The Father’s Love:

I’ve been feeling a bit despondent at times lately and the other night I read a chapter from Jo.seph Prin.ce’s latest book “The Po.wer of Rig.ht Belie.ving” on the Father’s love and that got me thinking…

I remembered one instance last year when they asked at G-force’s creche that we send them to school in their slippers on a specific day, as part of their holiday program. Only problem was that he did not own any slippers, and it was in the time that DH was unemployed, and to be honest G-force did not really need slippers since he wore onesies to bed and they all had feet on, so his feet were always warm and covered.

So I contemplated sending him to school with normal shoes and to just ignore the request. I mean he was 1.5 years old, surely he would not notice the difference? But then I thought, “What if he does notice and he feels like the odd one out?”

You see the thought of my little boy feeling out was just too much to bear, and I realized that I would rather go without food, than have his little heart unhappy. So I went to a few shops to look for slippers to see how much they were and one day I saw a cute pair of Spider man slippers on sale for R20 (that is less than $2), and that settled the matter for me, I bought them immediately! Thankfully I got them so cheap I did not have to go without food, but I was totally willing to sacrifice that just to keep my little boy happy.

***

Another time last year they wanted to have a picnic at the creche. I told DH about it and he said that I must buy extra things to put into the picnic basket (he was employed by then, so the cost was not such a big factor anymore), because we realized that many parents often forget such things and he was concerned that some of the little kids won’t be able to participate in the picnic. So I put in 6 tubs of yogurt, a whole string of packets of crisps, a big pack of sweets, a whole packet of cookies, etc. There was enough in there to feed at least 6 kids. When I told the teacher she was glad, because there were parents that forgot to bring the picnic baskets, and at the end of the day the basket was completely empty.

On Valentine’s Day this year they decided to have a picnic again, and I misunderstood the letter they sent home. There was a Valentine’s dinner at night which we weren’t going to and I thought the picnic was for the kids at the dinner, but it wasn’t – the picnic was during school time. So when I dropped G-force off at the creche and when the teacher asked where his picnic basket was, was when I only realized my mistake. The teacher ensured me it was OK; they would give him something from one of the other kid’s picnic baskets.

At first I thought that it’s not a problem, there is probably another mommy who did what I did the previous year and there would be plenty for G-force. But it kept bothering me and I realized that I had an unopened little juice box in the fridge, some crisps, sweets and some fruit in the house (this time only 1 of each) and I quickly put it all in a basket and took it to the creche. I got there just after 9h00 and the receptionist told me that they were just starting, so she quickly took it outside to G-force.

That afternoon when I went to pick up G-force the receptionist told me that when she got outside G-force was sitting there with just 1 little sweetie in his hand and looking not too happy, but when she came running and shouting; “Here is G-force’s picnic basket”, his little face just lit up. Well that had me in tears immediately! Just the thought that my little baby almost missed out on an enjoyable picnic, because I had made a mistake was just too much for me. I was so glad that I changed my mind and rushed to get his picnic basket to the creche. The receptionist was also in tears when she told me the story by the way…

***

Now for my last story of G-force: A few months ago there was a helicopter that flew over the area where we live and G-force’s school for quite a few hours. It started around 7h00 when I was getting G-force ready for school, and he asked me what it was that was making the noise. When we got outside I showed him the helicopter, and he asked me a few times what it was and I repeated the word “helicopter” every time he asked. I forgot about the incident and didn’t think about it again for about a week.

Then suddenly one afternoon when we got home, G-force pointed to an aeroplane in the sky (we live close to an airport so there are lots of aeroplanes to see here) and he called it a helicopter. I corrected him and told him it’s an aeroplane. For the next couple of days he pointed out a lot of aeroplanes and called them all helicopters.

The next Saturday DH went to watch rugby at a single friend’s house and since G-force was a bit sick I decided to stay at home with him and let DH go out and enjoy himself. G-force kept talking about a helicopter and asked to see one, but I was at a loss. How can I show him a helicopter? Then I remembered that I can go on to the internet with my phone and show him pictures and videos of helicopters. He was so happy!

So now we have a 2 year old who is obsessed with helicopters. He gets so excited if he sees one, but we don’t often see them in real life here. DH bought him a toy helicopter and he remembered he had a simple little remote control helicopter that he bought for himself years ago. G-force absolutely loves to play with both, and he can fly the remote control helicopter all by himself already.

The other night DH and I were talking about how much G-force loves helicopters and we both agreed that it would make him so happy to see a helicopter up close. We talked about how we would go to great lengths to treat our little guy by taking him to a helicopter and ideally we would love to be able to let him fly in one, but we don’t know where or how to do that. DH has spoken to a pilot he knows already, but he couldn’t help him since he works in a different field at the moment and doesn’t know any helicopter pilots. But we haven’t given up on the idea to somehow make G-force’s wildest imaginations come true.

He has never asked us to take him to one, or to let him fly in one, but we just know that is one of the things that would really, really make him happy, and to be able to treat our little boy and see him happy makes us happy. So we will try our very best to at least get him close to a real helicopter.

***

So when I read about the father’s love for us, I thought back to the above instances, and how much our little boy’s happiness and well being was of utmost importance to me. How just the thought of him being unhappy could get me in tears, and how much I’m willing to sacrifice for him, no matter what the cost.

And that made me think of the following verses:

Luke 11:11-13 (NIV):
11“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for[a] a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

It says here that we cannot compare as parents, to our Father in heaven. We think we may be good parents and treat our children well, and give them what they want or need, but how much more will our Father in heaven give us!

I know I am not a perfect parent – far from it. I think some of it can be seen in my stories above. I forget, or we don’t always have the resources to help, I make mistakes, I get tired and sometimes cranky, but thankfully our Daddy God is not at all like I am.

He has unlimited resources, He does not make mistakes, He does not forget, He is always there for us, and always willing to help us, also so much more than we can ever think or dream off.

Let me tell you, when I thought about all of this, I was in tears again…

I want to finish with this: To really know how much our Heavenly Father loves us, we need to know how much he sacrificed for us. He loves us so much that he gave his only Son, Jesus Christ, to be punished for all the sins and inequities of the whole world for all time. Jesus suffered terribly; he gave up EVERYTHING, for us. But you know what? He still would have made the sacrifice for you, if you were the only person on earth…

THAT IS HOW MUCH HE LOVES YOU!

Let me tell you, I certainly cannot even think to sacrifice my son for anybody else. Not even 1 person, never mind all of humanity (and thankfully we will not ever have to do that!).

Now don’t you think that if my little boy’s desires and happiness is so important to me, how much more is your happiness and your desires to our Heavenly Father!

I must say that night I felt very miserable. I had a head cold and I was not looking forward to going to bed, even though I was so tired because G-force had been waking a lot during the night again, because every time I laid down I had trouble breathing. Well this night I actually slept quite well. I can’t really remember if G-force slept through or maybe woke up once, but it was a lot better than the previous nights, but the best was that the next morning my head cold was so much better! All in all it took about 2 days to be fully healed and I did not take any medication! That is only by meditating on how much our Heavenly Father loves us!

The next night I was nursing G-force in his room just before bed time and I looked at his sweet content little face and I thanked God for this wonderful little boy of ours. I thought back to the revelation of His love for me, and I just prayed out loud: “Father, you know the deepest desires of my heart and you know how much I want another precious baby just like this one. Thank you that you love me so much that my desires are very important to you, and that Jesus has already made provision for our next baby. I just know our next baby is on its way, thank you Lord!”

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2 Years:

Our baby had his 2nd birthday almost 2 weeks ago, and it’s hard to think that he is actually not a baby anymore. I guess I won’t be able to call him Baby G anymore… So I’ll be calling him G-force from now, since that is his granny’s nickname for him…

Measurements on 13/12/2013:
Weight: 11.41 kg
Height: 86 cm
Head circumference: 50 cm

Our little guy is doing so well in every way; I’m still almost every day in awe of how much the Lord has blessed us.

Crèche: He’s gone to the next class in crèche, but he is with the same teacher he had last year. Usually they go over somewhere between 2 and 3, but they have to be ready for it. The criteria are that they must be able to speak well and know the different colours. Well, he doesn’t know every colour (he usually gets blue and red right, but he is not so good with the other colours), but they decided to let him go anyway. So far it looks like he is the only boy that graduated to the next class, along with 2 other girls. Last year there was 1 girl that could only go to the next class when she was almost 3 and I know there was also 1 boy in his class that turns 3 in March and he is still in the old class. I was totally surprised when the teacher told me (very proudly) that he is ready to go to the next class. My dad made a comment that we shouldn’t push him before he is ready, but we didn’t and it wasn’t our idea. We were quite happy to have him stay in the old class for probably the next 6 months. The teacher said that he does very well with most of the activities that they do, and he was the best with sticking stickers onto a picture of all the kids in his class.

Talking: G-force is talking really well for his age. Every day he uses a lot of new words, and he only needs to hear them once to repeat it. He speaks 4-6 word sentences regularly and he is also starting to speak English. He must have learnt that from school, from the new teacher’s assistant that took over for the last 3 months of the year. He says words like: “No,” “let’s go,” “naughty,” “move,” “mine,” “bubbles,” & probably a few more that I can’t think off now.

The other day we were visiting friends and their 4,5 year old daughter told me how their one dog bit the other dog on the ear and that we shouldn’t touch the ear because it was sore. I was holding G-force while she told this to me and did not notice that he was listening intently to what she was saying. DH came and stood next to me and immediately G-force told his daddy; “Pappa, Goo.gle stout! Pappa, Goo.gle eina daai ene.” The translation is: “Daddy, Goo.gle (the dog’s name) naughty! Daddy, Goo.gle hurt that one (pointing to the other dog).” Such a good summary of what the little girl told me, so he completely understood what she said and he could retell the story.

Eating: In general G-force eats quite well. Especially when we give him something that he likes, but there are still times when we really struggle to get him to eat something. We are also worried that he eats less than other kids his age. They tell me that he eats well at school, but he is quite skinny, and when we speak to friends of ours who have a boy 3 weeks older than G-force it’s obvious that G-force eats a lot less at a time, and that little boy is not a fat or even chubby little boy at all. I suspect we have a picky eater on our hands and he will rather not eat at all than eat something he does not want. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because I was not a good eater either as a kid and from what I’ve heard from my MIL, neither was any of her kids. Both DH and I were incredibly skinny kids, as a matter of fact we were both still very skinny when we met in 1993, when he was 22 and I was almost 22…

Sleeping: O boy, did we sleep poorly for a week or two in December! I felt like a zombie and one morning I actually broke down and cried, because I was so tired! We narrowed it down to 2 reasons – teething and a disrupted routine. We don’t like to give G-force meds regularly but we started to give him medication for teething to help him sleep at night and we got quite strict on things like naps and eating at the right time. Almost immediately things got better and he now only wakes once anytime from 3am to about 5am, and he will go back to sleep again afterwards. As a matter of fact G-force often slept until 7h45 and sometimes even later. One morning he woke us all up at 9h30 (that morning he woke after 6 am and I brought him back to bed with me). It was really nice for all of us to be able to sleep in a bit at the same time!

Teeth: We had lots of teething symptoms in December – those horrible teething poo’s that immediately gives a nappy rash, chewing on fingers, and G-force even complained that his mouth was sore several times. About 2 weeks ago I tried to feel if he has new molars, but I could not feel any new teeth yet. G-force thought it was very funny to bite mommy’s fingers, as I tried to feel for new molars, so I won’t be trying it again soon. This past weekend though we played and he was laughing loudly and I could see a tiny white triangle peek through behind the molar on the top left, so I think at least one has started to cut through. I could only see from a certain angle though, so there can be more.

Potty training: Well the plan was to start potty training as soon as the crèche closed for the December holidays, but 2 weeks before G-force decided that he did not want to sit on the potty anymore, and he would cry when we tried. So I did not push him since I don’t want to force it on him and get negative emotions associated with potty training. When we heard that he graduated to the next class and that from this year they will do potty training with him at the crèche, the pressure was off. I tried again a week ago with the incentive of sticking stickers onto a piece of paper or unto himself if he is successful, and he is now happy again to sit on the potty. So I send underwear and pull up nappies to school now and we will see how it goes.

2nd birthday parties: For his first birthday we had 1 birthday party for G-force on his actual birthday, but it was so stressful for me, because we had so many Christmas activities before his birthday, and it was hard to get everything ready in time for his birthday, since all of the Christmas activities were at other people’s houses and the shops are closed on Christmas day. I then said that we would have his next party before Christmas, since a lot of people would be away over Christmas anyway. We had the official part a few weeks before his birthday and it was fun, and a lot less stress to plan and organize. Once again I baked his cake and I think it turned out better than the cake for his first birthday. It still took me almost a whole day to make though…

On G-force’s birthday we had another celebration at MIL and FIL’s house since they have an indoor heated pool as the weather forecast for the day was rain. It was a lot more informal, just us, my dad, MIL, FIL, DH’s grandmother and his sister. So not a lot of pressure on me like his first birthday party. DH asked everyone to club in so that we can buy G-force a trampoline, so he got the one big present and a few smaller presents. That suits us well because G-force has so many toys already and we actually threw quite a lot away, donated some to the crèche and packed a lot that we want to keep into boxes.

G-force understood what his birthday was all about this time, unlike his first birthday. When I showed him his cake the day before his party he recognized it for what it was, because just a little while later we heard him sing “Happy Birthday”. He loved to open his presents and by his actual birthday he was so spoiled by all the presents he received within such a short time if you count the Christmas presents too.

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22 Months:

Its less than two months before our baby turns two years old.  I’ve been thinking back a lot to two years ago when I was pregnant in my 3^rd trimester and excitedly awaiting the birth of our baby.  But somehow, I often think that it was only a year ago…  I think I’m starting to miss being pregnant again, and miss having a tiny little baby.  I guess that shows it’s time for number 2 ;)!

Measurements on 31/10/2013:

Weight:  11.085 kg

Height: 85 cm

Head circumference:  48.5 cm

Our little guy is growing up so quick!  He is at a really cute stage, especially with the way he talks, we often have to chuckle at the stuff he says.  He tries to copy everything we say and he says new words daily and we often wonder, “where did he hear that?”  I can definitely notice that they teach him a lot at the crèche that we probably would not have taught him by now.  He can show us most of his body parts, like eyes, ears, nose etc, but even things like hair, fingers, toes, tummy.  He can also make a lot of animal sounds, like if you ask what sound does a cow, chicken, dog, cat, sheep, etc make he will make the right sound.  He also recognizes the animals in picture books, on TV or if we show him toy animals.  A few nights ago he showed me the little monkeys on his pajama bottoms and said, “apie” (monkey).  I did not even notice them until he showed them to me.

DH and I were talking and I said to DH that he will get into trouble with his mom over something and baby G chirped “moeilikheid” (trouble).  We couldn’t believe he could say that word.  Yesterday afternoon I took my laundry basket outside to take the laundry off the line and baby G asked me, “buite bad?” (bathe outside?), because he used to bathe in that laundry basket in the shower while DH took a shower (months ago, because he now only wants to bathe in the bath).  Last weekend baby G also told his daddy, “Pappa buite, nou!”  (Daddy outside, now!”)

Baby G is also learning some English words, and it’s so cute he prefers to say “no” now and he likes to tell the dogs to “move”, because DH says that to them quite often.  He’s also started to tell us to “move” and that is not always funny.  Now we have to teach him about respect for other people!

Baby G also loves to help around the house, much to our dismay.  We cannot vacuum at all, because he wants to vacuum.  The same with the broom and the mop, the moment he sees it he wants to use it himself.  He also helps to pick up stuff, and put it in containers.  So he is starting to help us to put his toys away, but often he will unpack it again only moments later.  The latest is that he wants to inject his medicine into his own mouth!

Reading books is his favourite activity at home these days and he loves to point to pictures and say what they are.  A few days ago he pointed to pictures of a table and chair in the book and then he touched our coffee table and said “tafel” (table) and he did the same with his little chair.

We really want to put some effort into teaching baby G to swim, because it looks like he is swimming in the bath already.  My MIL has a heated indoor pool and we’ve taken him once to swim in it already since spring started and he naturally wants to doggy paddle.  He also tried to push DH’s hands away, because like many things he wants to do this on his own as well (he cannot off course, but he doesn’t understand that).  The only problem is that we must make the time over weekends, and consistently take him swimming, and so far we haven’t managed that.

Teeth: Baby G’s bottom incisors cut through recently, so I think he has all the teeth he is supposed to have for now.  From now on it is only molars that need to come out, and we will see when that will happen.

Eating:  Baby G eats well, he eats what we eat most of the time, but I have found that at the times when he is teething he still prefers pureed food.  At those times he will get some off our freezer stash, but he is quickly eating it all up, so I’ll have to make some more soon.

I’ve noticed that Baby G is ravenous when I pick him up at the crèche in the afternoons, so I always have a snack for him to eat, which is usually a fruit like a banana,  pieces of apple that I’ve cut up for him, a pear, a plum or whatever fruits looks nice in the shops.

I’m still nursing, but I’m getting tired of it by now, and I must admit I have no idea how to stop.  I had baby G at the clinic yesterday and the sister there said I must put some plasters on my nipples and pretend that they are sore.  She also said that putting lemon juice, vinegar or anything similarly bad tasting on does not really help – she’s seen little one’s persisting and drinking even though the nipple tastes vile.  It seems that we will have a bit of a battle on our hands, because I’ve told baby G that the milk is finished a couple of times and he was not impressed, and we’ve even had mini tantrums and a lot of pulling on my clothes.  I know I will miss nursing, but right now I’m just tired of it all.  DH’s grandma said that in her day they sent the kids to family for a couple of days, but baby G hasn’t slept away from us yet – he has gone for a visit to his grandparents for the day, but a few days sounds too long for me!  Any advice will surely be appreciated!

I must admit I feel a bit guilty too, because he absolutely adores to nurse and I feel selfish for wanting to stop, when he clearly doesn’t want to stop…

Sleeping:  Baby G is sleeping better again.  Baby G either wakes once or sleeps through to about 5h00, and he will fall asleep again afterwards. We have noticed that when he wakes often, that it’s best to give him teething meds, and then he usually sleeps through after that.   I know the teething medication I use doesn’t make him drowsy, so I’m convinced that a lot of his waking is due to teething.  The other night he called out to me and said “eina” a lot, so I knew he had pain.

Potty training:  We are still taking it slow, not really forcing the issue, because at the crèche they don’t potty train in the class baby G is in at all.  They only start doing that from the next class, and he will have to be 2 before he can go to that class (so from next year only).  I have noticed that baby G can now stop and start to urinate at will, and he sits on the potty at home twice a day.  Most of the time he will urinate and he’s even made a poo in the potty twice.  This past Saturday he came to me about 20 minutes after I changed his nappy and told me he needed to wee (he had that worried look, and was dancing around a bit obviously trying to hold it in).  So I took him to his potty and let him sit on it and he made a wee.  I checked his nappy and it was still completely dry.  So far it’s only happened once, not again, but it looks like he is getting the idea.  I’m thinking of trying in earnest in December when the crèche is closed, because there is no use trying if the crèche is not 100% on board as well (I know they are not because I’ve discussed it with his teacher already).

Firsts:  Last week was our baby’s first school concert.  They sent the clothes home 2 days before the concert and when I took it out baby G immediately wanted to wear it.  It seems it’s not only little girls that like to play dress up.  So I dressed him in it and wondered aloud, “What are you supposed to be?”  Baby G told me he is a “woef”, (woof – dog) and I thought, “yeah right!”  Well when it was his class’ turn they started to play the song, “who let the dogs out,” and it I realised that he answered my question correctly.  Weird thing is that we don’t call our dogs “woef” but we call them “honde” which is the correct Afrikaans word for dogs, and baby G also calls them “honne”, so I should have realised that he must have heard it somewhere else.  The concert was really cute, but baby G was on the stage for about 2 minutes maximum, and most of that time he was in the back somewhere until one of the staff members at the school picked him up and brought him to the front.  He also did not do much; she clapped his hands for him and waved them around in tune to the music.

I guess one should not expect much for a 22 month old, but I once walked into their class where all the little ones were dancing a choreographed dance, and I thought that might be what they were doing for the concert.  It wasn’t, because it was to a DVD they were watching, completely different music, and it was so cute to see these little ones dancing so enthusiastically.  I had hoped to see something similar at the concert, but it was nothing like that.  I think the poor little kids did not know what was going on, and it was really close to their bedtime too, I must say…  Baby G did look really cute though and he wanted to dress up again in his concert clothes over the weekend.

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18 Months:

Last month I never posted an update for 17 months, but that was because things have been really rough here.  It all started about 2 months ago when baby G got his MMR vaccination, and he got a terrible fever from that, then he started to puke, and I took him to the pediatrician (remember this time), and he was diagnosed with post nasal drip, and then DH and I also got sick and every time it looked like we were all better one of us got sick again.  Most of the time it started with Baby G getting something and then we got it a couple of days later.  I think Baby G has picked up a lot of germs at the creche, because last winter baby G was only sick once and he got over it quickly.  This winter it feels like we have all been sick for about 2 months now.  There have been times when I just felt too weak and tired to fight all this sickness, but thankfully we are all better again!

Also about 6 weeks ago DH suddenly lost his job, we knew the contract was going to end by the end of June, but DH went to work one Saturday morning and 3 hours later he was home with the news that they decided to let him go earlier.  We got another shock when DH did not get paid at all for the 2 weeks or so he worked for the month, and other promises that were made to him also did not pan out.  We sure have been under a lot of attack, but I truly believe that this is for the best and that DH will soon get another much better opportunity.

Sleeping:  Baby G’s sleeping habits are really bad again lately.  It was getting a lot better around 2 months ago and he would often sleep through 3-4 nights a week, but since he got sick for the first time it got worse and worse and worse.  The last week or so we have had bed time battles, and he is not happy to be just put to bed at night.  Some nights it takes up to an hour to get him to sleep.  I think the poor sleeping is due to the fact that he got sick and since then it’s also been really cold some nights and I’ve noticed that he sleeps worse during those nights.  We do have a heater and a humidifier in his room to heat it up, but the humidifier starts to make a noise when it runs on empty and I think that wakes him up.  Some nights from about 4h00 I just switch off everything in his room and bring him to our bed.  I’m just too tired by then to sit in the cold and nurse him back to sleep.

Eating:  I must say baby G eats a lot better lately.  He eats well at the creche and often he is still hungry when we get home around 13h00 and then I usually give him something like a whole banana to eat (and he will most often finish that banana) and then he wants to nurse until he is asleep.  When he wakes up from his nap he will snack again and then eat dinner with us.  He still nurses before going to bed at night, every time he wakes up during the night, and in the afternoon.  He does not really nurse when he wakes up in the morning, but he often wakes around 5h00 or 6h00 and nurses then before sleeping a bit more until he finally wakes for the day.

Teeth:  Baby G has 11 teeth now, the central incisors at the top and bottom, both lateral incisor at the top but only 1 lateral incisor at the bottom, and the 4 first molars.  It looks like one of the top canines might be next, but still no sign of the missing lateral incisor at the bottom.

Favourites:  Baby G loves to ride on his bicycle, even though he cannot reach the pedals yet, we have to push him around on it.  He loves to play with his nebuliser, he calls it the brrrrr pssssst.  So cute!  DH brought some chickens home a while ago and feeding the chickens and playing with their food is also a big favourite.

Talking: Baby G’s vocabulary is getting really big now.  His pronunciation is not always perfect but if one listen’s carefully you can hear a lot of words.  He is speaking longer and longer sentences, like for instance yesterday morning he said to me, “Ek soek vir pappa,” (I’m looking for daddy) and he said to DH, “nee, ek wil nie hê nie,” (No, I don’t want any).  He often asks, “waar is mamma/pappa?” (Where is mommy/daddy?), he says “gee” (give), “hoenders” (chickens) and koeldrank (cooldrink) which can be anything from milk, to juice or rooibos tea.

Milestones:  Baby G loves to feed himself lately, and that is when he eats best. He loves to dance (even twirls in circles), sings and claps his hands to music.  He understands instructions & reacts to things we say for instance the other day DH told him he could not go outside because it was cold and he ran off and fetched his jacket and insisted that DH put the jacket on. He points to pictures in books and says their names, like any woman is “mamma” (mommy). He does not like it when we scold him and he often cries.  It looks like he will not need any spankings because if we just raise our voices a little he is already quite upset.  I was also like that as a child and my parents never had to spank me at all.  Baby G loves taking his shoes and socks off, and he also wants to choose daddy’s shoes for the day, he even brings 2 of the same pair, and lately he also chooses clothes for DH to wear, and he gets really upset if DH does not want to wear what he picked out.  He has a good memory of where he last left something, can look for something that he left somewhere the previous day, and get it right away.

Firsts:  We are getting lots of art from school and off course as proud parents we love to put it up on the fridge.  Baby G also got his first report card from school and in general it was really good.  Most of the categories he got a 3/5, 4/5 and even quite a few 5/5’s.  DH is not happy because there were a few 2/5’s for things like holding on to furniture and walking, but he hasn’t done that since he started walking, so I’m not sure why he got such a low score on that, (maybe because he never does it?)  The parent/teacher night was cancelled so we haven’t been able to discuss it with the teacher yet, but I’m not really bothered by it.  I see the few low scores as things that I know he can do, but maybe the teacher hasn’t picked up on it yet, since he is quite new to this class (He was moved from the baby class to the toddler class during the month of  May).

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16 Months:

Gosh, our precious boy is getting so big!  It feels like we can see him grow.  Here are his measurements on 30 April 2013:

Weight:  10.41 kg

Length:  80 cm

Head circumference:  48.5 cm

His personality is really showing now, he is really a little chatterbox who talks all the time!  I can see at the crèche when I drop him off or pick him up that the other little ones in his class don’t say much, but Baby G doesn’t shut up for a minute!  Everyone at the crèche absolutely adores him, and he gets away with things that the other kids don’t!  He sure has a way of charming people into doing what he wants!  For instance, the other kids need to sleep in the camp cots at specific times, but Baby G never sleeps in his.  It’s used for storage of chairs and toys.  Baby G plays all day in the class room or outside, depending on the weather, and the other day when I went to fetch him 2 bigger boys were competing for his attention, both wanting to play with him.

Sleeping:  It’s only on a rare occasion that Baby G naps at the crèche.  Most days he naps from about 13h30 or 14h00 for the first time, but then he will sleep easily for 2-3 hours, but he does wake up 2-3 times in that time, so it’s not continuous.  It’s happened that we’ve had to wake him up at about 17h30, to feed him and bathe him, so that he can go to sleep again at 19h00.  This is a routine that works well for me, because if he does nap at school he often falls asleep after 12h00 and then I have to wake him at 13h00 to take him home.  If that happens he will not nap again for the day, and he is often cranky and tired by 16h00 or so.

Night time sleeping is so much better!  He’s had a lot of nights where he either slept through or woke up for the first time around 5h00 or just before.  That is the time that DH gets up for work, so I think it’s his routine that causes this, but we are also seeing improvement in this habit lately.  If he does wake in the early hours of the morning baby G will often talk a bit by himself and fall asleep again soon after.  I’m really glad about this because it is starting to get cold at night and it’s not been very pleasant to get up and nurse him.  Last winter I moved baby G in bed with us, but that meant that I really did not sleep very well at all, because baby G would wake up or cry out numerous times during the night and I don’t want that again this winter, so I’m hoping that he will start to sleep through every night now in his own cot.

Eating:  Baby G eats really well at the crèche, it’s only on the odd occasion that they tell me that he did not eat well.  The porridge he eats in the morning is more than what he used to eat all day here at home, and then he eats another bowl of veggies for lunch, so we are really pleased with that.  Dinner time is still a bit of a struggle, but I think that is because baby G nurses a lot in the late afternoons and early evenings.  That is the time of day that he still drinks the most breast milk.  We give him fruit, cheese or yogurt to snack on and he loves to feed himself now, and most of the time he doesn’t mess a lot either.

Teeth:  For 4 months baby G did not get any new teeth but this past month he made up for it.  He’s had quite a lot of teething symptoms, you know the toxic poo’s and nappy rash that comes with it especially, and I could at first not understand why the teeth are not coming through.  Until last week when I noticed that he has 2 molars at the top already, and we just could not see them!  He also cut one lateral incisor at the bottom last week and it seems there is another canine at the top that is almost ready to cut.

Favourites:  Baby G has a new obsession – shoes.  At first he loved to try and walk with his one foot in one of DH’s or my shoes.  Then when it got colder we bought him a pair of sho shoes and he loves his own shoes now.  (He also  has a pair of crocs.)  If I ask him; “where are your shoes?” he will run and fetch them for me to put on.  He calls them “koete”, which is I think a combination of the words “voete” (feet) and “skoene” (shoes).  This morning when I dressed him, he got his shoes out first and he was holding them saying the word koete over and over again.  So I said, skoe-ne, skoe-ne… and he would repeat koe-te, koe-te, after me and it was so cute! He would show me the shoes when he said koe-te, and press them against his feet, showing me that they need to go there.

Another favourite is to shower with daddy every night.  If DH asks him if he wants to shower he will drop everything and he will run to the bathroom, often times he’ll pull on his clothes, to try and get them off.  Yesterday morning DH wanted to shower and I was still in bed with baby G nursing him, and when he heard the shower he stopped immediately, got off the bed and ran to the bathroom.  Nursing is still one of the best things for baby G, so if showering ranks higher than that then he must really love it! (The next picture looks the way it does because of the steam in the shower)

Milestones:  Baby G loves to run, and he especially loves to run away from us.  He also thought up a game – he would bring the TV remote to DH and ask; “Ta?” and when DH wants to take it he will pull it away and run away, screaming with laughter.  He sure has a sense of humour.

He is more and more affectionate – about 2 months ago he started to give hugs and last week I got a kiss for the first time.  Last night I showed him twice how to blow a kiss to his daddy when it was time to go to bed and after the second time he pressed the back of his hand against his mouth and then blew on it.  So cute!  Daddy was really impressed!

Baby G has figured out how to pull and push our dining room chairs around and then climb on them to get to high places he cannot reach.  A few weeks ago I walked into the kitchen and there he was on the chair pressing the buttons on the microwave.  He must have moved the chair at least 4-5 metres by himself, around the breakfast nook in the kitchen, because I did not move the chair there and neither did DH.

I’ve noticed that baby G is starting to interact when I read him his books.  He shows me pictures and then says things like; “mamma,” if there is a picture of a mommy with a baby, or he says ha-ha-ha, when he sees an elephant, because of the rhyme, “Oom Olifant”, where I say ha-ha-ha in the rhyme.  He loves his books and often times he will pick one up and bring it to me to read to him.

Baby G also loves to entertain us – most nights just before bed time he climbs onto the coffee table and starts to dance and sing for us.  He is a bit shy so he dances and sings a bit, then  he gets shy, and we have to encourage him to go on, which he usually does.  I must see if one of the videos we took of him is good enough quality to post on Yo.u Tu.be so that you all can see.

Firsts:  There was a photographer at the crèche this month, so we got our first school pictures.

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Puppy love:

We have 3 boxers in our home now, KT, Nitro and Nitro’s little sister Tessa.  Tessa is DH’s brother’s dog – when he heard that we were going to get a boxer puppy he told DH to get him a female if there is still one left.  Well there was, so DH took two from the breeder.  BIL and his family are on holiday now so we are puppy sitting Tessa, and Nitro, KT and Baby G all love having her here.

Yesterday after baby G woke from his afternoon nap, he wanted to sit on the couch in between the 2 puppies and he started to play with Tessa’s ear while he was still half asleep.  It was so cute that I just had to capture it on video.  Unfortunately the couch is right in front of the window so the quality of the video is not the best, but what can one do?  There are no do overs with babies and puppies…

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15 Months:

Yesterday or today (I’m not sure exactly which day) 2 years ago Baby G was conceived.  He is 15 months already and its scary how quickly time flies and how fast they grow up.  I saw DH’s cousin’s 5 week old baby on Friday and it feels like I’ve forgotten all about having a new born baby and it’s hard to believe that Baby G was smaller than that.

I must say I really enjoy this age that Baby G is now.  He is so incredibly cute – the things that he does and says amaze me sometimes…  He really loves to sing and dance for us, especially if there is music playing on the TV in the background.  Sometimes he claps his hands when he hears a tune that he loves.  But the best is the fact that he loves to hug us lately and his daddy is his absolute hero.

Favourites:  He has a few favourites, water is still one of the best things to play with, but Nitro and KT are also high on the list, together with his teddy bears, but lately he has these little cups that fit into each other and he loves to take them apart and then put them all back together.  The first time it took him about half an hour to figure out, but it’s not taking him very long now to sort them all from big to small.

Teeth:  Still 6 teeth and I don’t think he will get more anytime soon.

Sleeping:  He had a few more good nights but also a few bad nights this past month.  Overall he wakes once a night anytime from 2h30 to just before 5h00.  We have had a few instances where he would wake up and either talk or cry, but he would fall asleep again.  I always wait a bit before I go to his room. Hopefully he will soon learn to sleep through every night…  He is taking 1 or 2 naps during the day at the crèche but at home he prefers to nap once from about 11h00 or 12h00 for an hour or two.  I think the naps at home are longer than the naps at crèche, because it sounds like they are about 30 minutes or so.

Eating:  One good thing about the crèche is that Baby G is eating more and better now.  They certainly taught him to eat bigger volumes and it seems that he is less fussy and eats more veggies now.  I still nurse him during the night, when he wakes up in the morning, in the afternoon after I fetched him from crèche (around 13h30-14h00) and then again before he goes to bed.  He also gets a snack in the afternoon and eats dinner with us.  I think he will gain more weight from now on now that he is eating better.  I have noticed that he is quite small (or rather thin) compared to the other kids at crèche.

Milestones:  One thing that I noticed one day at the crèche was that baby G pointed to his eye when I was talking to the receptionist there, and she asked what colour baby G’s eyes were.  Sometimes he will point to his nose too if I ask where his nose is, but he is not so successful at pointing to his mouth, ears and hair.  I’ve also asked him to point out my eyes and he will do that too.  I was totally amazed, and we didn’t teach him to do it, nor did they teach him at the crèche.

Baby G really loves to imitate us.  We have a large tree next to our house that is losing its leaves now and we are often sweeping leaves up outside our back door, or raking them up on the grass and he loves to play with the broom or rake.  Anything that might just look like a phone is pressed against his ear and he talks up a storm in his own baby language when he puts it to his ear, but try to put a real phone to his ear and he shuts up completely and he only has this funny smile on his face.  He loves to try and unlock any doors with locks that he can reach, and most of the time he tries to unlock it with something other than the key.  Our Car keys and the house keys are also a favourite and he’s set off the alarm already by pushing the button on the remote on DH’s keys.

Yesterday Baby G was playing with a baby doll that my sister’s girls left here and a little while later I was sitting on the couch nursing him and I heard a baby.  I looked out of the window, because there were no babies on the TV, and baby G was quiet so the only place it could come from was outside, and I asked aloud, “where are the baby sounds coming from?”  Baby G looked at me, grabbed the baby doll and said, “My baba (my baby).”  I called DH to let him hear and baby G said it a couple of times so that DH could also hear.  It was so sweet.  I wonder if seeing DH’s cousin’s baby made him more aware of babies, or maybe he picked it up at crèche.  Other new words are:  klaar (finished), woef (barking sound).

Firsts:  Yesterday we scattered some Easter eggs all over the lawn and let baby G look for them.  He only looked for a few before he decided that the container with 2 eggs he got from his teacher at crèche was very interesting and he did not want to look for any more.  KT also decided that she wanted to eat one, so the Easter egg hunt was over quite quickly.  I’m sure next year it will be a lot more fun.  Baby G enjoyed eating a bit of one too!  Looks like he loves chocolate!

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Meet Nitro:

It was my 42nd birthday a week ago and guess who I got for my birthday?

Nitro is our new boxer puppy.  We decided that Nandi is getting old and KT needs a play mate that can keep up with her.  Now that Baby G is older than a year we feel that we have some energy to raise another puppy.  We though now would be the best time – we hope to have either a sibling for baby G by the end of the year or that I should be heavily pregnant again, so its either now or wait another 1.5 – 2 years.

I must say, its tougher raising a puppy and a 14 month old than I thought.  Raising puppies have always been easy for us, but this is the first time with a baby/toddler.  I have to keep an eye on both of them all the time!  Nitro loves to chew baby G’s toys, jump up against baby G and lick him in the face.  Baby G can sometimes hurt Nitro by hitting him with his sippy cup or whatever toy he has in his hands.

Fortunately raising Nitro is not just up to us, KT is a big help too.  And she absolutely adores Nitro!  I am totally amazed at how much and how rough they play, even though Nitro is only 8 weeks old.

I must say I don’t feel 42 – I feel more like 24!

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14 Months:

It’s more than a month ago that I last posted something on my blog! Shameful! I do have good reasons though and you will find most while reading this post.

I’m not going to weigh baby G every month anymore, but on the 16th of February he weighed about 9.42kg.

Teeth: Baby G still only has 6 teeth (4 at the top and 2 at the bottom). It’s been 3 months now without any new teeth. Makes me wonder when the other 2 at the bottom will come out…

Sleeping: Slowly but surely Baby G is sleeping better and better as he gets older, but it is really very gradual. I must say 2 weeks ago I started to meditate on scriptures of rest and in 1 week’s time he slept through 3 times! That was great, because one of those nights I also slept through for the first time since before baby G’s birth and it was heavenly! But I got complacent and stopped meditating on those scriptures (you know, I just let other stuff get in the way and then just didn’t get round to doing it…) But from today I’m going to focus on that again, no matter what!

Eating: Baby G still prefers breast milk above anything else. But I’ve set some new rules in place – baby G now has to sit on a little chair of his at our coffee table and eat, and I give him finger foods to eat, so that he can feed himself and I’ve found that he does eat more that way. It is still hit and miss what he will eat though, because one day he might love something and the next day he will completely refuse to eat it and he now says “sleg” (taste bad) when he does not want to eat something. Where he gets that I don’t know, because I have not noticed that we use that word in that context. We usually try to convince him that the food tastes nice! But I guess he must have heard it from us, because where else would he learn it?

Favourites: Water is still a big favourite of baby G, but he has a new love and that is soft toys, and the softer the better! He also loves soft blankets and he especially likes them when he gets tired. He loves to cuddle up to something soft and sometimes he wants to sleep with it in his arms. So the house is now scattered with soft toys and blankets and even some soft fake fur throw pillows of mine… The other night baby G had 2 teddy bears, a dog soft toy, spongebob, and Agie his Hus that he got from Auntie Beth in his cot, and there was actually not much space for him, so I had to take some out. I’ve also had one night where I tried to nurse him to sleep in my arms, and baby G had one teddy in each arm, and he refused to let go of them! It’s so cute when he squeezes them tight and burries his little face in the soft fur.

Milestones: Baby G started walking a week or so before his first birthday and since then he hasn’t stopped. He can now run, and he loves to run away from mommy. Crawling is basically now a thing of the past – he only crawls on occasion and mostly when he wants to get under something.

Baby G is still talking a lot and in the past week or so he’s used quite a few new words again, like “sleg”, “dankie” (thank you), “sies” and “druk hom” (he says that when he tries to push buttons or press switches like light switches), and “buite” (outside) when he wants to go outside or he tells the dogs to go outside.

Baby G climbs on to anything and everything he can. The other day I found him on top of our dining room table. He pulled out a chair, climbed on top of the chair and from there he climbed on top of the dining room table. Not only that, but he can climb back down the way he came!

He loves to play with balls, and he loves to play with a ball with KT. Those two can play for quite some time, where baby G will throw the ball, KT will fetch it, sometimes she will bring it back to baby G and let him take it from her and he will then throw it back to her again. So cute! DH also saw him give her one of her toys and then straight away asked for it back by saying, “ta”. KT had no idea what he wanted from her. Baby G also loves to kick his bigger balls and that is a game I love to play with him. We will kick the ball or we will sit on the floor and roll or throw the ball for each other.

One of baby G’s other favourite activities is to put things into containers and then to try and put a lid on that container. Sometimes there are different containers and lids and he does not always get the right lid for the right container, but he does try, and he doesn’t give up easily.

One thing that he does that is so super cute is he pretends to blow his nose.  He must have seen us doing it, so he would take a tissue or a piece of toilet paper, or even a wipe and hold it to his nose and blow a raspberry with his mouth.  He has no idea how it actually works, that one blows out of your nose.

Firsts: We went on holiday a couple of weeks ago, and it was baby G’s first time at the sea, on a beach and the first time he went camping, and he loved it all! We went to Ca.pe Vi.dal – a piece of paradise on earth in our opinion and our absolute favourite holiday destination in South Africa. Who can ask for anything more – the sea, the beach, divinely warm sea water, and all of that in the middle of one of our heritage sites and a game reserve, so one can see all sorts of wild life too! It was awesome and we needed the break, but I must say, catching up on work has me feeling like I need another holiday already!

Then the other first is not a nice first… Baby G got bitten by our neighbour’s dog – baby G stuck his arm through the fence to try and pet their Labrador (yes, I know, not a breed that one would expect that from, but this dog is seriously unstable and in need of Ce.sar Mil.lan!) I felt so bad because it happened during the day at home on my watch! Just the day before my dad told me that I must be very vigilant and not let baby G get close to the fence because he could see that dog will bite baby G and I still let it happen…

Baby G had to go to the emergency room, where they gave him keta.mine to anaesthetize him just to clean the wound. That was one hair raising and horrible experience for us because it looked like baby G could not breathe, but the doctor said it was normal, and he never was in danger. DH was so angry at our neighbours especially when they did not want to get rid of the dog (or put it down like DH wanted). In the end it took threats from DH to go to the police and report them to get them to remove the dog for a week and a half until they moved. On the day they moved out I saw the dog again, so I assume they got someone to look after the dog for that time.

Fortunately baby G’s arm healed nicely, and I’ve been praying in tongues over it, so I believe it will not leave much of a scar, but it was a harrowing experience. He must still get 1 more rabies injection, because our neighbours never vaccinated their dogs and the doctors insisted that one must give rabies injections even if it does not look like the dog has rabies.

The weird and somewhat scary thing is that baby G still has no fear of dogs, even of those same dogs, or any new dogs that he meets. He still wants to go immediately to any new dog and pet it. I guess he trusts dogs completely because he can do anything with KT and Nandi and they will not do anything to him. He can pull their ears, pull their tails, take food out of their mouths, stand on them, sit on them and they will just lie there or get up and walk away if it gets too rough. So we will have to be extra vigilant when ever other people’s dogs are near and try to train baby G not to just touch any dog he sees… This baby has no fear – of anything actually….

And the last first is that Baby G started creche today.  He was fine when I left him in his class with his teacher, and I even said bye to him, but a little while later before I was out of the front door I heard him crying and when I peeked around the corner he was in teachers arms crying terribly.  I felt so bad…  Fortunately the lady that is in charge of the creche sent me quite a few updates already and I know he is fine now…  Even daddy was worried, because he called me just as I was driving away from the creche already, so I’ve been sending the updates to him too.

I wanted to keep baby G home for as long as possible, but God has blessed my business so incredibly that I just did not have time to work and look after baby G.  So baby G is going to creche 5 mornings a week and hopefully I will get done what I need to do during the mornings and hopefully baby G will enjoy the different stimulation and the little friends…

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Baby G’s birthday party:

I had trouble deciding whether we should celebrate Baby G’s birthday party early in December or on his actual birthday.  If we celebrated it earlier then most people we invited could attend, but it would not be on his actual birthday, but probably about 3 weeks earlier.  I really wanted to have his birthday party on his birthday and so in the end I decided not to have an earlier party.  Not a lot of people could come to baby G’s party on his birthday, so it was a small gathering.

The disadvantages of having his party on his birthday did not become clear until days before.  I just did not think about all the other things that would be expected of me for the Christmas parties.  We had a party on the 24^th at DH’s cousin’s house and then we had a celebration on Christmas at DH’s parents house, and for both functions we had to bring food, and I was so stressed out trying to get everything right for the Christmas parties and then still do everything for baby G’s party.

Because of the festive season I really had to plan everything ahead of time, because the shop where I rented the cake tin closed on the 22^nd and I had to get everything I needed from them on that day.  I forgot that they would probably have been busy with the Christmas season and when I got there a lot of their stock was sold out, like the red food colouring, and the red velvet cake mixture…

I really wanted to bake and decorate baby G’s cake myself, so on Christmas day, after the Christmas celebrations when everyone else was relaxing, I was baking until after 23h00 that night.  The next morning I had to decorate it, and I must say I envisioned the end result to be a lot better than what it turned out.  I don’t know why I thought it would end up nicer, because this is really the first fancy cake I’ve tried to make.  I have absolutely no experience in icing decorative cakes.  I guess it turned out fine, but I think next year I might just order a cake…

The theme of the party was Bugs, because my cousin gave me a silicone mould with some butterflies, lady birds, and a dragonfly, and then I rented a mould for a lady bird at a baking store we have in town and the rest just fell into place.  I bought some plastic buckets, stuck some pictures of bugs on it and filled it with some treats for the kids and the party packs were done.  Baby G also got to wear his bugs t-shirt.

Unfortunately DH and I were so busy being hosts and preparing the food, that we did not take a lot of pictures of the party :(! I really hope the family took some nice pictures that I can get from them, because the one’s I’m posting here are about it…

Tasting some of his birthday cake

Opening presents

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