Joshua moments - June 2010

Joshua just seems so big now! Everyone who has more than one child knows this feeling... And it is just amazing to watch his development step by step.

We just got our first “I love you”s from Josh! He hears it often enough from us, but he hasn’t said it yet himself. But this evening he suddenly popped up with “I love you, Daddy”. I had to coax out one for me, but I know he does mean it ;o)

Some of his little quirks and progress:
- Rectangles are "red triangles" - he had me very confused with that one initially! He's now starting to get the word a bit better.
- From not wanting to sing, he's suddenly doing lots of it. It's so cute to hear his attempts!
- He loves seeing all of the flags on the cars as we drive around. Another thing for him to talk about on the way home.
- He's copying the adults around him all the time! Got to watch out ;o)
- When we were reading one day he turned the page and then licked his finger (sticking his finger right in his mouth) and then said "Like Wendy" (his day-mother).
- He was drawing with his crayons, and happened to pick one up in the normal pencil grip. Then he did some fine little strokes and said "Numbers like Mommy".
- A few weeks ago I was sitting on our bed and Josh comes along on his little car and wants to give me a kiss, and then says he's going to work. Okay. Then he comes back on his black bike, and again wants a kiss before going to work, and then comes again with his tool trolley. At least he looked happy! I hope he really is happy going to work one day!
- And yesterday he sat on the side of my bed next to my bedside table and was pretending again that he was working (my clock radio was his computer...)
- Joshua occasionally likes to pretend he’s also feeding Hannah. One time he pulled up his shirt, and lay Barney on his lap to feed, and then afterwards wanted to pat his back too!
- He is now tall enough to open all the doors in the house!
- We got one book out the library about a little fish trying to find his mom. After hearing it a couple times he started telling us the story!
- He's using just about all of the standard pronouns, and most of them correctly!
- His cute sayings include "Here you go, Daddy", often referring to a "lil bit", calling me "Mom" sometime more than 50% of the time, and the occasional "Dad" too, for matching things he'll point at both and say "same, same".
- Uncle Andrew told him what frogs say one day, but he heard it as "rubbish". So now frogs say rubbish!
- And this child's understanding! Often he'll comment on something, or for some reason I feel that I need to actually explain something to him, and sometimes quite complex explanations are the only possible thing. And he'll sit quietly and listen, and then be quiet for a little while, and then he'll talk start talking about it, showing that he really understood what I was saying!
- We've got him a few puzzles, a,d the 4, 5 and 6 piece ones he can do on his own most of the time. We've also got him two 12 piece puzzles and with some coaching he can do the whole thing.
- He's decided he really likes doing head over heels on the bed. But I need to actually push him over, so he'll lean over, bum up in the air and head tucked between his legs and then I must help with the rest.
- Anytime there is a loud banging noise of any kind Grandpa and Uncle Richard get the blame! "Grandpa Richard banging" is his immediate comment.
- He's started talking in his sleep sometimes. Although it might just be that I'm awake during the night to hear it...
- He's started trying to say "Joshua", instead of "Josh". Doesn't quite have it, but he'll use it when he's trying to be more serious.

I decided to try some finger painting with Josh. I set it all up before fetching him, and the minute he walked in the door he saw the table and started talking about "painted" - that was the word for paint (verb and noun), painting, painted...



This is his concentrating face, with his lips a bit pursed.

He loves using straws, and he quickly asked for one. At first it got painted, and then became a paintbrush.

And what's the deal with only painting on paper!

We were watching Barney, and they did a song with umbrellas. Joshua immediately got up and fetched this umbrella from the broom cupboard. And no, we're not at all superstitious...


We had a really strange moth come and visit us. Josh was very disturbed by it. I took this photo holding the camera out of the window. Only when I looked at it on the computer did I realise that I had got Josh's face really nicely!

He loves pockets! First time he wore this tracksuit he put a ball in each pocket and then took great delight in pulling them out and showing them to us!

And our little baker... Andrew was baking some cupcakes, and so I set up Josh's table in the kitchen and gave him some water to bake with.


But all thoughts of water disappeared when the good stuff came along ;o)



My dad found this old mat he had made for my brothers, with a whole town drawn on it. Well, as usual everyone ended up on the floor playing cars. It's like a magnetic force, I tell you!


Our first wall mural... And with permanent marker! I eventually got it off with toothpaste! Who would have thought?

Some quality time reading on the couch with Daddy.

And another magnetic force is Joshua to the piano! He loves playing, and will often ask to go and play. I do hope that he'll also be musical when he's older!


I've been trying, with varying success, to tame Joshua's hair, so that I don't have to cut it... I don't want to lose my blonde curls! But this is how it looks when it's been freshly brushed.

I asked Josh to smile for me, and this was the result... He's definitely at the age where he's now realising how cute he is, and starting to pose for photos. But he's cute anyway!

Soccer star

With the world cup fever gripping our country Joshua is seeing more football on TV now that he ever has before, although Andrew has always loved football...

Last night the Netherlands/Slovakia match was on, and when one of the goals was scored I got Josh to watch the replay and then suggested that we make a goal for him. So I got his little table and put a blanket over it, and then encouraged him to kick at goal. Well this was the result...

He has always been able to kick pretty straight - even across a 5 metre room and at a goal that is only half a metre wide! But if it doesn't go where you want it to... then just position it right and celebrate the victory! And just to note that I didn't show him how to celebrate, he did this all on his own ;o) This morning Andrew kicked the ball with him some more and showed him how to do a real victory lap, but this video was all natural Joshua!

And then here are some photos that my dad took a couple weeks ago. He was involved in some project where he needed to take photos at a specific time, and he chose to photograph his beautiful grandson...

Me, an alto...?!?

For anyone who has ever sung in a choir with me, they'll know that I am most definitely a soprano... My voice is soprano, and my mindset won't move from that of a soprano...

So imagine my surprise and joy this morning when I was going through the hymnbook and playing some hymns and sight-singing the alto parts with about 95% accuracy! I struggle to sing the alto part if I've been taught it, let alone playing all four parts, and then picking out the alto. But I did it!

It's been a long time coming... In Primary School I sang alto, not very well, purely because I was a music student, so the music teachers decided that I should sing alto because I'd be able to sing a different part. Also, my speaking voice is relatively low, so I think most people are surprised when they hear my singing voice, which is definitely soprano. So as soon as I got to High School I moved over to soprano, and that's where I've stayed ever since.

Then three and a half years ago I was called as the ward choir director (one of the callings that I think I've enjoyed the most ever) and I started having to work with the other parts a lot more. I was able to sing the men's parts with the men to help them, but when I tried to sing the alto part I still struggled. To all those altos who sang in my choir, they'll know how often I had to give up part way through a verse, and I just wasn't very useful to them.

Then a couple months ago I got released, because with a second baby approaching it was becoming impossible for me to lead the choir anymore. My dad was called in my place, but because of conflicting demands on his time he was released and my Uncle Ron called a couple weeks ago (Uncle Ron and his new wife, Pamela, moved into our ward a little while ago). The choir was very much in need of altos, so I decided to try and help them out as much as my children would allow...

Well I struggled... and struggled... and struggled... My mind just didn't want to allow me to sing below the sopranos. I'd get it right occasionally, but I still needed to be thoroughly taught the part, then sing it against the full accompaniment, and only then could I try, usually unsuccessfully to sing with the other parts. Very time consuming and frustrating! I read music! I should be able to do this!

And then suddenly in the last 2 weeks my mind has finally shifted (probably helped by Sis Jean singing in my ear...) It's been more that 15 years in the coming, but it has finally allowed me to sing alto! In the practices, at least. But then this morning I was able to also break the problem I have of not being able to sing a part when I'm playing all 4 parts on the piano.

After playing/singing about 5 hymns almost perfectly I was so totally amazed, I found myself just having to say a very awestruck prayer of thanks. It may seem funny, but it brought me such joy to get this right! I walked around with a smile on my face for a long time afterwards!

Now I've just got to see if I can still sing the alto so well with other people singing full voice around me!

Hannah's first month

Okay, so I was berated today for saying so little about Hannah... I was planning on doing a post at then end of June, which would be 6 weeks, but with her 1 month birthday yesterday this is an appropriate time to update you all.

I did post some photos at 10 days, but in the last 3 weeks this is our little girl. Actually, she's not so little any more... When I took her to be weighed at 3 weeks she was weighing 4.03kg's, and was 54cm long, compared to her 3.38kg's and 50cm. In the 2 weeks before that she'd averaged a weight gain of 50g a day! The average is 20g!!! And we all know how big Josh was as a baby, but he was only gaining 30g a day at this point... So she's not so tiny anymore. Her legs are starting to chubby up nicely as well, but no one would look at her and say she's a fat baby by any means. But I think we just need to give her some time... As the clinic sister said, I seem to have full cream milk ;o)

At 2 weeks:

Pulling all sorts of funny faces...








Right from the start she's had a really strong neck. She help up head up for over 2 minutes here without resting once (based on the times of the photos I took)



Letting her look at the trees moving outside.

Both our children like their poses...

You can kind of see here how the hair around her back crown all stands up just after it's been washed. So she's got two crowns and unruly hair! Hopefully it will settle down once it gets longer!


At 3 weeks:
This were just windy smiles, but it was at this point that we started getting occasional real smiles, although they are still few and far between. But they're very cute when they do come!



And here's how she's lifting her head from a lying down position.


She's started getting very active now when she's awake. This video doesn't show her most active, but she did move around a fair bit...

So that's our little girl. Unfortunately with her filling out a bit she doesn't have the pixie look that she had for the first couple weeks, but she's still definitely got an angel face! We're all enjoying her very much ;o)

Six years!

Today is our sixth wedding anniversary! Six very good years, and now we find ourselves in a very different and exciting time compared to 2004...

The most obvious is that we are now the parents of a very active toddler and our baby girl will be a month old tomorrow. In terms of parenting I think I can say with confidence that you just don't have a clue on your wedding day what is in store for you. But whatever you are imagining will be less amazing than the experience! I won't say anything more about our two angels here, because most of this blog is dedicated to them anyway...

When we got married I was half way through my final year of my BCom (in fact I wrote my last June exam 2 days before the wedding...) Now I'm a qualified Chartered Accountant, but not working in practice. Before I graduated I didn't really know what kind of job I'd do, but I think I did imagine working in practice. Now instead I've got a job that hadn't entered my head as a possibility, but is so much better - lecturing accounting at UCT! I love what I'm doing! Before I graduated I had started tutoring first year students for the university, but I wasn't thinking about working full time for the university. I'm glad that my path has taken me here!

Andrew's also come quite a long way. In terms of his work, when we got married he was pretty much a one-man sea freight imports department, but now he's got 4 guys who work under him. And he had just written off his first course in his part-time studies in May 2004, but now (by doing 1 or 2 subjects each year) he's just got 3 left to go. It's slow going studying part-time, and then even more challenging once your family starts growing, but there is progress each year.

We've also managed to buy a house 2 years ago, and end of last year we did some renovations (which are actually still waiting for the finishing touches by the contractor). We've also managed to pay off the car that I'm driving, and Andrew is lucky enough to have a company car. So our only debt is our bond.

So those are the most obvious changes in our lives. We've come a long way! And I can honestly say that these have been the best 6 years of my life, and I know that Andrew agrees with me. We are very grateful to our Heavenly Father for how He has blessed us to find each other (despite our ages working against us on that one ;o)) and to be able to build our little eternal family!

And now we set off on the rest of our lives together. I'm very excited to see where the next 6 years and beyond take us!

Twinkle, twinkle

A few weeks ago Joshua suddenly surprised us with starting to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". We hadn't taught it to him (he'd obviously learnt it at his day mother) and he has never shown much interest in learning rhymes or songs. He'd often "sing" wordlessly along to something, but I haven't managed to get him to really sing proper songs.

I finally managed to catch him singing his own version of Twinkle Twinkle this morning.

I recently got some video editing software, so I thought I'd try it out. So I also added some clips of some of the other cute things he's saying. You can hear his Thank you, Here you are and some animal sounds. Enjoy!

The World Cup is here!

I remember sitting in my bedroom at my parents house all those years ago and hearing on the radio that South Africa had won their bid to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup. With everyone else I was excited that we'd won the bid, but it was so far away...

And now it's here! Tomorrow is the kick-off. The country has been counting down since 1 000 days to kick-off, and it is finally here. In some ways it really is quite unbelievable.

But as I look around me I really am proud to be a South African today. There is such a spirit all around! I can't think of any other event in our country's history that has brought everyone together in this way.

Everywhere you go you see the signs - the flags on everyone's cars, the soccer jerseys that everyone is wearing, the vuvuzelas that you hear all the time... I personally really don't like the sound of the vuvuzela, but yesterday at 12:00 they had asked everyone to show their support for Bafana Bafana, and I must be honest that when I started hearing the (thankfully) distant vuvuzelas being blown I did feel a real pride in my country come over me.

I do think that this World Cup has done more for us as a country than anything else could possibly do. There are some things which will leave definite lasting legacies, and others which we will still have to see if the legacy is effective. But it has shown us as a nation that we can be united behind something, and that is probably the most important legacy of all.

So again, today I am really proud to be a South African, and when I hear our national anthem being sung tomorrow I know that I will join with the millions of South Africans who all feel the same!

Here's to us as a nation!