• My eye hurts
• My dearest husband went to Johannesburg today.  I was waiting for him to come home.  After phoning three times (him not answering), he phones back to say he is having a drink with his cousins.
• My eye hurts.
• He was probably just celebrating the birth of yet another "De Bruyn cousin" baby.  Man there's a lot of them now!
• My eye hurts
• Still ticks me off that he's not home.
• My eye hurts
• That's probably why I'm upset.
• I feel like I have no patients today.
• Might have something to do with the fact that they predicted rain and storms for today and we only got a few drops
• I love rain.  Storms.  Thunder.  The works.
• My eye hurts!
• I ate way too much today.
• My eye hurts.
• I haven't gone jogging in a week now.  Think I should just give it up as a bad idea.
• At least I did what I needed to do at work today.
• That with Zander who now believes that he needs to be with me 24/7.  I do love it.  A lot.  However, working with one hand is not easy.  Answering the phone professionally but without waking my baby is not easy.  Getting hold of files, when I can't get up is not easy.
• My eye still hurts.

Maybe I should get into bed.  Not whine right here on my blog.  Better yet.  Make myself a cup of "boere-troos" (mmm...farmer comfort? - anyway that's what Afrikaans people sometimes call coffee.  Meaning that it does make one feel better)  I'm all for feeling better.

Oh, Quintus had a test done today at the occupational therapist to test if he is ready for school.  I sat in the room next to them.  At one stage the therapist said he is doing SO well, that he is very clever.  He said "It's my mom that makes me so clever".  Put a big smile on my face.

Gotta get my boys into bed.  They are having a ball and are laughing at everything.  They are enjoying the break in routine with their dad not here.  For instance.  Jason strapped himself into Zander's infant carrier.  He proceeded to walk around with this chair strapped to his bum.  It was hilarious!  Looked like a turtle lol 

Don't hint.  Don't get him to read your blog.  Don't even ask.  Just say what you want, where to get it and when you want it.  YES, I'm getting the camera!!!  Woo-hoo!!!  Now, to get my SIL to get me one while she is in Seattle.  If I buy it here, I will pay almost double the price.  Shocking I tell you.  However, this means that I'll actually have to wait TWO weeks to get my camera.  Do you know how long that is for an impatient person like me?  I'm just waiting for Fuji to get back to me about one little thing.  I need to know what the shutter delay is on the camera.  I can't like a shutter delay.  The one I have now has a 0.01 shutter delay (almost none) and I won't cope if this one does have a delay.  So let's hope!

• I have a terrible eye infection.  It hurts terribly.  It looks horrible.  Eye swollen badly.  The part you can see a very unsexy red.  URGH.  I just hope I don't pass it on to the boys.  My hands are sore from all the washing. 
• I embarrassed Jason this afternoon and I feel so bad. Even though it's not truly my fault.  When I pick him up from school in the afternoons, he always runs into my arms and I pick him up.  Not the normal way, I'll throw him over my shoulder, flip him upside down, let him do a flip.  Stuff like that.  Today I picked him up and flipped him upside down.  I felt him slip and when I looked down, I saw my boy with a horrible shocked and embarrassed look on his face as I stood with his pants in my hands.  Unfortunately some of the kids saw this and obviously laughed.  I felt SO bad for him.  Thankfully he has the kind of personality to cope with it.  He just told me not to do that again.
• We had the first cricket practise this afternoon and it went better than I expected.  My dad is amazing.  He had the oldest group and they all thanked him when it was over.  They like him so much (what's not to like anyway).  Wish I could be more like him.  Thanks Dad!

One of our local magazine - mostly just a gossip magazine lol - launched a "unite against crime" campaign. 

One part of the campaign is to sign a petition.  This would hopefully open the eyes of our Minister of Safety and Security - Charles Nqakula -   Not sure if all of you know about this but in a reply to people complaining about our crime rate he said:  "The whingers [complainers] can do one of two things. They can continue to whinge until they are blue in the face -- they can be as negative as they want to -- or they can simply leave this country,"

Mmm...okay then.  Anyway, maybe if he gets a petition from millions of South Africans, he will realize that if all of us had to leave, there would be no-one left in this country but criminals and himself.

Point being that I'm all for signing the petition, which I have done.  The second part of their campaign is wearing a black ribbon.  Now I'm not so sure about this.  I received my free ribbon with the magazine today.  Do I wear it?  Not 100 % sure what it would help for me wear it.  We are all sick and tired of the crime.  Will wearing a ribbon make people more aware of crime?  I mean if you read the newspaper you are more than aware of it.  It's not like I live anywhere near any political figure that would actually make a difference.  Also, wouldn't the mere fact that I wear it make me more of a target?  Kinda like: "oh she's sick of crime, let's show her what crime really is"

So for now I'm not wearing it but I have signed the petition.

One can only live in hope.

We got a letter from Quintus' school about three weeks ago, asking for parents who will be able to help coach the cricket.  We "wrongly" assumed that it would be for the Grade R kids (Quintus's age) - not a way out thing to assume, especially since the letter was in HIS suitcase, you know?  Also, we took it that more than one parent would actually volunteer to help.

Mmm...we assumed wrong.  Point one - It's for the Grade R - Grade 3!!! group.  ALSO, we are the ONLY people to have offered our help.  Yes, you see the problem here hey.  SSOOO many kids and one coach? (who btw is my Dad - gotta love that guy)  Also, we don't know enough about cricket to coach 9 year olds!?  They don't just do the basics at that age anymore.

Today, I get a phone call from a parent (please remember that the first practise will only on Wednesday!).  She wanted to find out more about the cricket and if it will be okay if her son comes to practise 25 minutes late.  I told her that it would indeed not be a problem at all.  She asked more questions and found out that we would be the only coaches (I'll be helping my dad).  She was less than happy and were upset with me! about this.  She was also not happy with the hours of the practise. She wanted it to be later.  Also she thought that it should be twice a week.  I'm like - we are only helping out!!!!  WE did not decide the hours.  The days either.  The school did!!!

Can you imagine how the parents are going to try and tell us what, where and when once it has actually started.  I honesty don't know if I feel up to this.  I don't want my dad to have to go through that.  We honestly thought it would only be for Quintus and the boys in his grade.  I don't know how the school thinks we should handle all those kids.

I want this. 

I have a fujifilm Finepix S6500.  It's a great camera.  Takes great pictures.  It is just too big.  I can't carry it with me.  I need to plan photos.   I miss having my camera with me all the time.  I don't like using my cellphone to take those "kodak moment" photos. 

Now who wants to buy it for me!?  Come on...you know you want to.  Don't let me stop you!!! lol

Yes, that is what I should get.  Wife of the year award.  Not only did we go for the night, we actually stayed the whole weekend.  Even though I only packed for the night.  Including the fact that there wasn't really enough space for all of us to sleep and Tommie and I made turns to sleep on the floor.  Yes, you read that right. 

Oh I could write a book about this weekend lol but before I tell you all about it, I have to say that as far as my visits with my in-laws go, this was probably one of the nicest ones.

We get there at night.  Zander likes to home at night.  He is also not too happy with too many people in his personal space at one time.  As soon as we got out of the car he started crying.  That sad, scared cry.  I greeted and said that I'm taking him to our room.  There he continued to pull his little lip and cry every now and then.  About 15 minutes later he seemed calmer and I went to the living room. Got there and he started crying again.  So I excused myself and went back to the room.  I could here my FIL say "This is just a lot of crap.  He just has to get used to this".  When he calmed down again about 5 minutes later, we went back out and even though he wasn't completely at ease, he did begin to relax and later went on to go sit with some other people.  See he just needed to feel safe.  That's why I removed him from the situation until he felt safe.  No need to say that it's all a lot of crap.

The best however.  It's time for Zander to bath.  Him and I love our bath time together.  My SIL has these HUGE baths, so I knew that he would love this just a bit more than usual.  We are both happily in the bath when my husband says his mom wants to see Zander bath.  I say NO I'm in the bath with him and then she comes into the bathroom.  Fucking hell!!!  Here I sit in the nude, with my MIL standing there, chatting away, totally oblivious of how totally uncomfortable and in all honestly humiliated I feel.  URGH.

The next morning (after a night of basically no sleep) the men leave early to go play there precious golf.   I think my MIL came into my room about 10 times (even though the door was closed).  I know she just wanted to help though.  I do appreciate the fact that she did her best to help me as much as possible with the kids.  Just give me some privacy!!!

All in all though, it was nice.  The kids had a total ball.  I hardly saw Quintus.  It was nice to just visit with the in-laws without having to rush anywhere.  The kids loved being with there grandparents all weekend long, which is something that I feel is very important.  Being close to your grandparents is such a blessing.

Some cute things the kids had to say this weekend:

• On the way there, Jason fell asleep.  All of a sudden he sits upright and says "bless you".  Only after this does he wake up and sneeze
• Zander got a bit tired of the car and it was dark outside, so he wanted to be home.  He was crying and truly unhappy.  However, he loves music, so I put the music on for him to hopefully calm down.  That's when Quintus told us to "put the music softer.  Zander wants to cry!"
• Jason got a big thorn in his foot when he walked outside.  So he is crying while I'm trying to help him.  My MIL gets there and wants to know if it hurts.  He said "It hurts and it is sore!" 
• Quintus loves girls.  No really.  Even as just a little toddler, he would look at girls with such dearness.  There was an older girl at the party.  I noticed that Quintus kept on following her.  Trying to spend as much time as possible with her.  When he was bathing, I said that the girl seemed really cute. He said, "yes she is cute AND she is pretty!"  Boy am I in for trouble with this one!
• Zander is now giving ME kisses.  But not just offering a kiss by moving his forward.  No, this one actually demands kisses from me.  He will put his hand on the side of my face, turn it towards him and kiss me slap bang on the lips.  Cute little boy this.
• The boys were being typical brothers on the way home.  Pushing, hitting, taking toys, pulling tongue (you all know).   So after a good and serious warning from us, they got quiet and realized that we are very serious.  I told them that they should be ashamed of themselves.  At least they HAVE brothers unlike their cousin Ockert who is an only child.  Quintus said that it must indeed not be nice when you have no-one to play with.  So a little while later, I hear him whisper to Jason "I really do love you a lot"   *sweet*