Boys, Boys, Busy Boys!

Hi Everyone – its been a while since my last post! I feel like I should rename my blog to something like… Confessions of a New Mom…  Life has been hectic! Good Hectic.

I have lots of cool stuff to tell you guys and have been looking forward to finding the time and energy to write.  Last time I blogged about Tom coming home - so anyway Friday was the day. I arrived early on Friday morning as promised to collect Tom and Jake. They were packed and ready and oh so excited for the weekend.  I asked them if they wanted to go home to explore or to my shop for milkshakes and they begged to go to the shop! All they wanted was strawberry milkshakes and NOT the kiddies ones - they wanted the large ones so that’s what they got.  They loved the shop and Jake asked if I was the “boss” of the shop – and was delighted to hear that I was indeed.  The girls all made such a fuss of them and they each left with a small treat, which they took great delight in choosing.

We headed home and they unpacked their bags and got into their cossies. Jake said he wanted to teach Tom how to swim and Tom said that he wanted to teach Jake how to fish so they struck a deal and started with the swimming part.  We played outside and had a picnic lunch out on the deck by the pool. Little Max needs a sleep after lunch so we use this as an opportunity to have some siesta time on the couch and we let them take turns choosing a movie out of our DVD collection.

When Max woke up we headed down to the beach for a late afternoon walk and run around and Jake and Tom had great fun chasing the shore break up and down the beach until eventually Tom got soaked by a surprise wave. We packed the soggy, sandy kids back into the car and headed home. Rog did a braai for us and the boys took great delight in “Helping with the braai”.  They devoured their chicken and afterwards Jake hovered around the table with a silly grin on the face saying how much he loved his chicken, until he was instructed to stop eating before he popped!

(On that note I have to tell you something cute – Tonight Tom asked me to help him write a letter to Father Christmas and one of the things he asked for on his list was a plastic chicken – cause he wants one to hold – cause he just loves chicken.)

So after dinner came bath time and all three boys had such fun together in the bath – lots of noise and splashing and asking “who suzad?”. They ask for bedtime stories EVERY night and EVERY night I ask them if they are listening because the zone out so quickly and they insist that they are and beg me to continue. Sometime just to see if they are listening I throw in some crazy embellishments of my own and I get the funniest reactions!

Sat was great, Rog took all three boys fishing and I went grocery shopping (not so fun in Ballito in December). They caught a fish and an eel and came back with lots of tall stories and handfuls of litchis that they had picked themselves and insisted that I eat in front of them. We had salad rolls for lunch and Jake was delighted that we had potato salad, which he had mentioned was his favorite the day before. There is something about the way that a child’s face lights up when you do the smallest thing just for them that is addictive!

We had afternoon nap for Max and TV siesta time for everyone else. One of my new most favorite things is to wake Max up from his afternoon sleep. When he wakes up in the morning he is very energetic and not too interest in lots of cuddles but when he wakes up from his afternoon sleep - now that’s a whole different story. He lies on me for about 10 minutes and we have the BEST cuddle time ever. This time makes me want to push pause on the growth button and keep him this small forever.

After siesta time we all took a walk - Max in his pram, Tom on his bike and Jake on Rogers skateboard. Rog and I laughed so much at one point because Tom asked for a push on his bike and Rog pushed with his foot instead of hands and he toppled backwards onto his bum from the downwards pressure. It was slow and he did not hurt himself at all - but he reprimanded Rog in the sternest of 4-year-old voices and then demanded that we stopped laughing which was even funnier so we had to giggle in silence behind him while he deliberated about forgiving us. Rog took turns taking them on the skateboard and they stood up in between his legs while he stood over them and carved his way down the hills. Hair-raising stuff – I poured myself a glass of wine as soon as we got home – my nerves were a little shattered by then!

Sat night was pizza and movie night. We sat on the floor in the lounge and the guys took great delight in this simple event.  Let me tell you that every night is a bun fight over who gets to say grace between Jake and Tom and it is the cutest most beautiful thing to listen to!

Sunday was beach day and we packed our car and headed out to the beach. There was lots of climbing around on the rocks and sand castle building and I discovered my least favorite place to change a nappy – on the beach. Wriggling, sand, soggy nappies and far away bins are not a cool combination. Need to work on larger change mats and baby handcuffs and things should be better for next time.

We took Jake back on Sunday night and during the weekend I asked Tom whether he wanted to stay with us or go back with Jake and he said a definite stay with us. I packed a little bag for him incase he changed his mind when we got there and nope he was fixed on the idea of staying with us – what a victory over such a short time! We stayed and had a braai with Ruth, the children all said an official goodbye to Tom and Max and we brought home two sleepy beautiful children much to our great delight!