Where did I go?

Sorry its been awhile. I've been completely and totally preoccupied. Today I've been frantically packing 6 weeks worth of junk for me and the Goo. I leave Sunday evening at 5. We're flying to Johannesburg and catching a 9:20 flight to Atlanta. That flight is going to be 17 hours. I need y'all to do some serious praying for me. I'm freaked out about it.

After that, we're landing at Atlanta at 7 in the morning and then we have to catch an 8:20 flight to San Antonio. Pray that I can get my baggage, go through customs, re-check my baggage and find the domestic terminal all within the alloted time and all with a baby and all with very little sleep.

I can't wait to see everyone.

I tried posting pictures and the site wont let me. Not sure why. Oh well, you'll see me in person soon enough.

:)

New thoughts

So right now we're faced with a national crisis that some people keep referring to as "The World Cup". Its happening whether we want it to or not. And why don't we want it to? Because all prices everywhere are about to skyrocket and there isn't anyone around to do anything about it.

So, we're thinking about moving back in May (a month before the horror begins).

We have to leave from Johannesburg, so the sooner we can get out, the safer we will be.

But that means we have to figure out our lives within the next few months.
I'll be brainstorming while in the States. I'm open to ideas......email me!

Look at the happy Goo!

And look at my sister and her baby-head!

Thats all I have....

The OT

Occupational Therapist, that is.

We took the Wolf down the street to see her this morning. I think I said this last time, but she has a fabulous old house. Her father-in-law used to be president of the country and they have the neatest historical...things.

Anyway, she worked with the Goo some and gave us exercises to do with him. He has improved in that he is crawling and sitting and pulling himself up on things.....

....but he still "has a bit of a wobble". Its simply a muscle coordination issue. We've got to work with him. Other than that, she said he looks good.

Its been hot, so we've spent our cool evenings out on the porch. Its so nice out there. Really beautiful
I thought I'd include this picture so everyone can brace themselves for Wolfgang;s "Angry Face". Also, you can see the giant molar coming in on his right side.
He's now got another one coming in on the left. Good. Lets get it over with before the flight!

Big Fat Baby Blog

This is the kind of entry that will cause all non-family members to groan.

Sorry, nothing going on this week. Just a lot of hanging around with the Goo.

Yesterday I lugged his crib into the living room while I cleaned. He played cards and read.

We've also spent some time on the front porch, just to get a new perspective on life....

Its glorious!

The Wump is heavenly!

Enkidu is.....hot and stinky.

Wolfgang sees the birds and does just fine as long as he doesn't try and point.

A blanket on the concrete is actually softer than our carpet.

Ooo, birds.

We sit and read. A lot.

And play with the dad.

And clap for ourselves when we're done eating.

This is our newest form of entertainment....

Busting a sag and petting the Wump.

First thing in the morning. We're pretty happy.

I Eat Dirt

Say's Wolfgang.

And it is Lekker (nice/good)!

We drove down the road to Gordon's Bay last night to pass the last hour before Wolfgang went to bed. I like this little village. Its Lekker.

Didn't really expect it to be this nice out. It was so WINDY in Strand.

But it was calm and warm and....soft.

Wolfgang was infatuated with the wet sand.

He looked so tiny on the wide empty beach.

After the sand-eating began, we decided to walk over to the cafe and get something to drink. We aimed for the red one.

It was quiet, the light was nice and we had a great seat.

I busted out the juice-bottle for the Goo and he reclined, using his wet, sandy jeans as a pillow.

So quiet. So wonderful. Thanks God. We needed that.

Beach disaster

Randy is gone all day today, so I thought I'd take the Wolf back down to the beach. Its cooler out and there is a gentle breeze, so I thought it would be nice.

We stopped off at Shoprite and bought the very last beach umbrella. I knew half the stake was missing, but it was only $5 and its really just for the Goo anyways, so it doesn't matter if its short.

But of course when I asked if they had another one in the back, they took the one I had purchased with them and so I had to stand at the counter for nearly 15 minutes.

No AC in there.

Hot.

Cranky.

By the time we got to the beach, the gentle breeze was a gale-force wind. We got SAND BLASTED. Covered from head to toe. Actually, Wolfgang was covered from head to toe in sunscreen and because it was still fresh, the dirt stuck to him like sprinkles in icing. I tried sitting down and propping the umbrella up, only to discover that not only is the stake extension missing, the whole thing is mangled. So I wrestled with the umbrella while Wolfgang sat on the towel, crying and getting pelted with horizontally-flying sand.

Its a good way to kill an hour......

I didn't take pictures, but if I did, they would look something like this:

Heat Wave

I'm melting. We all are. Who was the wise guy who decided that AC wasn't a good idea in Africa? Somebody smack that guy.

No breeze today. Over 100 degrees.

Misery.

At about 3:30, I thought I was going to have a breakdown. Wolfgang was screaming and we had nowhere to go and I had sweat dripping of of me. Finally I was like, "Thats it!!"

I slathered Wolfgang in sunscreen (while he screamed), stomped down to the beach with a towel and a bucket and shovel, and marched right into the freezing cold ocean. Wolfgang continued to scream, but as soon as we got out and sat on our towel and played with out bucket, we were happy as clams (is that a phrase?).

When we got home we were COVERED in sand. Can you see it?

We tried to go on a walk around sunset but it was so hot that we only made it to the 7/11 parking lot. We got drinks and sat on the curb.
Other recent activities include trying to teach the dogs to pull the stroller. The Wump is just too darn stupid.

But together they did ok until Enkidu noticed the stroller following him and freaked.

I saw this scene through the window the other night. I thought it was sweet.

Sure do love that Goo.

So that is what we've been doing. I've had a drama-week so I haven't been able to keep my thoughts on task in the blogging arena. Randy offended Mae by turning down a bunch of rotten bananas the other day. There are only so many nasty foods that we can chunk in the trash before it gets ridiculous. Randy put his foot down and said "No more food, Mae."

(Because she likes to bang on the wall or holler at the back gate, always riling the dogs up and usually waking the baby. )

Her version of the conversation was a little more animated and dramatic. Now she's being weird.......

Chillin Wit My Homies.

Thats the phrase that comes to mind when I see this picture.

Look at Daisy's leg draped over Wolfgang's.

They are just about the same size and total buds.

Here they discuss the benefits of traveling on all fours. Wolfgang is trying to explain his position on advancing to the "2-legged" mode of travel. Daisy is trying to keep an open mind.

We went to Kommetjie today to visit our old Noordhoek friends Jens and Belinda. They have a new house in this tiny surfing village and we went and had a braai and a stroll down the beach.
It was hot. It was beautiful. Wolfgang was tired. Three facts that governed the outing.
We did, however, find an ENORMOUS log. At one point in time it was the cargo of a ship. I'm not sure what happened to the ship, but for a while several of these dangerous posts were washing around Long Beach. This one was pulled ashore by divers. Man its huge.

Thats Chapman's Peak there behind us. Thats where Monkey Valley is. We stayed there when Andrew and Cristin came. And we lived just down the road from the resort in Noordhoek.

Don't ask me what I'm doing in this picture. I honestly don't know.

Child Restraint

Thats what I need.

For my flight.

Unfortunately they don't sell FAA approved car-seats in South Africa. They're all either British or American. So I found one company that stocks "International Items" and sells them for less than the $47 Million that it would cost to get a car seat shipped here from overseas.

It came today. (Thank you, Cathy!)

The size of the box nearly gave me indigestion, considering that I'm going to be lugging this thing (plus luggage, plus baby, plus baby accoutrement's) through several airports across the world.

When I assembled it, it wasn't so bad. Enormous, but luggable. Wolfgang did some reclining in it after a long hot walk. He was hot and thirsty. He was like, "GIMME THAT MILK, WOMAN!"

Once we've made it to our flight and we've settled in, I think it will be well worth it. Child Restraint on a long flight is a good thing. He likes it.......

........as you can tell by his "toe-language".

Right now he's in Mr. Serious-About-His-Milk mode.

Here's a great example of how fast a shot can be blocked. One moment, clear shot of the face, Next moment, Bam! Bam!

Obstructions.

I know. A thrill a minute.....

New Year

What kind of trivial things are going on in my little life?

Here is a small list.

1~I wore makeup today for the first time in 2 weeks. I feel like a movie star.

2~Yesterday was a scorcher and Wolfgang was a monster so we went down to the beach cafe and sat in the shade and drank a lime milkshake. We were both a mess and neither of us cared.

3~I stood in line at the stationary store for 20 minutes today. The old lady behind me revealed all the nuances in her feelings about her...Scabies?

Shillings?

What are those things called?

Scurvies?

Shingles! Thats what it was! The first 3 minutes was in Afrikaans until finally I got a blert in edgewise. The blert was, "English." (I immediately regretted it once I realized she was talking about her afflictions and didn't require any comments from me anyway....)

4~ Something has died in the vicinity of our house. More accurately, something has died and is rotting in the vicinity of our kitchen wall. Thank you, Cristin, for the recent candles. Life would be much harder without them.

5~ Wolfgang now says Daddy, Mama, and "Doo" (as in Enkidu). But mostly, he says, "Eeeeeeeeaaaunnnnnnnggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" in his outside voice.

6~ Here's what I've been doing on the computer. I designed these signs for Me & My House in San Antonio. We printed them on huge posters and they are now hanging in the shop windows.

Surprise Fun

Wolfgang woke up at 7 this morning and it was already HOT. We walked to the store at about 8:30 and we were seriously sweating by the time we got back. But when we walked in I noticed that I had missed a call.

Teresa and ...Hime (I don't know how to spell it) live down the street from us and I LOVE THEM. They are in their late 50's early 60's and they are so cool and have such a fantastic 100-year-old house. They have 2 sons about our age. One of them is a chef in the Maldives and the other one lives in Cape Town with his wife.

Anyway, Theresa is house-sitting for her boss in Somerset West (the town with the largest gathering of millionaires in South Africa). Theresa was the missed call. I called her back and she said, "Don't you want to come and have a swim?"

Uh, yeah.

The property was spectacular. Its in town but its up on a hill surrounded my palm trees. Its gated in and the gardens are amazing.

You can see some of the other houses in the hills.

Everything was perfectly manicured and very, very green.

The inside of the house was nice too. Cute bathtubs.

Fancy gold furniture.....

An enormous second-floor dining room with a huge window seat.

It was a great view and the cushions were as wide as a day bed.

Heaven.

Theresa made mealie pap and yummy indoor food and ...Hime....did the braii outside.

Wolfgang and I sat under a tree and watched.

As did the sweetest dog on earth. I can't pronounce this dog's name. This is an Afrikaans dog.

We also did a LOT of swimming.

It was Wolfgang's first time in a pool. We just stripped him down and hopped in. He loved it.
Then Theresa made him a little baby-throne on the patio and he sat back and drank his juice while we stuffed ourselves silly.

We were there all day. I didn't want to come home. It was wonderful.

New Years Day

Well, I thought last night was crazy but Randy thought it was tame. Whatever it was, it was loud at the beach. But that was NOTHING compared to today.

We went into Stellenbosch at around noon, and it took us nearly 30 minutes just to get down beach road. I was kicking myself for not bringing my camera. The beach was a sea of people. They spilled out onto the sidewalks and the streets and then the sidewalks on the other side of the street (and then they trickled into the neighborhoods....)

For the first time in a while, the beach REALLY felt and looked like Africa. People were huddled by the dozens under small trees. They had open fires and naked children. There were thousands of them.

When we came home most of the people had cleared out, but we went down anyway. I could have sat and watched for hours.

Fascinating.

These pictures were taken at about 6:30...

I found it interesting that many of the businesses were closed and yet this was obviously the busiest beach day of the year. Kind of sad really. I guess this wasn't their typical clientèle. There were few white people on the beach. We stuck out like white, pasty thumbs.

Also strange that so many of the high-rise condo's on this beach are standing empty while the beach itself is so full of life.
The smaller, grungier condo's have been rented, but those people stayed inside today.

I could have stayed out there for hours.

But it was windy and The Goo was getting tired.

So we traded. Randy took Wolfgang and I took the camera. That made Wolfgang happy.

He immediately gave his daddy a sweet kiss on the cheek.

He's a happy Wolf.

Party

This party was OUT OF CONTROL!

I was worried the neighbors were going to call the cops.

Hey, whats that noise......? A cricket chirping...?

Wumpy had one too many and acted like a total animal.

Thankfully Randy was there to act as bouncer (he had to toss Mae out at the end....)
Wolfgang was so sweet. He got all the things his little baby-heart desired.

Chocolate cake.

A couple of books, one in Afrikaans.

Early morning presents from Grammy and Papa.

An early morning Mama making up translations.....

"And then...the, uh bunny...eats the round thing and then.....he...uh....is happy.....er, with his pants on....and ahhhhhh....."

As I was doing something on the computer, I heard quiet coming from the living room. It was deafening. I went in and found The Goo on the floor being cool. Check out his concentration toes.....

Happy first birthday Wolfgang Xerxes. We love you.

Monday

Well, I'm not using the camera this week for two reasons.

(1) My left eye and (2) my right eye.

Pink.

Pink eyes.

"Pinkeye" to be specific.

Both of them.

Bummer......

Summer

I'm in the mood to relax today. Oh wait, I was in that mood yesterday too....and last year.....

Anyway, one thing about this town is that when its quiet, its QUIET. I think the relaxy-mood hits the whole town at once. Except for Wolfgang.

He really isn't much of a relaxer. Or more accurately, he likes to be busy. Even if he's sitting in a laundry basket on the front porch.

We have this great Bougainvillea bush/vine in the front yard and these blank beams over the porch. Somebody at some point in time actually planned this out but no-one has taken the time to train the vines, so they have grown over the neighbor's wall and now the neighbors have more of the tree than we do. So I'm training our half to crawl over the porch. It will be spectacular some day.....

Christmas #2

We've had an eventful day. Who'd have thought?

The text on my last blog was lost in cyberspace, so I'm writing another one.

We had lunch with Mae. She gave Wolfgang a teddy bear and thankfully he chose that opening-the-gift-moment to squeal. She took it as confirmation that her gift was a hit.

Randy got socks and I got a broach. Cha-ching.

:)

After that we went on a walk and stopped off at one of Mae's old friend's house. She and her husband have lived there for 44 years and their granddaughter lives with them. They were just lounging around on Christmas so we stopped by and sat around with them for quite a while. Randy really hit it off with "George" and Lauren (the 14-year-old granddaughter) loved the Goo.

After that we came home and got Wolfgang ready for bed. But before he went down we noticed a sunset and decided to run down to the beach. This picture was taken at about 7:45.

There were a lot of people out and it was nice and breezy.

(pay no attention to the bare bums in the background of this picture.....)

Wolfgang was hit with a major bout of giddiness and smiled and squealed and OFFICIALLY started saying "Daddy"!

Who wouldn't rather be at the beach than in their crib?

This might be my favorite picture ever. He is such a delightful Wolf. I love him so much I can hardly stand it!

Then we came home and he went down. Time to relax.....

Oh, and last night we went to a Korean couple's house and had dinner with them. It was fascinating! You walk in and automatically see and feel the cultural differences. I loved it. We all ate dinner on the floor around a big coffee table. They ate with chopsticks. I tried and failed miserably. It was wonderful.

:)

Christmas #1

Merry Christmas!

I woke up today on the RIGHT side of the bed. I don't know why. Maybe its because today is Christmas and we have a baby-head to share it with. I got up and straightened the thrashed living room and then made some breakfast and then we brought out the gifts that Grammy and Papa sent with Andrew and Cristin. For those of you who are sick of seeing pictures of the kid, I apologize. But family, I wish you could have seen this. It was so fun.

Wolfgang was excited because I was excited. He didn't know why and he didn't care.

As soon as he realized there was something inside the paper, his eyes lit up.

He played with the first toys for a while. So fun! Thanks Dave and Sue.

The second toy was even more exciting. Lots of noise and movement.

Look at his happy Gooster face and his cute morning hair and his summer jammies.

Arg! I love him so much I can't stand it!

Merry Christmas!

Dec 23rd?

Its beginning to look absolutely nothing like Christmas.

But thats ok because we we're doing a little better today.

When we're not being spoiled and cranky.....

But at least all the doctor visits are behind us and now we can chill out and enjoy Christmas.
And our anniversary......and Wolfgang's first birthday.....and New Years Eve.

If y'all were here we'd have a week-long open-house party (involving lots of cake....if we had an oven.......)

Tomorrow night we're eating sushi with some Korean friends. I'm terrified but I've sworn to eat whatever is offered to me. Then we're having Christmas lunch with Mae. All I know is that we narrowly avoided a menu of Pickled Tongue and Beets, and instead we're having "Cold Meats".

Come on Normal. I'm waiting for you.....

No internet!

We haven't had internet in 2 days. I thought it was a server malfunction, but as it turns out we were out of minutes and the server people didn't inform us.

Anyway, we're finally back up and running. I'd post a nice, fluffy blog full of pretty pictures but that would require effort (and/or something to photograph that isn't vomit and poop-stained).

I've done 9 loads of laundry in the past 48 hours. We've had no sleep. Wolfgang hasn't kept much....in.

After a horrific weekend we took him to another doctor who said that it wasn't tonsillitis, it was an Epstein-Barr virus. Last night I was down to my last pair of pants and Wolfgang barfed on them. I've been wearing Randy's boxers ever since. They're nice and breezy.

Anyway, we've done much fretting and very little eating or sleeping, but today, finally, the fever has broken and Wolfgang seems to be on the mend.

I'll post more when I'm finally back in my own pants.

Sickness

Poor little Goo.

He is so not a cuddler, but all this week he just wants to snuggle with me. Not so fun when he's vomiting, but I'm still soaking it up (the cuddling, not the barf....well, I guess if we're speaking literally, I'm also soaking up the barf....).

I didn't sleep last night. I "slept" in Wolfgang's room and he was up every hour and a half crying and shaking and slightly delirious with fever. I think I prayed all night. It was awful (the shaking, not the praying...).

The Antibiotics seems to be kicking in this evening (even though he barfed again.....) so hopefully he'll be on the upswing tomorrow. We have a doc appointment anyway.

Pray for us. We're tired and anxious and none of us have an appetite except the dogs...