Sometimes I feel very old, especially amongst the very young student I share my daytime with.  They turned 21 this year, I turn 40.  I really am old enough to be their mother and sometimes stuffy enough as well.  Normally I cope quite well amongst them, but sometimes, like today I get so frustrated with their lack of commitment, their inability to grasp how much they were given.  I am doing B. Com, Chartered Accountancy, and if you do not know what that is, just take my word for it, it is very difficult, very complicated.  Only those who really exelled in maths and accounting at school can take it and only about 10 % of those who set out to do it, manage to eventually become CA’s. 

I really am surrounded by the most intelligent young people this country has to offer.  I have to work very hard to keep up.  I must admit, I am very surprised that I am at all able to keep up.  These kids passed their final year at school with between 6 and 11 distinctions!!  Back in the day when I attended school, nobody could do that.  We only had 6 subjects and you were only allowed to do a 7th subject if you were exeptional, and to have a 8th subject you needed permission from the minister of education.  I was not allowed a 7th subject and I only managed 1 distinction.  It was not even in accounting or maths.  You see, I really have to work very hard!!

Working hard is not my problem, my problem today is simply how these kids waste their opportunities.  They miss classed, don’t prepare, don’t do their assignments, don’t do the exercise etc etc etc.  And then they say all this work is simply too much!  If they do not pass, exeptionally difficult, exams, it is the lecturers fault!! How on earth could it be his fault if I am capable of passing with much more responsibilities and much less gray matter to use?  Sometimes it really bowls me over. 

On the other hand there’s lots of very nice and commited young people attending class with me.  Some of them really have a hard time but at least they try.  I am certain a few more years in life experience really add a lot to the studying experience.  Even though these kids can sometimes frustrate me, I realise I would have done exactly the same if I tried to study this course when I was 18 to 22 years old.  Actually I did the same, only a gracious Heavenly Father know how I passed my previous studies, surely it was not due to the effort I’ve put in.

In the end, I am really glad to be a little more grown up.  Still a long way to go though!

Since today is very crucial and stressfull for our family, my focus during this whole day has been children.  Vulnerable, young, mostly innocent and totally depending on us.  It really troubles me that such beautifull gifts from a loving an gracecious God could be abused, maltreated and very often used by adults to enhance their own agendas. 

One of our friends has been divorced for five years.  He had very serious problems at that time in his life and it contributed to more than just half the reasons for the divorce.  He suffered from PTS and was a drug addict.  He was manipulative and untrusworthy.  From time to time he disappeared for days on end, only to return black and blue after being assaulted by drugdealers, without his cellphone and once even without his car.  What I am trying to say is, he really did a lot of damage to himself and his family.  At that stage his ex-wife allowed him to see his children, but then she found somebody new to love her, got married, and now refuse to let him see the children.

Since then he cleaned his life up, he went to two or three rehabs and now he is  building a new life for himself.  But he cannot see his kids.  Only once in two years she allowed the children to come visit recently, and only under the supervision of a friend.  I saw these kids, they miss their dad.  They want to spend time with him, in the few hours they had, they hugged him, climbed all over him, kissed him and hanged on to him.  Why is it so difficult for adults to get passed their own hurt and disappointments, to be able to go on with their own lives and allow their children to have as normal an upbringing as is possible in such unnatural circumstances. 

During the past few days I went through a small bit of nostalgia for the carreer I left behind me.  I wondered if the article I had published in a British social work magazine could be found on the internet.  So I did that stupid thing – I googled myself.  And then, there in front of me appeared an article of a blog or something, posted in 2007.  It related to case I worked on in 1996, where I was the probation officer in a sexual offence court case.  Here in 2007, the same family appeared in court again, only this time because the father pimped his underage daughter – last time it was his wife (the mother).  I remember in 1996 it came out that the mother had already taught her by then 5 and 7 year old daugters to pole dance naked. 

And then I remembered, also in 1996, our then provincial minister of health, stated clearly that the prevention of  HIV infections is not a value based issue. 

Really it seems to me, most things must be value based.  Maybe not so much on our own view of life and what it right or wrong, but very much on the value we place on our children.  If we value them as precious gifts, given to us to afford us the opportunity to impart a bit of ourselves into them, to allow a bit of ourselves to continue into the distant future through what we teach them, and what we give them, the opportunities and love, the caring and nurturing.   I cannot think of a greater gift than children to adorn our lives, it is all we have that has any meaning, and that will continue having meaning long after we are gone.  What we invest in them, will still have meaning long after they are gone, through their investment into their children, and so on and so on. 

Why do we find it so difficult to stand back, and for one small moment, stop thinking only about ourselves, and our own immediate needs.  Why is it so difficult to allow other, especially our children, to live life to the fullest (their fullest, not our idea of it).  

I once heard something that went more or less like this:  “Children are not only small people, they are adults in training”.  I really think they should be allowed to become the adults God intended them to be.  May He give us the grace to help them become that.

I have half an hour!! I have to use it!

Yesterday I had the most harrowing experience.  Two of our dearest friends are getting married on Friday and I had to go get my two girls something to wear to the wedding.  I could’nt leave Pieter alone at home, so of we went, all four of us to the mall. 

Everytime I take all three children to the mall, without Nestus to help me reign them in (especially Pieter) I end up being extremely irritated and tired.  So yesterday was no exception – except that it accually got worse! 

We had to shop for clothes, so we went only into clothing stores.  Pieter loves clothes shopping, he loves to run around and hide behind and underneath and sometimes even insides the clothesracks.  And I am super obsessed with the danger that something could happen to him.  I’m afraid he could run out the door and get lost, and then maybe a psychopath could get him and do something to him .  I normally try not to read newspapers or watch news, because everytime I hear something happened to a child, I get something new to be afraid of.  (Okay, I make it sound a lot worse than it is, but it is nearly that bad).  In any case, he ran around the shops, hiding everywhere, jumping out trying to scare us, and overall just being a clown.  Apparently my worries that he could get lost does’nt bother him to much, he feel quite safe in the knowledge that we will call him before we leave the shop.

Enette had to find a dress.  Okay, please imagine trying to find something to fit a girl that is so thin, the 6-7 year clothes are just about thin enough to stay on her body, only then the pants ride up her legs to just beneath her knees and the dresses all turn into miniskirts!  Finding shoes is even worse.  These long thin feet, a number 1 shoe is long enough but awesomely too wide!  To top it of, we obviously do not have the same taste in clothes.  I like the jeans with the nice orange jersey, she likes the thin sunny skirt and the flowery t-shirt (so what if it is autumn and she moans about her legs being cold in the morning when putting on a schooldress).  I like the girly, frilly and shorter blue and red dress, she prefer the more arty pink and flowery longer dress.  – Okay we bought the longer dress – she looks more like Enette in it .

And then last, but certainly not the least I had to find something to fit Laura.   I don’t now why but it seems as if children only wear clothes up untill more or less 9 years of age and then start dressing again maybe at about 15.  Seriously, there are minimal clothes available to fit, and all of it is so thin, it would fit Enette, only it would be miles too long!  So we moved over to adult clothes.  Maybe I could fit Laura in a number 30 women something.  To no avail – womans clothes have space for all kinds of curves and my eleven year old girl simply don’t have enough curves yet.  Everything is made for people with perfect bodies, all the girls of 11 tot 14 must have ultra thin waists (sometimes as thin as Enette’s – a 6-7 year fitting!!) And everything is made of stretch material that cling to every curve my less than perfect bodied eleven year old girl do have.  She got tired, I got tired, she started crying, I felt like crying, we fought, made peace, fought again, tried clothes on again, and again, and again.  It was a nightmare!! 

In the end, I could’nt do it, so after three hours of torturing children, running around and calling like a crazy woman (“Pieter, where are you?!” , “Pieter stop annoying your sister”, “Pieter, come stand here by me, don’t you dare disappear again”, “Pieter, I’m going to have to give you a hiding and then I will have to go to prison!” , “Okay Pieter, just stay in this fitting cubicle, I’ll lock you in, then I will at least know where you are .”), I eventually decided to throw in the towel and go home. 

When I got home, my most amazing, patient, beautifull, caring husband were back from work.  He took Laura back to the mall, I have no idea how he did it, but they came back with jeans and a beautyfull jersey that fits and at the some time looks quite cool!  My little girl beaming again, even willing to go back to buy shoes today – allthough I don’t think she would so willingly go with me again . 

Maybe next time, I’ll remember the horror and leave two of them somewhere, go buy what is needed, go back to the other two, have a little child exchange routine, take the next one to the mall and repeat the whole exercise untill everybody is dressed.  Maybe it would take me more hours, but I think I should consider my sanity more important than my time.

Okay, I have no time. Really, horribly but true. We’ve been on vacation for two weeks (wonderfull!!) and since then I had to work hard to catch up on the studies. I wrote tests in all my subjects, and I did not study while we were away!! When we got back I was miles behind. It is all over now, for a week anyway.

Since I do not have time to blog or post the nice holiday photos, I decided to just put a link in to Nestus. He apparently had five minutes somewhere to post. So please go see my amazing family and our seaside vacation here.

Sunday night we talked about developing healthy boundaries in our relationships.  One of our friens is currently reading a book about it and since she recently came out of a very restricting relationship, boundaries is a very relevant issue in her life at the moment. 

I also struggle with boundaries.  I have difficulty in keeping others far away to prevent us to trample on each others toes.  I always allow others to use my friendship to the point where it could be called abuse.  We live in a very close little community, as we are 4 families sharing one yard.  So sometimes we do get into each others space.  We also have a wide circle of friends and some of them is very close to us.  We eat together, go on holiday together, we are involved in each others lives to the extent where we all share responsibility for raising each others children.  I also have a problem upholding other people’s boundaries, by not jumping into their bussiness all the time.  Luckily our friends know us, and we know them, and I think we tolerate a lot more of each other’s ofbeat behaviour than would normally be the case.  So my biggest boundary problem don’e seem to be with other people.

But I do have a boundary problem, I think with myself.  I tend to set unrealistically high expectation for myself, and when I cannot reach it, I really get upset with myself.  If I had a friend who treated me the way I treat myself, that friendship would probably not last very long.  I just read a older post by Imonk on forgiving yourself, and it really made me think. 

I know I have a totally overdeveloped concience and maybe that is where I need to develop stronger boundaries.  All this sounds as if I could maybe have Multiple personallity disorder – I really don’t.  It is just that I don’t seem to be able to do that thing of :”Loving myself, and being my own best friend”.  This naturally leads me to always have more patience and understanding for others than for myself, even when they are doing harm to me.  I even know where it comes from – childhood hurts – being told to be nice to others, that the soft answer is better etc. etc.  All of that is good, and I try to teach my children to be nice and accepting as well, but it does have a limit.  When I grew up I had a very annoying stepbrother (okay that is not a strong enough description).  He used to tease the rest of us until we cried, his mother always believed he was wonderfull and kept insisting that we should adapt.  That was very harmfull to all of us, him included.  The other part of my growing up was full of fighting with my stepmom over this difficult boy, eventually, when I was about 12yrs old, I realised that I am not getting anywhere, she is never going to give in or realise what is happening, so I decided to everytime just apologise to be able to let the fight pass.  It ended up looking peacefull on the outside, but on the inside I have been boiling for years. 

Now, most of these hurts have been dealt with and does not really have an impact on my life any more, except for me not being able to let go of my own mistakes.  It seems to me if I can allow others to come closer to me, to get the benefit of who I am, and what I can give, but I do not have that same generosity towards myself.  I can accept others who made mistakes, I can forgive them and then it is in the past, but that luxury does not apply to me.

Even though I know this, I have no idea how to overcome it – maybe knowing it and seeing it for what it is, could help in future to be able to let go a little bit.  At least I did manage to teach myself not to try and take responsibility for everybody elses lives, maybe I could teach myself this as well.

What happens when HE-man falls into the hands of two nine year old girls?   Why …..

He ends up going to a ball of course!!!!

A friend gave us all his HE-man toys from when he was a boy, and Enette love to play with it.  Only its never a conventional He-man game.  Okay, I must admit, I don’t have an idea what He-man is supposed to do.  You know you’re getting old when TV characters that featured when you were already an adult, are to ancient for your children to know about!!! 

Oh, before I forget – I’m sorry for all the nice Christian ladies if we hurt your sensitivities by allowing our children to play with such “evil” toys;) .  They enjoy the toys, we enjoy them .

Then I have all kinds of other pics I also wanted to show you, we had birthdays I never had time to show you, so here goes:

Enette’s birthday cake with 9 candles – I keep forgetting she is not 8 any more!!

Just look at all the beautifull girls – they had a lot of fun.

Pieter had a pirate ship for his birthday cake.  This is our kitchen teble – converted into the world – ready for travel and exploration!!

Pieter also had a lot of friends – here they are all sitting on the trampoline in our backyard!!  We partied so much in January I am still tired

We also took family photos in Desember – I’m going to try and change my profile picture to one of them.  Untill then, here are my idea of the most beautifull kids in the world!

Maybe next time I will be able to post Laura’s video on the “Weather”. 

Have a good week, I intend to.

If there is still anybody out there, sometimes visiting my blog, I am still here somewhere. Drowning in the too-much-to-do, too-little-time-ocean. It seems as if I am not really able to juggle all the balls I thought I would be able to. So I have to cut down, here and there – apparently, mostly here (blogging).

I am smack bang in the middle of my third year and it is quite a lot of work. Trying to homeschool Laura at the same time, is a real feat, and sometimes I don’t think I am really coping. But, luckily, I have a wonderfull husband and he is really helping a lot. I must admit though, I am continuously confronted with my own rigidity. I’m starting to realize I really have a lot of preconceived notions of what a child is suppose to learn, and trying to fit it all in is impossible. And then, Nestus don’t have the same preconceived ideas, I think he just have fewer ideas, so I get quite upset when he helped her, and I don’t think it’s up to standard (my bizarrely high standard).

So, while my little girl is enjoying herself thoroughly, I struggle a bit more. She has already done tonnes more than the kids in school, but I still worry that I am harming her future with this silly homeschooling business.

Okay, now I have to run again, I’m writing a Managerial Accounting test tonight and Laura is already working full steam.  She spends the day at the university campus today, with Nestus in the Library, but I still work with her whenever I have openings between class.

Ah, and I decided to seriously try losing some weight.  Not only on my conscience, more on my hips Not easy…

I’m back!! or am I??? Hopefully….

I’ve just registered for this years academic studies, so I am back at the University – which basically means that I would have daily access to the internet again, don’t know about the availability of time to blog yet.  At least I have a moment to do it NOW.

For the past three weeks I had a constant companion in Laura.  We started homeschooling, doing real work, reading, riding our bicycles and visiting where and whenever we wanted.  I am SO impressed with my girl, I hoped to lay the foundation for working by herself during these three weeks, and I think I was successfull.  Or rather – she was successfull!!  I never even supected her to be so enthusiastic about learning.  I always thought she was bright and clever and responcible and everything else a mother thinks her children are, but she surpassed my expectations so far, I have no words to really describe it!!  Somebody recently said to me a parent can only homeschool his/her child if she likes the child.  Love alone is not enough.  I must confess I am totally crazy about my kids, at the moment I am totally mesmerized by Laura.

Talking of “mesmerized” – we’ve been reading “Artemis Fowl” (I can’t remember the name of the author right now – something like Aion somebody – oh whatever).  In any case we actually looked up the origin of the word “mesmerize” – it actually refer to a medical treatment called mesmer – some form of hipnotism or something – named after it’s inventor – a medical doctor with the surname Mesmer.  We thought it was very cool, so we “mesmer” very often in our home

Okay, enough of this blabbering, I need to go visit some friends in blogworld and will post more sensibly in a few days.

Oh and I just now remembered – we are looking for blogs by kids.  children that blog?? We want laura to start a blog but thing it would be best if she could first see how it is done and also try and find a group or community that she could eventually become part of.  If you know of anny child or teenager that blog, please give me link.

Thanks

It is allready 4 January, so wishing you all a happy New Year is a bit belated.  But I still wish you all a beautifull and gracious 2009.

We have a bit of a sick Daddy since the New Year and even took him to the doctor this morning.  He has Lung pleurisy and have to stay in bed for a day, using some antibiotics.  All part of the fun of New Year.  Live is so ironic – he got ill on 1 January, right after we changed our Medical Aid plan to a Hospital plan with no day to day assistance.  So we had to pay the doctor and the medicines in cash!!  Hopefully the rest of the year will be healthier!!

We had such a wonderfull feastive season, with still a week and a half  of schoolholiday left.  We are busy planning for Laura’s homeschoolling, moving around furniture in her bedroom, picking out books, buying all kinds of accessories.  I’ve allready started reading here and there for them and the girls seem to enjoy it. 

Ok, I have to leave now, hopefully I will find to blog more regularly again from this week on.

Sunday morning we got up on our friend’s farm near Van Rheenen, packed all our stuff and started the journey home.  In the mountains we had no cellphone reception, we did not notice time or dates.  So when we reached the small town we switched our cellphones on for the first time in a week.  Within 5 minutes my father-in-law called.  He wanted to know what time they should expect us to reach them.  Then my mother-in-law came on the line, and she congratulated me.  Only then I realized “it’s 14 December – it is the 17th anniversary of our wedding!!” 

Seventeen years!!  It flew past in the blink of an eye.  Sometimes I still cannot believe my luck, I never even had a proper boyfriend as a girl, and then I met Nestus, he became my best friend and eventually my husband!! We met as students at a christian outreach group, we both refused to admit how much we liked each other for nearly two years.  Then one day I realised that I loved him, but he did not seem interrested at all. Then he had to join the army for a year and on his first open day I visited him.  He asked me to be his girlfriend, and added that being his girlfriend would imply that I would have to  marry him.  He advised me to take time to think it over!!  I replied that I did not need time, I knew I wanted to marry him!! That was May 1990.  We were married on 14 December 1991. 

And now it is seventeen years later.  I can truly say there was not one day that I regretted saying “yes” in 1990.  Our relationship has only grown, it became better, deeper and more mature!  We enjoy being together even more than when we were basically children, back when we got married!!  I once went on holiday for one week without him, as he could not get leave, that was the most horrid week ever.  Without him everything was empty and boring. 

One of our friend said last week, if she hear someone describe a man as a nice or good man, she immediately want to see his wife.  Is the wife really happy, is she really allowed to be the person God intended her to be, is she allowed to grow and really live? 

In our lives the answer would be a resounding YES!!  This incredible man helped me to become more than I ever thought I could be.  He really brings out the best in me, he builts me up, he encourage me.  I did not even think I was ever going to get a husband, and then my Loving Father chose him for me.  For years my prayers consisted mainly of thanking God for this incredible man, and I still thank God for making the right choice for me!!

Seventeen years…  we plan on growing old together, travelling the world, living life to the fullest, holding hands….