There's a Lionheart in our Bath Tub!

What’s up with the traffic cones?

2012-03-02T15:57:00.000+02:00

You know that sound a truck makes as it backs up? Boop-boop-boop? It’s been rattling around in my brain for days now, watching Travis the Lionheart play out his latest eccentricity.

Google ‘autism’ and ‘repetitive behaviours’ and you’ll find err, truckloads, of YouTube videos, photographs and forum posts about autistic children and their fixations. Lining up matchbox cars in neat rows and an obsession with all things that spin (remember Travis and his ‘soapies’?). These behaviours send some ruggle moms into freak-out mode.

“Is my kid autistic!?” they type.
“Relax, tannie. Probably not, but keep an eye on it,” I always say.

Long story short, this is what a repetitive behaviour looks like: Travis has been ‘parallel parking’ his head between two makeshift traffic cones for almost a week now. The Lionheart bum-slides across the tiled floor with two of something tucked his arms, places one on either side of his head, and then rolls slowly from side to side.

Look left, right, and then left again...
First he rolls left until his cheek touches the cool surface of the tile; then he carefully ‘course corrects’, let’s say it’s the tractor this time, until the tractor almost-almost touches his cheek. Then Travis rolls right and repeats with the other tractor, each time narrowing the gap between the two so that he can ‘park’ his head in the space.

Here’s the chestnut: the objects have to match. Two tractors. Two slippers. Two bottles of shampoo. And if you attempt to disrupt the Lionheart during his endless roll-check-correct-roll-check-nudge-just-a-bit routine (which literally goes on for hours), then you risk the Wrath of Trav.

These photos were taken over the last three days, showcasing Trav’s new quirk. I’m amused, bemused, and flat out confused by his behaviour (but secretly I also delight in the crazy beautiful weirdness of my first-born).

PS: Just heard that Travis was doing the same thing with two giant exercise balls at school today. I would have loved to see that, he he! Apparently he was getting so angry that the balls kept rolling away that his teacher and a helper had to hold them in place for him. Cheeky monkey!

How the Lionheart and Squishy Gorilla are getting on

2012-02-24T15:12:00.001+02:00

If I’d had the luxury of maternity leave, then I guess that today would have been my last day at home with my Squishy Gorilla, before polishing my power heels, and slinking back to the Land of Cubicles. I’m a work from home mom, though – which comes with its own perks and pains in the ass.

PERK: I can step away from my keyboard during working hours to play peek-a-boo and read Ryan Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose.

PAIN: No maternity leave means I’ve been working flat-out since the first day after I walked out of the maternity wing with my bundle of joy. (Why, oh why did I have to go and check my emails that day?) A good 75% of my clients don’t even know I had a baby.

To commemorate the end of my ‘maternity leave’, I’m reporting back on that burning question: “How is Travis adjusting to having a baby brother in the house?” I get asked this question often, but because raising a special needs child means slowing all things developmental down to tortoise speed, I’ve been hesitant to pull out my label-maker until I’m 100% sure where my Lionheart is at.

And this is where he’s at: Travis likes his baby brother.

I use the word ‘like’ cautiously.

It was little things at first. I’d put Ryan in his lap (me obviously supporting the baby), and Travis would turn his head away and ever so gently... shove... Ryan off. I’d make kissing noises and press Ryan’s drool-face against the Lionheart’s cheek. Mwah! Mwah! MWAH! Travis responded with shy smiles, and then progressed to giggling. And then progressed even further to irritation when the novelty wore off. I can imagine him thinking: “Enough now, Mom! I know it’s YOU making the kissy sounds!”

How I wish I could read Travis better. My sense are always on high alert when I’m around him, studying his body language and facial expressions to try fathom what is going on, on the inside.

What is Travis thinking? What does he feel?

Four-and-a-half years old and still not able to speak. It’s like twiddling the frequency knob on a radio to find a station! Communicating with Travis is a combination of Makaton hand signs, PECS cards, eye-pointing, and a small vocabulary of basic words I know he understands, like bath time, and pillow and bottie.

Remember those early days when I was convinced that Travis would intentionally hurt Ryan? The Lionheart was so angry and bewildered by this noise-machine that had stolen his spotlight. I literally feared for Ryan’s life when the two of them were together.

Travis, my boy. You surprised me. The anger melted away, and was replaced by indifference. And now, finally, after 16 weeks of sharing his space, toys, bath and most importantly, mom and dad’s attention, I see the seedlings of affection have taken root.

You know, ruggle parents take for granted that their children will get along when they’re small. Sure, there’ll be squabbles and scratching, but it’s a given that they’ll have a relationship, that bond that exists between siblings.

Not in my most hopeful imaginings have I pictured Ryan and Travis being buddies. Travis is just so “locked in” - he so very rarely interacts. He just acts or reacts. So you can imagine my surprise when Travis bum-scooted to where Ryan was playing in his bouncy chair, placed a toy car in his baby brother’s lap, and quickly scooted away – like he was embarrassed to be caught doing something nice.

I marvelled. My eyes must have been as big as tea cups. I thought my heart would burst with excitement! Oh the sweetness of it all.

Then a few days ago Travis was splashing in the pool with his water wings, and I had my feet in the pool watching him, with the Squishy Gorilla on my lap. Travis was going crazy in the water, doing belly-rolls and kicks. His clowning around made Ryan chugga-chugga-chugga in his hoarse baby laugh. It was adorable, watching the two of them interact.

So that, folks, is where things stand between Ryan and Travis. It looks like the feelings are mutual. Baby steps, baby steps.

2012-02-24T04:17:00.000+02:00

Mommas in pyjamas

2012-02-21T12:17:00.002+02:00

Wow. So yesterday’s post, huh?

What started out as a rant about my insecurities, turned into a WAVE of conversation that swept through our little community of Moms Who Like To Blog (and the lesser known Moms Who Like To Lurk). It was awesome!

I never realised so many other moms felt the same as I do. That crushing need to be perfect, to be living it up. To portray our lives like it’s a 50s family sitcom, through Instagram and Foursquare and status updates. I’m so glad I opened this can of worms, but looking back, I wish I’d done it more tactfully. Is there a tactful way to open a can of worms? A tactful tin-opener?

In 24 hours, Fear of Missing Out is now the fourth most popular post on the Lionheart blog, of all time. That tells me that it’s deeply relevant. Yup, I hit a nerve, ladies. Even some of the mommies that I look up to have revealed to me that it might be all High Tea and Crumpets on the outside, but on the inside it ain’t shits and giggles.

Why, why, WHY aren’t we talking openly about how we really feel? I’m aware that not every mom is as comfortable about wearing her heart on her sleeve as I am. Here’s an anonymous response from a tea-and crumpets mom I received yesterday that really made me re-think:

"You know what's not AMAZEBALLS? Not having any grandparents for my kids to spend time with. Not having any of my own family, for that matter, any closer than London. My step father being murdered and my petrified mother being tied up to his dying body. My mother dying 3 years later. Living on my own, not by choice, from the age of 17. Suffering from post-natal depression and only being even remotely happy after consuming a month's worth of schedule 7 medicine. Not being able to snuggle my kids for 15 minutes in the middle of the day. Feeling incredibly guilty about leaving them at home every morning at sparrow's fart. Some morning's before they've even woken up. These things aren't AMAZEBALLS. I go on endless playdates and spend time with friends at fancy bakeries because that's all I have. I can't pop over to my mom or give her a call on the phone to ask how SHE coped when I was born. Because she's dead. That's not AMAZEBALLS. I don't like to talk about the "bad times" because I don't really want people to feel sorry for me. If that makes me "precious" then so be it. I'm just trying as hard as I possibly can to do what makes me, and my family, happy."

Flip side of the coin, eh?

I even briefly thought about kick-starting a #mommasinpyjamas meme, where mommy bloggers post un-glam photos of ourselves in our sleep shirts, with our hair all ratty, and baby puke on our shoulders. (At best it would give society a big spoonful of reality; at worst it will curb the teenage pregnancy rate.)

After all the comments and emails and tweets, I began to see the big picture. I’ve put it into a timeline for fun. It’s called the Rocking Motherhood Metamorphosis, and it goes like this:

Stage 1: “Help! And what the hell is a receiving blanket for anyways?”
Stage 2: Have managed not to accidentally put the baby in the tumble drier, but still a little insecure about mommy hood.
Stage 3: Blissful indifference to what other people think about your parenting skills (please let me check in here soon).
Stage 4: The confidence-oozing mega-mommy-saurus!

I heard from moms in all four stages yesterday. It helped put in context what I’ve been feeling. A few of you (bless you) told me I’m ‘supermom’. To that I write: “Hello? Do you read this blog? I’ve dropped more ~~babies~~ balls than I can count!” But thank you for being sweet.

Now get out there and hug a mom! You never know just how bad she might need it.

There are posts worth reading today, over at:
Diaries of a White Mom Raising a Black Baby: Mommy Club - flawless imperfections welcome
Dear Max: Why You Should Focus More On Your Life Than Others

Fear of missing out

2012-02-20T13:34:00.001+02:00

Oh how, how I wish I could be one of the cool mommies. It’s high school all over again. I’m on the outside, with my nose pressed up against the windows of their little clique of air-kisses, 10am lattes and Naartjie dungarees.

How do they do it? Where do they find the time? And the money?

I lurk silently on the Twitter machine, watching their exchanges. These uber-cool Jozi moms: they all drink coffee at the same fancy bakeries. Swipe their credit cards at the same ‘in’ boutique shops in the leafy inner suburbs. Get their hair cut at the same trendy hairdresser. Have family photos taken by the same photographer. Playdates. Tweet-ups. Supper clubs. Checking in on Foursquare. Announcing their Klout score. Wondering: “Hey, my blog has 50 000 hits this month! Is that bad?”

They Instagram every instant of their awesome AMAZEBALLS lives – just in case we don’t know that the rest of us are Missing Out Big Time.

I hate the way it makes me feel. Perhaps I’m insecure. Hell, I’ll admit it... insecure is my middle name. After Kim. But this culture of ‘look at me, look at me’ makes me ask myself: “Did you get it all this morning, Stacey?” Are you enjoying every single moment of the glamour that is parenting?”

“You’re not? Then you’re clearly Doing It Wrong, girl.”

Let me tell you what I’m doing right now. I haven’t washed my hair today; it’s tied into a messy pineapple knot on top of my head. My coffee has gone cold at my elbow. I haven’t left my keyboard since 8am because I’ve been working at ludicrous speed since I bundled a very grumpy Travis out the front door, so his dad could drive him to school. Currently my Outlook calendar is filled with product launches, client meetings, and deadlines. Not haircuts, coffee dates or photo shoots.

But instead of feeling proud that I’m running my own business, and spend every possible free moment with my kids – I have this hollow, gnawing feeling. Like I’m not one of the cool kids who sneak cigarettes behind the bathrooms at break time.

I’ve had enough of feeling like this. I’m letting it go! Be gone silly insecurities and FOMO (fear of missing out) complex! Breathe in. Breathe out. Now take that 15-minute work break to go cuddle your kids. Pat, pat. There’s a good girl.

Them stones, them stones

2012-02-15T03:55:00.000+02:00

You know the fairytale of the Princess and the Pea?

Let me remind you: Handsome Prince. Dark and stormy night. Bedraggled chick turns up on the palace doorstep. Prince orders the royal housekeeper to hide a pea under the chick’s mattress. Chickyboo tosses and turns. She piles on 20 mattresses. Then 20 feather mattresses. Still tosses and turns. Ergo – she must be a princess (or a royal pain in the ass, if you ask me). The end.

It’s 3am on Valentine’s Day, and I can’t sleep.

The Lionheart and the Squishy Gorilla are both fast asleep, cocooned in their mosquito nets, bless them. They’re not to blame for my insomnia. It’s the fucking pea under my mattress that’s to blame. Except this particular pea is actually a kidney stone. Not mine, thank goodness. My hubby’s.

I’m looking at it right now – the urologist kindly put the offending asteroid into a plastic cup for us to take home this afternoon as a souvenir of our 10 days of hell. It makes a lame paperweight.

It started last Sunday night when I had to rush my husband to the emergency room. Now, the logistics of a medical emergency are tricky for the Lionhearts. Remember: Travis can’t walk so he needs to be transported with his special needs pram. And obviously three-month-old Ryan needs his own pram too. And mommy only has two hands.

One of which will be needed to fill out a stack of forms in big block letters. Another hand will be needed to feed Ryan a bottle, because he always seems to need a bottle just when I’m the most overwhelmed. Another four hands will be needed to steer the two prams between the X-Ray department and the doctors’ cubicles. And I need a free hand to squeeze my husband’s hand, because he’s in the most excruciating pain imaginable!

You see my dilemma?

THANKFULLY my aunty Pet and uncle Eddie are saints, and rushed over to watch the kids so that I could get my husband to the emergency room.

Long story short: he tried to pass the kidney stone himself. After eight full days of PAIN-FEST, my stubborn-as-a-mule husband caved and was booked into hospital to have it ‘lasered’ and ‘basketted’. On Valentine’s Day.

And because he’s a private patient, this fiasco cost around R35 000. This, when I look at this tiny calcified rock on my desk, makes me realise that it’s probably worth more than the diamond in my wedding ring. Holy mojitos!

Oh, to be an eight-armed Hindu deity. This week has been hard. You know, when you have a sick or disabled child in the mix, and you are playing a dual role of parent-slash-caregiver, you simply cannot afford to be in anything but 100% great shape.

I’m not saying we’re all in ‘triathlon-Iron-Man-climb-Mount-Everest’ shape, but I have never met a special needs mom I would call ‘obese’. All the lifting and carrying and spoonfeeding and late nights. It’s impossible not to build up muscle tone and a deep well of stamina.

And because we have two kids who both need a high level of care, my husband and I both need to be in great shape. When one of us is ill, that means the other parent quite literally can’t even leave the house. Why? For starters: two prams. I missed every fucking deadline for every fucking article I needed to have written, because I’ve had to type with armfuls of children between me and the keyboard.

My clients don’t care that my husband is ill, or that I have a disabled son, or a three-month-old baby. (They shouldn’t have to - and I’m a professional, dammit! Copy Candy is my third baby.)

It’s been stressful to say the least. It’s been a ringmaster-less three-ring-circus, to be more accurate.

But I’m ranting now. And it’s 3.45am.

Thank the Big Guy Upstairs my poor husband is on the mend; I’ve had a kidney stone in my heart watching him soldier on through the pain these last few days. I love you, sweetie.

WTF Friday: Blues eyes... my baby’s got blue-green-purple eyes!

2012-02-03T10:30:00.000+02:00

I have never had to listen to someone with brown eyes wax poetic about how their eye colour changes depending on their mood, the weather or what colour underpants they’re trotting. Given that the brown-eyed segment of the global population is a whopping 80% chunk of the pie graph, I guess I should count my blessings...

Brown-eyes (and I’m addressing this to all people, me included, with this eye colour and not a line-up of puckered sphincters), aren’t you tired of hearing how your blue-eyed buddy’s irises have a green halo with a hazel speckle when there’s a solar eclipse? Or “they’re actually more grey than powder blue on a cloudy day”? Or “my eyes go from turquoise to emerald green when I’m PMSing”?

Sooner or later, a conversation with someone who has blue-slash-green-slash-grey-slash-purple eyes will turn (read: be steered) to a fascinating tale of their kaleidoscopic, mood barometer-like peepers.

I lump these snore-fest chats in the same category as the special meaning behind someone’s tribal tattoo, belly ring and Ed Hardy t-shirts – one of those things that despite your best intentions, doesn’t make you unique or special, because everyone is doing it.

A good counter is: “Have you noticed how my eyes are more caramel brown than dark chocolate brown when I’m hungry? I think I might be a vampire!” And just you try rolling your blue-but-actually-aqua-when-I’m-at-the-coast eyes when I say that...

The Lionheart’s sleepover schedule

2012-02-01T10:10:00.001+02:00

I was clearing my computer’s desktop this morning when I came across this schedule I typed up for my aunt and uncle Pet and Eddie, who (very bravely) took Travis for a few nights while I was in hospital in October, delivering Ryan into the world. It makes me smile, because it’s a Polaroid of Trav’s quirks and bugbears three months ago – which, of course, he’s swapped out for a whole new set by now.

(And it’s also a great prop to showcase just how neurotic a special needs mom gets when it comes to sticking to the rigid routine her kiddo needs to feel safe, and avoid any meltdowns - remember, Travis can't speak at all, so it’s tricky to guess what he wants unless you’ve learned to read him over the years.)

MORNING

6am – 7am Wake-up time!
Mug of Milo or rooibos tea (two sugars and milk please)
Bowl of 1 ½ Weetbixes, sprinkled with sugar, warmed in microwave for 50 secs

7am – 8am Get dressed and ready for school, brush hair, brush teeth,
put on foot splint, Risperdal (only 3ml) – watches Disney Junior channel sometimes

Pack school lunch:
2 x yoghurts
1 x sandwich (cheese, peanut butter and jam, syrup – cut into fours)
1 x snack like Tuc biscuits or packet of Nik Naks
1 x bottle of Milo or Rooibos Tea

8am – 8.30am Travis arrives at school
Teacher’s name is Sue, school number is 011 xxx xxx.

AFTERNOON

12.30pm Collect Travis from school

1pm Lunch and a glass of Tab – yup, he’s only drinking Tab, can you believe it...
(fish fingers, mac and cheese, scrambled eggs, viennas with tom sauce, leftovers from supper)

2pm to 5pm Playtime! Travis loves to be outside, and also splash in the pool, sit on back door steps, gaze at washing machine, or explore cupboards – careful: he is pulling himself up against EVERYTHING at the moment. (Also, always throws a tantrum when you bring him in from outside.)

Probably start getting thirsty at 4pm: more Tab or Milo or Rooibos. Can try mixed cooldrink or even water, but he often rejects them.

EVENING

5pm – 6pm Bath time! The usual splashfest...

6.30pm Supper time! Still needs to be spoonfed, but is eating just about anything adults eat by now, even pork chops and fish. Not crazy about his veggies.

Risperdal (5ml this time)

7.30 – 8.30pm Bed time! Some Milo or tea first, then likes to be snuggled in a dark room (if the lights stay ‘on’, the Lionheart stays ‘on’)

The Vaccine Machine

2012-01-30T20:10:00.003+02:00

Let me join the legions of mommy bloggers who start their posts off with the words: “I am so pissed.” I’ve just come back from getting Ryan’s three-month immunisation shots done, and I’m not sure what’s hurting more – his chubby thighs or my wallet.

Round 1 (ding!): the 6-weeks shots
You know, back when I took Ryan for his 6-week shots, I ranted most eloquently to anyone who would listen about how bleeding expensive it was.

First I went to the paediatrician for his check-up. The good doctor was running 30 mins late and made me languish soaked to the bone in his waiting room (I’d been klapped by one our infamous Jozi thunderstorms in the parking lot). I undressed Ryan, the doc weighed him, measured him up and down and around the head, bicycled his little legs and ABRACADABRA! 10 minutes. R565 cash.

(Bet your ass I’m sending Ryan to medical school. I plan to brainwash him by playing reruns of Grey’s Anatomy and House until he’s of varsity age.)

Two days later I’m at the hospital baby clinic, where the sister in charge is bad-mouthing some other mommy who “tried to pull a fast one” by saying she’d gotten the date wrong for her son’s appointment. “Well I showed her – she’ll have to wait three weeks for a spot now.” Absorbing this oblique threat, I meekly undressed Ryan (who was so down with this programme), and she weighed and measured him again, gave him his government-grade (I asked) shots and BIBBITY BOBBITY BOO! R680 cash.

After I crossed her palms with silver, we made an appointment for his next round of shots at 3 months, which the sister informed me would be another R680.

“Screw this moneymaking merry-go-round!” I mumbled under my breath.
“See you in January!” I said with my giant Chicklet front teeth smile.

Round 2 (ding ding!): the 3-month shots
Needless to say, I phoned in and cancelled on the hospital baby clinic. There had to be other options. Government clinic? There’s one in my neighbourhood...

I did a little drive by; I parked my car in a deserted, weed-infested parking lot with graffiti on the surrounding brick walls. I’d just fetched the Lionheart from school, so I wheeled him along in his pram, into a crowded dark room where about 30 ladies sat in chairs in rows, like at Home Affairs.

Silence. I was the only whitie... and I felt EMBARRASED to be there. Not to be seen there, but because all the mothers there were so obviously from an impoverished background. They must have taken me all in – Honda Jazz (which was almost repossessed a few weeks ago), fancy Peg Perego pram (five years old and coming apart at the seams), Ginger Mary T-shirt (hand-me-downs from my mom who thinks I dress like a bag lady)...

See how hard I’m trying to rationalise why I think I’m ‘poor enough’ to deserve to get Ryan’s shots done for free? “When I was little,” I tell myself, “the nurses came to our primary school and we got all this done for free - because we pay taxes!” I almost felt like I needed to dress down for my government clinic adventure. Guilt-ridden, I backed the pram out of there pronto.

Interesting side-note: a rather cuckoo friend of mine says to never get your child’s shots done at a free clinic, because “the Illuminati put funny stuff in the government-grade vaccines to control the mass population”. Pretty nuts, eh?

So this is how I found myself at Dis-Chem this afternoon. I figured: “It’s a discount pharmacy, right? How much could it possibly cost?” As the sister was prepping Ryan’s vaccines, she said: “You know about the costs?” “Oh, I’m sure it will be okay,” I said, alarm bells clanging in my ears but me far too polite to say: “Stop the bus! How much exactly IS this going to cost me?”

It cost R1309. Almost double the R680 it would have cost at the hospital baby clinic. I had to split it between my debit and credit cards.

Let me tell you what I would rather have spent R1300 on:

8.3 super-sized tins of (or five months’ supply) of Lactogen baby formula for Ryan
412 nappies for the Lionheart, or 646 nappies for the Little Prince
A month’s worth of meat and veggies, to feed our family of four
Given a street child a crisp R20 note every day, for 64 days
Put it all on red at Silverstar Casino

I feel a bit guilty bitching about the price of vaccines. After all, here I am moaning that something necessary for my child’s health costs too much – but earlier today I called someone out about paying their domestic worker too little (R50 bucks a day).

What do you think, readers? I’ve heard some moms are anti-vaccine. Their kids are shot-free. Am I being a Scrooge, complaining about the price of vaccines? Playing fast and loose with Ryan’s health? Taking vaccines quit literally out of the mouths of underprivileged babes if I go to a government clinic? Be honest – I can handle it.

WTF Friday: Sqwee girls

2012-01-27T16:29:00.004+02:00

If you’re a How I Met Your Mother addict, then you know all about ‘woo girls’. But just in case you’re one of those chicks who are permanently tuned into the Crime & Investigation Network on Dstv (you will not BELIEVE how many chicks dig that medical mystery shit)... this is a woo girl, as defined by the Urban Dictionary:

“A female who is often found going 'WOOOOOO!' in public. This behaviour is most often exhibited while in the presence of other woo-girls. It is speculated that this is a mating call used to attract men of less than average intelligence. This behaviour can most easily be observed in bar districts, at Maroon 5 concerts, or spring break destinations. Also, woo-girls are known to have an affinity for Chads.”

But this woo girl thing is so 2009.

I was idly thumbing through Twitter yesterday, when I encountered a tweet from a perky young lady exclaiming (wait for it): “Sqweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”.That’s onomatopoeia for the sound excited tweens make when their mommy buys them a Hello Kitty training bra.

It was kind of cute. Catchy. Infectious even. Actually, it spread like a Biblical plague. By yesterday evening, there were so many “SQWEES!!” in my Twitter timeline that my ears were ringing.

This afternoon I was helping get a magazine to print at a client’s office, when one of the women in accounts answered her cellphone, leapt to her feet and.... sqweed.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Sqweeeeeeeee! Oh my God!” like she was on an American game show. That’s right, she literally said the word ‘sqwee’ instead of shrieking in delight at whatever news was being delivered to her. It sounded like a thousand lobsters being boiled to death.

If she had put down the phone and announced: “Sorry about that editorial team, I just got some amazeBALLS news”, I might have tried to stab my red fineliner through my eye socket directly into my brain.

Oh yeah – I bet you’re wondering what a ‘Chad’ is. Look it up over here.

RTFM

2012-01-23T16:27:00.002+02:00

Brace yourself, because what I’m about to write will make your bitch-slap hand itch.

Last week I told a mommy friend over the phone: “I don’t get it when parents complain that children don’t come with manuals! Have you seen the shelves in the Childrearing section at Exclusive Books? They are creaking under the weight of... yes... MANUALS that teach you, step-for-step, how to raise a child! HELLO?”

Exhibit A...

As three-month-old Ryan is teaching me, raising ruggles is so... easy. (I already have a tingle between my shoulder blades that warns me that the Big Guy Upstairs is brainstorming an inventive way to strike me down with lightning just for saying that.)

Right on cue Ryan smiles at six weeks, he gurgles at eight weeks, starts munching through bowls of rice cereal at 12 weeks. The Babycentre app on my iPhone alerts me that this week he’ll start reaching out to bat at his cot mobile... and he does!

It’s just so damn rewarding. What a warm, golden syrupy feeling!

This might be old hat to you, but being a mom who has only ever enjoyed the bittersweet flavours of Special Needs Boot Camp, I’m gobsmacked at how effortlessly Ryan sails past his milestones.

True story: Ryan was constipated and I sent out a #mommytweet. 15 minutes later I was swirling a Vaseline-coated earbud in his bottom, and ta-dah, the poop came out!

Got a mommy dilemma? Dial Twitter for practical advice from other end-users. Look it up on the Google machine. Page through an old issue of Your Baby. There are tonnes of information out there, just a mouse-click or a page-flick away.

I would give both my pinkie toes, and possibly toss in my SPLEEN for Raising Lionhearts for Dummies. Do you know there is not one single book on the planet written about Trav’s condition? The best I’ve got as a user guide is a stack of research papers written in medicalese, and an online support group of 600 families (most of whom live in the US and sign off their emails with God Bless America *rolls eyes*) who are feeling around in the dark for answers, and strategies, and anything on how to raise a child like Travis the Lionheart.

This blog post is not meant to take a dig at regular moms. I know how hard it is. But let me dance in the rain for a moment, and delight in my regular-as-they-come baby Ryan. You’re rocking my world, kiddo.

WTF Friday: Men and their ‘ools’

2012-01-20T09:15:00.000+02:00

What the Fuck Friday is the most blissfully belligerent day of the week. It’s the one day the author of this blog does not delicately arch an eyebrow in distaste at some perceived stupidity. Instead, she mutters away to herself about it while she's stuck in traffic, then fumes silently while tenderising steak for dinner, then finally, she can't take it anymore, and she... blogs.

My husband has a mistress. She’s fickle. And wet. He spends large chunks of his evenings and weekends dipping his pole into her depths. Really, I’m just skimming the surface here! And she’s just lapping it up!

WHAT IS IT with men and their swimming pools? It’s like golf: you take it up as a relaxing hobby. Get in some exercise roaming the greens. Work on your short game. Get in ‘’the zone’. Except you actually end up hurling your nine-iron into the lake at the 11th hole, and then mow down a flamingo in a fit of golf cart rage.

Men think their pools are like a liquid Zen garden. They pull out their test kits, check the PH, add a cup of chlorine (you can tell A LOT about a man from the way he sprinkles chlorine into his pool)... lovingly skim off the dead leaves and drowned insects...

...then mutter obscenities about ‘alkalinity’ and ‘shock’ and ‘backwash’. Wrestle the Kreepy Krauly like they’re Crocodile Dundee! Spend hours pacing around the edge of the pool, willing the water with every inch of their macho being to go just one shade bluer!

Then it’s: “Sweetie! Come out into the garden for a second!”
Wifey: “Okay, I’m here. What’s up?”
Husband: “Well, what do you think? About the pool?”
Wifey (looking for some visual clue as to the correct response): “It’s very... blue.”
Husband: “Much better than yesterday, eh?”
Wifey: “Yes, yes! Yesterday it was more like aqua, and today it’s definitely leaning towards turquoise.”

(Men might not be able to distinguish between mauve and fuchsia, but their mental database of the many exciting colours of pool water is extensive.)

Husband (strikes cowboy pose with hands on hip, chest puffed up): Yes, well the PH was off, again, so I backwashed this baby overnight and put in that new Month Mate I picked up at Builder’s yesterday. Also, that useless bloody Kreepy wasn’t getting into the corners, so I added another length of pipe. You should have seen what was in the filter this morning; a Parktown prawn that was blah blah blah blah...”

Wifey (eyes glazed over): “Yup, it’s blue all right.”

Le sigh.

PS: I'm drawing the Bio-Oil winner at 5pm. If you want to share the story about one of your scars, pop on over and add it to the comments section.

GIVEAWAY: Bio-Oil threesome!

2012-01-18T16:20:00.001+02:00

AND THE WINNER IS: Dylan Seegers! Read his fan-testicle-astic story below to see why he’s a deserving winner.

Let me overshare about my caesarian scar. My first one, from when Travis the Lionheart was born bum-first into this world, was neatly done. It has the same gentle curvature of Anne Hathaway’s smile; after a couple of months you could hardly see it anymore – but perhaps my lack of waxing helped.

My second and very recent scar, from when Ryan the Squishy Gorilla was delivered in October – it’s like that embarrassing tattoo you got after a night guzzling Tequila. It runs just underneath the first scar, and then jumps over it to run along the top, then loops back under it again. It’s more like Jack Nicolson’s crazy smile in The Shining.

Every scar has a story. These two remind me about my boys, and how the complicated Lionheart left me with the neat-as-a-pin white line of tissue, and how my textbook baby Ryan gave me this wonky one. Funny that. Needless to say, I’ll be using buckets of Bio-Oil!

Bio-Oil’s got all kinds of good stuff – lavender, rosemary, chamomile, and vitamins A and E. It contains no preservatives, is dermatologically tested, hypo-allergenic and non-acnegenic. You can buy it at pharmacies and select retail outlets nationwide.

Bye, bye baby scar secrets:

Wait until your six-week check-up before you slather on any products.
After the all-clear from your gynae, use micropore tape or hyperfix tape to keep scar secure. (The more movement a scar is subjected to, the thicker it may become.)
Place a small amount of Bio-Oil on top of the tape.
Bath or shower as usual, you only replace tape once it starts coming off.
You can use this tape for up to two years. That’s how long a scar takes to reach its final stage of healing.

I’ve got a Bio-Oil hamper to give away that contains one travel size (60ml), one bathroom size (125ml) and one splurge-size (200ml) bottle of this magical body nectar.

How to win it? Tell me the story behind one of your scars. It can be sweet (I tripped over my heels when I spotted Ryan Gosling at the VA Waterfront), funny (adventurous sexual position) or scary (curling-iron accident). Best story wins!

SA residents only. Competition closes on Friday 20 January at 5pm.

RECIPE: Six Cup Crunchies

2012-01-18T09:15:00.001+02:00

Crunchies! (Yup, I'm no food stylist.)

What to do when your mother-in-law buys a 2kg bag of Jungle Oats for you? I made these for the Lionheart’s first day back at school today.

INGREDIENTS
2 cups oats
1 cup cake flour
1 cup coconut
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter (or 250g)

Plus
1 Tbs syrup or honey
1 tsp bicarb of soda

METHOD
1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the oats, cake flour and coconut.
3. In a small pot on the stove, melt together the brown sugar, butter and syrup/honey.
4. When the butter mixture comes to the boil, quickly stir in the bicarb and remove from heat.
5. Add the butter mixture to the oats mixture, and mix well.
6. Lick the spoon, and don’t tell anyone!
7. Press crunchie mixture into a 20cm x 30cm that’s been lined with wax baking paper.
8. Bake for 180 for 15 minutes, then 160 for another 15 mins until a dark golden brown.
9. Remove from oven and allow to cool before slicing into squares.

PS: For the adventurous, add a handful of dried cranberries in step 2.

White moms can't dance

2012-01-16T11:32:00.000+02:00

I can’t put my finger on the exact date when it began. One moment I was swirling my glow sticks, standing on a speaker high above the party people getting down on the dance floor, like a magnificent bootie-shaking Statue of Liberty. The next thing I’m standing in a circle of WAGS (wives and girlfriends) at so-and-so’s wedding, going step to the left, step to the right, and clap, clap, clap.

Rewind and I'm going oets-oets-oets dressed in a fanny pelmet.
Fast-forward and I’m bopping like Helen Zille at a youth rally.

WTF happened? I’ll tell you, dear readers...

Somewhere between the Nineties and 31-year-old me, I was robbed of my sense of rhythm. I was mugged on the dance floor!

Perhaps the two babies that rented out my pelvis for nine-month stretches threw out my wheel alignment or something. Or fetishist surgeons switched my right foot with a second left foot, while I was distracted in the delivery room by the birth of my sproglings. Or the peddle-pushers of motherhood slowly cut off the blood flow to my ankles...

Rewind and I’m furiously wiggling my ba-donk-ka-donk at a Paul van Dyk rave.
Fast-forward and I’m doing the Funky Chicken at my sister’s wedding.

Excuse that reference to white moms in my post title. That was just a play on that 1992 movie White Men Can’t Jump. Although I’m sure my white-as-2%-milk, great-great-great-granny-wore-a-Voortrekker-bonnet-and-plaited-koeksisters heritage is not helping this gradual demise of my former dance floor domination.

I suspect it’s more my ‘mom-ness’ that’s at fault here. The disk space in my brain allocated to advertising my perky assets most vigorously at the night club (two hands in the air – “Look at me, look at me!”), has been wiped to make space for more appropriate system folders, like HowToBakeShrekBirthdayCakes.exe and HowToCleanCheeseTwirlDustOffYourCouch.exe.

Moves like Jagger? More like ‘moves like Martha Stewart’.

Holidays with a twist

2012-01-11T11:01:00.001+02:00

It's all kinds of tricky organising a holiday when you have to accommodate the needs of a Lionheart. Like this one time, I made the rookie mistake of not inquiring beforehand if our rooms had a shower or a bath. Can you imagine our Lionheart on holiday without his bath tub? Yipes!

Special Kids magazine asked me to write a humorous piece about that old chestnut: "the special needs holiday". Well, it's an old chestnut if you're a part of the special needs community, but more like a wasabi peanut if you're tackling this challenge for the first time!

It was a blast scribbling about the bizarre requests and rituals that a family like ours has to make and accommodate when planning a getaway.

Read all about it in the December 2011 issue.

37 things I learned this holiday

2012-01-10T20:27:00.002+02:00

1. You can survive a 12-hour drive with the Lionheart and a newborn, but you’re not guaranteed to arrive at your destination with all your marbles.

2. My wobbly thighs actually don’t look as bad in this season’s teeny short-shorts as I imagined they would.

3. Christmas is way better when you spend it with family. Lots and lots of family! Last year it was just my hubby, Travis and I... and it was kind of lonely.

4. Nobody sets a Christmas table like my mother. She starts planning decor, menus and guest gifts at least six weeks in advance. Friend me on Facebook to see the photos.

5. Granddad’s home-made brandy cream is like rocket fuel! Phwoar!

6. If you get given crystal glasses as a present, you’re too scared to drink out of them.

7. In 2012, I’m doing all my Christmas shopping online. I’m sure they spray some kind of pheromone into the malls over December that make you go into a spending frenzy.

8. Little girls, they’re curious creatures. (After spending time with our boys’ all-girl troupe of cousins: Adena Bree, Ava Jane and Emily Jane.)

9. I’ve been bitten by the Le Creuset bug. I want me some cast-iron, brightly-coloured enamelled casserole pots.

10. Tattoos. I’m over them (I should probably have an addendum: ‘for now’).

11. After turning down the editorship of one of SA’s most well-known parenting magazines, I’ve finally shaken off those “Should I get a real job?” doubts.

12. I’ve done an about-turn on my PR policy, and will probably do some reviews and giveaways this year, but promise you guys that the Lionheart blog is still a bullshit-free zone. No fake product endorsements here. Ever.

13. Almost nobody feels the need to switch on their Out of Office notices on their email over the festive season.

14. I love shopping at Poetry, but every single item I’ve clothing I’ve ever bought from there has ripped, lost buttons, had the hems come out or has holes in it.

15. Why buy pizzas when you can make delicious Mexicanas with Ouma’s pizza stone?

16. A long walk on the beach every day, hand-in-hand with someone you love, is food for the soul.

17. Seashells still wash up on Middle beach at Kenton-on-Sea. I haven’t been able to pick up shells off the beach since I was a little girl.

18. My new favourite blogger is DOMESTICURE. This gal’s posts will tickle your eyeballs; I’m crazy about her writing style. Get on over there and follow her blog immediately.

19. Nobody makes soetkoekies and biscuits like my mother-in-law. You’ll gain 2kg every visit.

20. Post-baby, I’m somewhere between a size 12 and a size 14.

21. Tarot card readings are perhaps not to be taken too seriously. Even if, years ago, this same tannie doing the reading kinda-almost-maybe predicted bad things about someone you loved very much, and then that person died.

22. Jellyfish come in shades of maroon.

23. There is definitely space in my heart for a third child.

24. Relax, I’m not pregnant. (I was a little worried there myself, he he.)

25. I can live without television, but I cannot live without an Internet connection.

26. Every craft market is chock-a-block with wooden hearts, hearts on a string, heart-shaped fridge magnets and wreaths and door knobs... Enough already.

27. I suck at Pictionary only marginally worse than I do at 30 Seconds.

28. I’m too old to get drunk on Old Years’ Eve.

29. I’m too young to appreciate a really good bottle of wine.

30. Travis the Lionheart can swim with water wings! He loves his water wing so much; he insists you inflate them so that he can bum-slide around the house with them on.

31. Travis can also pull himself up against a basin and turn on the taps. Uh-oh.

32. Ruggle babies can make eye contact, they smile and gurgle at you. They stand up straight on stiff little legs. I had no idea they could do that.

33. Lots of moms let their kids eat dog kibbles. It’s weird.

34. You can get your TV licence at the post office.

35. My repertoire of nursery rhymes is limited to Humpty Dumpty, Hickory Dickory Dock and Old MacDonald. Best I do something about that.

36. This city mouse likes to think she can rough it as a country mouse. But she can’t. Not really.

37. There’s no place like home!

Beware the stonefaces

2012-01-09T12:18:00.001+02:00

One of the mommies at the Lionheart's school posted on Facebook today about how sad she is feeling: her daughter with special needs would have started Grade 1 this January.

Now, I've cried buckets: mourning the loss of the milestones and memories that I'd expected to share with Travis as he grows up. Sewing on his first Boy Scout badge. Helping him pick an outfit for his first school disco [do youngsters still use that word?]. Straightening his tie for Matric farewell. Even freaking out when I find cigarettes, condoms and Playboys stuffed under his mattress! That's a milestone too. Elbowing my son's bride in the ribs at their wedding to ask: "May I have this dance?".

He he he.

Grandchildren.

...

But I'd forgotten the First Day of Big School. Your kid standing there proud and nervous in a too-big school uniform, black school shoes polished bright. It's a big one.

It's okay to cry, though. I am not ashamed of my tears; they're not a sign of a weakness. You have to maintain a sort of 'fragility' of the heart if you're to weather the hailstorm of sorrows that come with having a disabled child.

That terrible moment when you first found out: whether it was during your pregnancy, in the delivery room, or the news was broken to you after MRIs and specialists turned your kid inside out to reveal the truth of his brokeness... that's just the beginning.

Imagine that you've 'lost' your child. But they didn't die. There was no funeral. It's hard to get closure. No matter how much you love your special needs kiddiewinkle, your heart is still haunted by the ghost of The Other Child. The child that could have been.

Some moms can't take it. The hailstones and milestones come, and it hurts like hell. So they turn off the feelings. Dam up the tears.

These poor moms, with their stoney hearts, and their stoney faces. The stonefaces, I call them... Bitterness has etched deep lines around their eyes and mouths. They're in their 30s and 40s, but they look like they're in their 50s. I pity them so, but I also think they're cowards. Because it's easy to switch off your feelings and be a stoneface. Anyone can do it.

But it's not easy to let yourself cry.

I had an epiphany this holiday, during a serene walk on the beach in Kenton one sunset. This was it...

Tears water the secret gardens of your heart. Pain blooms, but so does joy.

[Eat your heart out, Hallmark]

The buggyman

2012-01-06T09:52:00.000+02:00

It’s 6.20am and I’m sitting under the fluorescent lights of the garage, in the driver’s seat of an aqua-green beach buggy. In my fluffy slippers. With my hair in a pineapple knot on top of my head. Frazzled around the edges after waking up to feed baby Ryan at 10pm, 1am, 3am and 5.30am.

I guess I’ve found myself in weirder places this early in the morning. Like in litter-strewn parking lots in Braamfontein after the DJ’s sunrise set, pondering glassy-eyed and cramp-jawed if Wimpy will open for a mega coffee before I crash. But that was pre-Motherhood.

And this morning post-Motherhood Me has Travis the Lionheart sitting next to her in the passenger seat; my little co-pilot.

I often wonder what my special needs child is thinking. But not since we arrived at Ouma and Oupa’s house in Kenton-on-Sea nine days ago. If you tune into Travis FM all you’d hear is: “Buggy, buggy, buggy, beach buggy, I want to ride in the beach buggy, buggy, buggy...”

Travis has an indecent obsession with Oupa’s green beach buggy (named Kermit). When he’s not riding shotgun with my husband through the narrow streets of small-town Kenton, he’s waiting outside the door that leads from the hallway to the garage. Or at the top of the staircase that leads down to the entrance hall, where the door is to the garage.

All through the house, you can hear Kermit roar to life when you turn the key in the ignition. Trav’s face lights up at the sound!

To the beachfront. To the jetty. To the shops. To the river-mouth. Accelerating to 100km/h on the main roads! Travis rumbles into the sunshine, the wind in his hair. Or cruises under the stars, the salty ocean air still muggy with sea spray.

We even ran out of petrol the other day, and had to push Kermit home.
Okay, it was like 200m tops.

As we sat side-by-side in Kermit’s hull this morning, dunking rusks in our cups of Milo while I read from a Dean Koontz paperback, Trav kept taking my hand and placing it on the gear lever. This means: “Go, Mom, go! Let’s ride! Start the engine!”

But being a stoo-oo-pid girl, Mom can’t drive the beach buggy without Killing Us All, so Dad had to be roused from bed early to take the Lionheart for his first spin of the day.

Summertime, and the living ain't easy

2011-12-30T12:23:00.001+02:00

It's low-tide at Middle Beach in Kenton-on-Sea, probably the most picturesque shoreline in the country. Sandbars, bright umbrellas, rock pools and golden bods in bikinis... this post is my postcard from paradise.

The sea air makes you ravenous! In the whole 30 minutes we've been here, Travis has mowed through his sandwich, a tub of yoghurt, one soetkoekie, his dad's sandwich and half of my sandwich!

I'll tell you what else these sunny beaches make me hungry for... a little sideplate of normal.

It's gotten easier, watching the happy and whole kids splash in the waves, and attack the crumbly sand with their bucket-and-spade sets... but I'll never be able to watch them play without that twinge inside, a cramp in my heart.

That's when our Lionheart's baby brother goes from being just a regular kid to the Great Hope - and that's not a fair burden for any nine-week-old kiddo.

A few minutes ago my hubby tried for a second time to take Travis down to the water, and he screamed blue murder! I could feel our fellow beach-goers peeping out from behind their paperbacks. Judging us.

Yesterday my husband and I went for a sunset walk on the beach.

"Come on, babe," he said. "Don't be in such a bad mood."
"I'm not in a bad mood, I'm in a sad mood," I replied.

Travis has tested us to the limits lately. He's getting stronger, heavier, angrier... So much so, that I've created shelf space in the back room of my mind, for a box of thoughts labelled 'What happens when we can't care for our Lionheart ourselves anymore?'

But that's another blog post...

On a brighter note, coming back from our romantic walk on the beach, we came across Sharks player ~~Brian Kantowski~~ Ryan Kankowski and one of his team mates doing a workout on the beach. Yum! They'd left their slip slops at the top of the sand dunes while they exercised...

"Let's steal them," I suggested to my other half.
"Are you crazy!" he said.

He he he...

Ruggles, snarks and other curiosities

2011-12-29T16:07:00.001+02:00

Baby Ryan and I are in a race: the Rice Cereal Relay. I spoon a blob of goop into his mouth; he gurgles cheerfully and pushes it back out with his tongue. Back and forth. Back and forth. Me opening and closing my mouth like a tropical fish, mirroring his first attempts at mastication (< - - - fun word alert!)

This morning, I’m winning by at least a tablespoonful when Ouma suggests helpfully: “Is Mommy going to talk to Ryan while she’s feeding him breakfast?”

Well, I’ll be darned, it’s true. I haven’t said a word to the Little Prince (a.k.a. the Squishy Gorilla) during our gruel-tastic morning exercise. I blame Travis for this. Or rather, I blame the bad habits that have accumulated over these last four years of raising a non-verbal child.

Travis the Lionheart doesn’t speak a word apart from dolphin. A language my husband and I have become fluent in, I might add. Another language I’m fluent in that of the Comfortable Silence. My first-born and I share many of them. Don’t get me wrong, I speak to Travis all the time, even if he doesn’t talk back – but more oft than not these one-sided conversations are like an echo in an empty room.

Back to Ryan. I’m remembering to verbalise with him.

I’m spooning the last of the cereal into his mouth and telling him how much I’m looking forward to watching Terra Nova, which starts on M-Net in January. I’m cleaning the mess off his chin and discussing my favourite new magazine, Good Housekeeping. I’m changing his nappy and wondering aloud which colour Le Crueset casserole dish I’m lusting over the most. (< - - - attention PR people: like THIS)

Mentally, I’m rewinding back to 2007, when I was a freshly minted mom, and I’d read all the baby books, memorised the milestones and bought into the Mozart-equals-genius-offspring hogwash. Back to those few months before Travis was diagnosed with his brain malformation.

I’m unlearning. For instance, Ryan is not obsessed with things that spin, like his autistic brother is. Neither is Ryan predominantly left-handed, like Travis was straight from birth (because the whole right-hand side of his body is weaker than his left). I keep trying to press Ryan’s rattle into his left hand; I didn’t even realise I was doing it until someone pointed it out!

Thankfully Ryan and Travis do have one very important thing in common. They both love to splash up a storm in the bath! I don’t think the Big Guy Upstairs and I could still be friends if He created my ruggle with an aversion to long soaks in the tub.

Yup, raising ruggles is a new frontier, and my husband and I are just setting out on the adventure. Oh, and what’s a snark, you ask? Damned if I know, but it’s Out There, like unicorns and jabberwocks.

Give them wings

2011-12-24T08:26:00.000+02:00

Cats might hate the water, but Travis the Lionheart is more like those Bengal tigers that like to go for frequents dips in the rivers of Bangladesh.

Travis feels the same way in a swimming pool as an astronaut feels in zero-gravity: weightless, and... free. It’s a place where his awkward, stubborn limbs that refuse to obey the instructions that travel down to them from his brain, can untangle, and be almost... graceful... It’s no mystery why our special needs child loves his bath tub so much, or why we indulge this and let him spend an hour or more each day in it. Wouldn’t you?

Hope floats, I tell you.

You should see our Lionheart in the swimming pool! He hurls himself from the safety of the kiddie step, into the deep blue with both arms and both legs paddling furiously, shrieking in delight (and briefly sending mom into cardiac arrest each time he does it). Travis has no fear of the water, and no sense of danger: he gets ‘dunked’ frequently, and goes wide-eyed in alarm underwater – and comes up spluttering and... giggling!

We may well have the only kid in the world who masters the art of swimming before taking his first unassisted steps.

Naturally, we’ve tried to nudge this poolside progress along with swimming aids like Polly Otters and inflatable swimming rings and what-not. Which left us a little deflated, frankly, as Travis bulleted them all to various degrees.

I considered the idea of water wings, but quickly discarded it when I imagined the Mount Eyjafjallajökull-like volcanic meltdown that would ensue if I tried to slip them on his arms and blow them up. Water wings have ‘sensory overload’ stamped all over them. I’d probably get a black eye and some prize-winning bite marks for my trouble.

Kids. They love to show you up.

Eye of the Tiger

2011-12-11T10:09:00.001+02:00

Flashback: the Wiggles & Squiggles Sports Day, October 2011

There’s plenty to be proud about in this snap. That’s Travis the Lionheart between Teacher Angie and I, and he’s about to dribble a soccer ball over the finish line. It’s his first race ever. And he can’t walk yet... but look at him go. Champion!

Also, that lady in the white summer dress - that’s me weighing in at 80kg, with the Ruggle Formerly Known as Bump due in five days. And my cankles.

I’m thinking my frock might have been see-through in the eyeball-searing summer sunshine - which would explain the look of horror on the little girl in the green T-shirt’s face. That I was probably wearing over-sized granny panties does not make the big reveal of my dimpled backside any better.

I can has underpants!

2011-12-06T09:14:00.001+02:00

UnderPANTS – say it. It’s a fun word (as the authors of the best-selling kiddies’ book Aliens Love Underpants cottoned on, much to their bank balances’ delight).

You may recall we’re having a small nappy problem. And by that I mean that it’s not the problem that’s small, it’s the nappies, specifically the nappies for four-year-old, 30kg Travis. Or if you asked the manufacturers, it’s his butt that’s too big.

Moving along... the bad quality and R5-per-poop price tag of the adult-sized nappies is bankrupting us at a most unfortunate time of the year. At this rate, Santa may be gift-wrapping Dis-Chem gift vouchers for the Lionheart, which is where afore-mentioned leaky, ill-fitting bum-huggers are purchased.

My husband the inventor went so far as to dissect 2 x Pampers nappies, and staple together a waistband (it’s a prototype, m’kay) made out of those Velcro tags that keep disposables in place. This Nappy-Keeper-Upper innovation shows promise, but... ja... erm... there’s that ‘staples’ thing.

A more elegant solution (which was suggested by Bronwyn) has been this: slip a size 5 or 6 Pampers nappy inside a pair of underpants. Ta-dah! No mess, no fuss. No more desperately uncomfortable toddler directing my hand towards the tags on his disposables that cut into his hips to ‘Please fix this ouch right here, Mom’.

Thanks goodness this is working, because the toweling nappy idea some of you suggested was starting to look attractive, ha ha...

Dear readers, can I just gush for a moment about what it feels like to finally see my special needs kid wearing underpants? To see those firm little butt cheeks finally ensconced in a pair of tightie whities?

On Travis the Lionheart’s current developmental timeline, I’m expecting him to be walking at around the age of 6, and potty-trained by only 8 or 9 – which is the milestone when you usually get to buy that first pair of underpants.

Really, no mom should get this much joy out of seeing her son standing (wobbling) in his jocks – but I do.

PS: Travis is rather big for his age (read: chubby) and is wearing 7-8 years’ pants, so we had to buy 11-12 years’ undies that can stretch over the nappy! Yikes!

PPS: On the subject of potty-training, Margot over at Jou Ma se Blerrie Blog is having a most hilarious time potty training her son Felix – you’ll be depriving yourself of a good giggle if you don’t read this post, here.

Playing dead

2011-11-30T14:15:00.001+02:00

Have your kids ever done this to you?

It’s after 4pm, and Saint Irene has already left for home in Tshepisong, to be terrorised by her own children.

Ryan the Little Prince has been snoozing for the last hour in his bouncy chair in the lounge, while I’m wrapping up emails and what-not in the study. The house has been quiet as a morgue for the last 45 minutes, except for the shloof-shloof sound of Travis bum-shuffling about.

(One of the advantages of living in a matchbox is that baby monitors are more useful as paperweights).

Still, I haven’t heard so much as a peep or a thunder-fart from Ryan in ages. My tummy does a little flip-flop. I’m thinking: “Waa-aait a minute; how long HAS it been since I checked on the kids?”

My insides do a second sickening flip-flop when I peep into Ryan’s bouncy chair. He’s asleep... except that he’s twisted his head at an impossible angle. I’m talking ‘visions of that scene from the Exorcist’ here.

Gulp.

My inner monologue goes something like this: “Okay, calm down, mommy-moo. Is his chest rising and falling? Crap, I don’t know... there are too many blankets. Or is it too many blankets!? Has he been overheating? Have I BOILED my newborn with too much FLUFFINESS!? Okay, okay... I’m just going to give him a little nudge to make him move...”

Poke. Whisper: “Psst, kiddo...” No response; Ryan just lies there not moving a muscle with his neck all bent out of shape.

Inner monologue is now yelling: “FUCK! Where is the Lionheart? Was Travis playing with his brother in the bouncy chair while I was in the study? Has my toddler SNUGGLED his baby brother unconscious? Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap...”

Poke. Poke. And finally, I give Ryan a vigorous shake while saying very loudly: “Ryan, wake up! Wake up little guy!”

A set of dark blue eyes peel themselves open and glare up at me. Did I mention that Ryan has the most impressive “donder-knoppies” I’ve ever seen on a baby? His expression tells me in no uncertain terms: “Mom, we are NOT amused. I was dreaming of BOOBS!”

Travis pops his head out his bedroom door and gives me a similar look.

“Get a grip, Mom, really.”

UPDATE

I forgot to mention that later the same evening, I walked into the kitchen and Travis was curled up into what I call “bunny position” in the middle of the floor.

There was a bacon-flavoured Mini Chedder next to him. Had he choked on a snack? Because who the hell takes a nap in the middle of the kitchen? On a freezing tiled floor? With his arms and legs tucked underneath him like he’s praying in a Buddhist temple?

I KAKKED myself all over again! Turns out, you guessed it, he WAS taking a nap.

The Diaper Consciousness Movement

2011-11-24T11:23:00.001+02:00

I’m dealing with two distinctly different diaper dilemmas...

Ryan has so many newborn-sized bum-huggers that he can poop on the hour, every hour and we’ll never run out! Why do we have so many? It’s because we anticipated the Secrecy Bill being pushed through Parliament on Black Tuesday this week, and have been stockpiling size one nappies in case I’ll be giving birth to the rest of our children from the depths of a pre-1994 concrete bunker.

(You have to be South African, or this will woosh right over your head.)

Also, I’m kidding.

It’s because we scored so many newborn-sized nappies from the kind-hearted peeps at Huggies, at my baby shower and my husband’s nappy party. There’s a teetering stack of them in Ryan’s room; I plum ran out of cupboard space!

The Little Prince is quite a stocky chap. I give it another week before I’m stuck with 200+ teeny weensy disposable nappies that fit him like a ball-crushing European Speedo.

It’s Camp Frugal with the Lionheart’s nappies, though. Last week we finally made the leap from Pampers size 6 (the biggest size nappy you can get in a supermarket) to specialist diapers. And holy pina coladas, not only are they leaky and ill-fitting (Travis looks like he’s smuggling a cocaine-filled stuffed toy across the border – hidden in his pants), but they’re ludicrously expensive too.

Using the mad skills my mom-in-law imparted to me on a recent bulk-buy shopping trip at Trade Centre, I whipped out my calculator at Dis-Chem before we bought the first packet.

That’s right people, Miss I-Suck-With-Numbers did the maths, and it’s not pretty.

Currently we’re paying around R2 a nappy for the Pampers. The MoliCare specialist diapers, which are mid-range in terms of quality, cost around R5 a nappy. And the Tena brand, which is the top-shelf stuff, costs just over R7 a nappy in Trav’s size – which, by the way, Dis-Chem is considering no longer stocking due to low sales.

So you can imagine my horror when, after investing in packet of 30 MoliCare fancypants for Travis – my son unwittingly made a poo in a fresh nappy just 15 minutes after I’d changed his bum.

“No-o-o Travis!” I wailed. “I’ve just changed you! That’s like a R5 poo-poo you’ve just made!”

Think about it: we complain about those public toilets where you have to pay R1 to use the loo. Imagine forking out a R5 coin every time you had to go.

I’m just saying...

So long, and thanks for all the emotional crutches

2011-11-21T07:31:00.001+02:00

Support. It’s a word that burrows into your conversations more often when you find yourself living on the wrong side of the Normality meridian. Like, for instance, when one of your children is born disabled.

“Whoa, did not see that coming...” you’ll say, looking back. In fact, you’ll spend WAY too large a chunk of your time looking back, keeping yourself warm at night with the woulda-coulda-shouldas.

It’s not healthy. You get sucked into your own dark thoughts; worry at them like a puppy gnaws at a chew toy. Before you know it, you’re not only raising a disabled child, you’ve become something of an emotional cripple yourself. How embarrassing.

It’s been almost a month since we brought the Little Prince home from the maternity ward, and our family of three became a family of four. And man, have we been wrung through the wringer! Of course, you guys know all about it because that’s ALL I’ve written about.

My social media streams read like a Latin American soap opera! Ay, caramba!

Thank the Big Guy Upstairs for other people.

For the support.

For my Facebook friends and their virtual hugs.
For the concerned Twitterverse that checks in on me every day.
For the breakfast invites that force me to get my sorry butt out of the house.
For the wonderful, understanding parents and teachers at Trav’s special needs school.
For the texts and phone calls and endless mugs of hot, sweet tea with both sides of the family.
For the small circle of good Samaritans (and a massive donation from Granddad and Nana) who clubbed together to help Travis get his special needs stroller – because up until last week, we had one pram but two kids.

Chicken soup for the soul, that’s what you are.
And I want to be someone’s chicken soup too, dang it!

Back on the market: 1 x shoulder to cry on (slightly soiled in baby vom), 1 x ear to listen with (you may have to shout, I’m getting old)

Because enough about me, let’s talk about you... really.

He who shall not be named

2011-11-19T15:52:00.001+02:00

Travis the Lionheart has amassed a nicklebag of nicknames these last few years.

(That’s right; I invented a collective noun. I figure if a clowder of cats and a murder or crows is legit, why not a nicklebag of nicknames?)

(PS: a ‘nicklebag’ is the Americanised term for a bankie. Yes, a bankie of weed.)

(PPS: It’s fitting because stoners are a group of social misfits who call each other Joint and Woody and Shaggy or that universal umbrella term ‘Bru’.)

ANYHOO.

Here’s an assortment of the endearments I have attached to my first-born: Mr T, Monkey Face, Silly Bear, Honey Bear or just Bear, Travmeister, Travpants, Sweetie-sweeeeetie, Boo-ba-la, Baba-loo, Balleeboo and quite a whack of other nonsense. And, of course, Travis the Lionheart.

It drives my husband bonkers! “His name is not Bear, it’s TRAVIS!” he’ll say to me irritably while I’m cooing over my kid. This, in turn, really yanks my ponytail, because he gets to call Travis ‘sausage’ and always has!

Parenting tip: You don’t want to drop off your kid at the school gates, ruffle his hair and say: “Have an awesome first day... [wait for it]... sausage!” The resulting therapy bills could really lay waste to your retirement plans.

Earlier this week, I’m betting little Ryan would have loved to be called ‘sausage’. Or just be called ANYTHING, frankly. Because for a good 72 hours, the Little Prince was christened ‘the other one’ when in Trav’s earshot.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we weren’t allowed to say the name ‘Ryan’ without Travis unleashing his most ear-disintegrating death-shriek to showcase his annoyance that we would DARE mention that bottle-sucking, rattle-shaking brat in his royal Lionheart’s presence.

So my husband would whisper over Trav’s head: “We need to get ‘that other one’ in the bath soon.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “I’ll get a bottle ready so ‘the other one’ has something to drink after we’ve finished dressing him.”

This while the Lionheart watches us with moooo-cho suspicion from his sentry point next to the washing machine.

It brings new meaning to the term: name-dropping.

The Lionheart: Little Prince: Love ratio

2011-11-14T08:39:00.001+02:00

That Travis is unhappy he’s made abundantly clear.

For the last four days he has sulked in his room, like a sullen teenager, just lying there on the floor or sprawled on his bed, not playing with any of his toys. His shrieking and whining and wailing is a cheese grater that rubs across my eardrums. Our neighbours can hear him. Our neighbours’ neighbours’ neighbours’ can hear him. You can hear his screeching when you drive into our complex! While he is awake, it does not let up, not even for 10 minutes.

On Saturday Travis started projectile-vomiting on cue. After that, he began gnawing on the inside of his cheek – there was so much blood and shredded meat, I feared he would chew a gaping, bloody hole right through his cheek! His left hand is a mess of angry teeth-marks.

On Sunday morning he woke up with the inside of his cheek a painful raw mess, and it hurt to eat. He started screaming on opening his eyes at 6.30am. I had to cancel breakfast with some Twitter mums, when the sweet promise of just getting Out Of The House for an hour or two was the only thing that was keeping me sane. Mercifully, our friends the Rinkens swooped in at 2pm to rescue Ryan from this not-too-tranquil environment, and just like that, Travis grinned like a Cheshire cat for the rest of the afternoon.

Now, my husband and I are not making the rookie mistake of having Ryan in our arms, and thus, in Trav’s face from sun-up to sun-down. We ‘swop’ kids frequently; there’s an equal Lionheart: Little Prince: Love ratio. But there is no reasoning with a cognitively impaired, pissed off four-year-old.

When he’s not injuring himself, Travis is biting and pinching me. Every cuddle is cut off with an abrupt: “Travis, stop PINCHING!” Our household is a symphony of yelling, slamming doors and ugly threats that cannot be unsaid once they’re out.

The sleep deprivation that comes with having a newborn in the house is not helping. It’s not helping us, the parental units, I mean. The only person enjoying a great night’s sleep in this house is Travis. That’s because we’ve taken great care not to screw with his routine.

What keeps me going? The outpouring of love (and often genius advice) from my circle of social media savvy moms... I haven’t even met some of these gals INR (in real life), and yet, they’re there for me at 3am, when I’m caked in baby vomit and tweeting from the depths of our new 70s-style shag-pile carpet in the lounge. (Boy, was that a well-timed purchase.)

Monday morning didn’t get off to a better start. Even though today is “schoolie-school-hooRAY!” the Lionheart yelled and cried, until eventually, after one particularly eina Chinese burn on my arm, I started shouting back. Le sigh. Pre-8am parenting fail: got to be some kind of record.

But I’m not giving up. I WILL find my Zen Mommy. I will joust with the Lionheart. And I will take no prisoners. It’s war! I’m pulling out the big guns: epic snuggles, buckets of McDonald’s chocolate milkshakes, afternoon splashes in the swimming pool.

Everybody. Will. Love. Everybody. Dammit.

PS: I’m taking part in the Bloggers Secret Santa - it’s been suggested by Bronwyn over at Tiny Toes. Sounds like a hoot. I'm going to gift some (unlucky) person with a spectacularly quirky something-under-R100!

Bellybuttons, breast milk and boredom

2011-11-08T16:52:00.000+02:00

The last two weeks have felt like a crazy adventure on that spaceship from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe – the one that’s powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive. Day 13 of having a newborn in the family, and we’re finally achieving ‘normality’ here.

Speaking of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, I have also found these two rules from Douglas Adams rather applicable to raising a little-lee. “Don’t panic!” and “Always know where your towel(ling nappy slash ‘spoegdoek’) is”.

Travis is coming around to this baby brother idea. In the evenings, after he’s slowly-slowly-easy-does-it climbed up onto the couch to sit next to me, he’ll peer curiously across at Ryan in my arms, you know, just from the corner of his eye. When Ryan cries, Travis shoots me this smug look that says: “Babies – bothersome, aren’t they, mom?”

Well, this bouncing bothersome baby now has a beautiful bellybutton. (Say that three times fast!) Ryan’s umbilical cord stump came off a few days ago. I briefly wondered if I should stash it for him in one of the bazillion memory boxes I keep at the top of my closet – and then tried to imagine a scenario in the future where I lovingly hand it over to him where it wasn’t gross and weird.

So yeah, I tossed it.

Another dilemma I’m not finding so easy to make a decision on is this: on my kitchen counter is a box of tablets to dry up my breast milk. This boobie newbie has flaked out. Ryan is pretty much on formula full-time. It could have been the chapped nipples (how often do you get to say that?) or the fact that this voracious boob-sucker mows through his meals like a starving goat. Seriously, Ryan is ALWAYS hungry. 24/7.

So I caved and bought the Nan, dammit.

Now I’m half-heartedly expressing, not really doing anything with the milk. Breast-feeding is such a contentious issue for moms. I’m swinging wildly between “breast is best” and “ditch the guilt, momma bear”. Meanwhile those tablets sit untouched on the counter, like a big box of “FAIL”. I’ll keep you guys posted.

Which brings me to... holy mojitos, I am so bored. When the Lionheart is at nursery school in the mornings and Ryan is conked out in his sleeper cot, I wander around the house. Missionless. I feel like I need to Do Something. But what? Housewifey things like bake soetkoekies or darn socks or whatever it is that stay-at-home moms do. Plan dinner? Paint the baby room? Google pictures of Ryan Gosling shirtless?

The problem with having a home office is this: you are always at the office. I find myself checking my email manically; taking on a small editing job here and there, Facebooking... this is Not Healthy Behaviour for Someone Supposedly on Maternity Leave.

I’m not good at switching off because I’m prepared in case things Go Wrong. I’m on permanent amber alert. So here I sit, typing and tapping my foot impatiently while the minutes tick away until it’s time to run a bath for the Lionheart’s mandated hour-long splashfest. There’s got to be something to do around here!

Riders on the storm

2011-11-07T09:16:00.001+02:00

On Friday morning I chauffeured the Lionheart to school in the race car ya-ya. The sunshine washed over us. The road smelled fresh and tarmac-y after the thunderstorm the night before. The song: Riders on the Storm by The Doors.

Travis and I weaved lazily through the traffic, and robots flicked green to let us glide through unhindered. I wore my oversized too-cool-for-school sunnies like a Hollywood mom; my jeans hung loose around my waist.

“Why, hello there, hip bones! I haven’t seen you guys since my early mid-20s.”

You know how it is, moms. You snatch at these ‘me’ moments with greedy fingers. I played Riders on the Storm on repeat for the entire 11-minute drive to Wiggles and Squiggles and then back again.

Lost in memories, I remembered an after-school house party I snuck out to when I was 15, when we still lived in a sleepy river village (that’s right, I’m not a city mouse). That afternoon we played our Doors CDs to death, and drank sugary blue cocktails out of cans. There was a long-haired boy I’d been crushing on for months, and he held my hand for the first time and we walked down to the river together. And later that evening I vomited blue into a pot plant, which contrasted nicely with my red-cheeked embarrassment. (I was teased mercilessly about that for years afterwards by the boys in my class.)

A memory from Before All This.

Before I became a responsible adult who files her tax returns and pays nursery school fees and has to remember to make appointments for inoculations. Before, when I had no idea that my first-born son would be mentally and physically challenged.

And while Riders of the Storm washed over me in the car, it occurred to me that one day SOON Travis and Ryan will start gathering memories of their own. Memories of their five-year-old selves and their 15-year-old selves and their 25-year-old selves... and there is a great deal I can do to make sure that these are happy memories.

Since my little Friday morning epiphany, when I am up at 2am feeding Ryan and fretting over his ruggle status, or when Travis is shrieking and banging his head into the freezer door, or like right now when it’s taken me an hour to type this blog post using two fingers because I have a (devastatingly cute) newborn in the crook of my other arm...

I hear the opening chords of Riders of the Storm in my head, and the tension goes out of me.

“Take a long holiday... Let your children play....”

Welcome to the tightrope

2011-11-03T13:07:00.000+02:00

I bet you’re all wondering how the Lionheart has been holding up since being assaulted with an unfairly cute, potential ruggle, baby brother a week ago? I’ve been maintaining radio silence on this one, because... it’s been ~~a nightmare~~ ~~a circus~~ challenging and I wanted this particular blog post to be fair to both my kids (but especially to Travis).

It turns out that balancing the affections and attentions of two children is not as simple as it seems. It’s not all “30-minute slot with Kid A” followed by “30-minute slot with Kid B” which, as a Libran, is what I naively assumed dividing myself between raising two tiny souls would be like.

But the Big Guy Upstairs has once again pulled out His giant ‘Life is Unfair’ stamp and gone tha-thunk-tha-thunk with it all over my family.

Here’s the ugly truth in bullet point form (and I’ve felt every bullet wound keenly):

Travis has been a handful. An angry and resentful handful. Sometime he just sits in the middle of the floor and whines. It’s pitiful and it breaks my heart. And on the flip side, it’s also driving us insane.
I’ve tried spending more ‘mommy and me’ time with our Lionheart. But he physically shoves me away from him, which is a dagger in my chest. Dad is having more success, so I’m encouraging it.
You know how it is though: once you yelled “Fine. Be like that!” you resolve to love your kid even more fiercely. So I muscle my way in for a big bear hug, whether Travis likes it or not.
On day 2 of having Ryan home, the Lionheart kicked his newborn brother in the ribs so hard – on purpose – that I feared something was broken. That Travis would do something so malicious was not exactly a shock to me, he pinches and bites and slams his head into the floor when he’s angry, but it was a big wake-up call.
Not many parents will ever be faced with the very real possibility that one of their children might murder-death-kill one of their other children. But we can’t rule it out. And Ryan cannot be left alone with his big brother, not even for a split second.
This (the above) is the hardest thing I have ever had to write about Travis. He does not know his strength. His temper is not under control. He has the weight advantage. My husband and I are charged with the frightening responsibility of making sure that we don’t raise a mentally challenged young man who is prone to violence. We are certainly not the only special needs family going through this.
On a brighter note, Travis, Ryan and I spent a quality half an hour together on my bed in the breezy loft yesterday afternoon. Just the three of us.
The Lionheart actually looked at Ryan, studying his little brother’s face as they lay side by side, and even tried to wriggle Ryan’s dummy out of his mouth. Yes, up until this point, Travis wouldn’t even look at this squawling space invader.
Travis had a great big belly laugh when I pointed out that “Ryan is still a baby; he still sucks on a dum”. This may seem insignificant, but trust me when I say that it was a giant leap forward for ruggle-kind in Trav’s books.
Last night at dinner, someone at the table pointed out: “Travis knows. He knows that something is wrong with him.”
It’s true. This is my worst fear for the Lionheart. That he knows. Could the Big Guy Upstairs be any crueler to this kid?
This morning I spent 20 minutes in the bathroom sobbing and blowing my nose while asking myself” “What have I done? Was having Ryan a mistake? How could I do this to Travis? And dammit, how could I do this to Ryan? Have I screwed up my kids already, before we’re even out of the starting blocks?”
While I fed Ryan a bottle this morning, his left eye went completely squint (exactly the same way that Trav’s does). This set off more sobbing in the bathroom: “Is something wrong with Ryan? Did we miss something? Have I done it again? Do I only make broken babies?”

So, it has been up and down here. Correction: it’s me that’s been up and down, torn between fits of love and guilt for both my boys. As one of my Twitter pals who is also a new mother of two said: “Welcome to the tightrope”.

Midnight express

2011-11-01T08:56:00.000+02:00

Picture this: Ryan and I are released from the hospital (yes, like captives) on Saturday afternoon. Our new four-sized family settles in for our first night together at home, burgeoned by a delicious Woolies butter chicken with microwave veggies and my big bag of pain medication as a crutch. We’re ready. We. Have. Got. This.

At 10pm the Eskom gods snuff out the electricity.

The Lionheart has already been whispered to sleep and is unaware that our neighbourhood has been plunged into that deep blackness that only comes when even the street lights aren’t functioning.

And thankfully Ryan is breastfeeding, and I’m fairly confident that I can pull this off in the dark even though I’m still a boobie newbie. Except my milk bar is so ‘overstocked’ that the kid can’t latch: I need to express and take it down a notch.

The breast pump is still in its box in 99 unfamiliar pieces (a gift from the saint-hearted @anitaboxoza).

Frack.

Camel Man husband leaps to my rescue. Finally, a newborn-related challenge worthy of his mad technical ‘skillz’. Hubby throws open the bedside curtains of our loft to let in as much light as possible... And I’ll be damned if he doesn’t manage to assemble the whole contraption – valves, suction cups, screw-on bits and all – in under 10 minutes. In the dark. Without reading the effing manual. My hero!

So I’m perched on the edge of the bed... expressing... which as you gals know is a most undignified process, what with the loud squelch-squelch-squelch noises. I’m hoping that Eskom doesn’t suddenly turn the power back on, and my next-door neighbours are treated to the alarming sight of me bare-chested under a fluorescent light, with what they’ll probably assume is an exotic sex gizmo attached to my nipple. Assaulting their eyeballs.

But I finish, and am relieved, muchly.

“We did it!” says my triumphant husband. “Let me see that thing again.” I pass him the breast pump for him to tinker with further... and the half-full container of breast milk promptly unscrews itself and falls to splatter all over our terracotta-tiled bedroom floor!

“Lord, could this night get any worse?” he exclaims.

“Well,” I feel compelled to point out. “You could slip in the breast milk and break your coccyx and we’d have to go back to the damn hospital and explain this little comedy.”

So that was our first night back at home with Ryan.

Third day blues

2011-10-29T06:35:00.001+02:00

Woke up this morning feeling stoned. Not flashbacks-of-napalm-in-the-Vietnamese-jungle stoned, just what the hell was in one of the four tablets I dutifully swallowed down last night? As far as I could tell, there was a bright coloured sleeping tablet, blue-and-yellow Synaleve's which I'm given three times a day for pain. Then some kind of muscle relaxant from a Pfizer blister pack, which is also three a day, and lately a brown-and-yellow capsule too, for iron, I think. I haven't downed this many tabs at once since my 48hr hotpants party days in the gay underground in Braamfontein! Enough, I say!

Perhaps I should pocket this morning's pharmaceutical delights in anticipation of the Third Days Blues, which will probably be dropping by later today.

Right now I'm not sure what will trigger the boo-boo hormones. It could be guilt over for my feelings for Ryan, the unfairness of Trav's situation, or just that I miss my husband and feel bad that he's Trav-wrangling solo while I've got my feet up in hospital, with room service to boot!

Complimentary snap of the Little King's post-boob bliss this morning...

Boy meets boy

2011-10-28T21:08:00.001+02:00

Just another post on the run (or to be more accurate, from a hospital bed with a tiny set of gums trying to rip my nipples off).

Travis the Lionheart was wheeled in to meet his baby brother tonight. He wasn't pleased when we took him out of his safe space aka his pram. Hell, hospitals give us all the heebie jeebies!

When we brought Ryan over to the Lionheart, he seemed to notice him right away, and reached across the bed to place his left hand over Ryan's heart. So far, so good... Then he started digging his fingers into Ryan's shirt a little too enthusiastically, so we gently separated them.

And that was it. Travis didn't look at his baby brother again after that, but I'll take indifference over outright rejection, thank you very much.

Still, the whole time the Lionheart was in the room, and wasn't making eye contact with Ryan... he had this shy little smile on his face, his eyes looking up and to his left, which I know means he drank it all in, hanging onto our words.

And I did my best to focus on him, letting my husband snuggle Ryan for the visit (which was a challenge, because our newborn was yelling: "boob, I need more boob - not beardy stubble!"

So it was a start...

All hail the little king...

2011-10-28T08:23:00.001+02:00

VITAL STATS

Ryan Sebastian Venter, born at Flora Clinic in Johannesburg on 27 October 2011 at 7.50am, weighing 3.62kg and measuring 49cm.

Ruggle status: 99% sure
Hair colour: dirty blonde or mousey brown (not sounding very glam that)
Favorite foods: boob milk
Hobbies: staring at mom's face, chewing fist and sleeping.

(Blogging and running before hubby confiscates my phone.)

Letters to Bump: the last one

2011-10-26T21:06:00.002+02:00

Dear Bump

This is the last letter I pen before meeting you in person in... look at that... probably less than 12 hours. I want to write something profound; something that you’ll read when you’re in your 20s that reaches out across time and high fives you!

While you’re young, and making mud pies and skinning your knees, you’ll most likely resent being shackled to a big brother who isn’t nearly the same as everyone else’s. The best gift Travis will ever give you is this: by being so very different, he taught us how to love fiercely, without yardsticks or expectations.

This is how we love you already.
You are soaked to the bone in our affection.
And all you have to do to earn it is to just ‘be’.

Be nothing more and nothing less than who you are, boy or girl, ruggle or no – you don’t have to make up for anything, certainly not because of your brother, and certainly not for our sake.

But be patient with us, we might screw up sometimes. Sadly, it turns out that your dad and I are still human – apparently we don’t get an automatic DNA upgrade in the delivery room with you that makes us evolve into those omnipotent, all-knowing beings called ‘parents’.

(Still, your dad and I have learned some neat tricks that we’ll use to help you juggle through the three-ring circus that is ‘Life’.)

One more sleep, Bump.

We can’t wait to see your face in the morning.

Sausage toes and a perfect 10 shrug

2011-10-25T15:53:00.000+02:00

The Daily Hairball

My last few days of pregnancy and Jozi gets roundhouse-kicked with a heat wave. Lucky me! What was yesterday’s temp? 36 degrees? Good thing I invested in three new pairs of summer sandals to showcase my sexy sausage toes. They look like Fred Flintstone’s.

Because pregnancy is all about the hot momma factor: leaky boobs, skin tags, thunder thighs, clownish maternity wear with bows and polka dots, pigmentation that makes your face looks like a dirty, trolley-pushing street lady’s... My husband must love me dearly to put up with this nine-month transformation from hot girl to gargoyle.

But the end is in sight.
Thursday morning, 5.30am, Flora Clinic labour ward, be there or be square.
We’ll be there.

As will... The Shrug. I’ve spent the whole afternoon working on The Shrug.

It goes like this:

Bump’s room is still just a pile of clothes and furniture? Shrug.
Clever social media plan for posting pics and Tweets of the birth? Shrug.
Haven’t packed my hospital bag or bought any of the items on the list? Shrug.
Baby coming in less than 48 hours and haven’t wrapped up copywriting projects? Shrug.
All three of us have been struck down by killer flu (yup, it just gets better). Shrug. And sniff.

On the bright side, I've booked that Brazilian for tomorrow, in case you hear screams of agony shake the very skyscrapers at around 10am.

A great irony is that Travis was an unplanned pregnancy, but before he was born we had everything prepared: baby room, every brand of dummies and bottles and formulas and nappies, child care books...

Bump is a planned pregnancy, who is being born into... well, it’s like I’m giving birth in the middle of the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

Let’s hope they give me enough Dormican and all those good drugs, that I futterwacken with abandon on the table in the delivery room.

Bump update: Two days until the doc hits the eject button.

Crossing the finish line

2011-10-23T10:24:00.000+02:00

The Daily Hairball

Participation trophies. Celebrating mediocrity. Everyone is a winner.

It’s a load of codswallop. When I became a mother four years ago, I’d imagined one of the big perks would be competing in science fairs, Eisteddfods, or yelling “Go, Travis, ride like the wind!” from the sidelines of dusty motocross tracks.

Competition builds strength of character; it instils a sense of direction, the drive to succeed at what you love: whether it’s your day on the podium or you’re bottom of the log.

So how do I reconcile these feelings...
...with the reality that my first-born is both physically and mentally challenged?

I’ll say this: even though the Big Guy Upstairs and I have become, what’s a good word, somewhat ‘estranged’ since Travis was diagnosed with a brain malformation, I’m aware when my Lionheart is being used as a ‘divine tool’ to re-shape me.

Yesterday was the Wiggles & Squiggles Sports Day.

The Jozi sun beamed down on banners of red, green and blue. The sportsfield smelled like sun-cream and crisps. The grass had been freshly mowed.

Seated on the right-hand side of the stands, the red team families sang: “R-E-D! We are ready, we are ready. R-E-D! We are steady, we are steady. R-E-D! We are go, go, GO!”

I felt like a flipping kid again, man.

It took Travis a while to adjust to the cacophony. After a few races the Lionheart stopped pressing his face into the side of his pram and turned to watch the races with interest. When I judged we’d reached “normality”, I coaxed him out of his safe space and carried him to the Start line to wait our turn to take part in one of the events.

Travis bulleted our first try: the plastic bike race. The next event, dribbling a soccer ball down the short length of the field, was more his kettle of tea.

I braced him under one arm, and Teacher Angie took the other arm, the whistle blew, and off we went! Travis is still miles away from being able to walk unassisted, but between the three of us, and a stand of cheering Wiggles families, we step-wobble-stepped-kicked and got that soccer ball over the finish line.

(The cheers could have also been for me wrestling my mega Bump all the way, too.)

Travis came stone last, scoring the red team only a single point for finishing the race, but jislaaik, the Lionheart was a CHAMPION!

And I wasn’t the only one with a chest puffed with pride. The ruggle siblings took part in some events too, doing a ‘happy dance’ on their strong, nimble legs when they helped score points for their less-able brothers and sisters’ teams.

Wheelchairs and walkers and bracers. Leg splints and orthopaedic shoes and thick spectacles. Pushing themselves to cross that finish line, even if it took all day! Even when the little athletes faltered, the cheering from the stands never did. No one went to get an ice-cream while some kid took agonisingly long to get from one end of the lane to the other.

I saw one girl (a ruggle) from the blue team win her race, and then turn back to help a girl (a lionheart) from the red team cross the finish line.

Waddling back to the car later, clutching Trav’s small prize – yes, everyone got one – I couldn’t help but feel ashamed about my last whiney blog post, where I threw a pity party for myself and my exhausting To Do List before Bump arrives on Thursday.

Because the finish line is in sight, dammit...

Bump update: With four days left on the clock, I’ve finally learned how to steer this bump-mobile! I haven’t accidentally done a belly-print in someone’s jam-and-toast for days.

When the stitches come out

2011-10-20T18:35:00.000+02:00

With only seven sleeps left until Bump arrives, it's time I admit that I've lost control of the situation. This is Bad, because I'm a stiff-necked, carrot-up-my-butt Control Bot. Not the kind that has a slightly erotic relationship with their label machine. I need to be in control of situations. Don't try surprise me with a romantic weekend away... it won't go down the way you'd imagined it.

My usually formiddable time management skills have crumbled. I've tried to squeeze too many writing projects into this short time frame. Deadlines woosh by, and I'm becoming one of Those freelancers. The unreliable ones. It's grating my tits. But I'm soldiering on... up at 5am, typing like a demon.

The race car ya ya was almost repossessed this morning. Another area where I've clearly dropped the ball (long story). Then the Lionheart's school phoned: he'd had a bit of a 'boom' and sliced his head open. Off to the doctor for stitches. Okay, it was just one stitch.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working, trying to get something ANYTHING through to my clients while Bump does his (or her) damndest to shatter my ribs on the right-hand side like toothpicks. Speaking of Bump, this kid still has no room prepared. I haven't packed my hospital bag. Or booked that all-essential Brazilian wax torture session so that some kinky nurse doesn't try shave my nether bits on Thursday.

I have no idea what burn-out feels like, but this must be it. When your fire burns unchecked for too long, and then it... just... burns out. I'm too exhausted to feel tired - does that make sense?

I almost WANT to go into labour just to spend a few hours in a hospital bed with nothing to do but eat those chocolate pudding cups you get for dessert.

But I'm hanging in here because I have a family that needs me. My husband needs me. Travis needs me. (And mommy needs a drink, really she does.)

Whinge-fest over.

Ten fingers and ten toes

2011-10-18T11:31:00.001+02:00

The Daily Hairball

Last check-in with the gynae this morning: with nine days left on the clock, Bump weighs in a 3.5kg (and I weigh in at 79kg, just for the record).

It’s a silly straw to grasp onto – that birth weight is an indicator of good health – but yeah, that is what’s happening here. When the black-and-white sonar scans began revealing that Bump would definitely weigh more than Travis did at birth (2.9kg), at first I felt astonished. And then even disconnected, like: “Who the hell is this stranger in my uterus? Surely this is no genetic offspring of mine?” Those feelings eventually gave way to relief, because at least Bump won’t be a mewling, skinny-limbed, floppy-necked newborn. Walking out the doc’s rooms earlier, I even felt vaguely smug.

We don’t grow no runts here on the West Rand, folks!

Look, Lionheart fans, even though we’ve done the genetic counselling and the tests and the ultra-soopa-mega scans, don’t think we’re expecting a 100% healthy baby to be wrested from my nether regions come next week Thursday. Hope for the best, but expect the worst. We’re already in the 3% club. That’s the club of 3% of South African babies who are born with some kind of defect.

But... it’s looking good. Ten fingers and ten toes kind of good... And you hope, and you hope, and you dream. Just a little. Not too much, because you don’t want to attract the attention of the Universe, who has been known to bitch-slap the occasional dreamer.

Bump update: I feel like a zeppelin. A leaden zeppelin. Definitely not Led Zeppelin - although air guitaring in my present state would make a most hilarious YouTube video. (9 days to go!)

Life in the fast lane

2011-10-17T08:52:00.001+02:00

The Daily Hairball

First of all – regarding this whole boy/girl/giraffe vote I’ve got going on the site... I can’t help but notice that the vast majority of y’all seem to think that Bump is of the ‘sugar and spice and all things nice’ variety. This is HILARIOUS because I’m still convinced that there’s another boy coming (and I finally get my own bathroom, where the toilet seat is not permanently up).

On names, we have: Ryan Sebastian for a boy. Licked. Stamped. Mailed.

We’re still uhming and aahing over the girl’s name. We binned ‘Anastasia’ because we’re not overly fond of calling her Anna for short, so we’ll have to call her ‘Stac’ for short instead: which of course is MY name and makes me look like a pompous donkey. (Funny family story, my dad loves to tease me and say that they were planning on naming me Annapeppalina.)

My husband really liked Rosalie, which was okay with me because I’ll just call her ‘Rose’. Yeah, I’m all about the Golden Girls names: Rose, Joy, Dawn... But I’ve been struck on ‘Lily Grace’ for ages now.

If you’re all right about this girl thing, one of you had better get over to Flora Clinic and distract my husband while I fill in the birth certificate forms!

On the Lionheart front, Travis has left me slack-jawed all weekend. It’s like he’s flipped a switch on somewhere and has decided that big brothers should be able to DO things, like pull himself into a standing position up against the kitchen counter and against the tiled bathroom wall to investigate the towel rack and against the retractable gate at the front door.

On Friday night I had to scrawl the threatening message “Check the counter for knives!” in big black marker above the stove so that we’re all reminded that our four-year-old’s adventurous fingers can now reach new heights.

Lionheart fans know that that our little guy sleeps on ‘ground zero’, with his mattress on the floor. Yesterday my husband installed the wooden bed in his room, and Travis slept blissfully some half-a-metre off the ground. “Yay! You’ve got a big boy bed!” I’d been enthusing all afternoon, while stacking mountains of pillows around the bed. When Travis awoke this morning, he nonchalantly slide bum-first off the side, for a perfect 10 landing and busied himself unpacking his book case.

Little champion.

Speaking of little champions, my fellow preggie fairy over at Life with Luca delivered a healthy, squishy-faced bundle of cuteness this morning. Welcome Mika!

Bump update: I’d fall over forwards if my butt hadn’t gotten so big these last few weeks (10 days to go!)

Three in the bed

2011-10-13T08:38:00.001+02:00

The Daily Hairball

Remember the Marauding Midnight Bum Slider? He’s ba-a-ack!

At 2.30am I heard Travis giggling in his bedroom downstairs, but I’m like a semi-comatose sloth these days after I hit the sack, so I hit my mental snooze button. Then 15 minutes later I listened to him slide his buns out of bed (I can hear the shloof-shloof sound of his pyjama pants dragging through the fur pile of his carpet), and start unpacking his bookcase – in the dark.

Okay cool, little man... whatever. Bang the mental snooze button again.

It was at 3am, when I identified the sound of the freezer door being cracked open that I swung my feet over the edge of the bed, and shuffled-grunted-waddled-limped my way down the stairs to take my toddler into custody. Travis adores hanging out in the below-zero climes of the open freezer! Problem is that eventually the ice begins to melt, and he’s left sitting in a pool of ice-water. Which is why the freezer door is usually secured with a piece of black insulation tape! Clearly not last night though.

So we were three in the bed at 3am. And the cheeky Lionheart had me massaging his feet under the blankets for an hour before he fell asleep.

Needless to say, I feel like the bride of Frankenstein this morning. Please let this not be the start of another Midnight Bum-sliding cycle. With Bump on the way in a few days, this could be setting the stage for my first complete mental breakdown.

Bump update: Perhaps if I ignore this belly it’ll just go away. Don’t look down, DON’T LOOK DOWN! Damn, I looked... (14 days to go!)

Shameless nanny thieves

2011-10-12T08:53:00.001+02:00

The Daily Hairball

It’s ‘Did You Know’ day!

Here’s an interesting factoid about special needs moms. You know, those saintly ladies with halos around our heads that gaze benevolently out at you from behind the mini-wheelchairs and steel-frame walkers.

We will fleece you of your five-star star nanny so fast, it’s like you’ve just had an encounter with Mr Accidental Boob Graze at the office!

A really good caregiver is a treasure on the special needs market. Sure, you get live-in au pairs that have been specially trained to work with disabled children, but man, are they expensive. And we’re already tapped-out with school fees, therapy costs and medical bills.

Saint Irene has been with us since before Travis was diagnosed, so she’s evolved over the years from a regular nanny with basic first aid training to a bona fide special needs caregiver. Irene has walked every step of this rock-strewn narrow road with us.

Her experience with Travis is priceless. Well, not exactly – there is a price tag. Obviously I compensate her well above the norm for her patience and skill, because having her as part of our family is a privilege that I don’t take for granted.

But I’m always aware that there are other special needs families that are better off than we are, and who could be in need of extra help. Most likely, it’ll be a mom who has a disabled child that’s very similar to Travis in ability and temperament... because that’s how it works: it has to be the right type of caregiver for the right kid. Like matching socks...

It’s needle-in-a-haystack stuff, finding a Saint Irene for your special kid.

GRRRRROWL!
That is all.

Bump update: My belly now bulges out of the bottom of my maternity tops too... it ain’t pretty, folks (15 days to go!)

Nope, that’s just a snack

2011-10-10T11:55:00.000+02:00

The Daily Hairball

I’ve been editing in-house at a magazine for the last few weeks on a freelance basis. It’s a good way to build up the cash reserves before The Big Arrival. And building up reserves is something I know plenty about. I’ve been carbo-loading for days!

I stopped in at one of those quickie shops at a petrol station on my way in to “the office”. There is a canteen in the building where I’m working, but I’ve learned to come armed with extra snacks (and my red fineliner and a sense of humour).

I handed over my slave money for two Black Cat Peanut Butter booster bars, one Niki Coconut Cluster chocolate bar, a large packet of smoked beef crisps and one litre of Coke Zero. On my way out the shop, I politely stepped aside to let some guy squeeze past me.

“Thanks!” he said, and then blinked down at the planet-sized sphere that is home to Bump. Then he patted me on the shoulder, and blurted: “Shame, man.”

Yeah. That really happened.

Bump update: I’m slowly evolving into a zeppelin. A waddling zeppelin… (17 days to go!)

An only child (for now)

2011-10-09T09:48:00.001+02:00

The Daily Hairball: Saturday edition

I am crazy in love with Travis today. This morning at 6am I crawled under his stripy duvet with him and we snuggled fiercely for 45 minutes. Then we spent an hour in the swimming pool splashing and rescued two waterlogged butterflies. We’ve just shared a bowl of ice-cream and chocolate sauce.

It’s not even noon yet.

Forgive me, Bump, for lavishing so much attention on your big brother. It’s not that I’m not excited to meet you. It’s just... complicated.

What if Travis forgets how much he means to me? For four years now, he and I have shared something... rare. It’s not your vanilla mother-and-first-born-son experience. Hell, it’s not even rum ’n raisin. He’s my silly bear, my monkey face, my boo-bah-la. The stuffed toy that’s missing an eye and the stitching has come loose, and I’ll KILL anyone for even suggesting I throw away.

(Keep a lid on that ‘boo-bah-la’ thing, okay).

Travis and I get to spend the whole Saturday together, because my husband has the small business of a nappy party to attend to. It’s a quaint social custom in our circle where, for the entrance fee of a packet of Pampers, the men get to practice drunken cannonballs into the pool, do upside-down beer funnels and vomit up their boerrie rolls.

In light of this, tomorrow is officially Hangover Sunday.

Bump update: Did I say the size of a beach ball? I meant ‘exercise ball’... you know those giant ones that some smarmy people take to the office and sit on instead of an office chair (19 days to go!)

Braxton tricks

2011-10-07T10:56:00.001+02:00

The Daily Hairball

Since finding out that Bump is going to be significantly bigger than Travis was at birth (Trav weighed 2.9kg at birth, Bump passed 3kg a week ago), every twinge and spasm I’ve had in the vicinity of my belly has raised alarm bells... you know, just in case this wriggly piglet has decided to drop out of my nether regions early.

Yeah, yeah – roll your eyes heavenwards. I may as well be a jittery first-time mom.

My gynae, of he of the extremely small hands and spectacles, tells me that Bump is a textbook pregnancy. This is a family of Lionhearts, though... we tossed the textbooks after Travis was diagnosed. Now I find myself feverishly paging through baby magazines and browsing pregnancy websites for clues as to what’s (and you know how I hate this word) “normal”.

Which is how I came to Google: “What do contractions feel like?”

Long story short, there’s no textbook answer for this one. Some women say it starts out as back ache. Other say it’s more like a rippling spasm that starts low down in your abdomen and works its way up past your navel. This sounds a lot like the pain (just the one) I felt on Friday night and then again twice last night. Personally, I always imagined it would be like severe period pains.

We’re cool customers, though. We haven’t pulled a ‘Hollywood’ and rushed into an emergency room, me in a wheelchair, wailing dramatically and gushing amniotic fluid yet – so far, so good.

The caesarean is scheduled for Thursday 27 October (39 weeks, 4 days), sometime in the afternoon. Hang in there Bump; mommy has a lot on her plate right now!

Bump update: we’ve zoomed past ‘watermelon’ and are fast approaching ‘beach ball’ (20 days to go!)

Shitake mushrooms! Fudge sticks!

2011-10-06T08:48:00.000+02:00

The Daily Hairball

And October marches on relentlessly!

The stork will be crash-landing into our lives in three weeks. So far, Bump’s “bedroom” is a 2.5m x 3.5m demarcated area in our loft, next to the staircase. If it wasn’t for the teetering piles of teeny weeny clothes, baby products and stockpile of nappies, you’d never know a newborn is about to take up residence there. Randomly, the main attraction in Bump’s bedroom is a metal stepladder that goes up into the ceiling where the household geyser is. Not sounding very cosy, eh?

Shitake mushrooms! Fudge sticks!
Oh, fuck this cutting down on swearing. I need the comfort of four-letter words right now.

This is the difference between first and second-borns. The night before Travis was delivered we’d had a beautifully colour-coordinated room ready for him. Painted in powder blue; matching carpet. Shelves loving installed, packed with teddies and remote-control cars. We didn’t realise he’d spend the first few weeks of his life in a camp-cot at the foot of our bed.

Speaking of the Lionheart...

We accidentally ran out of Trav’s behavioural meds, Risperdal. He missed three doses. Now, if you’ve ever taken some kind of anti-depressant or perhaps epilepsy medication, you’d know that withdrawal is not pretty. This poor kid hung in there like a champion until I raced home at 5.30pm yesterday, clutching his refilled script and a till slip for R493 (our medical aid refuses to class the Risperdal as chronic). Let’s not let that happen again, folks.

So yes, basically, it’s chaos here. Ground zero.

I envy moms who get four months’ paid maternity leave.

Bump update: we’ve upgraded from ‘basketball’ to ‘watermelon’ (21 days to go!)

Oodles of doodles

2011-10-05T13:01:00.001+02:00

The Daily Hairball

“What the flagnog?” My Thought2Text Translator Mabobble (patent pending) appears to be broken, and I can’t squeeze a decent post out. Like licking cookie batter off the beaters, writing blog posts is something I like to take my time over. You know, spin a little yarn for the Lionheart fans. Made with love, and all that…

But time is not something I have in abundance lately. Heartburn, yes. Hormone-fuelled tantrums, yes. But not much time for yarn-spinning.

So for the next few weeks, as I prepare to launch Bump into the world, and perhaps for a few weeks after that too… I’m giving you The Daily Hairball. Where I cough up a quick snippet of what’s happening at Castle Lionheart, without fussing too much about crazy metaphors and making funnies and punchy endings.

Today’s snippet: This morning I started teaching Travis how to use our new Lenovo IdeaPad (for non-techies, it’s like an iPad, but runs on Android). Realistically, our boy will never speak, and I have serious doubts that he’ll ever learn to read. But there is a very real chance that he could learn to interact with this touch-screen tablet.

I’m kicking off with the Drawing tool, which is basically a giant electronic sketchpad. All he has to do it pick a coloured pencil from the virtual pencil box, and swipe his fingertips across the display to draw. Sound simple? Oh no no no no.

First, I have to control my urge not to snatch at the (fucking expensive) IdeaPad when Travis yanks it from my grip to put it on his own lap. He’s also rather partial to licking the screen. Eeek! Remember, Travis has below-average fine motor skills and cognitive ability. It’s slow going and he’s still learning basic cause-and-effect.

After 30 mins my oodles of patience were rewarded with Picasso-like doodles and a chuffed sketch artist. Gold star, Travis!

There must be a way I can export one of his sketches to the blog…

Bump update: it looks like my bellybutton inhaled a basketball (22 days to go!)

Creepy stunt babies

2011-09-28T09:07:00.002+02:00

When I was an impressionable kiddiewinkle, a school friend (read: stinky boy) told me about a scene from one of the Child’s Play movies: Chucky, the demon-possessed doll, hides under the bed and then slashes the victim’s Achilles tendons with a scalpel.

Now, I’ve never actually watched any of these horror movies myself (Gremlins literally - and I know what literally means - made me wet my bed for months afterwards). But today I’m a 30-year-old woman married to an obelisk of a man, and I still flick off the light switch at the bedroom door, and take a running leap to jump on the bed. You know, just in case there’s a slasher doll lurking.

Yeah.

Also, my mom made hand-painted porcelain dolls when I was a teenager. She had a good eye for painting very lifelike faces on their delicate faces. They were arranged in sociable cliques throughout our house, and when the lights went out... they scared the pants off me.

You try sneaking back into the house at 3am, tipsy on Sowetan Toilets and other silly shooters you only drink when you’re 15; your every move being watched by the freakish, frozen faces of those damnable dolls. “Did that one just blink? It blinked! It BLINKED at me...”

This does not bode well if Bump is a girl, and our townhouse is invaded by creepy dollies. One’s just moved in, actually.

Meet the stunt baby – imaginatively named: “Baby”.

"I'm going to eat your brains!"

As we’ve now got four weeks to go until the cries of a newborn once again echo through our badly sound-proofed home, it’s time for Travis the Lionheart to get used to the idea that he’ll be sharing his space with another person.

In a perfect world, we’d know by now if Bump is a baby brother or sister, so that we could give Baby an actual name and dress it’s delicious-smelling plastic parts in gender-appropriate attire. (Have you smelled these plastic dolls? I swear they are vanilla-scented. Seriously, sniff your kid’s dolls! It’s not weird.)

Anyway, we had to be a bunch of smart-asses, so we’re sticking out this “we’re not finding out the sex” gig until all is revealed in the delivery room.

In the meantime, Baby is in Trav’s ~~face~~ space.

It sits on my lap while I’m (still) spoon-feeding him supper. It sits on the couch with us. It doesn’t go in the bath-tub, because I didn’t think to make sure that Baby doesn’t have a cloth body. Just as well that it does, because the banner at the top of this blog clearly says: “There’s a Lionheart in our Bath Tub!” and not “There’s a Lionheart and a Stunt Baby in our Bath Tub.”

Travis alternated between making soft cooing noises and licking its face, to swinging it around by its arm, gouging at its eyes and smacking it upside the head.

Not good.

So we’re doing a little behaviour programming for the next few weeks: “Gently with the baby” and “Softly with the baby” and “For goodness sake, Travis! Stop licking the baby!”

On a creepy side note: My nightly ritual of seven waddling trips to the loo and two midnight snacks is now being watched closely by fake plastic eyes. *Shivers*

Travis goes cold turkey

2011-09-24T18:19:00.002+02:00

Here’s a milestone you won’t find in Dr Miriam Stoppard’s baby books: at the age of four years and 23 days, Travis finally went cold turkey on his bottles.

It took almost 72 hours of head-scratching before I figured out what the blazes is going on.

“What’s up, buddy? Is your formula tasting weird? Maybe it was just a funny batch from the factory... What, no Milo either? Tea? Oros? Shot of caramel vodka? Just kidding about that last one – that’s for mommy when she’s wheeled out the exit of the delivery room with the new baby.”

Ditching his Avent bottles and their well-chewed teats has been a long time coming. They’ve been washed and sterilised a bazillion times these last four years. The plastic’s gone milky and you have to squint your eyes like a drunken pirate to see the measurements, which wore off back in 2009. Not that we still bother with such-and-such many scoops and what-not anymore.

Travis bulleted bottle after bottle, until eventually... ‘click’... a light bulb flickered on above my noggin. Could it be? I decanted my latest offering to the all-powerful Lionheart, a very humble 360ml bottle of Milo, into a coffee mug, and... ta-dah!

Of course, Travis waited patiently until I’d forked out 200 bucks on new Avent teats, and only THEN decided that he’s switching to a Big Boy Cup, thank you very much.

I’d also like to point out that Travis doesn’t actually hold his Big Boy Cup himself. Oh no no no no... This menial task has been delegated to a ~~slave~~ parent. First thing in the morning, at snack time and bed time, we’ve had to pencil an extra 15 mins into each routine for the sole purpose of holding a mug ready while his royal highness takes sips from it.

Our toddler doesn’t deign to touch food, remember. I used to think it was because the textures freaked out his fingertips, but nope – we’ve just been suckered into hand-feeding Travis all these years. Example A: this week at school, Travis reaches into his lunch box, takes out a bacon Tuc biscuit, WITH HIS FINGERS, and passes it to his teacher so that she can feed it to him bite by bite.

The irony is completely lost on him.

“Um. You know you just touched your food, kid? With your actual fingertips. They made actual contact with a biscuit. Yes, a biscuit is very much classified as actual food.”

We have been so exquisitely manipulated by our special needs toddler. We screwed up right from the start with the finger-feeding. We’d slide a Tupperware containing all his favourite treats in front of him. Flings! Viennas! Juicy Jellies!

He refused to touch so much as a morsel with his hands. And we refused to help him get said morsels from the bowl to his mouth. It became a Mexican stand-off. Then Travis lets loose with that particularly deadly screech he saves for special occasions, the one that strips your eardrums raw.

After enduring half an hour of this gut-twisting torture, I plug his yap up with a Juicy Jelly... and... the little punk has won. Now Travis is four years old, finally drinking from a Big Boy Cup (yay!) that mom has to hold for him (boo!).

PS: I sense another stand-off coming on, gunslingers.
PPS: I'm still proud of you, monkey face!

Hands, knees, heels and elbows

2011-09-18T08:57:00.001+02:00

You know that iconic scene in Alien, where one of the spaceship’s crew is thrashing in agony on the metal table in the medical bay, and a baby alien bursts through the centre of his chest in a spray of blood, gnashing its vicious little teeth?

That could happen ANY MINUTE now to me.

Bump is attempting a world record: ‘First Baby to Punch its Way out of the Womb’.

Picture this: couple of weeks ago I’m up on stage with five other ladies, being interviewed for a ‘Women in IT’ live debate. I’m yammering away about Twitiquette, when I notice that one of the guests seated at a table close to the stage was riveted by my...

...freakish pregnant belly, which was rippling in a most alarming manner as Bump practised a dramatic three-point turn!

“Attention, tenant currently occupying my womb: keep your bloody elbows tucked in!” This is me directing my thoughts inwards, you know, like the baby books tell you to.

With less than 40 days until the Big Pop, I feel like I’m going to give birth to a gawky teenager, not a newborn baby. It’s all “hands, knees, heels and elbows,” like that old jingle for Ingram’s camphor cream.

“Aren’t you uncomfortable?” asks my gynae at my 32-slash-33-week scan on Tuesday.

“Well, I guess I’m still not hundreds sharing a dark room with a be-spectacled stranger with oddly small hands, one of which is currently squeezing lubricant onto my nether regions...” I’m thinking.

But what I actually say is: “How so?”

Long story short, turns out that Bump has positioned himself* so that he’s still head-down, but facing outwards, so that my belly button and rib-cage have become part of his womb dojo, where he’s working towards a black belt in tae kwon do!

Lucky mommy.

So here’s to five more weeks’ of awkward encounters across boardroom tables, at client’s offices and while schmoozing at press functions. Because there are so few opportunities in life when you can break the ice by saying: “Hey guys, remember that scene from Alien? Well CHECK this shit out!”

* I can’t shake the feeling these last few weeks that we’re having another boy, but that’s a blog post for another time...

A couch on the sidelines

2011-09-12T20:27:00.004+02:00

With the Rugby World Cup hogging the remote for the next couple of weeks, now would be a good time to report from the sidelines.

The Lionhearts are used to being benched. We’re a family with special needs, so just a lusty “Go Bokke!” has Travis klapping his hands over his ears in terror and us fumbling for the car keys.

Our friends have blessed us with one helluva comfortable bench, though. In fact, it’s a couch! Let me explain…

Mandy and Jann aka the Drinkens (okay, they’re really called the Rinkens) are our best friends in the whole world. When we come over, like this Saturday for the annual Spring Day Splashfest where we all jump off the rockery into the swimming pool, they drag a couch onto the patio just for Travis the Lionheart. You read right: they take their flipping couch into the garden for us!

Despite that my husband and I come standard with a ticking time-bomb of a toddler, batteries included, the Rinkens still invite us to birthday parties, Sunday lunches and celebrations like this weekend’s compulsory cannonball into their pool.

Problem is: a couple of hours into a visit, I’ll say: “Pass the potatoes” and Travis will start screeching like my race car ya-ya’s brakes, which incidentally, I need to replace soon before I careen off the highway. But back on track: then I’ll be forced to excuse myself to a quieter room, usually the lounge, where I’ll settle on the couch and attempt to soothe the spiky bristles of my lion cub.

And that’s how the Rinkens’ couch has been officially endorsed by Travis as a Happy Place. And Mandy, bless her, cottoned onto this – and now the couch gets dragged out, Friends style, when we visit!

And I get to enjoy delicious, supersized conversations with real adults, at a genuine social gathering, just like a regular human ‘bean’ (as the Big Friendly Giant, would say).

Friendships are food for the soul.

So often, after you’ve tied the knot with your soul mate, that person becomes your best friend; your proverbial mac-and-cheese. (This is just one of the reasons you pick up weight after the wedding; your soul becomes a piggy wiggy.)

Your other friendships fizzle out over time… Come on ladies, you know it’s true.

This weekend, however, was an all-you-can-eat buffet of laughter and great company. We were invited to a ‘thanksgiving breakfast’ for my friend (and hero) Margot’s son Richie, who is the littlest Lionheart. Then we were off to the Spring Day swim party at the Rinkens, and on Sunday we nipped over to Devon and Farrah’s house, for some bacon, eggs and Springbok vs Wales.

My point is: even though it can sometimes be downright unpleasant to include us on the guestlist, what with Travis and his outbursts, and me looking grim-faced and grinding my teeth in all the photos as a result, we still get invited.

Our friends have never given up on us, even if for the most part, we can only take part from the sidelines. Isn’t that something?

PS: this one’s for you, Bump. I somehow stuffed my lady lumps into a leopard-print bikini on Saturday, and jumped off a rock, into the swimming pool. The splash was spectacular... as it should be when a hippo-sized, 32 weeks' pregnant lady leaps into the water. Let it not be said that your mom is not without a healthy sense of the ridiculous.

Where have we been? I'll TELL you where we've been...

2011-09-08T15:25:00.002+02:00

It’s been a dog’s breakfast at the Lionheart residence since approximately midnight on Friday. The universe has napalmed the crap out of our family. Quite literally.

The weapon of mass destruction? Gastroenteritis.

And you know what’s cruel (and listen up here, because this is a life lesson, y’all): The world has REFUSED to stop turning since we’ve all taken so ill. This is what is popularly referred to as an ‘inconvenient truth’.

When you’re a kid, and your tummy hurts, quick-as-a-wink Mom picks you up from sick bay at school, and has you cocooned in your favourite blankie at home, a Disney movie on in the background while she lovingly grates you an apple.

Except now I AM the mommy. (And I’m still waiting for my frigging bowl of grated apple!)

In the interests of filling the gaps these last few days I haven’t been blogging:

My husband was the first casualty of war, and frankly deserves a Purple Heart and a couple of Vietnamese hookers for his heroics these last few days.

On Saturday, despite being up since 4am and christening several racetracks, petrol station restrooms, and practically taking out timeshare in the bogs of the bar where he was competing in a darts tournament – my husband had no alternative but to soldier on and meet his commitments for the day.

Still, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that by Saturday afternoon, on the homefront, the Lionheart had also been struck down. On the plus side, after eight loads of washing, and running out of PJs and pillow slips, I’ve now managed to teach Travis a new trick: how to vomit into a plastic ice-cream tub.

By Monday, we were (ahem) up shit creek without a paddle. We had no choice but to pack the Lionheart off to school, as his nanny (as if she has some kind of crystal ball or something) had asked for the day off, and both my husband and I were working full-day at clients.

By noon, my husband had to excuse himself from work to fetch a very miserable Travis from school. And just on a side-note here: in a male-dominated work environment, you lose MAJOR dick-swinging-in-the-boardroom points if you have to take the afternoon off to babysit your sick child.

If you’ve met my other half, you’ll know he’s Camel man incarnate. He’ll change your car’s oil. He’ll install your Dstv. He’ll takes his rump steaks SERIOUSLY.

But when someone within six feet of him blows chunks, that’s it. He has to bolt from the room before he follows suit! Travis chose Monday afternoon to forever cure this apparent chink in his father’s armour, and turned his digestive system into a musical fountain of diarrhoea and bile.

Husband phones me at 6pm, after he’s put Travis in the bathtub for the fifth time, to wash the puke out of his hair, as he doesn't know the vomit-in-the-ice-cream-tub trick yet. Anyway, I start freaking out! I’m seeing emergency rooms, needles, intravenous drips… (Keep in mind I’ve been at my client’s office in Sandton this whole time, and am scheduled to be editing copy there until the magazine goes to print at 10pm that night.)

By 7pm I’ve managed to slink out early, and race home. I’m hoping some Metro cop will have the balls to pull me over to, so that I can point to my 32-week-pregnant belly and go: “Where the @#%$; do you THINK I am rushing to in such a hurry?”

The Lionheart is looking rather chipper after I screech into the driveway, so we decide not to take him to hospital. We settle in for night three of zero sleep, as Travis battles stomach cramps and dehydration. Thankfully, by now my husband is on the mend.

But the universe is not done with us. Oh no.

Nursing bleary eyes and bruised careers, Wednesday morning dawns and… ta-dah… now I’ve caught the gastro! And I've just booked a brand-new client for the day, who I'd like to impress. And I'm not allowed to take any meds. And we’d eaten Durban curry the night before. That is all.

Regular blogging, hopefully on a non-toilet related topic, should resume in the next day or two.

Check out the wheels on this bad boy!

2011-09-01T22:01:00.004+02:00

Examine the side of the passenger seat in my husband’s car, and you’ll probably find the crescent-shaped indents of my fingernails. This is not a reflection of my husband’s driving (although let’s be fair, he spends every weekend at a racetrack happily eating red dust and timing motorsports for a living).

Rather, it’s my mortal fear of these dang-fangled death vehicles. It took 22 driving lessons and three tries before I got my driver’s licence... That said, the less I know about anything with wheels, the better.

(I know: NO COOKING CLUE why he married me either.)

Which is why, when we were expecting Travis, it was the husband’s job to source the Perfect Pram. This dedicated motorhead spent hours researching: “Which brand has the highest safety rating?” and “Will it fit in the car boot?” and “While we’re at it, Stacey probably needs a proper soccer mom car now”.

Enter our fancy-pants Peg Perego pram (and my red Honda Jazz, better known on this blog as the Race Car Ya-Ya because it had “large fuzzy dice hanging like testicles from the rear-view mirror”; but that’s another story).

First-time parents equal ‘schmucks with bucks’.

Now I know that any flipping pram is okay to transport a baby around, even a R999 cheapie with plastic wheels. Second-hand pram that still has orange Cheese Twirls mashed into it? Even better! Because it only needs to last a whole 12 months until your kid figures out, Flintstone-style, that feet are a much preferable mode of transport. Then you flog it on Gumtree.

At least, that’s what happens to most ruggle prams.

Our Lionheart has been squishing his 20kg frame into that Peg Perego for four years now. Travis looks like an overweight auntie crammed into an airplane seat in economy class – tight. His feet will soon drag on the floor! Plus, our Bump’s going to need a set of wheels, and in true second-child fashion has been allocated the hand-me-down pram.

So now “she who can't tell a Tata from a Toyota” has been scouring the interwebs looking for a stroller that’ll take a kid who weighs more than 20kg. I’d heard whisperings of a magical Maclaren pram, made especially for special needs kids, but I’d be damned if the Google trolls would spit it out for me. But lo and behold, tonight, I found it!

*excuse me while I slip into my glittering showroom babe dress that my boobs occasionally pop out of*

Introducing the Maclaren Major Elite! Lightweight and made with reinforced, uh, pram-making materials, this zippy one-seater takes up to 50kgs! Gasp! And look how high the seat is off the ground. No more dragging your heels in the mall, young man.

And how much for this bad boy? A mere R3999, without accessories like the retractable shade netting, cup-holders, Bang & Olufsen sound and a disco ball.

So after learning that First Time Parenting lesson that a pram-is-a-pram-is-a-bloody-pram, it turns out that we learned it for nothing, because we’ll still have to fork out the big bucks for ANOTHER fancy-pants pram until our Lionheart learns to walk unassisted.

“Dear Santa, I’d be ever so grateful if you could squeeze one of these down our chimney for Christmas. I make a mean mince pie!”

Tell me another one

2011-08-31T09:49:00.006+02:00

“You’re only as weird as the down syndrome kid who just shat himself you’re feeling.”

Look, admittedly I’m a grumpy troll until I’ve had that first sip of caffeine in the morning – but when I read this on Twitter just now, a small Hiroshima exploded inside my skull!

You need bring out the equivalent of an electric cattleprod to get me riled up about this, because frankly, I still have a laugh when someone tells a joke about the disabled.

Sure, my toddler is (what’s the un-PC word here?) brain-damaged. He can’t walk; he can’t talk; he’s no Einstein... but 99% of the time, as a family, we’re cool about it. In fact, there are those two characters in South Park, Timmy in his wheelchair who yells “TIMMMY!” and Jimmy, who uses crutches and stammers: they make my ribcage ache and cooldrink spray out my nose, I’ve laughed so hard.

Let me paint a common scenario: Some nights we’re having a boerrie roll and a beer, standing around the fire with our mates, and some guy (you know, there’s always that one dude at a party whose social crutch is ‘Jokes’) will chuckle: “What’s the opposite of Christopher Reeve? Christopher Walken!”

All eyes swivel nervously in my direction.

I laugh. Okay, maybe I laugh a little TOO loud, but that’s only because I’ve been put on the spot. And then you’ll see someone quietly pull the joke-teller aside, who will glance over his shoulder at me, cheeks a’flame and mortified.

By this point, I’m feeling terrible. Now the ‘I’ve Got Jokes’ Guy has lost five points in social status for the evening, and due to his new lower rank, will have to make salads in the kitchen with the chicks for the rest of the night.

Having a child with special needs is a square-dance of emotions: grief, anger, disappointment, and guilt. But you may be surprised that there are times that I feel... apologetic.

Like: “I’m so sorry no one feels comfortable telling disabled jokes around me anymore.”

But. Not. Today. Dorris.

I will spend the rest of this morning making a voodoo doll in the likeness of said offensive Twit’s profile picture, and then attack it with a melon-baller. Because if you’re going to make a joke at the expense of kids with Down Syndrome, it had better be five-star funny. Or at least clever.

Hormone-fueled rant, over and out.

The annual Lionheart birthday debrief sessions

2011-08-30T11:32:00.001+02:00

After returning from the birthday trenches, that rumbling battlefront where boys become, well, a year older, and parents throw credit cards like hand grenades in desperate self-defence – it’s considered good strategy to retire to the war room for a debrief and a stiff drink.

LESSONS LEARNED

Before I’m struck down by lightning, I’d like to retract my statement that you can organise a kiddie party over the phone in 60 minutes. You can’t.
Nedbank’s cheque cards are made with superior materials, because science assures me that any square of plastic that was swiped through a card machine with that frequency and velocity over the weekend should have melted.
The Big Guy Upstairs occasionally rents out His angels for a good cause. Mine looked a lot like my mother-in-law, and she winged in from the heavens on the Saturday morning, where I collected her from Arrivals at OR Tambo International. Bless!
Usually guests leave the Lionheart’s party with three things: a packet crammed with tartrazine, that ‘nice one!’ feeling you get when you do a good deed – like sing happy birthday to a disabled kid... and the first sunburn of the season. This year, it was just the first two, because the weather was kak. Though it did clear up nicely later.
Kindly old ladies on pension rule at making birthday cakes. See exhibit A below.
When you’re 31 weeks’ pregnant, there’s no way you can blow up two packets of balloons in the last 10 minutes of set-up time before the guests arrive. (But it was hilarious to watch me try!)
When you order 20 party buckets, 23 kids will arrive. This is Mother Nature’s survival of the fittest rule in action. Mysteriously, we still came home with five buckets.
There’s always that one kid who insists on eating the birthday boy’s name off the cake. It’s weird. Also on birthday cakes, you can never have enough bedazzle-type stuff glued on with plastic icing. “I want a Nemo!” and “I want a shell!” and “I want a piece of seaweed.”
By the power vested in me, I hereby declare Friday nights to officially be Prego Roll Night at our place, until 4 November – which is ten Fridays away. (We exited the party with 40 spare prego steaks, and almost as many bread rolls.)
Last but not least... “Nailed it!”
PS: best caption for the very last photo wins, um, the loudest LOL?

Stop. Pause. Engage.

2011-08-28T06:07:00.000+02:00

Before the sun rises on the Lionheart's birthday every August 28, I always try to steal a minute to remember, in as much detail as possible, that marvelous moment he was born.

2007, Parklane Maternity Hospital, somewhere around 9am, it was a Tuesday:
The doctors were discussing their holiday golfing plans, while I watched as they made the incision in my abdomen, in the reflection of the surgery lights.

Amniotic fluid gushed out, a hand reached in, hooked around... and a tiny pair of buttocks emerged, followed by a ball of tightly clenched arms, elbows, knees and legs. Bum first into the world!

"Meet your son!" says one of the doctors, popping your head above the curtain of sheeting that's between me and the action happening at my nether regions.

And it's you, Travis. Looking at your face for the first time, something inside my chest calls out: "I know you! I have always known you!"

And then... Roooaaaar! Your first breath. Your father whispers in my ear: "He's perfect."

Happy birthday, my lionhearted miracle. x

Wa winna wena!

2011-08-27T09:36:00.004+02:00

Yesterday was a Hollywood blockbuster of a day.

My hairier, but considerably less flabbier half is away timing a racing event near Vredefort. Although I have no idea where this town is, I could probably point it out on Google Maps’ satellite view because it’s the largest meteor impact site in the world. (This makes me think that the Big Guy Upstairs is not a fan of the sweet cacophony that is boereorkes music.)

Travis was five minutes late for school: fail. Then I went into the Plastic Warehouse for decorations for the Lionheart’s Under the Sea birthday party on Sunday, filled a very budget-conscious shopping basket, and had to leave it with security... while I went to retrieve my purse, which was still on the kitchen counter... at home.

About this time my iPhone started bleeping at me, which I ignored because I was racing back home like the Stieg who’d had an extra spicy lamb vindaloo the night before.

And the bleeps got more and more insistent. In my driveway, I checked – and there were emails and Facebook notifications and Tweets and texts, all saying: “Congratulations!”

Kidzworld had announced that the Lionheart blog has won the “SA’s Best Mommy Blogger of 2011” award!

While dashing back to the Plastic Warehouse to sheepishly collect the decorations, then to Macro for softdrinks and crisps, then to Fruit & Veg City to order Portuguese rolls for the party, then to our butcher (who wanted to charge me just over 1000 smackeroos for marinated prego steaklets), then back to Fruit & Veg City who gave me a better price on the prego meat, then to Wiggles & Squiggles to collect the Lionheart from school...

... deep breath... jislaaik, it was exhausting just typing that out... also, I wasn't so much as dashing between shops as I was waddling... like a woman who's giving birth in eight weeks from now!

It sunk in. It’s not that I’m the best mommy blogger. Spoiler alert: it’s about to get smooshy here. It’s that my husband and I have the honour of raising South Africa’s most blog-worthy sprog (err, no pressure, Bump).

That Travis is a special needs child makes all the nominations and votes and readers who come back here for our crazy tales of Living Lionheart even more astounding!

Thanks go to the Kidzworld crew, the sponsor Lynda.com, the 11 other finalists in the competition and to all the readers that took the time to vote.

But most of all... Travis my son, my muse, my whole heart. You rock our world, monkey face.

My toddler was a gambling man...

2011-08-25T10:27:00.007+02:00

New studies tell us that 30-40% of children with De Morsier’s syndrome (which sounds so much better than its more ‘medicalese’ name: Septo Optic Dysplasia), display autistic tendencies. Travis the Lionheart falls into this category.

One of the ways it manifests is repetitive behaviours like hand-flapping, lip-flicking, clapping, tonguing the smooth-shaven legs of beautiful women... No really, Travis is a sucker for silky pins.

“Um, is your kid licking my calf?”
Awkward pause... “Yeah. Just go with it.”

Now you can imagine my consternation at the Lionheart’s newest compulsive hobby: gambling. More specifically, he is obsessed with his ‘casino’ toy.

I’ve dubbed this Fisher Price contraption the casino toy because it works just like a one-arm bandit. Pull down the lever, and everything spins, shapes tumble out of the slot at the bottom and the boops and beeps announce cheerfully: “Ka-ching! Winner!” Okay, not really, but I can’t translate electronic into English, so who’s to say it doesn’t?

(“This reeks of a conspiracy between toy manufacturers and gaming cartels,” she grumbles from beneath the safety of her tinfoil hat.)

While typing away in my office on the other end of the house in the afternoons, I’ve been listening to Travis getting his ‘lucky sevens’ on with this damn casino toy. Again, again, again he yanks down that lever – like a glaze-eyed pensioner on Slot Machine Tuesdays.

Finally, yesterday I ducked in to observe.

Travis had assumed his optimum gambling stance: one leg braced on either side of his slot machine. And he was scrounging through the thick pile of his carpet, frowning in concentration. He found a tiny scrap of paper. I watched him carefully drop it through the purple triangle shape, into the belly of the toy. Then he pulled down the lever, and out pops that dog-eared piece of paper into the slot below. And repeat. And repeat.

The Lionheart isn’t gambling! He’s posting! Postman Trav!

At school, Travis practices transferring cut-outs and shapes from a bowl, into a cereal box that has a slot cut out of the front, like a postbox. Until yesterday, I’d never seen him ‘post’ anything outside of his classroom environment.

Saint Irene tells me he’s been doing it for days! Quick pause here to berate myself once again for not paying more attention to this marvellous child.

Then back to my office to fish some Post-its out the stationery drawer (so that’s why they’re called that, hah-de-hah), which I fold in half so that the sticky strip doesn’t bother him. Now the Lionheart has a neat pile of decent-sized, bright orange Post-its to post into his casino toy. Remember, this little dude has extremely poor vision in his one eye.

When I delivered the Post-its to his bedroom, I could tell from his twinkling eyes that the Lionheart thought: “Jackpot!” Cute kid.

Spleesh-splashing with eco.kid

2011-08-23T16:13:00.009+02:00

DISCLAIMER: Something we promise Lionheart fans is that we’ll never bore you with blah-blah about schmooze-schmooze and all that gratuitous nonsense. We don't give a pickled fig about freebies or strapping a rocket on our blog stats. We’ll only endorse something that A) We’ve actually tried and B) scored big brownie points with the Lionheart. And he's a tough crowd. Jislaaik.

We’ve been slathering on the eco.kid range of lotions and potions. Asking for some samples was a no-brainer, really:

Travis is famous for spending at least 60 minutes in the bath tub each night.
I don’t know about the rest of you moms, but my toddler does not fare well after soaking up a chemical ingredient that’s longer than five syllables.
And the label is also in Braille! As you guys know, the Lionheart is visually impaired.

After reading about the label being in Braille, I emailed and asked if I could try some. Cheeky, huh? But it makes sense; Travis goes to a school with plenty of blind and visually impaired children.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you: these organic kiddie products from the land of Oz ain’t cheap, but we’ve been trying them out in the tub these last few nights, and Travis seems to dig them.

Especially the Daily Leave-in Tonic that comes in a spray bottle and smells like spearmint. Travis made me spritz his hair with it about 50 times that first night. (Imagine the combination: autistic toddler meets spray bottle = again, again, again, AGAIN!) His hair was tangle free and minty fresh for days afterwards.

If your kid has sensitive skin, then it’s probably well worth the R260 price tag for a giant 500ml bottle of the TLC hypo-allergenic hair and body wash. It has a golden, honey colour and the ingredient list shows coconut, wheat and glittering pixie farts. Okay, just the first two.

The Call Me Bubbles bubble bath is R150 a bottle and it has a lemon-orange-grapefruit scent. You need to be generous with it though, the instructions say use at least two capfuls and they’re not kidding.

I also liked this promise the whole range carries: “Pinky swear! No bad stuff allowed in eco.kid products. Only flowers and trees, oils and leaves that are organically certified, wild harvested and a nice shade of grassy green... so thanks Mother Nature!”

So yeah, we gave the eco.kid range a whirl and it’s made the Lionheart’s bathtub rituals a more environmentally friendly affair. You can get your hands on some at www.ecobuddies.co.za.

This concludes our public service announcement.

The freckle

2011-08-21T15:18:00.001+02:00

Travis has a full stop at the base of his left thumb. It’s like a tiny volcanic island lost in the vastness of the ocean. I can stare at it for ages.

Okay, it’s just a freckle – but I’ve spent many long minutes gazing at it when he’s asleep. (I realise the amount of blog posts where I admit to staring at my child while he sleeps is adding up.)

What makes this freckle so special is that it’s a genetic stamp in my family.

While we do have some speckle-cheecked branches in the family tree, there is one lineage in particular: dark of hair and eyes, short build, skin that’s not quite olive...

... dotted with these peculiar, lonely, long-distance freckles.

I have one on my ring finger. And another in the crook of my arm. And two freckles that line up perfectly when I press my thighs together.

Now Travis has them. So does his mother. And so does his grandfather. As did his great-grandmother. And no doubt one of his great-great grandparents...

Generations connected by these odd freckles, like a game of join-the-dot.

And while I stare at the neat, chocolate-brown spot at the base of the Lionheart’s left thumb while he sleeps, it comforts me to know that Travis is a part of a long history of amazing, fascinating, accomplished relatives – because I’m so very used to thinking of him as being... outside of the circle, you know?

A hat-trick of yuck

2011-08-17T15:32:00.001+02:00

We went for antenatal classes before the Lionheart entered our lives. Up until that point the grossest thing I’d ever laid eyeballs on was the instructional video from the Seventies that our graduating class of new moms and dads were forced to watch.

You’ve seen it: the one where a sweaty, err, “older” mom with a teased-to-the-max bouffant of hair (matching her extravagant bush downstairs) grunts, and sweats and poops her way through a natural, pain-meds-free delivery. Afterbirth is *insert gagging sounds*. Also, the stitched-up episiotomy photographs were *barf*.

But boys... are gross.

It’s 3pm on a Wednesday afternoon, and in the last 60 minutes I have been assaulted by a hat-trick of grossness that’s left me feeling so, so dirty.

First I extracted a booger from my flu-stricken four-year-old’s nose that was, frankly, spectacular! It had this crusty bulb on one end, and when I gingerly removed it, it revealed a comet-like sticky tail of snot that probably came all the way from the back of his skull.

Moments after this, Travis gave me a graphic display of what hot chocolate mixed with scrambled eggs looks like mixed together with stomach juices. Hint: this is the punchline to "What's yellow, brown and curdled?". I don’t know about you, but when my kid is swallowing gallons of post-nasal drip, he tends to chunder every now and then. Out comes the bucket and Handy Andy, in goes the sour-smelling toddler to the bath tub.

Operation Clean-up Toddler Vomit complete, I look in on our youngling in the bathroom... and he’s taken a spontaneous dump in the tub!

Turds! Floating turds!

Floating turds that don’t squeeze down the plug hole and have to be air-lifted from the bath to the toilet by me – the mom! The mom who should be writing a press release right now and NOT running new baths and sponging clean toddlers and furiously scrubbing under her nails at 3pm in the afternoon! FML.

(Less than 24 hours until voting closes for South Africa’s Best Mommy Blogger award over at the KidzWorld.co.za. There wasn’t a category for Oversharer of the Year award, unfortunately...)

UPDATE: 4pm

And just like that my super-gross toddler transforms into a sleeping cutey... Poor kid, he’s not feeling good at all. And look at that, he’s fallen asleep with his touch-and-feel book open on the "Lion goes roar!" page. Not staged or anything, I swear.

My bum deal...

2011-08-12T16:34:00.003+02:00

Look, I know we’ve only been bumping eyeballs on this blog for exactly 403 days now, but it’s time we had a frank discussion about... my ass.

No good ignoring the (ahem) elephant in the room. Let’s rather leave a trail of jelly beans leading to this white plastic ma-jiggie on the bathroom mat and see if the old girl will trundle onto it. And if you’ve not been blinded by my powder-blue toenails, you’ll see some frightening digits.

I realise us girls are all very ‘hush-hush’ about numbers. Age, weight, credit card limits, number of previous sexual partners, how many Cosmopolitans I threw back at my 30th birthday party last year... (I genuinely don’t remember that last one.)

But screw it. I’m 28 weeks pregnant and today I weigh 78kg.

Now, before all you skinny cows in stage left launch into your “I eat three Big Macs for breakfast and I can’t put on any weight” monologue, and the large-bottomed ladies grind your pitchforks in stage right because 78kg is, frankly, your goal weight – let me distract you by yelling...

Granny panties!

We’ve all got a pair of comfy, cotton broekies in our panty drawers. Whether you have the BMI of a toothpick or tyrannosaurus, it’s that moment when you swop your lacy undergarments for a snuggley pair of granny panties that means... your backside is huge. At least you think it is, and that’s all that matters.

I weighed 58kg in high school, and even then I was convinced my reflection in the mirror showed one of those prancing ballerina hippos in Disney’s Fantasia. I wore tent-like Mr Price tees to hide my breasts. More than once I duck-taped my ‘fat rolls’ into place for a party. It hurt like a mofo to peel it off after a sweaty night at the disco! You can’t make ludicrous stuff like this up...

Genetically, I’m pre-disposed to being moon-faced, and you can trace a perfect square where my bum and hips meet. Yes, it’s hip to be square!

My 20s were spent hovering somewhere between 62 and 66kg, the latter weight at which I fell pregnant with Travis the Lionheart. This is where you might feel the urge to reach for your pitchforks again because the truth is, I can’t blame pregnancy for the current size of my bum. I packed on a paltry 6kg for my first pregnancy. And with Bump, I’ve only put on 6kg so far.

It was AFTER having my first kid that the pounds crept on! For the last four years my diet has consisted of soggy Zoo biscuits, unfinished tubs of yoghurt, Woolies’ butter chickens for those ‘bleh’ days, Lindt chocolate balls for a pick-me-up, and that 8pm mating call: “Babe, won’t you get us a snackie-snack from the corner cafe?”

Treadmills, I spit on you.

But holy mojitos and deep fried hot wings, people! 78kg... that’s steep. As our Bump is being delivered by caesarean, I’m hoping he/she comes out weighing at least 5kgs. I’m still smuggling a snack basket into the maternity wards with me, though... there’s just no excuse for hospital grade jelly-and-custard for pudding.

(Oh yes, I'm pulling out the big guns, or is it bums, to win your vote for SA’s Best Mommy Blogger at Kidzworld.co.za. Only seven days to go until voting closes.)

Birthdays. Blugh.

2011-08-10T15:10:00.004+02:00

As Saint Irene would say while shaking her head: “Yo, yo, yo”. I truly suck at that ultra-competitive suburban wifey phenomenon that is the kiddie birthday party. But Travis, he just INSISTS on turning a year older at the end of August. Brat.

The aptly-named Winnie the Pooh 1st birthday
Tears of hilarity roll down my cheeks when I see new moms organising that first birthday party. “Sets the tone,” they mumble for weeks, grinding their teeth as they assemble ludicrously expensive party packs. Oh, I fell into that trap too... The clever theme! Winnie the Pooh plates, cups, hats, masks, with blue-and-yellow balloons and tablecloths, and the R350 Disney character cake.

At 1am the night before the party, all three of us were on our knees in the emergency room at Flora Clinic. Poohing and puking our guts out. Trying to stuff poor Trav’s pram in the hospital bathroom before exploding from both ends. IVs all around! (I’d like to thank House of the Chicken Pie for this incident; eat their frozen pies at your peril...)

We cancelled the party at 5am via SMS. But I still had to collect the pricey cake, which turned to yellow-frosted rock in my fridge until we presented it the following Saturday, ablaze with novelty candles, at the hastily reconvened party. We had to rent all the tablecloths TWICE. And I found out that helium balloons stay floaty for about 12 hours, so I paid for two lots of those.

Travis slept through the whole party, awakening only to scream in terror at the flock of strangers that had descended upon our teeny tiny townhouse, which was promptly trashed by sugar-crazed toddlers.

The Teddy Bears’ picnic-slash-screamfest 2nd birthday
I’d learned lessons aplenty from Hellish Birthday No.1... so this time around I decided to move the party to the great open plains of the Walter Sisulu botanical gardens for a whimsical teddy bear’s picnic.

I came so-o-o-o-o close to nailing it. The sell-your-one-kidney expensive cake (which is just a vanilla sponge with cheap butter frosting and a rice-paper print of a Disney character, innit?) was replaced by cute, sparkly cupcakes. Screw the stupid helium balloons. I made each kid a picnic hamper in a straw basket complete with red-checked cloth. We set up a Make Your Own Ice Cream bar, with sprinkles and nuts and different flavoured syrups, and even roped in a face-painter.

Winner! Except almost no one came. And we had forgotten to hire an elephant to help us transport all the equipment between the race car ya-ya and our shady spot which felt like 200km into the gardens. And Travis screamed for four straight hours because he didn’t know what the frack was going on.

The oh-so-chilled (not) 3rd birthday and the infamous toilet cake
Okay. Take three. We’re back at home... and last year I kept it small and intimate, and hells bells – even made a birthday cake that looked like Trav’s favourite thing in the world, a washing machine. Because I’m all about the personal touches (and delusions of fantasy)!

Except the birthday cake looked more like a toilet. Really, click the link, it's worth a look-see. And it turns out that Travis the Lionheart yodelling his way through every birthday party has become a must-see social event, because GAZILLIONS of our friends arrived (bless their sweet socks). We ran out of seats, snacks and glasses in 30 minutes.

So jip, the impromptu casual party doesn’t work so well either.

Back to the military-style drawing board for this year’s fourth birthday party for the Lionheart, taking place in the tranquil, familiar surroundings of his school, with a bubble machine thrown in for shits and giggles. I'm calling it Under the Sea. May the Big Guy Upstairs have mercy on us all.

(The votes for South Africa’s Best Mommy Blogger award over at Kidzworld.co.za close on 18 August, if you'd like to give a virtual thumbs-up to our tales of Living Lionheart.

Thank you, Mr Bus Driver...

2011-08-04T10:53:00.003+02:00

There are 3.8 million drivers on Jozi’s roads... it’s a city with some of the worst traffic on the planet. It helps if you think of it as a weaving, bobbing metal conga line all the way to work and back each day. Or I could lend you Travis and you could play Stalk the Truck with him to make those gridlocked hours zoom by.

Stalk the Truck is a road trip game the Lionheart and I have been playing for several weeks now. It needs only one ingredient really, traffic. Lots of it! Traffic in all its middle-finger gesticulating glory.

1. Strap toddler securely into car seat.

2. Roll down his window.

3. Find an 18-wheeler behemoth or noisy equivalent in the lane next to yours.

4. (Rubbish trucks, metro busses and especially gargantuan SUVs will do as well...)

5. Drive parallel to the huge truck, as it trundles, roaring down the road – pistons pumping.

6. Watch as toddler squeaks and laughs, making jazz hands and scissor-kicking in delight.

7. (Ignore swearing drivers as they veer sharply around your race car ya-ya, because you’re letting a huge gap open up between your vehicle and the one in front of you, as you attempt to drive side-by-side with the truck.)

8. Five points extra if you can get the truck driver to hoot.

Driving back from dropping Dad off at the airport this morning, the Lionheart and I were trapped in the bumper-to-bumper hell that is Malibongwe Drive. Travis rapped on his window sharply to let me know that I must roll it down – because a metro bus was in the lane next to ours. Hallelujah!

After a few minutes of us tailing his behind (yes, the noisy engines are at the back of the bus), I saw the bus driver look ~~suspiciously~~ quizzically over his shoulder at my odd kiddo, who at that moment was so excited by the rumbling noise he was throwing both arms and legs in the air like an exploding, giggling starfish.

And bless that bus driver... He slowed down for us. We chugged through that traffic jam next to that metro bus almost all the way to where Malibongwe meets the highway.

The bus driver was very tickled by Travis’s OTT reaction. He made my Lionheart’s day. And screw all the potty-mouthed anal retentives that honked when we held up the traffic... *sticks out tongue* Especially you, slick-haired (okay, incredibly yummy) 20-something guy in your Peugeot.

Psst! You can vote for our tales of Living Lionheart until 18 August over at KidzWorld.co.za, where we’re up for the South Africa’s Best Mommy Blogger award.

Hope, the knee-jerk response to self-pity

2011-07-31T10:04:00.003+02:00

This post is being typed using only my right index and middle finger, oh, and my thumb is bashing the space bar. My left hand is otherwise occupied by the hairdryer... Um. Yeah.

It’s 9am on a Sunday morning and the Lionheart has taken up residence under my desk, where he unearthed my hairdryer. (What, you don’t dry your hair at your desk while checking emails too?) So now Travis is getting his mane ruffled and his fingertips toasted by a stream of warm air while I blog. Multitask, much? Every now and then he nudges my wrist to remind me to waggle the hairdryer around a bit so that I don’t roast one of his ears off!

Travis loves the electrical thrum of the hairdryer. Also the chainsaw-ish sound my new epilator makes. I soldiered through ripping my own leg hairs out by the roots yesterday morning, because it so delighted my autistic toddler. The sound of the epilator, not me yowling like a cat being skinned alive! Although...

I deserved ten Hail Marys and a few lashings after Friday’s depressing post.

(I’ve just glanced down at the floor and Travis is kneeling with his butt in the air, directly in line with the hairdryer’s blast of heat.)

The Big Guy Upstairs cut me some slack yesterday after I’d done my penance (read: epilator session). In the miraculous manner of the omnipresent, a fun fair materialised on the sports field in our road. Ta-dah!

Feeling very brave after an uneventful trip to the shops with Travis to buy extra ingredients for buttermilk rusks, I pulled my race car ya-ya over and the Lionheart and I ventured forth towards the painted stalls and spinning kiddies rides.

It. Was. Awesome. Let me tell you why...

Turns out the fun fair was actually a fundraising event for the Christian school in our street. Smiley families and excited kids swarmed between the stalls, armed with ticket slips and samoosas and faces painted like butterflies and Spider-man.

Ordinarily this kind of gaiety makes my heart sink, just a little – not like the Titanic or anything. I’d feel like an imposter: the special needs mom infiltrating ruggle territory. But somewhere between the water balloon stall and the paintball stall, I remembered... Bump.

I remember a fellow blogger writing about her friend, and the “lightening” she felt after the birth of her ‘regular kid’, after only having known the challenges of raising a special needs child. That’s what I felt yesterday for the first time.

Lighter.

(Okay, I had tears streaming down my face, but was wearing a celebrity-sized pair of sunglasses. Pregnancy hormones.)

I looked at all the squealing happy children, and hustle and bustle as moms and dads marshalled their families around the fun fair, using fluffy sticks of cotton candy like air traffic batons. And I didn’t feel like an imposter, because soon this kind of formerly off-grounds family fun will be part of our lives too!

Look, I realise what I’m writing is terribly unfair to Travis (but this entire blog is a testimony to the deep love I have for our eccentric cuddly bear - so there). And also, I know there are no guarantees yet that Bump will be a ruggle. But I’m hanging my hat on hope.

Hope is the knee-jerk response to a large, icky spoonful of self-pity. It’s the battle-cry of the Lionhearts, our faces painted blue with woad: “They may take our lives, but they will never take our FREEDOM!”

Okay, that particular battle cry has nothing to do with anything. But you get the picture, right? I have the hope that somehow Bump will bring balance to The Force, and that all four of us will somehow form a family unit that... works. Hold thumbs, readers!

(Stacey Vee’s tales of Living Lionheart are up for South Africa’s Best Mommy Blogger award over at KidzWorld.co.za. Give her a thumbs-up vote if this blog doesn’t, you know, completely suck.)

The silence of the lambs. If only.

2011-07-29T13:37:00.004+02:00

There’s only so much one can take. I’m talking about the shrieking.

It’s the first sound you hear in the morning. When my first-born is tucked into bed, his tantrum is the lullaby that rocks our household to sleep. Within five minutes of coming home, the Lionheart is screaming. It carries on all afternoon, whether I’m on the phone with clients or furiously trying to meet a deadline or standing in the queue at Woolworths. Frequently, I can’t even read a magazine on the loo without the crescendo of Travis’s fury assaulting the walls of my tiled bunker.

On and on and on it drones. Punctuating almost every breathing moment with the reminder that my son is broken!

But I’m not allowed to snap. No, no, no... I must batten down the hatches to my ears, and smile Stepford mom-like, as we attend birthday parties and family functions and unsuspecting shopping malls.

If I let his shrieking piece my armour and I snap in mental anguish... I am a Bad Mother.

That’s when all the helpful advice starts. Little nuggets of child-rearing tips from other, shinier, happier mommies who Know It All. “Have you tried this?” “I read an interesting article about that.” “I have a friend who also has a kid with special needs, and she’s doing this.”

As if all disabled children can be lumped into the same bucket.

But you smile and nod and take the advice. You’ve tried it all anyway, but there’s no need to be rude to these well-meaning folk. Tough love. Tried it. Love-bombing. Tried it. Reverse psychology. Doesn’t work. The Pavlovian route... ABA or Applied Behaviour Analysis. Oh yes. Spend more time with Travis? Or spend less time with Travis? I've even taken up psychology as a module for my varsity studies.

My head bobs up and down, up and down on puppet strings as the advice streams down my rainy windows. “Yes, we’ll certainly give it a go.” “Well, you certainly make a good point.” “I never thought of that before, thank you.”

Teachers and therapists and doctors. Friends and family and complete strangers. They all have the answers. They’re a Better Parent than you.

What they don’t realise is their parenting bubble is kept afloat by a steady current of celebratory moments. First words. First steps. First poop in a potty. First day at big school. First school disco. First kiss. First in class. First dance at a wedding. First grandchild...

So much joy. Their hearts grow fat on it.

The Lionhearts’ joy is on strict army rations. Just five bite-free, shriek-free minutes of playtime with Travis can bolster me for weeks of dark moments. I’ll cling onto the memory of those few minutes like a helium balloon on a bright ribbon. But party balloons soon drift to the floor.

And then it’s the screaming, the screaming, the endless screaming.

Sorry. Today is not a happy post day.

Mopping up the Milky Way

2011-07-24T08:06:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was an exercise in ‘parenting’. Surprised? I’m raising a four-year-old, after all.

Thing is, he’s a cognitively impaired four-year-old. While we burn plenty of energy caring for Travis, we don’t ‘parent’ very much. For the love of petunias, I’m still elbow-deep in dirty nappies, boiling the kettle for endless bottles of formula and spoon-feeding goop! There’s zero room for lessons in Discipline and Values and Good Behaviour.

Until Travis hurled his bottle of Milo across the tiled floor at lunch-time...

The Lionheart always lobs his finished botties across the room; he could pitch for the effing New York Yankees. It’s standard behaviour. “I’m finished with this. Get it away from me!” (This is immediately followed by a furious squawk that translates: “I was enjoying that Milo, and now it’s all gone, and I don’t understand why there isn’t more. I want more. I want my Milo botties to never end.” Travis still struggles with basic concepts like: finished.)

A trail of brown sugary droplets is sprayed across the tiles, and up the side of his bedroom door. Sigh. The bottle rolled under the couch. Double sigh. Usually I’d call in the clean-up crew, also known as Soapy the Labrador and her super-absorbent pink tongue. Or mop it up myself. Or gaze at Saint Irene pleadingly for assistance.

But not yesterday; I was flying solo. Mentally cloaked in my orange Zen mommy robe... I kneeled next to the Lionheart, and with my best Julie Andrews smile said: “Oh no! Big mess! Time to clean up.”

Translate: “Screw this, little punk. YOU clean it up.”

Rolling Travis onto his hands and knees, I scooted him across the tiles towards the Milky Way on our floor. Our chubby bunny weighs a solid 20kgs now, so that in itself was a feat. With a flourish I yanked a wet-wipe out of its tub, pressed it into the Lionheart’s left hand (in other words, the hand that works) and together we mopped up the Milo splatter.

Later, Travis hurled his empty yoghurt containers across the carpet in the lounge. This is also standard behaviour for the Lionheart.

Zen mommy says: “Messy lion cub is like white denim jean pant. Unacceptable.”

Together we retrieve the yoghurt tubs and step-by-awkward-fumbling-step (translate: march, march, march!) make our way to the kitchen dustbin. Still with my Julie Andrews face on, I cheerfully suggest: “Let’s throw it away!” and we chuck the empty yoghurts in the bin.

Progress. We are having it.

(Yup, we’re finalists in the SA’s Best Mommy Blogger competition over at KidzWorld. You can vote for the Lionhearts here, if you’re up for it.)

The devil has flashing lights

2011-07-22T12:20:00.005+02:00

So on Monday I’m sitting at my desk, right? Editing 180 000-bazillion words of academic text for a client. I’ve got my headphones on, listening to Smashing Pumpkins in an attempt to shut out the competing noise from that much-loved musical: the Sound of Travis Squeaking in Dolphin.

Something’s not right, though. I tentatively lift one of the ear-cushions and realise that my Lionheart is not just being his noisy self, he’s screaming like a wounded animal. It’s that frequency that triggers any moms’ action hero reflex – your kid is wetting his pants in fear. Or worse, he’s badly injured.

I rush from my study, cross the lounge, and burst into Trav’s bedroom, yelling: “What the hell is going on here?!”

In one corner, Saint Irene is wrestling with my four-year-old: Travis has buried his face into her apron, and is trying to claw a hole through her chest. He is freaking out! And at my feet in the doorway is a lopsided mountain of blankets and pillows, that’s... vibrating.

Crap. I forgot to tell Saint Irene about The Toy.

You’ve probably seen them in flea markets and those free-standing stalls in the mall. The Toy is made in China. It’s a largish, bright coloured, slightly transparent plastic ball, with letters of the alphabet heat-pressed and cut into it. It’s got protruding knobby bits that are sheathed in a silicone cap. Inside this innocent-looking Chinese torture device is a fiendish, spinning electric dynamo.

You press a tiny silver lever, and it leaps into life! Buzzing and spinning and flinging itself about the room, lights flashing like fireworks on acid! (Or like the spaceships in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.) Insane, manic-sounding Chinese arcade music explodes forth.

It’s loud and violent and scares the dungarees off my Lionheart. His complex sensory issues mean Travis simply can’t process this amount of stimuli at once.

Thing is: I’d forgotten to warn Saint Irene that there was a killer toy lurking on top of the chest of drawers in her young charge’s room... Dum dum du-u-um!

She pushed in the silver button. The Toy was unleashed. And it lusted for the blood of frightened toddlers! She couldn’t shut it off! In desperation Irene began piling blankets and pillows on the gnashing, demon-possessed, thing-a-ma-bobble to muffle its sound. This while Travis screamed from the depths of his bowels in terror and tried to burrow a hole for himself within the safety of her bosom.

It would have been funny, if it wasn’t that Travis genuinely thought he was about to get eaten by a plastic gremlin made in China...

(Oh yes... you can vote for the Lionhearts in the SA's best mommy blogger competition at KidzWorld.)

Jabberwocks and Wolves

2011-07-19T13:52:00.002+02:00

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! She chortled in her joy.

The Lionheart is back at school and loving it. School holidays, my old nemesis, I have conquered your dreary days yet again.

Now that some measure of sanity is restored to the household, we can all get on with the pleasantries that make up The Routine. Like suddenly remembering we should have left 15 minutes ago to collect Travis from school! Smack forehead.

There’s been much ado about the Jozi Blogger Meetup held at Wolves last week. I was decidedly the most un-hip blog lady person at this trendy Illovo venue. Still, I got to meet all kinds of bright young shiny things who write about fashion and art and funky goings-on in the City of Gold.

And, to my astonishment, a few of them knew about the Lionheart that splashes in our tub. It was very flattering – in fact, the only thing redder than my cheeks were the red velvet cupcakes. (Of which I smuggled home samples for my husband.)

Later, I was escorted back to my car that I’d parked miles away down a side street, by a gallant man, who drove away in a silver sportscar. Chivalry, it definitely has its moments!

Even better, my rare (school-night) out was captured on video by the talented Gareth Pon, and set to an awesome track. PS: spot me if you can – I worked it hard to make sure that all 37 cameras and camcorders at Wolves caught my good side... which is the back of my head.

Wolves Bloggers July 2011 from Gareth Pon on Vimeo.

SA's best mommy blogger? Uh, me?

2011-07-18T15:58:00.003+02:00

I’m a finalist in the ‘SA’s best mommy blogger competition’ held by the folks over at KidzWorld. Weetbix-smoosh hugs and belly tickles to the Lionheart fans who nominated me. I will now proceed to do my happy dance, which is traditionally done to the Hotdog song from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. (R5 a click if you want me to upload a clip on YouTube.)

So basically, you click this here wee little linky and you fill in your name, email and phone number... and check the box next to There’s a Lionheart in our Bathtub.

Pretty simple.

Sylvia Plath tendencies

2011-07-15T09:49:00.003+02:00

I remember a time when I had green stripes in my hair. I had a metal spike in the top of one ear – I fancied it made me half-pixie, in a steampunk kind of way. Ridiculous tattoos: I be having them (still, unfortunately).

I wore the same pair of jeans for days. Bright red push-up bras. Watched Jozi sunrises from parking lots behind nightclubs. Sent drunken texts. Had torrid, ill-advised romances – I just wanted so badly to be loved. I fell HARD on my bum (both literally and figuratively).

Back then I wrote crazed, colourful, sarcastic memoirs and had dreams of being a shit-hot author who’d one day pen a novel that would become – what’s the term – a contemporary classic. Like Fight Club or American Psycho.

I was vibrantly young, wildly happy and often deeply miserable.

Then Travis the Lionheart was born. The end. Of that version of me, at least.

Don’t get me wrong. I happily traded in my low-cut tops for more practical outfits from Woolworths and a soccer mom car where all the seats fold down. Such was my craving for a more vanilla lifestyle that a few nights before my wedding I burned all those memoirs I wrote before I tied the knot with my wonderful (brave, intelligent, tremendously strong) husband.

A fresh start: loving mother and devoted wife.

So why is it all these years later that I cringe when I read someone’s Twitter profile, and they use those precious 140 characters to describe themselves as “Mrs Joe Soap: mother of three, wife of so-and-so and by the way, I’m the only female financial director at Skyscraper Corp. And I have a Pulitzer.”? (That was 131 characters, I counted.)

To define yourself as a mother first and all your personal achievements last? I used to find these women pathetic, but it’s dawned on me: to them, being a great mom is their No. 1 accomplishment.

I know a lot of talented, razor-sharp women, some of whom are still rocking their green hair and tattoos – and they’re all madly in love with their kids, and will tell anyone who listens.

So clearly it can be done.

Here comes the part in this rambling monologue that’s actually relevant to raising a child with special needs...

I’ve noticed in the three years since Travis was diagnosed, that as the severity of his disabilities has become more apparent, and my dreams for him have become more conservative by the day – so have the dreams for myself.

For that first year, I believed that if we did all the therapies and treatments and special diets while he was still small, by the time Grade 1 rolled in – Travis could go to a regular school, and still go on to be a rocket scientist. But as he’s lagged further and further behind developmentally, I’ll just be satisfied if he learns to walk by the time he’s a teenager. I often get asked if I think he’ll ever talk. The answer is: realistically, no.

And as for my own dreams... I traded in an exciting career in publishing, for a drab (well-paid, and most importantly, secure) position in corporate communications. Then I traded in that high-flying job to run my own freelance copywriting studio from a home office. Small. Safe.

I no longer dream of being the editor of one of South Africa’s top ten magazines. Or being the Internal Communications manager at a multi-national corporate. I no longer even pretend that I’m going to write That Book. (And I’m excruciatingly aware that I have the talent to do any of these things.) I’m safe in my tiny office, running my small business.

These days, just the thought of leaving the house with Travis in tow gives me heart palpitations. Between his screaming and unpredictable outbursts, wrestling out his pram, and lugging about six months’ worth of Bump – even a trip to buy groceries is fraught with anxiety.

Yesterday by some miracle Travis agreed to sit in a trolley as I picked up some things at Checkers, and he clapped his hands in excitement and explored the packets of macaroni. This is my Holy Grail. An uneventful trip out the house! My goal each day is to make it to 8pm without letting the shrieking and biting and tantrums of my frustrated, brain-damaged child push me over into the abyss.

It’s Bump that’s made me realise that something needs to give here.

I don’t just owe it to myself to be a great mom (comfortable in my role)...
AND dye my hair whatever-the-hell colour I feel like...
AND write that book or be a magazine editor.

I owe it to my children to still have dreams, because they’ll take their cue from me. Yes, even Travis the Lionheart – when he’s finally able to comprehend these kinds of things.

So I’ll start small. You know, maybe actually write more than one chapter for my next idea for a novel. Get a(nother) small, inspirational tattoo. Start running around the garden naked with sparklers at the dark of the moon – because that’s what we creative types are wont to do.

Show us the front side of your bum...

2011-07-12T08:12:00.002+02:00

Oh Bump, the mysterious, how secretive you are!

Yesterday was my 24-week appointment with the VJ doc. Three things...

First, I still get a kick out of marching past everyone in the waiting room, my urine sample held proudly out in front of me, and plonking it unceremoniously into the plastic kidney dish that sits, its contents displayed for all to see, on top of the reception desk. If they’re going to make us submit to this undignified process, I shall do it with aplomb!

Hilariously, as I sat back down, a newbie patient scurried over and placed her urine sample next to mine in the dish, nudging mine to the left with her fingertip so that it was clear which was which.

Second, a couple of weeks ago at the VJ doc, a rude, porky couple tried to push their appointment in front of ours – without so much as asking, I might add – because “we have to be in Sandton at 10.30am, darlings!” My VJ doc is always running at least 60 minutes late, even for the early morning slots, and I was already late for a client meeting myself. My husband and I yelled across the waiting room, “Excuse us! Our appointment is first and we also have places we need to be. So if you don’t mind...”

Guess who was scowling at me from across the waiting room at my check-up the following month? And at the fruit and veggie shop two weeks ago. Mrs Porky and I keep bumping in to each other, wah ha! Or rather, our bumps do – as that’s the common denominator here. I was most disappointed that I didn’t see her yesterday in the VJ waiting room again. We’ll probably be in beds next to each other in the maternity ward when our babies are born.

Third – is our Bump a boy? Do I have a Sebastian Daniel in my belly? Because during my scan the doctor referred to the littlest addition to the Lionheart clan as “he” repeatedly. I didn’t even notice he was doing it, until the doc corrected himself and said: “He or she that is of course.” A couple of weeks ago when we went for the Hectic Scan with Professor Nicholau, he made us look away from the screen while he examined Bump’s reproductive organs and kidneys.

Morne and I thought this must mean for sure that it’s a boy – because we would have probably been able to see a giant, obvious, well, PENIS on the screen. But a friend of mine reminded me that chances are equally good that we could have also spotted fallopian tubes, or some other female anatomical bit. And that yesterday’s slip-up could be that doctors most commonly refer to babies as “he” by default. Because I have got to tell you – and no doubt putting this so publicly on my blog will come back to haunt me – I’m feeling a distinctly female presence inside my tummy. I could fart rainbows and glitter!

In the meantime, Travis has taken to wearing his hoodies up All. The. Time. It’s very gangster. Much like an angst-filled teenage boy, I think he enjoys peering out at the world from inside the safety of its murky depths. I can’t decide if it makes him look like a hip hop mogul or Rocky Balboa, but it’s helluva cute, don’t you think?

Next week at Wolves

2011-07-07T14:55:00.002+02:00

Okay, I'm on the bandwagon for the Jozi Bloggers Night next week at Wolves. It's not just the lure of red velvet cake that's tempting me to leave my hobbit hole. Oh no, I am far more shallow than that.

It's the prizes! There are two Kodak cameras, three ghd Iconic Eras of Style handbags, a year's supply of Pringles and a pamper hamper from Living & Loving up for grabs. Plus five gift bags from the Snack Factory, and a month's free coffee at Wolves.

That's it. I'm in. Now to find a babysitter...

Letters to Bump: what’s ‘normal’, anyway?

2011-07-06T10:39:00.001+02:00

Three weeks ago we had an appointment with Professor Nicholau, the foetal scan magician. You might remember getting a full body massage, maybe?

That lubed-up sonar, uh, thingie, scrolled across my belly for 60 minutes. There was so much sonar jelly on my abdomen, the top of my pants and bottom of my bra were soggy! (If you are a girl, know that pregnancy is an endless parade of indignities...)

You were prodded and pushed into positions where the technician could better see you. We counted your fingers and toes. We checked your spine, the valves of your booming little heart, the halves of your brain and the delicate bridge between them. You shyly turned away each time we tried to get a glimpse of your facial features. (Oh how I adored you for keeping some mystery for us, despite that we now even know what your kidneys look like!)

Professor Nicholau pronounced: “I can see nothing wrong with this baby.” But I heard: “It’s a ruggle!”

Before you got the ruggle stamp of approval, your dad and I joked that all we want is for you to be the Most Normal Baby Ever. A mousey-haired, C student who did ‘just okay’ at sports. A model of mediocrity. No surprises. Of average build and size. Just like all the other kids in your class.

Selfish, eh?

Then I surprised myself this morning by writing on another blog: “Nobody can be 100% sure what we are going to leave that delivery room with – each of us get a very unique bundle of joy, and have to find a very unique way of parenting each child.”

Clearly I have a wise orange-robed monk meditating in my medulla oblongata.

What a revelation! Bump, don’t ever feel you have to be ‘normal’! What was I thinking? I’m pulling out the stopper on that mental bottle where I stuffed all my hopes and dreams for you. Be an astronaut! Be a trapeze artist! Be a librarian if that’s your thing. Just don’t be a stripper or a tattoo artist – I don’t think your dad could handle something quite that exotic...

What is normal, anyway? And how dare I impose the concept on you?

Your brother Travis the Lionheart goes to an amazing school where no two children are alike. In fact, the only thing that’s ‘normal’ at his school is that everyone is different. I’d like to think that this is something you’ll embrace early on, even though most kids want so badly to Just Fit In.

Bump honey bear, see how much you’re teaching me already?

Hell freezes over in July

2011-07-04T09:43:00.006+02:00

There are exactly 14 days to go before Travis the Lionheart goes back to school. I know, because I’m counting them. He’s counting them. His nanny Saint Irene is counting them. And so are our neighbours in our living-on-top-of-each-other townhouse complex.

Woolies should stock an advent calendar for school holidays – not just the ones for Christmas, where there’s a chocolate behind each pull-off date. The July school holiday advent calendar could have 21 cardboard rip-out dates, with a Valium lovingly nestled inside each window. Mother’s little helper, and all that. Or a shot of caramel vodka... Or just for me, as I’m a whole 23 weeks preggers now, a banana and peanut butter sandwich: my emergency snack!

It’s not that we hate having Travis at home for the holidays – it’s that he LOVES school so much. It’s his favourite place in the world. Singing the Schoolie Schools nonsense song is the only way to get him out of bed on weekday mornings. (As opposed to holiday mornings, when Travis bum-scoots out of his room at 4am and sits expectantly in front of the TV until I put Disney Junior on for him. Children. Are. Diabolical.)

(Also I loathe Jake And The Neverland Pirates, for the record. Does Captain Hook have to steal those mini-buccaneers’ playthings every episode? Why don’t they just share their toys with him and get those lazy scriptwriters to come up with some other educational scenarios? Aarg!)

Figuring out ways to keep the Lionheart entertained in the middle of winter for three weeks is hard.

Those science activity sets for toddlers are wicked cool. But way beyond our special needs child. Colouring and painting have also been a disaster. Travis just eats the Koki pens while I'm left colouring in outlines of Winnie the Pooh.

I’ve tried baking, but his sensory issues means that he flips out every time I add a new ingredient to the bowl. The tinkling of sugar crystals. The cracking of eggs. Even tumbling chocolate chips... Travis presses his face into the side of the feeding chair when I bring the mixing bowl near. This is disheartening for me because baking is my Thing, and I want so badly to share every messy, delicious moment with my cuddly bear.

On the plus side, I get to lick the beaters all by myself!

Last week I took Travis to Lifestyle Nursery on Beyers Naude Drive where they have that freakin’ awesome kiddie section. It’s painful for me to watch the gaggle of sugar-frenzied toddlers screech in delight, and wrestle the minders, while the moms enjoy a cigarette break and a phone call on the benches to the sides...

Travis was screeching too: but only because his senses were being assaulted. He can’t clamber on the jungle gyms. He can’t go on the charming choo-choo train. He can’t drive the mini go-karts (but he really enjoyed watching the other little boys bash into each other on the track.) He can’t take part in the make-your-own-pizza playtime. Can’t. Can’t. Can’t.

But I was determined I’d find something at Lifestyle that Travis would enjoy. Like grabbing handfuls of bright flowers as we meandered through the nursery with the pram. And joy, oh, joy – they’ve just opened a Readers Warehouse there! Travis pulled a board book off the kids’ shelf that was to his taste: he gnawed on it, basically. My son is a book-licker. This one is called Aliens In Underpants and so far it’s been worth every cent of the R30 I paid for it.

I also ordered him a chocolate milkshake (yum, his favourite) at the Silver Birch coffee shop, which made him mini-vomit and then have a meltdown. I am the Zen mommy, however. So I quietly ate my bacon and egg sandwich, drawing loop-de-loops in the sand of my mental Zen garden, while Travis the Lionheart shrieked and bit my wrists and pinched my hands and threw my iPhone at the waitress.

It got so bad the woman at the table next to us moved to the other end of the restaurant. Sanctimommy. This made me wonder (for the thousandth time) if I should get Travis some T-shirts printed that say: “Don’t roll your eyes. I’m disabled. So WEH!”

Still, we had an... okay... time.

If it warms up this week, I’ll venture to the botanical gardens with a picnic basket. Travis loves to soak up the sunshine and (dum-dum-du-u-u-m) no one can hear him scream! What? It’s a wide open space! Lol.

(PS: This post marks a whole year of blogging about the Lionheart. Three cheers!)

The Return of the Chest Puppies

2011-06-29T10:07:00.001+02:00

My boobs are enormous right now. Like zeppelins, really.

So gargantuan have they become, that they’ve earned a blog post all to themselves. So let’s double-park them for a moment to discuss how pregnancy has re-introduced ‘the twins’ back into my life.

I’m a B-cup gal... not too big, not too small. What men describe as a handful. In reference to the size of my chest, that is, although often also referring to the difficulty level in managing my drama queen tendencies. In that way, I guess all women are a handful.

Back to my jugs, though.

By the time Travis was born, I was an eye-popping D cup. Gigantic, like on a planetary scale! It was like having two satellite moons caught in my gravitational field. They threatened to burst from my ridiculously comfortable cotton nursing bras like jostling piglets. I hated it.

Magazines and websites helpfully point out that having your breasts inflated by pregnancy hormones is a big plus for the man in your life. But let me tell you, the cons far outweigh (ahem) the pros. There’s nothing sexy about watching your wife-slash-girlfriend’s melons leak colostrum and breast milk in the shower, or hell, even when you’re out grocery shopping. It’s frightening stuff.

What’s even more frightening, now that I’m 22 weeks’ in with Bump, is that I’m probably going to make D-cups looks so... last... pregnancy. Now I’m faced with the prospect of *gasp* E cups. They exist, right?

This is new territory for me.

The practical thing to do would be to get my ballooned butt down to a maternity specialist store or boutique or whatever and get myself measured and fitted for a proper set of bras. Oh, and take out a second mortgage to pay for them. But I’m squeamish about other women touching my hooters.

I know, you’d think after being pinched, tweaked, squeezed and milked by lactation consultants after Travis was born, I’d be over it. When you’re pregnant, you have to accept that your boobs are re-classified as communal property.

And these boutique chicks with the measuring tapes, I mean, they do actually touch your naked chest, right? Because I don’t see how they can get an accurate measurement if they just loop the tape over the bra you walked in with, or even over your shirt? Surely that’s a waste of time?

In the meantime, I’m figuring out what I can do when I’m done with the super-practical Woolies D-cups I’ve had to invest in. Because I can see I’m not going to get much more wear out of them.

Perhaps the kids can use them as inners under their bicycle helmets. You could fashion them into slingshots big enough to fling bowling balls over enemy lines. If you sewed the two cups together, presto, you have an oven mitt. Knee guards? Serving bowls?

Even Travis the Lionheart is mesmerised by the two inflatables that take up half the tub when I join him for a bath. It’s a wonder that I don’t tip over forward when I walk!

Re-thinking the iPad

2011-06-24T09:28:00.002+02:00

iPads and autism: it’s been making the tech pages in international news for months. Now Steve Jobs’ newest gadget is working its magic in a South African school for students with autism. And this tech-loving gadget girl just happens to have a son who’s both autistic, and almost spends more time fiddling with her iPhone than she does.

I was at a talk hosted by Core at the iStore in Sandton yesterday. Core is the sole distributor of Apple in the country and has partnered with The Key School, who has 30 autistic students starting from the ages of three years old and up.

Honestly, I was a concerned that these special students would be trotted out in front of a room full of journalists to give a demo (flashes of Travis the Lionheart hurling an iPad at a clump of skittish print media people). No fear, though, we were shown clips from Apple showcasing how the device is changing the way children are learning in classrooms in the States. They’ve sold 25 million iPads globally in just 14 months – crazy numbers.

It comes down to this: almost all people with autism are visual learners. For instance, a flash card application on the iPad that shows an actual photo of say, a cow (and not a cartoon of a cow – autistic learners are very literal thinkers) and then says the word “Cow!” is effective. The iPad encourages these often solitary and “locked in” students to interact with it. Play musical notes with a tap of a fingertip. Read interactive fairytales like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, following the highlighted words.

And as many children with autism have low muscle tone, and struggle with even a simple pencil grip like the Lionheart – no problem. You can prop the lightweight iPad up on a table and it’s easily cradled in the crook of your arm or in your lap.

Dr Jenni Gous, the principal at The Key School, gave a very well-balanced presentation about autism in general, and how her students are responding to the iPad specifically. I say well-balanced because I particularly liked how she highlighted both the strengths and the weaknesses of the iPad as an educational and communications tool in the development of autistic children. “Remember, it’s not a magic bullet,” she said. I respect that.

For instance, overuse of the iPad (and frankly, any form of media-rich technology), can actually increase ADHD and lower concentration – the frontal cortex will eventually become inactive from lack of stimulation. Something to consider.

So here’s the skinny.

An iPad 2 will set you back around R4 400 to R7 600, depending on which model you purchase, but if you intend using it primarily as an educational device for your autistic learner, I don’t see why you can’t get the most basic first generation model, for R3 300. I’m no expert on the SARS Disabilities Grant, but I think the chances are excellent you can write it off as a refundable expense if it’s motivated correctly to the Receiver.

Dr Gous says that the iPad apps they’re using have all been downloaded for free, and there is a huge variety of them out there.

Is Travis the Lionheart getting an iPad from Santa this year? He just might.

Seeking the Zen mommy

2011-06-21T11:51:00.000+02:00

To let you truly understand my dilemma, I need to paint you a picture first. This is not going to be a pretty picture. In fact, this is going to show my ugly side in all its long-of-fang-and-sharp-of-claw glory. But frankly, never sharing the ugly moments of being a special needs’ mom is to do the Lionheart chronicles, and all special needs’ parents, a great injustice.

So this is what happened this morning...

Travis the Lionheart is hunger-striking. He’s been a little flu-ish, and almost sloth-like in his lethargy. His many-rolled Buddha belly is shrinking and he has ulcers in his mouth from poor diet and a run-down system. Yesterday he ate a grand total of three mini yoghurt tubs.

Yup, we’re smack-damn in the liquid food only zone (again) reserved for small babies, and not almost-four-year-old toddlers. My stress levels have peeked to the point where I may short-circuit.

I am determined that Travis will eat his (usual) Weetbix before he goes to school today.

Denial
“Travis,” I smile brightly. “Let’s watch some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and have a Weetbix. Yum, it’s your favourite!” I’m pretending that nothing is out of the ordinary. Do not let the lion cub smell your fear. “Come on, come on,” I coax, smiling despite that he’s dodging the spoon and starting to scowl.

Bargaining
By now I’ve gotten two spoons of Weetbix smoosh into the kid in 15 minutes. His Weetbix’s gone cold and gloopy so I’ve warmed it in the microwave. Nevertheless, Travis has clamped his mouth closed like Fort Knox. “Look,” I say in as reasonable a tone as possible. “Just have 10 spoons. You’ve already had two spoons, so that leaves eight.” There’s no way that Travis understands the simple mathematics here, it’s more like I’m striking up a deal with myself.

Hysteria
It’s a game now. He’s bobbing and weaving like a boxer in his feeding chair, and I’m matching Travis with the spoon... A hysterical laugh bursts from between my lips. This is funny, and terribly sad. This is when I should have given up and walked away. But no: I was going to win the Battle of the Weetbix.

Blind fury
The red mist rolls into the room. So furious am I that I’m yelling nonsensical threats. “I. Am. The. Parent. Here. And. You. Don’t. Get. To. Starve. Yourself. On. My. Watch.” The primal side of my brain stomps down hard on the logical side of my brain. Forget about how I’m imprinting this kid with meal times = angry mommy associations. Forget that I’m five months’ pregnant and stress hormones are zipping up and down the umbilical cord. In fact, I’m forgetting the point of this entire exercise.

Thank the Big Guy Upstairs that my husband swooped in at that point.

Five minutes later I’ve crawled under my duvet, and the sound of Jake And The Neverland Pirates and Travis giggling float up the staircase, mocking me. I’m horrified at my outburst. I’m sobbing and wallowing in self pity. But my logical side is in recovery mode.

And I know that it’s me. I am the problem here. Travis is feeding off my anxiety. And his resulting behaviour just pushes me further over the edge. We are two storming galaxies caught up in each other’s fields of gravity.

Over the years I’ve had many perceptive family members and friends (and witnesses) point this out to me. That my being stressed out stresses Travis out, and vice versa. I’ve read the articles that suggest the best way to deal with a cognitively impaired child is to keep your expression neutral, just a soft smile, a calm tone of voice, and be consistent about it. Facial expressions and emotional outbursts confuse and frighten children like Travis.

Reading my last few blog posts, I’m seeing a trend here. The Angry, Out Of Control Mommy.

So I clutch my bright red buoy moment from Saturday morning and resolve to be calmer. And to find my inner Zen mommy, where all the stress and fears of raising a Lionheart (and now introducing a newborn to the mix) are more like a breeze and less like a hurricane... Deep breath...

Bright red buoys

2011-06-18T09:13:00.004+02:00

Before I became a mom, I had some ~~pie in the sky~~ unrealistic ideas of what it would be like.

Didn’t we all?

In hindsight, while I gushed about what an angelic mother I would be and patted my first bump affectionately, there was a cluster of already-moms in the corner eyeing me with a knowing look and a smirk. Oh yes, they knew.

I would be firm but fair.
I would be a fountain of warmth and kindness.
I would never, ever smack my kids or lose my temper in front of them.

My children would believe I walk on water and dedicate all their future achievements to me, and there would be many of those, because I won’t raise no dumb-asses. In fact, we’ll need a special display room in the ~~mansion~~ house for all the trophies, medals and certificates.

Yup, I was smoking my socks.

Where did it all go wrong? I like to think it started to disintegrate when Travis was diagnosed with a brain malformation at eight months of age, but if I’m excruciatingly honest – from the moment our first child was born, I was floundering.

Motherhood, especially this particular brand of motherhood, the kind where your kid is radically different from other kids, has taught me that if you tread water long enough, you’ll find a bright red buoy to cling to here and there.

It’s Saturday morning, and – fun fact – the rooster next door has been cocka-doodle-dooing since before the sun came up. Our townhouse complex is next to a smallholding. Through our kitchen window, you can catch glimpses of a cow, a humungous mommy pig and her piglets, some goats that climb trees to munch leaves off the low-hanging branches, a gorgeous peacock, geese that really do bark like watchdogs and plenty of cheekens.

My other half spent the night at the Cabanas in Sun City because he is timing at a race event there all weekend.

I creep down the wooden staircase, careful to miss the stairs that creak, and push open the door to the Lionheart’s bedroom. His nose has been stuffy for days and I can hear him snoring softly under his blankies.

Even though he’s still lost in the mysterious depths of a very unique brain’s dreams (how I wish I understood the workings of my son’s mind), Travis scoots over to make space for me. He’s used to his mom stealing cuddles at all hours.

I press my cheek into the rumpled folds of his pyjamas. He smells like the rooibos body butter I rubbed all over him last night when he got out the bath. Watkins the kitten stalks in and makes himself comfortable on top of the two of us. The Lionheart’s bed hair is... spectacular. Like that character in Dragonball-Z.

(Bump is awake too, because I’m being tenderly kicked in the bladder.)

For a few minutes, I let myself believe that I really am that mom I always wanted to be, and Travis is whole and happy and... well... perfect.

This is a bright red buoy moment.

Life buoys are great, because they give you a few minutes to stop kicking against the currents of life, and rest up and reflect. It's important that we learn to recognise them. And then it's back into the ocean with you, where you "just keep swimming"...

WTF Friday 16: Go the f**k to sleep

2011-06-17T14:53:00.000+02:00

What the Fuck Friday is the most blissfully belligerent day of the week. It’s the one day the author of this blog does not delicately arch an eyebrow in distaste at some perceived stupidity. Instead she delights in saying the F-word as many times as possible, until her blog becomes X-rated by the all-powerful search engine gods.

Plenty of mommy bloggers have shared their delight in the “children’s book for adults” called Go The Fuck To Sleep by Adam Mansbach.

It’s become a little bit of an interwebs sensation!

So let me share this little linki-poo with you. It’s the potty-mouthed book, as narrated by Samuel L Jackson. I know I should be ranting today about some injustice... Perhaps just imagine me looking on with an appropriately stern look of condemnation while you listen to this clip.

But it’s deliciously naughty...

Just... enjoy... the moment

2011-06-13T17:07:00.003+02:00

This morning a text popped in from a doctor's office, telling me to phone and confirm my appointment or they would cancel it. It was from the specialist we're seeing on Wednesday; the one who'll do an extra-special scan to check that Bump is indeed a ruggle (regular baby) and not a Lionheart (a special needs baby).

I really thought it was cheeky. I yelled at the receptionist. Then I tweeted in fury. And posted an angry Facebook status. And wrote a long blog post about how cheesed I am at this doctor. Then I took a deep breath and removed the post.

Balls. I have a short fuse at the moment. The Big Guy Upstairs. He's noticed too.

I can tell I'm on His radar now, because all day little things have happened that have made me do a 360 on the Rampaging Pregnant Mom deal. In fact, I feel a bit like I've swallowed a ball of sunshine and now my belly is glowing like a Teletubbie's does when he gets an incoming message.

First, a couple of moms whose opinions I value like, hugely, both assured me that the doctor I'm seeing on Wednesday is not at all as cheapskate and callous as I'm assuming, but that he's intelligent, funny, and actually a little good-looking to boot. Now I'm downright looking forward to having him rub ultrasound belly gel all over me!

Then I spent the morning putting the finishing touches on research about the wonders of the umbilical cord, and uncovered some touching traditions that some cultures have - like burying it in the garden and planting a special tree on top of it as a celebration of baby's birth. It's called a birth tree.

Next up was a brainstorm with one of my clients to nail down what articles I'll be writing on parenting for the next few magazine issues until Bump arrives.

Then I got around to making plans to scoff expensive cupcakes with one of my favourite people, the hilariously and sexy Shelley Hutton (who is raising twin boys, no less - gasp!).

To wrap it up, I'm being sent a Huggies hamper by the delightful Sam Robinson of Sabio Communications who spotted my tweet whining about being left out of all the lovely freebies that my fellow mommy bloggers have been receiving. (For more whiny tweets from me, follow @misscopycandy.)

Looking back on my last few blog posts, all I'm reading is this gnawing internal monologue about having one child with special needs and a second child who is potentially normal. Chewing at it like a bone that's long since lost it's flavour.

Enough! I'm letting all those little excitements I felt during my first pregnancy flood back in. I'm mooning over teeny tiny socks. Picking a colour scheme for Bump's room. Starting to think about throwing a baby shower.

Bring. It. On.

I'm 20 weeks pregnant today. At the halfway mark. And it looks like finally I'm not focused on what's going on inside my head, but what's going on inside my tummy.

Peekaboo, Bump! I see you!

WTF Friday 15: Limping traffic light zombies

2011-06-11T09:47:00.000+02:00

What the Fuck Friday is the most blissfully belligerent day of the week. It’s the one day the author of this blog does not delicately arch an eyebrow in distaste at some perceived stupidity. Instead, she goes all Scrooge and snarls when asked for small change.

You’ve seen them at traffic lights... they hobble past your car, shoulders scrunched in their best Quasimodo humpback, sometimes with government hospital issue crutches for effect. Limping down the rows of cars held captive by a red light, shaking a tin for spare change.

I acknowledge that the rate of unemployment in South Africa is sky-high. Living conditions for those living under the bread line are inhumane. Begging or criminal activity are the logical ways out of this hellish cycle of poverty and hunger.

The zombie horde of beggars on our roadsides and at our intersections leaves the average middle-class soccer mom with a permanent deficiency of R2 and R5 coins in her car’s cup-holder.

But nothing makes me harden the fuck up like a street-side beggar faking a limp.

I think it’s obvious why I’m angry about it.

The problem is, unless it’s an amputated arm or leg – this mysterious, over-the-top limp produces that default human response: we want to believe the best of people. I mean, who would pretend to be disabled?

“Oh my gosh! Underneath that unusually thick bandage dressing there must be some freakish deformity that prevents you from finding employment! Dang it... I don’t have any coins on me. What the hell – here’s 20 bucks!”

Not. Me. Ever.

I want to pull my car to the side of the road, rugby tackle the offending traffic light shuffler to the ground, hike up his pants’ leg and see what kind of medical condition is causing this individual’s one leg to be so much shorter, other than dramatically leaning too far to the left as he walks.

This could go embarrassingly wrong, of course. “Ma’am! Could you please explain to the court why you assaulted Mr McGenuinelyLimpy?”

“Um...”

Bumps on ice

2011-06-08T10:08:00.001+02:00

Where is Bump? You can see a tiny bit of Bump
sticking out to the right of my waist. What? It
was dark like a disco at the rink, lol!

I went ice-skating last night, with 19 weeks’ worth of bump sticking out loud and proud. You’re probably wondering: “Have you marinated your socks in LSD, psycho mommy?!”

It was a kooky, irresponsible thing to do. I’ve had everyone from doctors, to scowling hubby and concerned grannies telling me to Take It Easy. But those few moments gliding (wobbly) on the ice were like spending the day being massaged and scrubbed by those African mammas at Mangwanani Day Spa. Super-relaxing!

2am has become my suicide hour. I lie awake, with my hand on Bump, and my heart hammering in my chest in those pre-flutters of a full-blown panic attack. (Little known fact: I wrestled with an anxiety disorder in my mid-20s. Not the drama-queen-clutching-my-heaving-bosom variety, the hook-me-up-to-an-heart-monitor-I’m-losing-my-marbles-but-please-don’t-tell-anyone variety.)

The memories of those exhausting first weeks with a newborn are flooding back.

A part of me thinks that bringing Bump home from the hospital will be a snap. After all, Travis has all the needs that a very small baby has. I make 5 or 6 bottles a day. Spoon-feed him. Change nappies. Change clothes that have been vomited and drooled on. Bath him. Carry him from point A to B. Supervise all his movements and play-times.

So it’s almost like having twins, right? RIGHT?

Also on the 2am merry-go-round: do we have enough finances, is our townhouse big enough for four, isn’t it about time I started preparing a room for Bump, should we have a third child, was starting my own business the smartest/most selfish thing I’ve ever done, who should I nominate as Trav’s guardian in my will, and finally, is this it – is THIS really my Life?

It’s at this point that ice-skating while five months’ pregnant seemed like a golden ticket out of the murky waters of my psyche. And out there on the ice last night, I skated away from it all...

(I also got knocked over, and fell on my well-padded bottom HARD! Gasp.)

Moms, tell me this fretting is completely normal... I can understand a first-time mom worrying like this, but I thought a ordering a second baby came with a large helping of level-headedness?

Of marathons and milestones

2011-06-05T09:27:00.004+02:00

It took me seven hours and three stops to drive the 600km from Johannesburg to Durban when the Lionheart and I drove to the beach together. It took five hours and one stop for my husband to drive us back. Just saying...

We’re back! And I’m freezing my petunias off! Sweet mother of popsicles! It is frosty in the city. We’ve been back two nights and Travis has kindly slept between us on both nights – because toddlers make the best hot water bottles, don’t ya know.

Last week Sunday, a friend of ours was running the Comrades and the Lionhearts were determined to support this nutcase in his mad endeavour.

A quick briefing for all our international readers: the annual Comrades Marathon is called the ‘ultimate human race’. It is held between the coastal city of Durban and the inland town of Pietermaritzburg, and covers a lunatic 89km. The cut-off time to finish the race is 12 hours. If you make it before 11 hours, you get a bronze medal. The winner of the Comrades can do it in as little as 5 hours, 30 mins and is surely a genetic superhuman. Each year, the Comrades alternates between an ‘up race’ (Durbs to PMB) and a ‘down race’ (PMB to Durbs). This year was an up race.

Our friend Jann Rinken, running his second consecutive race this year, finished in 10.59.03 and hobbled off with a bronze medal and the ‘double-up’ medal (it’s called something along those lines – don’t shoot me, Jann).

Now, what I was thinking was: “Let’s be awesome friends and support our deranged buddy as he takes part in this great South African tradition.” What I should have done was this small calculation: 24 000 entrants, plus at least four supporters each equals 120000 people... all of which will be packed like sardines onto the woefully narrow highway that runs from Durban to what I now know is actually the teeny tiny town of Pietermaritzburg, where we’ll filter into the Cricket Oval stadium where the finish line is – that has a maximum capacity of about 15000 people. Yikes.

And that’s not counting race officials, medical staff, groundsmen, announcers and the media. I’ve mentioned before that my maths is horrific, right? Now imagine inserting Travis the Lionheart into this equation...

While our buddy left the starting line at 5am, the Lionhearts’ starting gun only went off at 11.30am when I first had to collect my husband from Durban’s airport. We hit the highway to Pietermaritzburg to support our roadrunner from the various checkpoints before the finish line. The back-up of traffic was so nightmarish it took us just over four hours to drive the 89km. We actually saw a Comrades runner puking his guts out next to the road from sheer over-exertion. Then we had to park so far from the stadium that we walked several kilometres, pushing a bewildered and freaked out Lionheart in his pram.

While ‘following the leader’ to find a way to get into the stadium, we somehow found ourselves clambering over boulders, down perilous rock-strewn slopes, and once passing our 20kg son and his pram down a six-foot wall in what we now know is the Paton Rockery adjacent to the stadium.

Then we got lost in the 120000-strong crowd of supporters, all dressed in neon wigs, banging on the metal sides of the race-track, screaming their support to loved ones as they crossed the finish line, the portable toilets overflowing, and the stench and noise overwhelming.

For a starving, cognitively impaired, small boy with serious sensory integration issues... Travis stoically hung in there until the bitter end before finally losing it completely and going into ‘fight or flight’ mode.

Travis my son, you were the real marathon winner of the 2011 Comrades. Well done, Lionheart.

And a bit on milestones...

I’m telling you, there must be something in the air at the coast. Not only does the humidity make you more inclined to afternoon naps, increase your appetite and frizzle your hair... it does something magical for Travis.

In October last year, Travis came back from Umhlanga drinking milkshakes out of take-away cups and eating burgers – both which were a huge breakthrough. This time he’s learned how to operate the light switch for a lamp.

We patiently sat in the downstairs lounge at our holiday flat (that smelled like grannies - in a pleasant way), in a disco, while Travis practised the sliding movement. On-off, on-off, on-off the lights went.

I wonder what wonders our next beach holiday will bring?

One for the road...

2011-05-26T09:20:00.002+02:00

At around 4am, the Lionheart and I are going on a road trip together, just the two of us... down to KZN. It’s a little scary, what with this being the longest drive I’ve ever made solo (it’s six hours to our destination), and my bulging tummy making it tricky for me to carry His Royal Travness for more than a couple of meters. But it’s also an adventure! And frankly, we don’t have nearly enough adventures.

The ‘special needs’ holiday – depending on what kind of disabilities you’re talking about, of course, is like planning a SWAT team mission.

No 1: Accommodation
Because the Lionheart’s roar is LOUD, we can’t really stay in a hotel where we share a wall with another family. We also never get to take advantage of 90% of out-of-season specials because most hotel rooms, no matter how attractive the offer, have walls as thin as cardboard. No renting of roomy holiday houses either, because that’s out of the budget. B&Bs are also out, because we don’t like to fraternise with kindly blue-rinsed owners who like to drink tea with their guests. We either get the beady eye because our ‘weird kid is always screaming’ or worse, the drippy sympathetic smile because our kid is disabled. So we Google for a free-standing, self-catering chalet where we will be left in peace...

Also, hotels that feature those awesome kiddie holiday programmes... well, just image dropping the Lionheart off with them for the day? (We call this Trav-bombing, and I've always wanted to try it, just for mischief's sake.)

No 2: Food
This brings us to food. It HAS to be self-catering, because Travis could blow his lid at any moment if we’re sitting in a restaurant. Five-star boutique restaurants in Muldersdrift, Wimpy, Spur, the road house, you name it... if the Lionheart is freaked out in a strange place, it is code red. My husband and I are pros when it comes to an emergency evacuation of an eatery. “Get it for takeaway!” and “Can we get the bill, please” are fired off like missiles at waiters still dazed by the ear-splitting Trav-siren. Hubby and I are also used to having to take turns to eat while the one of us tries to soothe a wild-eyed Lionheart.

No 3: Travel
Can you imagine the Lionheart on a plane? Enough said. No family holidays in Thailand then. Just a flight down to Port Elizabeth is fraught with the pending danger of a Trav-sized meltdown.

This is how we’ve become Umhlanga people. Which pre-motherhood I thought topped the list of lame local holiday destinations. Right up there with Margate, Jefferys Bay, Hermanus and, God forbid, Plett!

Now any of those coastal towns seem as exotic as exploring the ruins of Angkor in Cambodia, or gazing at the aurora borealis, or travelling into space to peep down at Earth – all three of which are still on my bucket list, despite how extremely unlikely it now seems I'll be able to go.

Still, there's something to look forward to - a stop for some Frankie's Cloudy Lemonade as we drive through the KZN Midlands. It's not as impressive as having my photo taken with the Grand Canyon as the backdrop, but you learn to take pleasure in the little things, you know?

Chasing fireflies in the dark

2011-05-23T14:38:00.000+02:00

On Sunday we went on an (sing it with me): “Adventure, adventure, we’re going on an adventure!” That’s the little ditty we sing to prepare the Lionheart for a car trip to a more exotic destination than the shops.

It was Husband’s birthday, and we headed for Hartbeeeespoooort Dam. (I love how long vowel sounds in Afrikaans make you sound like you’re pushing for dear life on the chamber pot.) We ended up at that flea market place with the pancake house where all the breakfast run bikers stop off.

Long story short: we’re sitting at a wooden bench listening to the live band belt out Sultans Of Swing (or should I say ‘life band’ as one poster proclaimed, clearly penned by someone whose first language is not English). We’re waiting for our plates of oxtail.

Travis picks up a straw off the table, and very carefully puts it in the Styrofoam cup that he’s drinking a chocolate milkshake out of.

I’m gobsmacked.

Travis was not showing us that he wanted to drink his milkshake through the straw (I did try), but he was demonstrating: “Hey, I know where this plastic tube goes.”

This linking of two ideas tells me two things. 1) No matter how far off he seems during class activities or play-time at home, the Lionheart is ‘present’ and paying attention. 2) I shamefully underestimate my special needs son’s intelligence on a regular basis – and this needs to stop.

Travis still drinks out of a bottle. He’ll drink – only chocolate milkshake – from a cup if I hold the cup for him. Never a plastic cup, by the way. He can’t suck through a straw yet, but he can blow out a candle. And he’s watching when mom and dad drink through straws at a restaurant, or when Teacher Sue blows paint with straws at school... HE KNOWS WHAT A STRAW IS FOR! And yet we can’t get the Lionheart to make that jump from baby bottle to big boy cup. I always thought it was because he simply couldn’t. But now I know it’s because he just plain won’t.

How many other things is Travis lagging behind in developmentally because I choose to believe that he is incapable of ‘doing the maths’ so to speak? His paediatric neurologist has told me before that I could be underestimating his ability, even though she’s conservatively pegged his development age at give-or-take, about the same as a 12-month-old baby’s.

I had a similar moment last week Friday when Travis picked up his shoes while I was dressing him and tried to slide in his toes. He’s miles off from being able to put his own shoes on, but HE KNOWS WHERE THE SHOES GO...

You guys must think I’m an idiot, to be astounded by such little things.

Raising a special needs child, especially one who is not only mentally and physically challenged, but cannot articulate his needs through speech... it’s a bit like catching fireflies. You’re chasing sparks in the dark. The moment you see a tiny glow in the garden of his mind, you rush over to catch it before it snuffs out and you’re left wondering if you imagined it!

So I’m making an effort to expand the Lionheart’s curriculum, if you will. I’m talking to him about sounds and colours. I’m explaining little details, like we live in Cornelius Street. And that there are three traffic bumps in the road. Let’s count them together as mommy drives over them, 1-2-3...

Because there be fireflies in his garden.

WTF Friday 14: Of bog roll and Labrador pups

2011-05-20T16:04:00.000+02:00

What the Fuck Friday is the most blissfully belligerent day of the week. It’s the one day the author of this blog does not delicately arch an eyebrow in distaste at some perceived stupidity. Instead, she takes out her pent-up anger on small creatures with puppy dog eyes and cheerfully fluffy tails.

Someone please explain to me: what’s with toilet paper commercials and fluffy Labrador puppies? I get that one brand of bog roll actually has a puppy as it’s official, um, ‘mascot’... but I have yet to see a loo paper advert that does not feature a puppy at some point in its 30-second slot. Also a gurgling baby, batting adorably at a stack of toilet rolls.

I get it. This particular puppy is rather soft. But I bet a tiny Maltese poodle’s fur is even softer. So why not wipe your ass with a poodle instead? Makes more sense to me...

I mean, if you’re comparing the softness of your company’s two-ply with an animal, how about a long-haired Persian cat? That should get right up into your butt-crack after your daily No. 2. But you see, cats just Won’t Put Up with this kind of public mockery. The secret Illumicati society have worked tirelessly since the days of the sun god Ra to ensure that cats are respected, yea... worshipped by humankind. The lolcatz trend is just a modern day manifestation of this. As Watkins the kitten would no doubt tell Soapie the Labrador: “Stupid dogs...”

I’m slightly less puzzled by the use of babies in toilet paper commercials. While most baby bottoms are kept in mint condition by expensive, lavender-scented wetwipes, and I doubt that toilet paper is very effective in cleaning up baby vomit, Travis the Lionheart is rather fond of cuddling a soft, fluffy roll of two-ply now and then (yes, emblazoned with puppies).

A few weeks ago, the Lionheart carried his bog roll from room to room all night, while using it as an impromptu (mercifully silent) tambourine and chewing softly on the edges...

But he’s weird like that.

Come on toilet paper manufacturers, hire me as your conceptual copywriter – boy, do I have some ideas for you. Other suggestions for animals that might be good to wipe your rear with: lab mice, cuddly rabbits, a Shetland pony, or perhaps a lion cub.

Especially the last one. Proudly South African and all that.

Letters to Bump: About your brother

2011-05-18T10:46:00.001+02:00

Dear Bump

About your brother, the Lionheart... there’s no easy way to break this to you: Travis is ‘not all there’. I’m terrified that instead of protecting you on the playground, your big brother will be the reason you’ll be teased and picked on at school. They’ll call him names like ‘retard’ and ‘moron’. They’ll say there’s probably something ‘wrong’ with you too.

I am so sorry; just the idea of this terrible burden I’ve saddled you with – before your birth, giving you no choice in the matter – it torments me so. The unfairness of it all!

How could I do this to you? I don’t have a good answer.

I once told a close friend that there are only selfish reasons for having babies. No one has a child for the child’s sake... We do it for our husbands and boyfriends, because that’s what society has taught us to do. Because we want him to have a “legacy”, whatever that means. To keep our marriages from falling apart. Or because we fell pregnant by accident. We do it for stem calls, for goodness sake! Because our biological clock is ticking! Or maybe in our case, because we want to know the joy of having a ‘normal’ baby. Or because we just need someone to look after our Lionheart when we’ve left this world!

When you’re a teenager, you’ll scream all these reasons at the top of your voice. You’ll slam your bedroom door. You will tell me you hate me. That I love Travis more than you, because he needs me more.

Silly bear...

I know that you’ll need your dad and I more than Travis ever will! His needs are so simple. But you, my little cupcake, you’re the one who’ll need an extra helping of cuddles and compassion.

In families like ours, where one child is disabled and the other is ‘abled’ (and I bargain desperately with the Big Guy Upstairs that you will be healthy and whole, for your sake and not ours)... there is the potential that we’ll force all the hopes and dreams we had for Travis onto your tiny shoulders. You’ll need to be superhuman to stand up under the weight of our expectations.

Bump dearest, you don’t have to be superhuman. Instead, I hope that your dad and I are super-parents. That we are wise and understanding, and above all, fair... Okay, that sounds so hopelessly lame I feel compelled to roll up a magazine and thwack myself over the head with it.

Make no mistake I am petrified of the prospect of having a ‘ruggle’ (regular kid) in the family. I’m so used to Living Lionheart that I confess my memory bank of nursery rhymes and children’s games is buried under cobwebs. Be patient with me, please.

I’m glad we had this chat; I’ve been neglecting you these last few weeks.
(Feel free to kick me in the kidney.)

Love, Mom xXx

WTF Friday 13

2011-05-14T10:58:00.001+02:00

What the Fuck Friday is the most blissfully belligerent day of the week. It’s the one day the author of this blog does not delicately arch an eyebrow in distaste at some perceived stupidity. Instead, she bottles it up for three weeks then coughs up a hairball of tangled feelings for her 39 fans to dissect.

WARNING: THIS POST WILL NO DOUBT RAPIDLY SPIRAL INTO FURIOUS NONSENSE

I haven’t had a WTF rant in a while... it’s because two Fridays ago, there was an ‘incident’ that’s left me purple-faced and spitting. Spitting with indignation, not just randomly spitting on pavements... I’ve been so straight-up-and-down pissed off about this ‘incident’ that I’ve had to metaphorically cut my own tongue out lest I say something... illogical. That’s my problem here: you don’t get to rant without presenting SOME kind of logical argument to back yourself up. And my argument is as weak as tea made with thrice-used tea bags in times of war.

What happened? Travis was ill with the dreaded Green Snot Flu, the one that makes him schloop about the house, randomly vomiting up phlegm-coated 360ml of Nido formula. ‘Schloop’ by the way, is the sound made by a small child as they reach up to their nose with their tongue and attempt to vacuum up dripping stalactites of snot. Yes, green snot. Ergo, and all that...

Being feverish and with an Empaped suppository up his rear, Travis turned in early that evening. At 10pm the husband and I call it a night. At 10.30pm, Travis wakes up feeling refreshed and wondering why the hell all the lights are off. And that’s it. The Lionheart is awake, and therefore, so are we.

There’s a special circle of hell that only parents who are regularly awake after midnight know about.

After ZERO sleep, not even a 15-minute snatch, I prop my eyelids up with toothpicks, have my first-thing-in-the-morning ritual chunder (remember, I’m still in the early days of pregnancy) and report to my client’s office in Sandton at 9am where I will spend the rest of the day.

I feel like I’ve been thrown into a cement mixer! My limbs are stiff with exhaustion, my eyes are gritty and bloodshot, and my brain is like a squished bug that flew into a windscreen at high velocity... But I’m a professional, dammit!

Still, I commiserate with the girl who sits across from me. “My toddler woke up at 10.30pm and didn’t go back to sleep after that. I haven’t slept a wink,” I confess. Sympathetic smiles all around...

And then this Neanderthal, this insensitive slice of toe-jam, this crusty turd-muffer of a human being chips in: “No sympathy here. You WANTED to become a mother.”

(If you’re a parent, insert your choice of expletive *here*. If not, feel free to make the ‘cuckoo’ sign by your ear as you read this.)

What a complete wanker!

Let me just set the record straight: while Travis may not have been a planned pregnancy, you can be damn fucking certain that I CHOSE to become a mother. How perceptive of you! I didn’t have to go through with the pregnancy – this is South Africa, after all.

Upon finding out that there was a bun in my oven, I asked: “Can I provide this child with a stable home?” Check. “Can I provide this child with my time?” Check. “Can I provide for this child financially, even though I may well be a single mom?” Oh yes, check. And most importantly: “Do I have not just the resources, but the physical and emotional stamina to raise this child? The parenting skills?” And after quite a bit of soul-searching on that last one, the answer was, “Yes, I’m ready for the challenge.”

By your Neanderthal brand of logic, I don’t get to complain when I have sleepless nights because I was up caring for a sick child. And despite those sleepless nights, the fact that I still report for work so that I can earn the means to feed and clothe that child is no act of heroism. And I guess I don’t get to complain that I’m one of the 3% of mothers whose child was born with a disability or five... I should just suck it up and soldier on, hey?

So here is my dishwater tea of an argument, you childless brute:

Screw you, and the lifetime of lonely, empty years that lie before you too.
That is all.

The Fridge Whisperer

2011-05-08T13:49:00.001+02:00

COMMENTARY: So here's me sneaking up on the Lionheart, stealthy like a pot-bellied panther, to catch his fridge-whispering on film. Excuse his bed hair, it's a Saturday morning, m'kay! Travis is telling the freezer something, while waving his hands mystically, before pressing his ear up against the 'oracle of icicles' to get his response. Then, just as my son decides that he really needs to do something about his nappy wedgie, I am ambushed by Watkins the kitten who wants to know what the hell I'm thinking being on ground level and not giving him a scratch behind the ears.

Easy does it...

2011-05-07T08:54:00.001+02:00

What? No posts in a week! More than a week, you say... Well, who's counting? Oh, right.

So this is the part where I crawl sheepishly out from under a duvet and admit that, yes, I'm a naughty blogger. What have I been doing? Mom stuff. Pregnant stuff. Running my own business stuff. The latter is to blame, really. I've been doing some mental arithmetic (which granted, I'm perilously bad at being more gifted with a pen than a calculator)... long story short: I'm FREAKING OUT, MAN!

I'm having a baby in six months, and I need a nest egg. Or one of them gold nugget-laying gooses! So I'm working my tush off. My tush unfortunately doesn't realize that it's being worked off, and remains approximately the size of the moon. But there it is. Work, work, work... getting home late after 12-hour stints working in-house at clients. Vomiting into the empty ice-cream tub in my car because I'm not eating often enough (this is my personal cross to carry whenever I'm pregnant... I throw up for the whole nine months). Writing and editing copy through the haze of a blazing fever, with nothing but Panado as my crutch. Deadlines, endless deadlines.

You can see how this ridiculous nose-to-the-grindstoning is not... what's the Eco-friendly term... sustainable. I made a mint though. But enough!

My feet are up. Okay, they're only up from Tuesday. But then I'm taking it easy.

My husband, when not wagging his finger at me, and supplying me with plate after plate of tuna-on-toast and chips with mayonnaise, has been running me baths and making trips to the 7/11 for those "I feel like a little something, something" Magnum ice-creams at 9pm at night. Bless him!

Travis is blissfully unaware that he has a sibling on the way. He has taken up fridge-whispering. We have a freezer at home that used to belong to my husband's gran. This relic from the Seventies (?) has a most pleasant electrical hum, and our autistic Lionheart spends many an hour with his ear pressed up against it. It looks like Travis is trying to crack a safe, old school! And sometimes the Lionheart whispers something back to the freezer. They're up to something!

We've also become used to having our conversations punctuated by the sound of a flushing toilet these days. Travis has discovered how he can reach up and grab the toilet handle. This used to be a sound that terrified our sheepish lion, but now it's the Funniest Thing Ever.

Even more disturbing is that he regularly attempts to bogwash himself, sticking his head in the bowl just as the fresh water rushes in.

Boys are gross. Even the special ones.

Questions and answers

2011-04-26T10:40:00.003+02:00

Inspired by Living & Loving editor Tanya Kovarsky running her Q&As that weren't published in the mommy blogger feature in the May issue (you must check out her blog 'Dear Max'), I'm following suite.

Your name and kid’s name and age

Stacey Vee (30), Travis the Lionheart (3)

Your blog URL and domain?

http://lionheartinourbathtub.blogspot.com

What do you blog about?

“Living with a Lionheart – a kid with special needs – is challenging. So is phoning customer service at the City of Joburg, being stuck with an X in Scrabble and getting bubblegum out of your kid’s hair. You survive.”

Do you work, and if so, where and as what?

I own a copywriting and editing studio called Copy Candy. The best thing about being your own boss is inventing your job title. I’ve called myself ‘wordsmith’, ‘copy guru’ and even ‘alphabet wizard’.

When did you start blogging and why?

In July 2010. Travis was diagnosed with De Morsier’s syndrome, a congenital brain malformation, at eight months. It sounds cheesy, but after running the gauntlet of tears and grief, I had a thought: why would The Big Guy Upstairs give me, a writer, such an odd and unique child? That’s when Travis the Lionheart got his voice online – which is ironic, because he only speaks dolphin in real life, mostly squeaks and shrieks.

When do you blog, and with what laptop?

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays usually. I blog with my laptop and occasionally with my iPhone.

What do you get out of blogging?

It’s cheaper than seeing a shrink! I find writing about the trials and triumphs of our family helps me sort through my feelings.

Will you let your kids read your blog one day?

Not so much Travis. As he’s intellectually impaired, he may not learn to read. However, chances are good he’ll have a sibling. A ruggle – which is what I call a ‘regular kid’. I find it hard to believe that child won’t be embarrassed by me spilling my guts online about his/her disabled older brother. Playgrounds can be cruel places…

Have any of your blog posts ever got you into trouble, or have you had a most controversial blog post?

I’ve never been in trouble, but one issue of WTF Friday, which is a regular rant I post, I wrote about how stupid Baby on Board stickers are – only to get a flurry of stern replies. Apparently the sole purpose of those stickers is to tell paramedics to be on the look-out for an infant if you’re in a car wreck. Who knew?

What was the blog post you most regret?

The Lionheart goes to a special needs school. Last year, one of the children was expelled for reasons I won’t go into. I regret writing about that… it was not my story to tell.

Do you blog 100 percent honestly, or do you bear in mind that your colleagues/family etc will read it?

I am 100% honest, even when I know it makes my readers flinch in horror or wet themselves laughing.

What is the one thing you won’t blog about?

The usual: religion, politics... my secret Death by Chocolate cake recipe.

Do you have advice for wannabe or current bloggers?

Don’t start a blog unless you are committed to keeping it updated. Once you build up a fan club, you owe it them and yourself to post regularly.

What is the one blog you can’t live without (aside from your own)?

There are two: Jou Ma Se Blerrie Blog by Margot Bertelsmann and A Day In The Wife by a hilarious American gal called Julie.

What do you think makes a good blog?

In a mommy blog, people want to read your posts and think: “Man, have I ever been there…”

What do you hope people will get out of your blog, or are you simply blogging for you?

My blog is about a concept: Living Lionheart (join our Facebook group!) – accepting that life is sometimes unfair. Most folks are scared to make eye contact, for instance, with a person in a wheelchair. Not only are my readers okay with Trav’s disabilities, they laugh out loud at him and his antics.

What is the one thing you’d love to blog about, but can’t?

I used to write some racy stuff about sex and relationships. Now that I’m blogging about my kid, I’ll probably get lynched by a gang of outraged moms should I take it up again!

Have you made real-life friends through the blogosphere?

You bet! I correspond with moms in the US, the UK and Australia who have special needs kids… many on the autistic spectrum.

If you had to blog about Living & Loving, what would the blog post be called?

‘We’ve got that Loving feeling…’

What are your other hobbies?

Kamikaze cookie baker, amateur astronomer, thwarted novelist.

What did your last Facebook status say?

You know you're married to a tech junkie when we have two XBoxs hooked up to two giant plasmas... with four people playing Call of Duty split-screen. Two upstairs in the man cave, two downstairs in the TV room...

What did your last Tweet say?

Love is… being smeared in Weetbix smoosh and toddler kisses.

The last SMS you received said…

“You have used more than 98% of your data bundle...”

WTF Friday 12: Sisterhood of the Urine Samples

2011-04-23T15:07:00.000+02:00

What the Fuck Friday is the most blissfully belligerent day of the week. It’s the one day the author of this blog does not delicately arch an eyebrow in distaste at some perceived stupidity. Instead, she goes all passive-aggressive and blogs about the proverbial fork in her ribs to her tiny online fan base.

On Wednesday I was at the va-jay-jay doctor. For my 12-week scan, and the Big Thumbs Up...

(Sidebar: apparently the word gynaecologist makes most of my male readers’ left eyeballs twitch manically, so I’m toning down all jargon related to the plumbing of the female reproductive system today.)

Thing is, at my va-jay-jay doctor, you “do not pass go and do not collect 200 dollars” until you check in your urine sample at the front desk with the receptionists.

Now let me set the scene: when you arrive at the VJ doc’s offices, you step through a glass door into a cosy waiting room, where everyone has a front-row seat from which to peer at you from behind a well-thumbed copy of O magazine or Getaway, as you approach the receptionists’ counter – basically a serving hatch in the wall.

The urine sample containers are kept in a neat dispenser to the right of the receptionists’ hole-in-the-wall, along with the key to the ladies’ bathrooms. I think it gives those prim little admin jockeys a thrill, you know, really tugs on their corset strings, putting the pee cups up for every Tom, Dick and Johannes Stephanus in the waiting room to see.

Then there’s the matter of getting the pee into the cup! It’s a screw-top container, about the size of the ones a pharmacist dispenses pills in: the opening no more than 3cm in diameter. So you’re hovering over the toilet bowl, with this teeny cup suspended under your erm, the place where the urine comes out. I don’t know about you, but unlike the males of the species, I’m not too well-versed in the exact trajectory arc of my stream of pee. More’s the pity, I have never had the pleasure of writing my name in urine on a wall!

So you aim for the 3cm opening and hope for the best...

It’s also impossible to judge when that tiny container is full. You stop-peek-start-stop-peek-start until it is filled to the brim! Why it’s so important to me that I can demonstrate that I can pee like a racehorse, and that my cup runneth over, I wouldn’t know. Must be an alpha-female thing. You screw on the lid tightly, and balance the disturbingly warm container on top of the toilet paper dispenser (because there’s nowhere else), and wrap things up in the bathroom.

Breathe a sigh of relief. Done!

But the worst is yet to come. Because now you have to get your container of warm urine back to the receptionists’ hole-in-the-wall... in front of a packed waiting room of patients who’ve probably seen this little social dilemma played out every time they visit the VJ doc, and frankly, theatre tickets don’t have this much popcorn value!

I’ve seen plenty of ways to play this. Some ladies try to hide the container in the palm of their hands, placing it into the urine sample receptacle by the receptionists like they’re palming 500 bucks to a corrupt Metro cop. Other ladies keep their hand in the handbag or a jacket pocket as they stroll nonchalant up to the hole-in-the-wall and swiftly deposit it in the plastic kidney dish marked ‘Urine Samples’. Others still wrap it lovingly in toilet paper like a Christmas present.

Me? I thought: “Screw this!” I held my pee in a cup out in front of me for the waiting room to admire the deep rich glow of its sunflower yellow, dumped it unceremoniously into the plastic dish and said: “That’s for Mrs Venter, okay? Don’t get it mixed up with someone else’s!”

Patient 1. Receptionists 0.

The Secret Diary is live!

2011-04-20T15:25:00.002+02:00

If you haven't already guessed, I've been keeping the lid on some pretty big news for the last couple of weeks. What the blazes is going on, I hear you ask?

Read all about it at The Secret Diary!