parenting

On Friday Fjord was invested as a cub.  Invested is the most fitting term for this induction to the scouting life.  Being a cub scout is an investment which will pay life long dividends, its value immeasurable.  Today children grow up in a ME first world.  At cubs they learn team work and promise to do good for others.  Outward …

When Fjord was diagnosed as being allergic to eggs, peanuts and tree nuts I was distraught.  Until you have an allergic child you simply don’t understand the minefield which your child will walk in every day.  It’s like them being able to pick up a loaded gun at any time.  From age 3 he knew to ask the ingredients in …

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSgto3HgjdU/?taken-by=sulaskimmingstones Ah why not, I’ll do 2 happy posts today.  There you go Jo more #Winningatparenting 🙂  Tomorrow we pray and march and the most you’ll get from me is a few protest Instagrams.  When Cliff announced that he was getting us tickets to The Great Moscow Circus at Carnival City I was very appreciative but did sort of wonder …

After my epic parenting fail post about Fjord’s tick bite fever.  His Godmother Jo called to ask instruct me that my next post be a #winningatparenting one.  I broke my word because between our conversation and now our lives in SA were turned upside down and instead I changed the lyrics to the 80’s anti apartheid protest song “Give me …

Fjord is 9 years old and prone to wild imagination which can translate to hypochondria.  This time there really was a wolf, when he cried wolf and it bit (well a tick bit but that doesn’t work with the word play).   Several days before showing symptoms of tick bite fever Fjord said that his belly button was infected.  I …

At New Germany Primary School, I was infamous.  I held the school record for most visits to the headmaster’s office, 3 times in one day and 7 times in a week.  It was absolutely futile to try to modify my behaviour.  The teachers and my peers had decided that I was ‘bad’, they would never have seen beyond their preconceptions, …

If it weren’t for blogging I would not have discovered one of the coolest kids outings in Jo’burg.  Thank you Dianne for commenting on my post about the Stellenbosch Toy Museum and enriching my children’s childhood.  If you are a parent living in Jo’burg a visit to RSME (Rand Society of Model Engineers) is beyond a must, particularly if you …

One thing which has really troubled me since Fjord started Gr 4 last year, is the spine wrecking weight of his school bag.  Since they started moving from class to class children end up carrying every single school book around all day and the time table seldom allows even 1 book to stay home.  The school does allow a box …

My children have done their fair share toward turning me grey.  Nagging them to eat.  Breaking up fights over nothing.  Despairing that they can turn a room to a nuclear fall out zone in 0.3 seconds.  Those parenting moments can age one considerably.  On the flip side among innumerable joys, they present opportunities to play.  They tear dust covers from forgotten …

Our chicks are about 2 months old now.  They are so tame and sweet the Black Australorp Angel looks like a hen and Lucky looks like it may become a rooster.  Does anyone know a bit about chickens and chicks who can confirm this?  We’re pretty much just going by the size of the comb.  Actually we were told that …