move on. I’m prepared to focus on her good bits. I’m prepared to accept that there are TWO sides to the story and not just A’s side of the story. Quite honestly, I don’t even want to know what really went down. I know that B won’t share it with me and if she feels the need to explain herself then I plan to tell her that I don’t want to know.  She could have decided to involve me in it at the time – people like talking to me about the  stupid, wrong things that they did – probably because they know that I won’t judge them.

I’m happy with the fact that she respected me enough to leave me out of it while it was going down.  Quite frankly, I don’t want the “whole” B in my life. I want the only the part of B who is a Mom to a special needs kid. I’m not interested in any of the other parts as they don’t serve me in any way.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this:

B made a choice a few years ago. I am respecting her choice. I will not judge her choice because it’s not my place to do so and in hindsight, she made a damn good choice – she’s really happy in her life. I do not condone her past behaviour.  But I can look past it and me doing this doesn’t mean that I’m saying that it was OK. I have done some pretty bad things in my life as well. I wonder where I would be if I had friends who couldn’t be there for me when I was stupid. Or friends who could not see ME but ONLY the wrong thing that I did.  

I asked A how he felt about me being friendly with B. He told me that he would be OK with it, as long as he didn’t see her. I think that’s fair.

So today, this is my question to you:

Have you ever been in a situation where a friend of yours made a poor/wrong choice?

Do you stay away and judge right along with everyone else who doesn’t truly know what went down? Because let’s face it. No one truly knows what goes on behind closed doors.

Do you recognise that often a poor choice is an underlying cry for help?

Do you often judge choices that your friends make, especially if they are not choices that you don’t agree with?

Have you been in a situation where a friend has judged your poor/wrong choices?

 

 

 

I DO love surprises from Child2!

I mentioned a few posts ago that we finally established that Child2 is left hand dominant. I am not sure why, but since we know this, I have found it sooooo much easier to do things with him.

We’ve been doing LOADS of colouring in and he finally stays INSIDE the lines – mind you, this only happens when he colours in things that he likes or finds interesting. In other words we don’t colour in houses, grass, trees or any form of animal. Only cars. I really don’t care and I was telling a friend in the computer that it is better than nothing. I downloaded some rabbits and puppies (these are the animals that he is currently obsessing over) and I’ll see over the next few weeks if he takes to colouring them in.

We’ve also been doing the regular fine motor stuff and luckily this has gone down without fighting and resistance for the last while. And of course we do his beloved, favourite puzzles.

Occasionally we do a bit of “c for cat”  while we are driving but it seldom happens.  I have never actually made an effort to focus on letters and sounds with him and just last week (after I spoke to his teacher) I was thinking that I need to start including that in our routine and that I need to make an effort to find ways to include it without him actually realising that we are including it. One needs to be very stealth-like with him,  otherwise he won’t co-operate.  His teacher gave me a lot of really good suggestions but did tell me not to push it if he wasn’t interested.

I have also changed my attitude A LOT (since I wrote this post on play) and I now (90% of the time) take my cues from him. There is a lot more free play and time for him to just BE, which makes him insanely happy. Me too btw. I also find that he responds better to my DH with certain activities. Not sure why, but if it works then I’m just going with the flow already!

Anyway. This past Monday we had dinner with my parents. He was a bit whiney and not himself – I think he was extremely exhausted. He saw my Mom writing something in her notebook (we both have a notebook thing!) and he then asked her for paper and pencils as he also wanted to “write”.

Well.  Lo and behold he actually spelled AND wrote his name! Oh my goodness but I was sooooo excited I almost cried!  I knew for sure that he recognised his name  but I had no idea that he could actually write it.  Of course there was much hand clapping and praising of Child2 in that room!

His letter formations are PERFECT. He makes a BEAUTIFUL letter e and a stunning J. It’s not even back-to-front or upside down as I expected, and there are ZERO reversals! Of course I took LOADS of pics. They are on my mobile and right now I am way to lazy to transfer them. I’ll put them on FB later.

The next morning (i.e this past Tuesday) I dropped him at school and he wanted to “write” some more. So I watched him do his name in the sand – (AGAIN. I am so thrilled that he wants to make sure that I know he can do it) and a few numbers.  At that moment I was ready to call in sick to work and to go and take him to spend the day at the beach  (it was a beautiful day) so that we could do more writing in the sand! But I didn’t.

Seriously though. Isn’t he just so good with surprising his Aunty Julia??? I have not been so excited in forever!

Do your kids surprise often completely surprise you with their apparently new-found skills?  Isn’t it just awesome to be surprised like that? What has your kid truly surprised you? 

Ps…I know that some Mommies have kids who have been able to write their names since they were born.  If you are a Mommy of a kid like that, then today would NOT be the day to tell me about it. OK?

Hello May Day!

• I actually planned a pyjama day for today. Alas, a friend called me up and so after a quick errand this morning, I ended up having an impromptu friend date. We went for a long, long walk followed by coffee and cake. It was glorious!  I then got us some fish and chips for dinner and right now I am about to go to bed – my kids have been there for about 2 hours already so I really feel like I am  WINNING at this moment! What did you get up to on this beautiful May Day?

• MIL has been discharged and we are breathing a sigh of relief. She’s looking MUCH better than she looked even before her stroke and I think that this is partly due to those ADs that I asked her Dr to consider prescribing.  She has her fighting spirit back and when we fetched her this morning she told me that she feels more like herself than she has felt in FOREVER!  Do you know how happy it makes me to hear this?  We are hoping that she will once and for all get her act together and take her health seriously. It is SUPER draining to have a sick parent and in many ways, it is MUCH worse than having a sick kid.

• Child2 is going to be going to this school that I don’t want him to go to for two weeks of observation. I didn’t really want to disrupt his life (and mine for that matter – the logistics are a bit of a nightmare because they start late and have no aftercare) and quite frankly, I don’t even want to entertain the idea of putting him in that school. However, I do need to make an informed decision about his future and this is the only way to do it. It’s a free assessment and we’ll get reports afterwards which will help his current school (where I plan to let him stay up to grade 3 AT LEAST) in their programme with him, and it will give me a good idea of where he is at. I am trying to prepare him but either he doesn’t understand or is choosing to ignore me. We start there on 20  May.

• We have decided to leave Child1 where he is for High School. It’s just easier. His new teacher (the current one is going on maternity leave) also starts on 20 May i.e. the same day that Child2 starts with the 2-week assessment so I am preparing for fun times and out-of-sorts behaviours due to changes in routines etc. I should stock up on Rescue ASAP. For ALL OF US.

That’s all I can think of right now so I am signing off to get into bed with Deon Meyer.

Have a great evening.

xx

 

Ve vont to be alone!

So my Boyfriend and I are DYING for some timeout from our kids. We LOVE having alone time. In fact, we crave it and feel ourselves starting to go a bit nuts (not in a good way) if we don’t have it or if we are not having enough of it.

It doesn’t even have to be a movie or a restaurant or anything that requires money to be spent.

Quite honestly we are happy to go sit in our car and watch the waves at the beach. We just want some time alone sans kids. Time to let our hair down and breathe a bit.

The problem is our kids. They need to be watched. And we no longer have a babysitter.

My DH and I have ALWAYS been lucky to have MIL as our permanent babysitter. We love going out and so this has been a godsend. She honestly had no issues doing it – she LOVED doing it for us. Our kids would sleepover during the holidays and whenever we went out at night, and I rarely needed to be off work when they were sick because I used to just drop them at her place.

Now that she’s ill, we obviously can’t expect that from her. But we have no one else. My parents do a lot for me and are a tremendous source of support in ways that MIL can’t be, but having said that, they don’t babysit. Period.  They are an active couple and are constantly on the move. My sister may do it but she lives up-country (in the Northern Suburbs) which poses some logistical issues, my SIL would probably do it but she and her husband are also constantly on the move.

Which means that we have NO ONE. Which is a bit of a problem. We have not had a single going-out date since February and the occasional couch date is not enough – we NEED to get out of our house. As awesome as couches are, fresh air or anything that takes us OUT of our four walls is ALWAYS better.

Child1 says that he has no issues babysitting his brother. Apparently he is 12 and doesn’t even need someone to watch him. He even told me exactly what he would do and how to make Child2 happy and comfortable. I am ABSOLUTELY NOT comfortable with leaving them alone and I don’t think that Child1 is even close to ready to stay alone AND look after his brother. I would not be able to relax and enjoy myself at all.

So while I make some lists about WHO I can ask, tell me this:

Do you and your partner have regular dates?

Do you have a regular babysitter or do you generally struggle to find babysitters?

Who is your babysitter and how did you find them? Do you use a professional service?

Btw…I realised that it was just way too easy for us to leave our kids with MIL. During these last few weeks of her illness we have been FORCED to take them with wherever we go and it has been absolutely fine. In fact, I would go as far as saying that it has been awesome and that they are really cool to hang out with. Child2 has surprised us and has mostly coped really well, but we DO still take our cues from him and leave whenever we need to or when things start to get too much for him.  Despite this, my Boyfriend and I STILL need some alone time in order to preserve our relationship not only with one another but also with them.

Currently I am…

Hello there! How are you?

My weekend was lovely. There were friends  and family and movies and a braai and a long Sunday afternoon nap. We also took a much-needed break from all things hospital and MIL and it did us the world of good.

Did you have a good weekend? What did you get up to? 

I have loads of posts in drafts and so while I finish those up, I am joining Home Life Simplified for her Listmania Linky. Do join up if you want to. OK?

Currently I am:

Reading: I have just started Deon Meyer’s 13 hours. So far so good.

Listening to: On my way home today I listened to Abba.  My kids are SERIOUS Abba fans and “Thank you for the music” remains one of my favourite songs of all time. It is soooooo something that I could have written.

Laughing at:  Child2 who has stopped calling me Mommy.  In the past few months I’ve been Teacher, Ju-la, Ju-li-a, Mommy Mommy Mommy (always 3 times) and as at yesterday I am Aunty Julia. Btw..people always comment on this and on the fact that we don’t correct him. That’s because it honestly DOES NOT phase us in the least – we have MUCH bigger things to worry about.  Priorities and all that.

Swooning over: Pierce Brosnan who in my opinion was the best Bond ever.  I watched Mama Mia last night. He’s not a great singer but he is simply lovely to look at.Have I mentioned how attracted I am to older men? Well. THAT is the kind of older man that I find hot. Suave. Distinguished. Sexy. I think I think I may watch it AGAIN just now.

Planning: the month of May. Lots of fun stuff happening during May in these parts. And I’m trying to figure out what one does for a 13-year old boy b-day party.

Eating lots of: Avo because the price has finally come down! Happiness = toast with avo and cheese for breakfast and lunch EVERY SINGLE DAY!

Feeling: Positive and so much better than I felt last week. Getting back to basics with nurture and self-care and being quiet REALLY helps when I’m feeling out of sorts.

Discovering: I am REDISCOVERING yoga. Can’t believe I stayed away for so long.

Looking at: how to make my own natural fabric softener. EVERYTHING irritates Child2s and my skin. And I am checking out these onesie adult pyjamas that I really like – I may just request an actual gift for Mothers Day this year!  My DH has requested a pair too so he may be getting an early birthday pressie.

Wearing: Flannels and my gorgeous new, soft, fluffy gown that my Darling Mommy bought me. Did I mention that MIL took my other favourite gown?

Cooking: Nothing. I’ve just come from a birthday dinner. However, my kids have discovered nutella marie biscuits with marshmallow centres. I didn’t introduce it because I knew what it could cause. Child1 came home with this “idea” because he had it at someone’s house and I was FORCED to buy the stuff because you know, I apparently (according to Child1) NEVER let them eat nice things. Poor kid. Such a hard life he has.

Wondering: How I am going to RSVP for a party that Child2’s been invited to if I cannot for the life of me remember WHERE I put the invitation. I do know that I put it in a safe place. Now to try to figure out WHERE that safe place is.

Trying out: Crochet. It’s not going well and I am ready to give it up. For good.

What’s on your current stuff list? Share in the comments or do a post and link up. 

Friendship Friday: bad friend dates and letting someone down gently

A few weeks ago I was at a function. There were a number of really cool people at this function and I had loads of fun.

However, there was this one person stalking me trying to connect with me. I didn’t feel the connection and was constantly trying to escape. Alas, it wasn’t very easy. Usually my DH is with me and we have our own code, so if I need to be rescued then he makes it happen.

I figured that by the end of the function this would be a thing of the past and I knew that I would probably never run into her again under those circumstances.

So I humoured her. I listened to her crap vitriol and as hard as it was I showed her the respect that she deserved by trying to remain engaged and focused  It was hard – as I said there was absolutely no connection from my side and, to be honest, I was OK with that.

After that function, this person managed to obtain my phone number. I was somewhat annoyed (I would NEVER, EVER give out someone’s contact details without their permission. Would you?) but again, I was kind and respectful. This person wanted us to meet up. I tried to get out of it.  Numerous times. Eventually I gave in because I ran out of excuses. Truthfully, I didn’t really have a reason to not pursue this, except for the fact that there was zero connection from my side.

I really do not have the manual on how to tell someone that I’m not feeling a friendship with her and to be honest, I didn’t know how to handle this particular situation.

All that I could think of was the fact that she could so easily have been me. I I kept thinking about how I would feel if the shoe was on the other foot, and I was the one trying to connect with someone who was evasive and somewhat disengaged. Anyway.

Coffee date happened during my lunch time. I purposefully set it up this way because of the limited time.

So off I went to coffee date. Well “friend” was late. No big deal, I was hungry, I ordered something and I started to eat.  Stalker friend eventually pitches – 25 minutes late. No phone call or text or anything. This kind of thing is usually a deal breaker for me. Nevertheless, I overlooked it because it wasn’t the end of the world for me to be eating by myself and I reasoned that I now had even less time which was all good.

We made small talk.  Things started to get better and I thought to myself “I can do this; perhaps it’s not so bad. There may actually be a teeny tiny bit of potential here”.

Eventually the subject turned to my special needs kids.

I spoke a bit about them both – mind you, no details because I’m not going to be discussing details with someone  I don’t really know. It was all very surface-like.  And then it went pear-shaped.

The judgement started (btw this person has no kids), and I know that it came from a place of ignorance (she probably read the You or the People magazine) but it really stung. I was not going to tolerate some stranger judging my choices and so I gave as good as I got – unfortunately for her she got me in my PMS week.  She continued to interrupt me as I was trying to stand up for myself.

And so, I opened my purse, put my money on the table and for the first time in my life,  got up and walked out on someone in a restaurant. No turning back and all of that. Since that day I have not taken any calls from this person and I have not responded to any texts.  She was persistent and for a while I considered having my Boyfriend tell her to go and fly a kite or something (when I told him about it he said that I should have left her with the bill – so rude he is!),  but then she got the message.

I guess I am lucky in that in this whole process, this was the only really bad friend date that I had.

As far as I am aware (because I realise that one can be unaware of this) I haven’t ever been in a situation where someone was clearly pursuing a friendship with me and I felt zero connection. I haven’t ever needed to “let someone down gently” because of this.

Quite honestly, I have no idea how to tell someone that I am not interested in being their friend.

What would you have done in a situation where this was required? 

Have you ever needed to tell someone that you don’t actually feel like being their friend because you are not really feeling a connection?

Have you ever had a seriously bad friend date?

If so, please tell me about your experience?