Weekend News

We had a birthday party yesterday for the kids. It was for a son of a friend. A good friend. She asked me to make his cake. Sure. Like I can say no. After all, I take my friendship - fees pretty seriously. 

The theme was Travel to Toyland, and the kids had a ball! They rode electronic kiddies rides and flew polystyrene jets and kicked balls and played dollies and had more sweets to eat than are currently available in Harare.

The cake turned out quite cute. Here it is:

The cupcakes were from Frostings.

Bye-bye, Baby! Baby bye-bye!

My baby is all growed up!

Eeek - she's four! Where did the last 1460 days go?

See now how hard it is for me to leave the whole birthday blogging thing alone? Little Air-Bear celebrates her birthday one week after mine. (I find this rather convenient as I can leave the balloons up from my birthday and just shove over the Happy 30th cards for the Happy 4th ones! I don't go so far as to save cake, though...)

Fortunately for us, the next immediate family member's birthday is at the end of September, so we can take a break from the festivities for a little while.

But 4!

Four is the end of an era - especially when it's your last child and there really don't mean to be any more. Four is like the full stop on the Infancy sentence. Like this: INFANCY. or INFANCY four 

It means that the babies are departed. They have officially left the building. Enter the age of the terrorists (with whom I refuse to negotiate). And it's funny how that happens, isn't it? I mean the whole switchover from baby to big kid. It's so sudden. Abrupt, almost. One moment she's all cuddles and let-me-do-stuff-for-her, and the next it's all, "Mo-om!" (two syllables), "I'm not a baby, you know!"

Still, they will always be my babies, these girls of mine. I've warned them about that already. They know that one day when I'm old and incontinent and their own offspring are picking the azaeleas from my old-age home flower pots, they will still be my babies. And the funny thing is, that they're ok with that. At first it's all, "Arrrgh, Mom," but the resistance dies down and the next thing I know these beautiful mini people are obliging and approachable and completely pick-up-and-rock-them-to-sleep-able.

Lucky me.

I'm going to live to be 100

Ok, Ok, I know it's getting a bit tiring having me harp on and on about my birthday and turning 30 and getting older and all that, but, it has sort of been filling my mind lately, and I've had some really profound thoughts about ageing over the last week.

T-bird asked me how long people live for. I said 70, 80, 90, and maybe even 100!

She thought a bit about that and then said, "Do you think I will live to be 1000?" Er, it's unlikely.

But it got me thinking. So I hooked up with me old pal, Googs, and did a little research on old people. What fun reading, that was!

My newest hero is Madam Jeanne Louise Calment, who lived to the ripe old age of 122. What a character this girl was! She rode her bicycle until she was 100, and kept a fantastic sense of humor right to the end of her days. (Note to self: rethink bicycle riding...)

One of the comments she made (and which had me stitches for a whole evening) was, "Je n'ai jamai eu qu'une seule ride et je suis assise dessus." TRANSLATION FOR THE LESS THAN FRENCH: I've only got one wrinkle, and I'm sitting on it!

Another little anecdote linked to this fiery matriarch was that she sold her apartment to a man who promised he would pay her $500 a month until she died. He had paid twice the market value for the apartment before his own death 2 years before she passed away. Of this incident, Madam Calment is reported as saying, "In life, one sometimes makes bad deals!" - clearly!

One thing is clear through all the researching of the world's oldest people: they lived simple, happy lives. Madame Calment said, "I took pleasure when I could. I acted clearly and morally and without regret. I'm very lucky."

I'm lucky too.

Youth is wasted on the Young

So the big Three-Oh arrived. And I still have this strangely euphoric feeling all bubbly and jiggly inside me. It feels good to be 30. All growed up. No more silly issues. A switch has been flipped, and I am enjoying the electricity of the next decade.

Seriously.

I am even appreciating my earth suit with a new found admiration. I was told that the day you turn thirty, your body rebels, and everything drops, and your metabolism slows down and you become constipated and a number of other horrendous things happen to you. No wonder the lead-up to the day was slightly disturbing. Jeez! 

Nevertheless, the day came and went, and standing in front of the mirror taking stock of this body, I had me a little think. I thought back to when I was twenty, getting married, planning to go on holiday, and buying my first bikini ever. I remember how wearing that bikini made me feel so self conscious, and how I just didn't think I had the body for prancing along the beach front all scanty-like. Looking back now, I should have worn my bikini a whole lot more. 

Look, the package is still the same right? But, ten years and two kids later, some settling has taken place during transit, if you know what I'm saying? Still, not entirely unpresentable, mind you, just slightly more advanced.

And I reckon, that in ten years time, I'm going to think about the body I have today, and, compared to what it will be like then, I'm going to think that at thirty, I should have worn my bikini till it was threadbare! And so, in the light of living without regrets, I am going to (think about) wear(ing) my bikini a whole lot more, as of now.

Well, maybe not RIGHT now, seeing as it's torrentially down-pouring at the moment, but when the weather is a bit warmer, and the thought of soaking up some sunshine crosses my mind, I just might surprise myself in turning up in less than a t-shirt and pedal pushers... 

Taking Stock

Today I turned thirty, a good time to stop and measure up, I thought. Exercising the mathematical part of my brain, I set about quantifying my life.

Let's see...

Number of years on Earth:  30

... in days: 10,958 - wow, that's a lot!

Number of years married: 9 1/2

Number of years in Cape Town: 4 1/2

BMI: 30.8 = Obese

Feelings about last number: Never felt better about myself

Number of years it's taken for me to get to the point where I can say that, AND believe it: 30

Number of marriages: 1

Number of pregnancies: 2

Number of children I birthed: 2

Number of children in my house: 3

Number of times I was sure I was pregnant: 9

Number of those times this year alone: 4

Number of speeding fines: 1

... this year: 1

... worth: R200,00

Number of biological siblings: 3

Number of biological siblings who phoned me today: 3

Number of times THAT'S ever happened before: 0

Number of friends on FaceBook: 101

Number of friends overall: More than that

Number of friends with a face that can be read like a book: 2

Number of glasses of wine a week: 1 - 2

Number of glasses of wine tonight: 3

Distance to go to feed my tummy: 74,58cm

Distance to go to feed my heart: 7,458m

Distance to go to feed my soul: 7458km

Ok, the wine wins.

Piece of Cake!

With regards to the kids' parties (yes, I'm still going on about that!), something I take great pride in is the birthday cake. I usually commission my cake-decorating-adept sister-in-law (who has a flawless icing technique which I just can't master) to provide the flawless finish to the ceremonial pudding. 

The cake is important.

The first three themed cakes I made for my offspring, however, were as far from a magnum opus as the crayon scrawl under the dining room table (yes kids, I actually am aware that one, or both, of you has been terribly creative under there!) is from hanging in the Tate Museum. 

The first of these monumental failures was a 5 layer jelly something or other. The second cake was supposed to be bubbles. And maybe, on an abstract kind of level, they did look like bubbles. But do you even know how hard it is too make a cake look like bubbles? Try it. I dare you! By the third cake, I was starting to get into the gear of great self-caking. (That's somewhere before Home Industry Acquisition, but well after Kitchen's Wrecked; Let's Move House). The third creation was a fairy mushroom. With fairies on it. The fairies were Home Industry Acquisitions. I could see it was a mushroom, of course, but after I had received the few quizzical glances from the gathered guests, and had to explain that, actually, under this enormous dome of a cake, there is a rather thin and spindly mushroom stalk holding it all up in the air, I realized that my caking abilities were desperately lacking. That's when the sister-in-law became remarkably employable. And since then the cakes have been a pleasure (not always to make, but to serve - always!)

Which brings me to the point of my story - how hard it was for me, yesterday, to let go and let my children "do" the cake. The children competed in a cake-decorating competition which I found highly stressful (shut it, Control Freak!), but they enjoyed immensely. And they even won a prize for... oh boy... the most Cavity Causing Cake... ouch... talk about putting me in my place! 

So much for always getting it right, right?

Party Politics

I brought the girls back from a fabulous party at the nature reserve where they explored the natural flora hunting for fossils and dinosaur eggs. I got seriously reprimanded when I took two tiny dinosaurs out of my handbag and was told that they had to stay there as that was their home. 

Er, I don't think so.

But it got me to thinking about the whole aspect of kid's birthday parties.

I can remember only two birthday parties that I had as a child. The one I remember because there are a couple of photographs stuck in an old photo album proving that it happened (6 candles on the cake), and the other I remember because I got into trouble after one of my invited guests smeared ketchup on the dining room wall. I don't remember how old I was.

I guess that it is because of this vast gap in my memory and photographic history, that the presenting of birthday parties for my own children has become such an important aspect of my own parenting self-evaluation criteria. Perhaps it's a little crazy, but I feel the need to host memorable parties for my children and have at least 100 photos of each event to prove to them that I cared enough to celebrate the anniversary. I realise that the only person who is stressing about the next birthday party is me, and half the time the kids haven't got the slightest idea of how much effort has gone into the preparation of their festivities. And yet it is so important for me that my children don't have "just another" birthday party that could have been anybody's party. The party HAS to stand out. They HAVE to remember it. And if they don't get it now, one day when they have kids of their own, they'll understand just how much I wanted to make their birthdays special for them.

Not that I'm trivialising the run-of-the-mill birthday party either. My kids have had tons of fun at very simple parties where there was no theme, no organised party games and no take-home treats. So why then do I labour and obsess for months in advance about the next birthday celebration? 

My children celebrate their birthdays in July and December, and believe it or not, on the evening of the last birthday bash, the next party's theme is decided and the mental planning commences as I lay my head down to sleep off the after-party hangover. 

I know. It's bizarre. But it's me. And the truth is that I love it. I love making things for the parties. Butterfly wings, fairies to hide in the garden, Spoonfuls of sugar, marshmallow mermaids, magic castles to make believe in. And each birthday holds a new idea, a new craft, a new challenge. Being creative helps, and I find that having a party to plan for provides  me with an outlet for my creativity. So, party planning becomes a bit of a hobby for me, keeping me challenged and productive throughout the year.

The downfall of fancy festivities is that the invitation lists are generally inflexible as I have to know well in advance exactly how many tutus and tiaras I have to make. 

Which brings me to the other aspect: Girls vs Boys.

The party themes so far have been: Pretty in Pink, Bubbles, Butterflies, Fairies, Princesses, Mary Poppins and Mermaids. Next on the list is Ballet. As you can see, generally the themes picked are really girly. The problem of accommodating boys to, say, the upcoming Ballet Party, really has me unsettled. If each of the little girls at the ballet party gets to dress up in a ballet skirt, dancing ribbons and satin slippers, and they get to dance to their little hearts' content to the Nutcracker Suite, what do the little boys do? Not having any boys of my own, trying to cater to boy interests while keeping the feminine theme really floors me. I don't even have boys stuff for the boys to do while the girls play Swan Lake (unless  they're into paper dolls and dress-up). And in that case, why are they invited to the party? 

Guilt. It drives the party industry.

You have to invite the people that invited you, right? Or, if they invite you, and you aren't planning on inviting them, do you not accept their invitation?

I have told my kids that they can invite 10 people to their parties (with the two of them it makes twelve, and twelve is a manageable number to cater for and to manage on the day of the event). The problem with this restriction is that once the cousins and extended family are invited, there isn't much space for anyone else. And you can't not invite family - they know when the birthdays are and sort of keep track of approaching anniversaries by inquiring how the preparations are coming along.

Recently, the whole issue of party politics has raised it's nasty head making it very clear that party invitations are actually remote control devices which can potentially set off little parent land-mines if aimed in the wrong direction. People seem to be really concerned about who gets invited to who's party. Which kind of puts a lot of pressure on the next party thrower who just about has to send around an approval list to make sure the date, theme and venue are suitable to everybody's liking.

So I stand in awe of the mom who nonchalantly extends an invitation at the last moment. "Come if you can," she says. "The kids are so welcome. There's plenty for everybody!" I couldn't do it. Jessican't needs the plan. Stick to the plan. Don't jump anything unsuspected on Jessican't.

Perhaps my obsession is ridiculous after all.

Scattered Ramblings

Today I toyed with a couple of ideas I have for my third decade celebrations which are in the not-too-distant future. Thirty! Wow! Who would have thunk? While musing over this upcoming anniversary, I was reminded of my recent wedding anniversary (our ninth - copper, I'm told), and had a pang of guilt because, on the actual day, I was off galavanting in far off deserts while my darling husband was left home alone with the children. To deal with the flood of shame, I sat down and let the feeling pass. And while I was innocently reminiscing over years past, I seem to have been hit by a great big slab of perspective. I realised that I can very nearly divide my life into three equal parts. And each third of my life seems to be quite clearly packaged and labelled in the filing cabinet of my mind.

The first ten years I recall in bright shining images. I was happy. I remember piano lessons, ballet, being carefree. It was easy, fun. There was swimming, safety, puppies and kittens, roller-skates, searching for the man in the moon, pink candy floss, protection. I remember school plays and Christmas trees packed with prezzies. I shone. I excelled. I sang and danced my way from one birthday to the next. I had an easy abandon to the cares of the world. I was blossoming.

The middle third of my life is like a confused memory of a bad dream. I can't seem to remember things clearly, and the things I do remember are warped and strained like the view from a carnival roundabout going too fast. I feel like I'm trying to remember a nightmare in the groggy-head state of early morning. I can't always place the faces or the places. It's a blur. A somewhat disastrous recollection of survival, adolescence, panic, desperately trying to hang on, bunnies being eaten in the middle of the night by neighbourhood cats, homelessness, keeping it together, loneliness, moving, dysfunction, skipping gym class, fighting, falling into a deep hole, moving again, bunking school, DEBT, crying, losing, sinking, moving again, darkness, pimples, and a whole big dose of melancholy.

The most recent third has been a very different picture. I feel like it has been more about me and the circumstances that I have been able to control. Things have been pretty stable. I've been supported, comfortable, dealing with the chaos of the middle third of my life, looking for meaning, balancing. The best things that ever happened to me, happened during the last ten years: Him, Them, my beautiful cherubs. Me finding me. Home Real Home. Growth. A type of acceptance. A fragile closure.

Putting it into groups like that is sort of weird, because it makes me feel a little apprehensive about the next ten years. The pattern as it stands is 10 fine, 10 not fine, 10 fine. What will the next 10 be? Does life really flow in waves? Does there have to be a down after an up? A valley after a rise? Can't I just plateau out here for a little bit? I really do feel tired of climbing this last hill, and I would just like to enjoy the view for a while. Let me at least catch my breath now that I seem to have an even footing. Besides, in another 10 years time I'm going to be the mother of two teenage daughters, so surely it would do everyone a heap-load of good if I could just use this time to prepare myself for THAT stage. I am clueless about parenting pubescents, and I'm guessing that ten years preparation time would put me in good stead to handle that challenge with confidence.

And when the mental ambulations set in like this, I wonder if it wouldn't help to mull this over a glass of wine... I  feel like I might be three glasses behind already.