It’s my second day of my long-awaited maternity leave and I’ve shipped Milli and Nanny off to a playdate up the road which leaves me 2 hours to quickly give you an update of what’s been happening in our lives since my last blog. We’ve been all consumed with the renovations of our new house. We shed much blood, sweat and tears over it, that I would go as far to say that we actually built a new house! It was 3 intense months of getting building permission, project managing labourers on site, drawing up plans of ceilings and various aspects of the house, choosing finishes, deciding colours and above all getting Jaco and myself to agree on what we both wanted for our dream house. I must admit that I’m surprised we still love each other as much as we did before we started this process as it has been very taxing on our relationship – and throw in the fact that I was quite far pregnant and you can imaging the boiling pot of emotions! But through it all I’ve realised that I have the most amazing hubby who is so very talented at everything that he does and admire the fact that he loves getting his hands dirty and doing it himself – whether he knows how to or not, google is a wonderful teacher! I’ve been to Builders Warehouse so many times that the staff know me as the pregnant lady and Jaco asks me which isle to find stuff in! All our efforts culminated in a stunning housewarming party last Saturday where we had 45 of our closest friends to come and enjoy our wonderful piece of land we can now call home. Even though I miss living in the centre of Cape Town, we have plenty of space, a beautiful garden and a lovely entertaining area which we can now share with others. We have been so blessed with this house and I’m sure we’ll enjoy many years of happiness living here.
Stages of renovation of our patio area
I am now 37 weeks pregnant and looking like I’m about to pop out a watermelon. Doc has not been impressed that I’ve been on my feet so much but couldn’t have really changed that with all the moving of house and settling into a new one. Hence the baby has dropped very low very early and is literally knocking on the door to be let out. She doesn’t reckon I’ll even make my scheduled Caesarian date of the 12th December. I’m a bit upset that my boy won’t then have the coolest ID number in history 121212.....but who knows, maybe if I cross my legs and squeeze long enough, he’ll make his big appearance as planned. Jaco is stressing a bit nonetheless and has packed my hospital bags at the front door and made contingency plans for Milea in case I suddenly go into labour before then. We’re still ‘discussing’ names and finding it very hard to come up with one that confuses people when it comes to spelling and pronunciation like that of his sibling. But we’re doing our best to agree on another nightmare of a name that he’ll probably hate us for one day!
Milea is growing up fast and no longer a baby. She is sleeping in a single bed, almost has a full set of teeth, a head of beautiful blonde curls, a cute slim little body with big calves like her dad and a naughty sense of humour. She’s started expressing herself a lot more and understands when we speak in Afrikaans or English. She can now say ‘dada’, ‘yaya’ (for mama), ‘more’, ‘no’, ‘ja’ and ‘hiiiiiiiii’. So she definitely knows what she wants – when it comes to food or play, it’s always ‘more’, and when it comes to mom asking her to do something, it’s always ‘no’! She has started making friends with other kiddies in the neighbourhood after we sent her to a weekly activity workshop down the road where they sing, dance, bake, do creative arts and generally make the kids very tired! It’s been great to also meet other young families and connect with moms as we’re finding that Pinelands is home to many old people in retirement villages. However, I think that is slowly changing, but most annoying when you’re trying to rush through shopping centres or late for work and you’re stuck behind a granny driver!
Milli's model pose!
Not keen on using her own toothbrush, but rather dad's one.
A proud Milli showing me a photo of herself on the Huggies nappy packaging!
I’ve been very busy at work, with 2 big events in August and November so I’ve been working full time and finding it quite exhausting. Jaco has been doing his fair bit of travelling with trips to Germany, the UK, Nigeria, Seychelles and the States. He’s on his 96th flight this year and I’m on my 96th nag of please come home, I need help! Work has been very pressurised with him trying to fit house renovation work as well as normal work into his 24 hour day! He is definitely in need of a rest and we’re looking forward to a Christmas holiday in Cape Town with family. The Schonfeldt family arrives this weekend for a month of Cape Town and the Cronje family are around too so we’ll have plenty of time with them as well as babysitters. Luckily they won’t be staying with us so there will be some peace and quiet. It has been one crazy and exciting year with many lessons learnt and few never again moments (like more kids and renovating!).
We wish you all a very special Christmas period with lots of memorable moments and restful times! The next time I blog, we’ll no longer be a crowd of 3 but a family of 4! We will post photos of our little man when he arrives.
Renovations inside - we totally gutted the place and just left the exterior walls standing.
We wanted an open plan house: lounge on the left, dining room on the right and photo taken from the kitchen
Our new lounge!
