31 weeks

I went for my next visit to the gynae yesterday. I'm now 31 weeks, and considering our girl will probably come at about 39 weeks, it's just 8 weeks to go!

Everything is fine and healthy. At my last visit 3 weeks ago her weight was estimated at 1.1kg, which was on the slightly small side of average. But yesterday her weight was estimated at 1.9kg, which is on the big side of average. So in 3 weeks that's pretty substantial weight gain, and if she carries on, then I'm definitely looking at a big baby again, and then I will almost definitely have a cesarean again. But this time it will be scheduled, instead of the traumatic emergency it was with Joshua, so at least it will be a much more positive experience. If she's looking to be about 3.6kg's then we'll probably do a trial of labour first (Joshua was 3.94kg's, and that was too big for me to do naturally) But we'll make the decision much closer to the time.

I thought I'd post the few photos I've had taken of me during this pregnancy, just for the record. For those who were around when I was pregnant with Joshua you'll remember that I was huge! I put on in total 17kg's (although I had really bad swelling, so I'll blame it on the water ;o) ) and it was just a really bad pregnancy in that way.

This time my weight gain has been substantially less! I'm 7 months now, and I've only put on 6.5kg's so far (although I've put on 1kg just in the last 2 weeks, but that will probably be how it goes for the rest of the time). With only a bit of discomfort I can still wear my pre-pregnancy jeans! I wore them last week, although that was probably the last time until after May...

So although there are still aches and pains, at least in some ways my body is handling this pregnancy a lot better, and I definitely feel better about myself.

4 months:

6 months:

7 months:

I just hope I don't do a sudden explosion! But who knows what the next 8 or 9 weeks will bring ;o)

Barney song

This evening when I was singing Joshua his lullaby he was busy saying something... Couldn't figure it out at first, but then I realised that he was whispering "Happy know clap hands" and then clapping a couple times, and then doing it again and again... We've got a Barney CD which Josh loves to listen to in the car, and invariably when he asks he says "Barney happy", and he definitely wants "If you're happy and you know it". I guess it's not surprising that he's starting to sing it on his own now...

While I'm commenting on his talking it bears mentioning where he is right now...

He can now say basically all of your colours - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink, purple, brown, black, white and grey. And his favourite colours are definitely orange and red, in that order. Whenever he's drawing with crayons he wants the orange crayon, and we must use the red one. He loves his orange truck best, and if he's choosing clothes he'll always go for the orange and red if they're in his cupboard. Anything orange just makes him really happy apparently!

He also know the basic shapes - circle, square, triangle, star and heart. I haven't really tried to teach him rectangle yet...

And he can now pretty much count to 5, although it's sometimes 1 2 3 4 5 4 5. He also knows that the other numbers to 10 are numbers, because if you ask him to count he'll sometimes say something like 8 9 or something like that. But he doesn't know the order yet.

A couple months ago he was able to say the names of all of my family who are still at home, but in his own way - Ganny, Gamma, O-no, Ninny and Rich. But they have now improved quite a bit. It's still Ganny and Rich, but now Gampa, A-new and Cindy. So that's come quite a long way. He also knows some of the names of my family who don't live together. A few weeks ago he was in the bathroom at my parents house and seeing the 3 toothbrushes there decided they belonged to Cindy, Richard and Colleen. He hadn't seen Colleen in ages, but he knew she belonged as part of the family.

Over December and January we had my uncle Ron and my cousin Shawn staying in our new study. Shawn then went home to Australia, but Joshua will still periodically mention him, especially when we're in the room where they slept. And with Uncle Ron and Pamela now being in the process of moving to Cape Town we've been seeing them every few weeks, and they are a collective "Ron-Pam". Even if he just sees Pamela, who he's seen much less of, he'll say "Ron-Pam".

And he also knows his Fish Hoek cousins names. He'll often just randomly start talking about Ammer, Paige and Sawah (Amber, Paige and Sarah), and even sometimes Frankie, the dog.

And when I fetch him from his day mother in the afternoon while we're driving down the street he'll be saying, "Bye Wenny (Wendy), bye Bella (Isabella), bye Connor, bye Chase". It's so cute to hear the way that he says all these different names!

And of course his pronunciation still has a long way to go. When he says "orange" it comes out as one syllable, and "blue", "black" and "balloon" (which is more like "bloon") he over-enunciates the "bl-" sound, so his tongue is working really hard. It's just too cute! I try every now and again to take a video of him saying the colours or people's name etc to try and capture this stage, but whenever I start recording he stops saying things nicely. So I'll post it if I ever manage, but I'm not sure it will happen...

It really is a joy to hear him speaking more and more, and very often we're actually able to have a conversation with him now! Exciting development!

Surprise!

On Wednesday I was completely surprised for the first time in my life by a surprise party! At work they threw a joint baby shower for myself and another girl who is currently 36 weeks pregnant (I'm 30 weeks now).

My office is next door to Ilse's on the 5th floor, and our department's meeting/function room is on the 6th floor. Next door to the meeting room are some cubicles where "hotseat" is done - one on one tutoring for students, provided by the student tutors. So Ilse comes into my office, looking a bit flustered and says she wants to quickly show me something at the hotseat. I grab my office keys and go up with her, making some comment on the way up that I haven't even really looked at the hotseat since they did some renovations to it late last year. And then she pulls me into the meeting room, and says, no actually there's nothing wrong, but it's my baby shower! I truly was surprised!

All of the staff who weren't teaching at the time were all there to have a nice little lunch and get together, and they had all put money together for the two of us to get baby stuff (there are too many men in the department to expect them to actually buy baby stuff themselves ;o)) But I also got given a really cute pink blanket by some of the academic trainees - officially the first pink thing that we have! So now finally our little girl is starting to get some stuff ;o) We've been neglecting her a bit in favour of Joshua...

But thank you to the Department for their contributions, and just for all coming together to spend some time with us.

I unfortunately could only get my camera after just about everyone had left (remember I had just grabbed my keys and come upstairs) so this is more the aftermath...



Thanks everyone! Again - I work with great people!

Goodbye Oscar

On Tuesday my family said goodbye to Oscar - the oldest cat that they had. We got Oscar when I was in 11, in 1995. So he's lived a good 15 years. He was technically my cat, but he was at the same time very much just part of the family.

Over the last while his arthritis has been getting really bad, making it very difficult for him to function normally, and on Tuesday morning my mom thought that he had dislocated his hip. I went with to the vet, and she said he hadn't actually dislocated it, but he was definitely in a great deal of pain. The decision was made that he should be put down (my parents had been thinking about when the time would be right for a while now, so it wasn't just a reaction to his condition on Tuesday)

I stayed with in the vet's room... Not an experience that I hope to have too many times in my life, but it is great to know that he didn't have any pain. So a chapter closed...

Here's the old man:

My Professional Development

It's been an interesting week for my to reflect on where I am in my career...

We have a new Head of Department this year, and he decided he wanted to meet with each of us individually to discuss how we are doing in the four areas that we are supposed to perform in - teaching, research, social responsiveness and student/departmental admin (not actual admin work, but more student support stuff).

Because I'm currently on contract I am in the fortunate position that I only really have to worry about my teaching at this point, and at this stage of my life that about all I can handle. He's quite happy for me to renew my contract when it expires, instead of becoming permanent staff, so that I can focus on my family for the next few years still while my kids are small. It's great to work in an environment where they are so supportive!

But Mark made an interesting comment... Before becoming HOD he was the head of the Financial Reporting section, which I have always fallen under. So when I did academic training in 2006, and then when I came back he was my "boss" (in the informal kind of way that our department works). And in our meeting on Tuesday he said how he's been so impressed to see how much I've grown and come into myself since 2006. He said that his impression of me was that I was very shy back then. I was kind of surprised because I didn't really think of myself as shy - I had already been tutoring for 2 years before that, and at church I had had various leadership responsibilities etc, so I guess I thought I was already pretty confident.

But when I thought a bit more about it, I realised that yes, I have come a long way. And it's amazing for me to reflect (again - I'm amazed every time I do this reflection) on how the entire training program for CA's is designed to make us into confident leaders. Over the 3 years of traineeship that we have we are gradually, and yet remarkably quickly when you think that this all happens in 3 years, built up to a point where we can assume the leadership of a team, dealing with senior staff within our client companies, and taking responsibility for a significant portion of an audit. The program really is impressive.

And so yes, I am more confident now than I was 4 years ago. And if I also look at how I've settled into my job, and as I have become more comfortable, also become more confident, I guess the past year at UCT has also seen me growing significantly.

And one exciting aspect of that growth is that I have co-authored an article that is going to be published in the Accountancy SA magazine - SAICA's monthly magazine. And I am also helping with the 3rd edition of the textbook that is prescribed for the course that I mainly work on. So my name will also be on that textbook when it gets published in 2012! My part in the revision of the textbook is pretty small - the biggest changes that I've been involved in have formed the basis for the article that is going to be published, so that are very closely linked. But it's still getting my name out there, so I am very grateful to Ilse who has really been a mentor for me over the last year - on being a CA and being and academic.

I have been very blessed by Heavenly Father to be placed where I am. My training up to this point, and then the people that I work with in my department who all are interested in me as a person, and who are helping me to become the professional that I can be. I really am amazed when I stop and reflect!

Summer rain in Cape Town

I got sent these photos of the storms we've been having the last couple days in Cape Town. Beautiful! And a nice view of the new Cape Town stadium!

Joshua's new room

We finally did it! Joshua has moved into his new room.

I'm actually still kind of in shock that it all worked out today. We've been getting things ready for literally 3 months - ordering his bed, getting a duvet set and curtains, looking for a lamp and other accessories...

We didn't manage to find a lamp in time, and we'll still need to decorate the walls, but he's sleeping in his room right now, and I think it's looking pretty good so far!

Andrew decided this week that we really needed to repaint the room, so we bought some paint yesterday afternoon, and last night Andrew and my brothers did the first coat, and then Andrew did the second coat this morning before we even woke up.

The finished look:

We found a mirror that would look really nice, and we spray painted the frame a nice bright red, as well as the plug and light switch covers.

Once the room was ready we did a final vacuum, and of course Joshua can't be left out of the action!

When we started moving the bed in he wanted to be all over it...


We brought in his little table and chairs that we bought a while ago, and he's been using them every day in the new study - so very familiar territory.

While we were waiting to put the mirror up Joshua started crawling along it - up and down and up and down. He was really enjoying the different view of the world. You can see him looking at me in the mirror.

The final product (but still waiting some more decorative touches - they'll follow):


When Joshua saw the bed all made he just wanted to get straight in - despite the fact that the temperature today was about 35 degrees... He wanted the full experience!



We bought a small Barney as a "new room" gift. He loves his big Barney, and he's been wanting him to sleep in the cot with him recently, but he's really too big for that. So we thought we'd get a small one for his new big boy bed. Well he saw this dinosaur, and he was completely inseparable from him! I put it on the bed for him to see when he got out of the bath, and the whole time he was getting dressed, and while we were then trying to get him into the car to go grocery shopping he just wouldn't put Barney down. So at least we know we made a good choice there ;o)

And here is our little angel fast asleep in his new room!

We really wanted Joshua to move early enough that he wouldn't feel he was being ousted by his little sister. My goal had been to do it by the end of February, and considering all of the delays we've had outside of our control, I'm really happy that we made it by 6 March, with a good 11 weeks before I'm due.

But it really does mean our boy is growing up!