Buying for Baby

Hello Friday! Shew, this has been one crazy long week. Monday and Tuesday were absolutely insane at work. People who work with computers may be familiar with the freeze that a lot of companies implement around this time of year ... so there are no code changes etc. while most of the staff are on leave. We were running a tight deadline to get a bunch of projects live before our freeze (Wednesday) and we managed 13 go lives in 2 days. A minor miracle, really.

So yeah, those two days felt like a whole week in themselves. So I took a duvet day yesterday. Boy did I need it! Also managed to get some Baby Admin out the way this week :) 20 weeks today! I think that's officially half way ... wowee.

1. I've done my maternity pre-admission 2. Booked the 4D scan for January (who knew the gynaes don't do them!) 3. Did I mention I booked flights to Cape Town for a weekend in Feb for a Baby Shower with the family (and a handful of Cape Town friends) 4. We bought a pram! 5. We bought a cot 6. We bought a baby monitor (super pleased with this ... apparently it only arrived in the country a week ago! Finally they have one that links to your smart phone).



In case you couldn't tell from the above, we popped in at MamaMagic yesterday. OMG. It was completely overwhelming ... and the queues! But we got the pram & cot we'd been eyeing already (at a saving of R1500) and then they launched the new monitors there too (so that was another R600 saving or so ... they don't know what the in-store price will be yet). Am kinda surprised that The Trucker hasn't set up the monitor yet to play with - haha.

So yay. The "Big Stuff" is out the way. The only other "big" item I want is a nice chest of drawers (white) for her room. And then I guess I'll have to organise myself a baby registry of stuffs. OMG there is so much fun stuff :) I am definitely going to have to rely on the already-moms to figure out the necessities for me - haha.

At the moment the future-nursery is still packed with other-house-stuffs ... a veritable dumping ground. We are going to need to dedicate some serious time to sorting that out. But at least we have a while :)

This week I also had a delivery from Hill's. I'm not sure if their Ideal Balance is a new range or if they've just launched some new flavours for Xmas, but both Gypsy and Pepper got something new to try from them :)

Pepper got a bag of Ideal Balance Oven Baked Naturals with Turkey and Cranberries. She loves a treat but these seem to confuse her a little, we've never really given her biscuits so I think she struggles with how hard they are. But given a few minutes she gobbles it down.

Gypsy got a bag of Ideal Balance Crunchy Naturals Treats with Real Tuna. Unfortunately Gypsy generally doesn't eat fish-flavoured things (we luckily learnt this early on and she only gets Chicken flavoured treats now). So when I first gave her one she turned up her nose, but yesterday she ate one. So I have hope. Otherwise, my mom's cats are gonna have a nice Xmas pressie :) Haha.

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

Sage Singer befriends an old man who's particularly beloved in her community. Josef Weber is everyone's favorite retired teacher and Little League coach. They strike up a friendship at the bakery where Sage works. One day he asks Sage for a favor: to kill him. Shocked, Sage refuses... and then he confesses his darkest secret—he deserves to die, because he was a Nazi SS guard. Complicating the matter? Sage's grandmother is a Holocaust survivor.

What do you do when evil lives next door? Can someone who's committed a truly heinous act ever atone for it with subsequent good behavior? Should you offer forgiveness to someone if you aren't the party who was wronged? And most of all—if Sage even considers his request—is it murder, or justice?

I haven't read a Jodi Picoult in a while now, but I loved this one! I think she thought she threw in a twist there at the end, but she didn't really. The twist was the human aspect of it. Twisting the way you think about people. Or at least making you wonder if something could change your mind about someone ... I still dunno hey. Forgiveness is a weird thing.

Quiet One

Shew. This is gonna be a rough one at work ... but in the mean time, it's still quiet :) So I will enjoy the calm before the storm. Aside from all the load-shedding that led to our servers being off and the fact that half our area (incl my desk) has no power ... so am hijacking someone else's desk in the meantime so I can charge my laptop before they arrive!

The weekend. It wasn't very busy. The Trucker's mom came to visit for the weekend (with her dogs). She stayed at his sister (which is in the same complex, so easy enough). So we headed there for dinner on Friday evening.

On Saturday we didn't see them because we had the annual Xmas Party at DJMike's place. Shew, yet again, what an amazing spread of food! Nice to meet his little daughter finally too (3 months now). And, of course, catch-up with the familiar faces :)

Shew, but I was pretty shattered after that and headed home to nap. And then shortly after The Trucker woke me, our power went out :( So I hopped in the bath with my Kindle and some candlelight ... and the power was back on before I even got out! Haha. Luckily after such a big lunch we didn't need much in the way of dinner.

On Sunday we had The Trucker's mom & sister over for breakfast and then went grocery shopping. It was a glorious rainy Sunday so we settled in and relaxed. Till the sun came out and then we took Peps for a walk. The Trucker had big plans to try making a Cauli-base pizza for dinner. But we lost the power again at 6pm and it wasn't on again yet by 7:30pm so we headed to The Mariner for Sunday half-price Sushi.

4 Weeks till Xmas Holidays!

Friday. Wooo! No idea how I survived a 5 day week - haha. Only 4 more to go till Xmas :)

So yeah, it's been a quiet week. Work. Life. Puppy walks. Little else. My life has been complicated by the fact that The Trucker decided to try this banting lark :/ As you might be able to tell, I am less than a believer in this. He seems to be loving it tho. But it is making grocery shopping and dinner a little trickier.

All my stuff is fat-free or low-fat (yogurt, mayo, milk etc.) and now he's buying butter and coconut oil and stuff that pretty much looks like lard (coconut something or other). He's talking about making "fat shakes". I don't understand. It seems so completely contrary to me. Anyhoo, here's hoping he'll lose some weight (because he's back at the gym now too and it's been bothering him) and the novelty of the "diet" will wear off in a month or two ...

Oooh, but in exciting news, I got a delivery at work yesterday from Bio-Oil. They'd mailed me while I was at Kruger because they'd heard I was pregnant and recommend Bio-Oil for stretch marks. So they sent me a hamper. Wow! I was expecting a sample or something but got a huge box of goodies :)

There is a lovely basket which everyone has commented will be awesome for storing nappies. And inside it was packed with 3 different Bio-Oil samples, a cute little babygro, a hooded towel and a photo album for scan pics. How thoughtful!



We've had Bio-Oil in the house since my boob op. I used it for the scaring then and my scars have healed really well. I also love sprinkling it in my bath because I have quite dry skin. So, naturally, I'm definitely using it during my pregnancy for any possibility of stretch marks ... I rub it on my boobs, belly and hips (almost) every morning and evening. I was also trying the Pregne Creme samples that came with my vitamins, but have worked out now that that is actually what was causing my crazy itchiness! So have stopped completely and switched to Bio-Oil 100%.

No progress yet on naming The Littlest One, but I am playing with Nursery ideas ... so far I am leaning heavily towards a Dinosaur theme. I know that might seem to some to be a strange choice for a little girl, I think it is awesome. I have always loved and been fascinated with Dinosaurs (what kid hasn't?) and as a friend of mine said to me, since I am not a conventional girly girl, why should my daughter be. The way I look at it, this is probably the last time I get to pick her room theme ... if she wants princesses or something when she's older, we can do that then.

That said I'm not really sure how much "theme" we'll really stick with ... since as I said previously, we won't be in this house very long after she is born. (I said she! Still excites me :) ) And I don't want to limit any other cool things I find ... so we'll see. I may just go with a theme of "Everything, Go Crazy!" haha. Who can tell ...

These are the things really inspiring me at the moment (all found on Etsy):

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Col. Chris Hadfield

Colonel Chris Hadfield has spent decades training as an astronaut and has logged nearly 4000 hours in space. During this time he has broken into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposed of a live snake while piloting a plane, and been temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft. The secret to Col. Hadfield's success-and survival-is an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA: prepare for the worst-and enjoy every moment of it.

In An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, Col. Hadfield takes readers deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. Through eye-opening, entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks, and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises, he explains how conventional wisdom can get in the way of achievement-and happiness. His own extraordinary education in space has taught him some counterintuitive lessons: don't visualize success, do care what others think, and always sweat the small stuff.

You might never be able to build a robot, pilot a spacecraft, make a music video or perform basic surgery in zero gravity like Col. Hadfield. But his vivid and refreshing insights will teach you how to think like an astronaut, and will change, completely, the way you view life on Earth-especially your own.

This wasn't the book I was expecting. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but it was a lot more "self-help" than I realised it would be.

Still it's an interesting story (the bits that are more story and auto-biographical) and he sounds like a guy who's without doubt had some incredible life experiences. And I think he did some amazing stuff education-wise and exposure-wise for life-in-space while he was on the ISS.

Lack of Interest

So I'm in a weird lacklustre space about the whole "online" thing at the moment ... I'm just not that into blogging or instagraming or tweeting.

I don't really know what to do about it. I *need* to get my Turkey posts done. And I have one on our long weekend in Kruger to write. But when the evenings and weekends roll around I just lack the interest. I feel like I have this long to-do list (but it feels like admin, not fun) and I don't want to do any of it ... so I don't. And then I feel guilty about it ... but still not enough to do anything about it.

That said, I did manage to sort thru and select my favourite photos from the last of our Turkey trip and our Kruger trip. So I do feel some sense of achievement ... but not like I really made any sort of dent still.

Maybe it's hormones, maybe it's the end of the year. I don't know. But if I get quiet (or terribly boring), now you know why.

The weekend was okay. I went to after-work drinks with some friends from work. Was lovely to see one of the girls' new house (wow!) and catch-up with everyone. You don't realise how little you actually see / socialise with people at work when you're busy. It was really nice.

On Saturday we were up before 6am (wtf!). We headed out early for breakfast and went to browse Baby City, looking at prices for cots and prams and car seats. We're going to Mama Magic at the end of November, and apparently they have great specials ... but I wouldn't know what the normal sort of price is before now. Sheesh. So many options.

Which got me thinking about nursery themes (do you really need one?) ... at the moment I'm thinking Dinosaurs ... or Wild Animals. Nothing too girly about tho haha. And we won't be painting the walls or anything (cause we'll be moving to Cape Town and renting the house out). So it makes it a little tricky.

It also got me thinking about the whole baby shower thing. It feels weird asking people to organise it for me ... I mean I guess I'll have one at work. And then I realised this weekend I should probably do a Cape Town one with my family and friends there ... that's an easy one to ask someone else to organise since I'm not there (have picked a date for that, now to find out if I can fly - Kulula says it should be fine, but will confirm with the gynae). But I feel weird for the Joburg one. I have so many different groups of people. Anyway. Just another thing on the list.

And I've been getting Maternity & Newborn photo shoot quote. Shew. I don't know how you decide. They vary greatly in price and what you get (time and photo number wise). Just add it to my to-do / to-think-about list. Sigh.

After Baby City, we headed to Meoli and I'm very pleased to have a new pair of comfy maternity pants. Skirts are easy, but Joburg's been so overcast and drizzly lately, I needed another pair of pants (the ones I inherited constantly need pulling up, so not great for any kind of walking around!).

And then The Trucker went to play cricket for the afternoon. And I went to buy Gypsy a pressie ... Pepper got some new toys earlier already! I bought a pot and some catnip seed ... we'll see how it goes haha.

We had a lazy evening at home.

On Sunday we woke up before 6am again ... but went back to sleep till about 8am. Then we headed off to get the grocery shopping done, before The Trucker went to cricket again.

We bought Pepper a kong because we'd read you can make them popsicles to keep them entertained while at work so I made a mix of chicken stock and treats and froze one for her to try. It worked wonderfully and she really enjoyed it ... for the solid half hour it took to finish it. Haha. It definitely had her attention 100% during that time!

And that was our weekend. In a nut shell. I guess I had more to say than I realised ...

Back Again

Yawn. Shew, I had an absolutely awesome time in Kruger with the folks! Had some fantastic animal sightings (saw the Big 5 on 2 different mornings before lunch!) but more on that later ...

Right now I'm a little tired because we had a trip to the ER with Mom last night after an amazeballs dinner at Licorish!

First the dinner. Mom & I both had the Game Plate. The Trucker had the Fillet Plate and Daddio had the Beef Fillet with Truffle. Mom and The Trucker got to enjoy the wine pairing too. Shew this weekend has been hard not to be drinking :(

Our food was superb and the service was brilliant. Was very sad to hear about the death of their Chef on Sunday tho.

And then towards the end of dinner Mom took 2 myprodol that she'd been given for in case after last week's hospital visit. The pain didn't go and by 21h30 Dad & I were sitting with her in the ER. We were home by midnight after she'd been given some pain meds in a drip and instructions to see someone on her return to Cape Town (already the plan). They reckon it's gallstones. Luckily it doesn't seem badly infected or anything (yet), according to her blood tests.

It was horrible. Watching someone in pain and you can't do anything to make them feel better. No doubt this is just a taste of what is to come with a baby :/

Anyway, they're heading home this afternoon :( This gloomy weather is doing nothing to improve my mood. I would love to just climb under my duvet today!

Bye Again

Sheesh. Just a few work hours to get thru and then ... I'm off on Holiday AGAIN! I know. You can quietly hate me just for a moment. But hey, gotta get all the travel out the way before the Baby arrives ;) And this one is super exciting, my Mom & Dad are flying up from Cape Town to join The Trucker & I for 4 days in Kruger :D

Can NOT wait to see them later. Was super nervous yesterday cause Mom ended up in hospital and I didn't know if she'd still be able to come. But she's got meds and is still coming! YAY.

Anyway, that's all I really had to say this morning :) Let's hope today is not too exhausting.

16 weeks, 6 days

Yoh. Yesterday was supposed to be this amazing incredible day when we found out the gender (fingers crossed). But the morning went terribly! I had what I presume could only be my first foray into the rollercoaster of Preggie Hormones.

Before I'd even had breakfast 3 things had set me off at home between The Trucker and I (and at least 2 of them are things that probably would've months ago anyway). I ended up in tears. Luckily I didn't say anything I knew I'd regret. And then after I managed to get it together enough to actually leave the house, the stupid Woolies yogurt 6-pack wouldn't separate (That's it! I'm not buying them anymore, something happened a few months ago, they changed something and they are now close to impossible to "snap" easily without often opening the foil lid) ... I lost 2 yogurts of the 6 in the process. And then the little screw came out of my sunglasses. Again (it happens often, thankfully the screw has always been nearby). Aaargh.

I got in my car and drove off and ugly cried the whole way to the appointment. I think the overwhelming disappointment of everything going wrong on a day I wanted to be happy and exciting and had been anticipating for so long just crushed me.

Even after we arrived (40mins early, morning traffic is so unpredictable), I just sat in the car, not getting out. Miserable. I swear, if I'd been able to postpone the appointment at any point before then, I would've!

But eventually I went in and we had our appointment. Everything is as it should be :) This time I'd been keeping a list of questions. And we finally got to see the baby again! Shew it has gotten so much bigger. I know it shouldn't be a surprise, but some how it is. It didn't look as cute as last time, it was harder to see the whole thing in one view. And the face is still a little weird ... it has these big black holes where the eyes are now. It's creepy. A little too much like something from Halloween. I think we saw a lot more cross sections in this scan than last time where we were just kind of looking at the whole Baby. It's legs we crossed but we did manage to see the gender.

Shew, when you see it you wonder how anyone ever can tell!! I suppose if you know what you're comparing it to it might be more obvious but as a total newbie looking at that scan I was like "what?".

While I definitely reached the point where I wouldn't have cared (but if it was a boy, I'd probably be more concerned next time around), we got the fantastic news that it's a little GIRL! Look, it's not 100% at this stage, obviously ... we should know for sure after the next scan, but the Gynae said she'd be very surprised if it changed. Then again I've heard of it happening to quite a few people. She did also say that she wouldn't say either way if she wasn't fairly certain.



I had to go for more blood tests (spina bifida this time, I think). And then I had another (probably typical) pregnancy freak out. Everyone I know is having girls ... what'll the world be like in 15-20yrs? Is it the hormones in our food? Hahaha. I can laugh now. The Trucker was like Oh my Gawd. It's just a girl, stop freaking out.

And now, more rational, I can think of all the friends I have who've had boys in the last 2 years ... shew. Yes, I think the crazy hormones are kicking in.

And then I had a fairly rubbish day at work. We both did. So I decided we should go out to dinner to celebrate. It's been a while since we tried somewhere new together. We headed to Steamworks.

It was quite nice. I think it made us feel a bit old tho ... it was very loud. The food was tasty but expensive, I thought. The Trucker had the Steamworks Burger and I had the Lamb Pie. The have (2) Virgin Cocktails so I had one of them and a good selection of craft beers. I was sad to miss the Fiery Gingerbeer :( Haha.

Oh, and I thought this convo with my Mom was hilarious! Haha.

Oddly I ended the day a little as I started it, in tears. But rather tears of hysterical laughter. We vaguely started discussing names at dinner ... I really just have a long "Not" list at the moment, so no, we're not even close. We were waiting to find out the gender before we even discussed it. So I started showing The Trucker entries from The Bad Baby Name Blog. OMG. It makes me laugh every time. So hard that I can barely breathe and tears roll down my cheeks. Hysterical. Although, probably completely unhelpful haha.

The Sunburnt Queen by Hazel Crampton

"The Sunburnt Queen is an extraordinary narrative. The writing’s fresh immediacy brings history to life." - The Sunday Independent (South Africa)

In the late 1730s, the local inhabitants of South Africa found a seven-year-old girl called Bessie, washed ashore on the beach of the Wild Coast. Bessie was brought up by them, growing into a young woman of legendary beauty and wisdom, and marrying one of the most important tribal chiefs in the area.

Using oral histories and written accounts by early missionaries, Hazel Crampton traces the extraordinary story of Bessie and the turbulent history of the Eastern Cape.

I loved this book! Okay so it is not an easy read like a fictional book would be. It was quite hard going in some places, and because of our trip, I ended up reading it in two halves.

Still, it is completely fascinating! I'm not sure if it would be for a non-South African tho. But for me, I adored the history. I'd highly recommend it if you're interested. You'll definitely be surprised!

The Day to Day

Urgh. Monday again. My pre-workday blues have not disappeared :( But the weekend was still pretty good, pretty quiet, but good.

Erm, on Friday evening we went for sushi! I made it 4 weeks! Wooo. I was seriously craving it by then tho. But I decided not more than once a month / every 4 weeks. Which is maybe about as often as we had it before I was pregnant, but I suspect it has something to do with that whole "not being allowed" something mindset. You WANT it. Haha. It was delish and hit the spot.

On Saturday we headed to breakfast at The Culinary Table and then The Trucker had to go out and do something work-related so I headed to Cresta to collect my Discovery Baby Bag from Toys R Us. Sheesh, Cresta is a total hassle these days. Who knows where all the shops are? I walked to where I remembered it had been and found nothing so headed to the Info desk. Thank goodness that hadn't moved too far from where it had been as they don't seem to have any maps up at the moment. Lucky for me Toys R Us and Dischem were right across from each other (in the new section), so I got to sign up for Dischem Baby as well.

Toys R Us is a little daunting when you're still only pregnant. Yoh, I don't remember the last time I was in a kiddies toy store. It is both scary and amazing what they have these days.

I unpacked the Discovery Baby Bag when I got home. Shew, there is some cool stuff in there. A little first counting book (eep!), a parenting book, a tiny dummy ... and a bunch of other useful things and discounts.

I've told The Trucker to start investigating baby prams and car seats as if he were buying a new car. We're planning to go to MamaMagic at the end of November and I want to know when we get told about their amazing specials, if they are in fact worthwhile. So we can make an on the spot decision or decide just to buy what we had planned afterwards. Complicated stuff this!

Oh, and The Trucker got a chain so we could hang the chair we bought last weekend (we were waiting for the bamboo roofing to be finished on the patio). How awesome is that?!

In the late afternoon we headed to Randpark Golf Club for one of the SCM Birthdays. A fun afternoon, surprisingly filled with pregnant girls (3!) and already-moms! And from there we headed to Banjaara with @clairam & her boyf for a late dinner. Turned into a great day, really!

On Sunday there was no sleeping in, we were taking Pepper to her first Schnauzer Walk at Delta Park! Shew. There were so many schnauzers and a few really littlees. It was awesome. Aside from the fact that we all had to hang around a little too long before the walk actually started, I think the dogs struggled with that a bit.

Our girlie was way up front, constantly running back to us and then back to the front. Was much easier just trying to keep an eye on our one little pup in the mass of dawgs. Dunno how the people with 3 were managing. Photo credit to Chris Kritzinger.

We veered off half way thru cause Pepper looked like she was exhausting herself and we had left the water in the car (rookie mistake, not knowing how long the walk was). But she wasn't nearly as exhausted for the rest of the afternoon as she'd been after her visit to Walkhaven!