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:)