South Africans

I guess blogging is not only something you do when feeling good, but I do prefer to concentrate on the positive. Am still feeling lousy, nausea blah blah...now onto the good stuff.

Baby boy has new baby teeth coming in, one at the bottom and on top. He hates brushing his teeth but I place him on the floor, hook my legs around his arms and keep him down in this crazy torture like stance in order to make sure that those pearly whites stay healthy. *side note: this teeth brushing stance was advice given by a dentist as kids need assistance brushing their teeth at least until they're 6yrs old* Baby boy is getting bigger and busier with each passing day and exercises those limbs by climbing his way through life. My ma reaches near heart attack stage whenever we skype and she sees him climbing onto a table. Good thing he's smart about climbing down.

We've stayed home or close by a lot more lately as I'm trying to regain strength to get back into our days of exploration. Yesterday we did venture out and ended up meeting a South African:) It's always lovely meeting those who speak a language besides English. Let me rephrase that by saying a language besides English that I can actually understand, as I'm surrounded by Spanish, French and Amharic. At the end of last year we were up in the mountains with our friends and ended up meeting two South Africans from Cape Town. They spoke Afrikaans, naturally;) anyway, my husband heard them converse and insisted that I go eavesdrop as they were South Africans. And so I did. And then came that movie moment as they leave the shop and I hesitate as to whether or not to say hi. With more nudging from husband I ran out into the snow and called out "Askies, praat julle Afrikaans" - google translate people, kidding, it means "excuse me, do you guys speak Afrikaans? or Are you speaking Afrikaans". They were pleasantly surprised and we returned inside the shop and chatted for a bit. That made my day, thanks to the ever persistent husband. So yesterday was a bonus when a lady walked up to baby boy and said "awuse'muhle" - translation: how pretty your are - or something along those lines. I do expect correction emails from Zulu speakers. And do excuse the spelling my Zulu writing has never been up to scratch, in fact it's darn near non existent.

Now imagine my shock and joy while standing in Macy's and hearing isiZulu being spoken to my son. I became all excited and we exchanged numbers as it turned out we lived on the same street. I'm all excited about the possibilities of learning Zulu and hanging out with a South African. One has to live far away from home to understand that kind of excitement. It's sort of like catching up with someone you went to high school with and you're able to chat about things that are common to you two and everyone else who went through that period along with you. Makes sense?

Well I promised myself I wouldn't keep this long as I need to rest and catch up on homework. Husband is playing basketball tonight. He's all chuffed as our new ward (church) takes basketball very very seriously. I hear that they're the reigning champs in the stake, 7yrs in a row. I guess with that kind of a record to uphold, I'd also take my game seriously.

A shout out to dear ma and auntie Zintle for spending all day on skype with us. We love you guys. I think my ma said goodnight right before baby boy's bath, which was around 3am in SA. The job of a mother never ends:)

Boobs and babies

Today is a big day. One to be marked on the calendar.

A monumental something occurred in this home. The milk factory has shut down! Not following? Baby boy stopped breastfeeding today, two weeks shy of his 18th month birthday. He is now a big boy who goes to sleep without needing some assistance. Wow. He's all grown up. Husband is waiting for me to break down crying about how much I'll miss breastfeeding. I also expected to feel a little emotional. Nope, that's a lie, I expected to be incredibly emotional. But I'm ok actually. It was time.

Although the breastfeeding journey started easily with no issues at all, I did experience a few hiccups along the way. I've never had a milk supply challenge, so for that I'm grateful. I did however soldier on the last 8 months using one boob. Yep, I was that girl with lopsided breasts for 8 whole months! The things we do for our kids. Sometime during month 9 and ten, baby boy started biting me real hard till the one breast became so haggard I refused to let him nurse on it. The pain was unbearable, and I have a very very low tolerance to pain. For a few days I tried to wean him off but that didn't work because a) making a bottle is just too much work and b) I'm sensitive to smell and the smell of  formula reminds me of a milkshake that was often given to us at Moreivin Primarie Skool - that's a Primary school in Hout Bay where I attended the first 2yrs of my schooling and the spelling is probably wrong - I didn't study there long enough to properly learn the spelling of the school name. And I should also add c) we were about to travel 24+ hours on a flight and breastfeeding was my go to response whenever baby felt uncomfortable on a flight. 

And so we fast forward to today. The first day since his birth that I have not breastfed baby boy. He's handling it better than expected. I was afraid he might throw on some shoes and take to the streets protesting against mothers who wean their babies before the age of two. But he didn't. Instead, he cried for 15mins before going to sleep during nap time. I gave him a sippy cup with water for comfort and it worked. Then he cried for about three minutes at bedtime, the sippy cup trick worked again. He is now asleep and will hopefully not wake up during the night howling at the ceiling mourning the shutdown of the milk factory. We had a good run now it's time for mama to throw away the padded bras and return to her even-barely-there boobies.

A lot of boob talk in the post huh. 

Oh well. 

Cheerio.