Sympathetic Soutie

I'm not even going to try and convince you to forgive yet another long absence from these pages. Don't get me wrong -- I compose at least one blog post a day in my head, but - just as you probably are - I've been busier than a one-legged cat! But, happily so.
For example, I've been spending time with two new friends I met through Layla's new little school buddies. One of the families are freshly arrived from Korea (9 months ago) and the other has been in South Africa since August last year: an Indian family direct from Delhi with a prior 6 month stint in Newcastle, a la Muddy Isle.

Visiting Younju yesterday, she asked me why I don't write on my blogs anymore (a question, and I know it sounds like I'm blowing my trumpet very loudly, that I get asked very, very often.) It always ends up with the usual two excuses of 'too busy' during the day and 'shattered/buggered/nattered' at night. If my li'l princess wasn't such a nag-apie (Afrikaans word for 'night-monkey' -- see pic below) I'd probably be able to get in an hour or two's writing a night. But, I have always preferred to spend the evening with my little Layla than whip her off to bed hours before she's ready. It's also that I sympathetically identify with her night-owlishness; I spent many hours of my childhood nights beneath my duvet, torch lighting up the hungrily devoured pages of my latest copy of The Famous Five, praying the torch batteries wouldn't die before I got to the end of the chapter!) Anyway - I digress as usual...
What I was saying was (9 minutes left to write before leaving to pick Princess up from school *sigh*) that it was such an honour when Youngju revealed that she was reading my blog! With only 9 months of English under her Korean belt, it's absolutely mind-boggling that someone would be prepared to sit down and patiently decipher each of my usually-too-long sentences! Wow! I promised Youngju I would update my blog last night. Better late than never? I hope so, Youngju.

What I am especially enjoying about these two new friendships is the reverse sort of Soutpielism - and my ability to encourage and help them where I can. Sometimes it's with explaining South African culturalisms or answering a telephone call to clarify specific details with the often impatient caller. HOPEFULLY, and all my fingers crossed, I'll find a bit more time to write - even if it's in short little snatches? (This'll peeve my 'greatest, most loyal and most pushy fan', no doubt - eh, Mrs Melrose Cheese? *cheeky wink*)

Adios, all my amigos
x x x

Chubby and Proud!

My sugar-less (to clarify: the 'less' signifies I am ingesting less sugar as opposed to a sugarless diet: how could I never have another chocolate or bowl of Ben & Jerry's?!) diet is going fabulously: there is definitely something to be said for the marvels of moderation! I can't quite remember just who said it, but this quote expresses more succinctly what has happened to me in the last month than I could ever attempt:

What is healing but a change in perspective?

Being 'chubby' has haunted my eating days since I was ten years old. Pretty young, huh? I think it was the school nurse (a short and - rather ironically - rotund old woman with short grey hair and the wrinkliest face I'd ever seen on anyone except my Norwegian great-aunt) who suggested my mom haul me off to a dietician ASAP. Looking at photos of myself at that age now, I am deeply angry that I was deemed even vaguely overweight. Certainly, I was not blessed with a beanpole physique and a skyrocketing metabolism, but my body was cute and round and healthy. The usual ball-oriented sports at school like netball and tennis saw me cursed with butterfingers and bored to tears - and I often managed to almost-legally bunk all my Phys Ed classes from primary to high school by needing to practice my flute (wink, wink.) Climbing trees didn't suit me much either: my twin sisters would chatter with not-too-subtle glee at my mom having to fetch the ladder to get me out the high arms of the leafy avo tree in our back garden. (I could climb up - it was the getting down that didn't agree with me.) Another moment of humiliation? Slipping clumsily off the rocks we were using to cross an almost torrential river while hiking in the Cape mountains while my sisters nimbly hotfooted it across and my dad calling me his 'little mountain deer'. Yes, he was being sarcastic. But besides these sorts of incapabilities, I was an excellent little sailor - representing South Africa when I was a mere 13 years old at the Mirror World Championships in Holland! And for you of you who have never sailed a dinghy in the famous South Easter - it is blerry hard work: you need to be fit and super-strong! So ball-sports aside (and river-rock-hopping), I wasn't an unhealthily slothful child at all. I simply preferred stretching my brain muscles to other muscles; 2 to 3 hours a day was a normal amount of time for me to spend practising my flute, for example.

Provitas skimmed with a mere lick of marge, and carefully dolloped with exactly measured-by-grams fat-free cottage cheese and early morning jogs in the dark before school were my punishment for having a body that wasn't supermodelesque. It didn't stop there either - I continued to punish myself for not being thin until about two years ago when I finally managed to leave my exercise-obsessed, fat-free fanatic ex who certainly didn't help me accept myself for who I was. Before I met my husband, I enjoyed two glorious years of unadulterated glory in the eyes of quite a number of delicious young men who unabashedly adored my healthy curves - and the word 'diet' never once crossed my happy mind. My husband,a bit of a Jack Sprat himself, is my biggest fan - even with my new mommy-body which has taken me 11 painfully arduous months of self-psychology to make peace with. I can't quite say that I am at the 'love-myself-to-bits' stage yet, but I can see it on the horizon, at least!

{This is just the beginning of much, much more on this universal and layered topic: more will follow as soon as Layla (aka HRM = Her Royal Majesty) allows.}

Exhausted, exhausted...

HRM (Her Royal Majesty A.K.A my baby girl) is still blessedly asleep, though as she swims to the surface of her sleep, she's grunting and sighing - causing my mothering hormones to flood my body, and I know it'll be a matter of mere minutes before I have to sign off, log out etc etc. But at least I am here on the page!
My second day all alone at home with this new little person who is 150% dependent on me has been fraught with anxious tears and sobbings of failure. (Oh, the drama, the drama!) But, after an emergency visit from the housewife, a few phonecalls to other mom-friends, I discover all of this is... NORMAL. Bugger. Yes, it does sort of help to know I am not an utterly useless mother -- but at the same time, I wish I could somehow leapfrog over this physicaland emotional exhaustion to a place where brushing my teeth is par for the course and not a massive accomplishment managed somewhere after lunch! (Out the window, I spy the Sainsbury's home delivery van: EUREKA! How much easier and simpler this will make my life!!)

I'm going to say ciao before my bambino awakes -- setting aside my beloved, but now quite extraneaous, writing for the greater good of a functioning household! (For any ideas or good old-fashioned encouragement, please use the COMMENTS section at the bottom of this posting!)

Love,
Lisa