Never Underestimate Your Kids

Amanda and her big brother, Jeremiah, have a special bond. When we first shared our news with the kids that I was pregnant with our fourth child, Jeremiah was so thrilled that he ran to tell his friends who lived nearby. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how the kids would react to the news and so I was a little surprised that he was so excited. Yesterday, Amanda told me about a conversation that her brother had with her. She told me that he had said how adorable and precious she was. She then told him how special he was to her. As she was...

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Learning Doesn’t Only Happen in School

Amanda goes to a playgroup five days a week. It’s wonderful for her, because they paint and make things, they sing and dance to children’s music, play on the playground, do movement games and more. For a while now, she’s been learning to write the first letter of her name. She likes to include the letter “A” in many of her drawings and she likes to find it on signs and labels. Yesterday, I bought M&Ms and shared them out with my family of six. Smarties are the common candy in South Africa, but even though the candies look similar,...

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Family Outings

I have four kids who are at different stages of their lives and who have different likes and dislikes. They are individuals and I treat them as such. They are also part of a family unit and as a family we do things together whether they all feel like it or not. They don't always want to come along on family outings, but when I see them all enjoying themselves then I’m satisfied that my husband and I insisted the unwilling one (or ones) join us. There’s also wisdom in not always insisting that everyone comes along on one of our outings....

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Horse Stories - Part 2

Amanda has been picking out books about horses these past couple of days. The day before it was Black Beauty and now it’s The Lipizzaners Share Their Secrets, written by Maureen Dalglish and illustrated by Nicole Houzé. In this book there are eight short stories and so I’ve been reading one a day. The stories are simple enough for my four-year-old to understand and based on real South African Lipizzaner horses. I don’t think that this book is available at bookshops. It appears to be a privately published book. My mother-in-law purchased...

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Horse Stories - Part 1

Last night, when I told Amanda that I’d read to her in bed she said, “Yeah! I’m the luckiest!” That brought a smile to my face, but also a twinge of guilt. In truth, I should read to her more often, but I’m often leaving her to read to herself or I get one of her sisters to read to her. The book she picked out this night was Black Beauty, re-told by Beryl Johnston and published by Grandreams Ltd. I read to her an even shorter version of it, often summarizing whole parts. She asked a few questions along the way. Once the story was...

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Out of the Mouths of Babes

Giving thanks for fish and chips I mentioned previously that Amanda had been sick. When your child is sick, it’s often difficult to know what’s wrong and if you need to take him/her to the doctor. If you do take your child to the doctor, the doctor will decide what the problem is, but there is room for error even with all the learning and years of experience that your doctor will have had. At the end of the day, you know your child and you must go with your gut feeling to insure his/her good health. Two days ago, I was still worrying...

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Why We Don't Have a Cat

I took my dog for a walk this evening. It wasn’t late, but it was already dark outside. I was walking in my neighborhood where the street lights are scattered along the way, leaving patches of darkness between them. At one of these dark sections, we nearly walked into a dead cat. It gave me such a fright. Nothing seemed wrong with it, except that it was stiff. Since the dead cat was lying next to the road, I figured that it must have been hit by a car. This reminded me of another incident that happened last year. The details were...

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When to Say "Yes" or "No" to TV Programs

The book Amanda is reading is called Who Lives Here? It's a pop-up book published by Playmore and Waldman. The other night Amanda said the silliest thing to me. “I’m going to get full of fire and I’m going to destroy the bad guys!” She demonstrated this by shooting her arms out in front of her and curling her fingers like claws. Obviously, she’s been watching too many of her brother and sisters’ TV programs. Secretly, I was impressed that she had used the word “destroy.” When I had the three bigger kids, I was very strict with what...

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Yikes! Pinworms!

The other day I mentioned that Amanda had a nosebleed episode at night just before she went to sleep. Nosebleeds can be quite common in children, so we didn’t let it worry us. We just kept an eye on her. The day after, she had another nosebleed incident and she also complained about a swollen lower lip. She had been to the doctor about a week prior to the nosebleeds. We had her checked because she had been complaining about her stomach and discomfort in her private areas. We had noticed inconstancy with her urine and constipation....

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A Perfect Evening Gone Wrong

The night Amanda gave us a scare. Last night I put Amanda to bed with one of the new books that she got for her birthday. It’s called Nursery Rhymes & Fairy Tales by Disney. She’s at that age where she loves to recite and sing nursery rhymes and so this book has come at a good time. A neat bonus to the book is that two pages of tiny Disney stickers are included. Amanda’s evening seemed to have come to a perfect end. I took a photo last night so that I could share with you how happy and peaceful this moment was. It was only...

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A Birthday Card in the Mailbox

Amanda said the funniest thing... A few days ago it was Amanda’s birthday. Ever since she got two cards in our mailbox, she has wanted to go out and check if there are more. It just so happened that she received four birthday cards for her fourth birthday. Yesterday, we went out to the mailbox together and came back inside with a birthday card for me. (Our birthdays are a few days apart.) Once inside the house, she said, “Mom, when you turn four you can also have four cards like me!” Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d...

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