Channelling my Aunt

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing."
-- Phyllis Diller

It’s been a very loooong Easter weekend. We had family around for 2 days and 2 nights and it was fun don’t get me wrong. I’ve just discovered that I am somewhat obsessive compulsive when it comes to house cleaning. I like things in their place. I like order and will do anything to preserve it. I have an aunt who used to get up at 4am to clean her house. I am not THAT far down the road…yet. Her house generally looks like one out of the pages of House & Home. I just strive for order more than the germ-free sanctity of a freshly sanitized bathroom.

Add four kids, 2 adults, 38 Easter eggs and some generic chaos to the mix and the result: a very rattled, still vainly striving for perfection, me. I think at some point I actually WAS following them around with a dustpan and broom. Mostly I tried to ignore the bomb site that was my daughter’s room and just let it go, whilst shouting vague orders in the kid’s direction to tidy up. They totally ignored me of course – shoving things under the bed and declaring their cleaning done.

At about hour T minus 1, I eventually gave up and let chaos reign. They are kids after all and it was the Easter weekend. Some rules are meant to be broken or at least loosened up a little some of the time. So they had a happy hour of being able to run around screaming, throwing things and generally being kids. Yay,me.
We then went to lunch at my cousin’s house on Easter Monday. Her house is nothing less than perfect – even her 3 year old daughter’s room looks scarily like no-one actually lives there. I realised I had gone a little overboard with my obsessiveness when my BIL commented to my aunt (while watching her sweeping, picking up, polishing, serving, washing dishes), that my middle name was actually Lucille (my aunt’s name). Oh dear, it seems middle age has finally caught up with me and I am becoming my aunt. My resolve: Live more, clean less. At least until tomorrow when the dust bunnies catch up with me again.

The Lighter Side of Death

Scene: Sunny Sunday afternoon in Cape Town, driving past a very large graveyard in the Southern Suburbs.

Offspring: Mommy what’s that? (pointing at graveyard)

Me: That’s a graveyard dear, you see all those pieces of stone, those are gravestones.

Offspring: What’s a graveyard?

Me: It’s where the dead people are. When you die, that’s where you go.

Offspring: But where are they?

Me: Under the ground.

Offspring: (short pause to think) But mom, when you’re dead, doesn’t the sand go into your eyes?

Me: No dear, your eyes are closed and you’re having a very long sleep.

Offspring: (another longer pause to think) So, when you’re dead, is it forever?

Me: Yes. Death is forever (briefly considered going into long explanations about the soul and eternal life but decided not worth it whilst driving, so shelved for another day).

Offspring: So if I die, I will be under the sand, sleeping forever?

Me: Yes.

I sincerely hope I haven’t scarred my child for life! I subsequently tried to bring up the soul / eternal life discussion a day later but she was having none of it. She stuck to her guns about sand in eyes and death being forever.

5 Things I love about being a mother

Tertia was asked to participate in a ‘round the world in 80 clicks’ tour, where moms all over the world blog about the five things they love about being a mom and she tagged me, so here we have it also from Cape Town, South Africa

1) Laughing with my daughter: She has an AMAZING sense of humour – much like her mother. She has an advanced sense of the ridiculous, loves acting the clown and is generally just really funny! Some examples include being woken up the other morning with one word whispered in my ear: ‘Lasaaaagne!’ I eventually worked out she’d clearly been watching Garfield one too many times. The other day we were watching Idols and some poor fool was being voted off. She turned to me and said (about the presenter): “Mommy that woman doesn’t care!” Then proceeded to mimic the overly cheerful presenter with huge, big, fake grin on her face saying: “And now Terence (or whatever his name was) is going home, bye Terence.” I collapsed in mild hysterics.
2) Being able to use the fact that I have a kid as an excuse not to go out nor do something I don’t really want to do. At heart I am a hermit and homebody. I love being home. I hate going out. It’s really cool that I have an excuse now. Sorry, no babysitter. And no dear friends reading this I would never do that to you! Duh, only to folks I really don’t like. Sheesh!
3) Decorating my daughter’s bedroom has become sort of an obsession with me. I think this grows out of a thwarted desire to have a lovely princess bedroom when I was little. I shared a not so nice bedroom with my lovely sister, Janine. So now daughter gets all I wanted when I was small. (including mosquito net, princess stuff, cushions etc., etc.) Must admit (even to self) the pinkness of the room is becoming somewhat overwhelming. Yay, time for a change!
4) Seeing the circle of life perspective being a parent. I now have some idea of what I put my parents through and what I am still to go through with my daughter. More than that though, being a mother makes you grow in ways you never thought possible. I was the most un-maternal person you could ever hope to meet. Now I would not swop motherhood for the world.
5) Hearing her say ‘I love you’ when she is half asleep on her pillow at night. No matter how tired she is, she still never fails to say it. Even after the hardest most revolting day at work or with her, that makes it all worthwhile.

I tag:

Janine
Cath
Christel

In lieu of an actual blog post

Single White Spinster with Cats

It struck me last night as I was trying desperately to unpack groceries, get kid in the bath, serve supper (note not MAKE supper as it was ready-made food from supermarket), tidy the house and feed ALL those damn cats, that this is not how I envisioned my life turning out.

I started out with just the one cat (male, neutered, extremely polite and well behaved, knew his p’s and q’s) – like just the one kid (female and well not really all that well behaved). I refused point blank to get a dog, as they're simply too much high maintenance. We then happened to acquire another (very small) female cat who (because I am so incredibly busy doing everything) I forgot to get spayed (ever) in time. She fell pregnant (the little slut) and has now produced ANOTHER 3 offspring (this being her 3^rd litter – yes I know I am a terrible kitty mom!) – very cute little kittens, now almost 6 weeks old.

So, last night the background soundtrack to my frenzy of activity was the following:

· 1 female cat meowing (growling) at me,

· 1 large male cat making 'moffie'* mewing noises and

· 3 kittens copying their mum in a much higher pitch (read: screaming) making meee-meeee noises.

Everytime I made a move towards the door or the cat food, the pitter-patter of twenty little paws would follow me. It's funny in hindsight but revolting while it was happening. Me, the harridan yelling: ‘SHUT UP. I have to feed the humans

first… SHUT UP!!!’ Lovely, what must the neighbours think!?

*Moffie – Afrikaans for Hetero-sexually challenged

** Edited to Add: I have NO intention of keeping all 3 kittens.

***Edited AGAIN to Add: This is an old post. We are now the proud owner of a Jack Russell – I need to be committed. Show me the way to the next asylum – ooh don’t ask whyyy....