Padda wou gaan opsit...

Baby girl... It seems my hopes of you being a prima ballerina dancer might have to make room for something else..

You had your first school concert a couple of weeks ago.  It was a state secret what the theme would be & we had no idea what character you were going to play.  We were so excited & bought tickets weeks in advance, invited friends & family to come watch the spectacular show with us, the works!

On arrival we got popcorn & drinks & we couldn't wait to see your debut!  But then we had to wait.. first were the babies then the older babies.. & FINALLY! It was your class' turn!  Onto the stage you came, not a cry or a tear in sight, you took your place together with all your little froggy & duck friends & then you noticed the crowd.  That was the end of it.. You sat & stared & stared & stared.. Not a word came out of your mouth & no dancing or movement in that little princess body of yours..

It seems the moment was too big for you & stagefright got the better of my little 2.5 year old princess froggy.  But let me tell you this:  You were the most beautiful froggy I had ever seen & mommy had tears running all the way down my face!  I dont care whether you didnt feel like dancing or singing in front of 100's of people & truth be told I would have been proud even if you did have a properse meltdown & cried your heart out!  I dont care if you dont like being on stage, all I want is for you to be happy & mommy will do just about anything for you to be happy.  So maybe you'll take ballerina lessons, but if you dont want to dance in front of people.. You'll have to dance for me:-)!

I am proud of you baby girl, always have been, always will be!  Your the most beautiful baby in the world to me.. Even in a froggy costume with your face painted green ;-) ! Mommy loves you!

X is for Xhosa

We have limited information about your tummy mummy sweetheart but one thing we do know is that she is Xhosa & this week we celebrated Heritage Day, otherwise known as National Braai Day.  So we decided to focus on Xhosa this year.

What is Heritige Day?  Google defines it as follows:

"What does Heritage Day mean to individual South Africans? - for some a braai with family and friends, for others a chance to respect their traditions and for some who don't know their roots Its just another day as usual.

Heritage Day is one of South Africa's newly created public holidays and its significance rests in recognising aspects of South African culture which are both tangible and difficult to pin down: creative expression, our historical inheritance, language, the food we eat as well as the land in which we live.

Heritage is defined as "that which we inherit: the sum total of wild life and scenic parks, sites of scientific or historical importance, national monuments, historic buildings, works of art, literature and music, oral traditions and museum collections together with their documentation."

So of course your father & I don't know anything about being Xhosa - What would we do without Google?  A few strokes on our trusty search engine & I had a few recipes for dishes we could do on the braai & even a few pics of Xhosa face paint.  

I was worried about the food - especially about what it was going to taste like cause it sounded 'volks vreemd"! :-)  But Umngqusho rocks!  It took forever to cook but it was nice & the Oxtail was devine!  

Needless to say.. We'll be cooking some traditional Xhosa food & celebrating the heritage of your tummy mummy a little more often than once a year baby girl.  

We love you!  xx 

Two...

So baby girl.. I haven't written you in a while.  It's hard & terribly busy busy busy raising a two year old! :-)

You turned two in May & although I have enjoyed every phase, this one is proving to be the most challenging but also most enjoyable phase!  You can communicate with me & I'm loving it!

So let me tell you about a few things you've been up to in the last week - I know you'll love reading this one day!

I bought you a reward chart - you don't quite understand the concept yet but I felt that we could slowly introduce you to it.  We bought a few interesting stickers & also introduced you to the potty..  Every time you sat on the potty you got a sticker.  You seemed to really enjoy the chart & then... the chart went missing.  I didn't think too much of it, figuring that I'd find it amongst your toys.  That was until I went to the toilet!  You had tried to flush your reward chart down the toilet.. Ai jai jai!

Have I mentioned that we're trying to potty train you?  CHAOS!  In my attempts to be informed, I googled the topic & read an article "How to potty train your child in three days".. Well, not this child! & definately not this parent!  I feel like pulling all my hair out, one by one!  You pee in the potty once & then on the floor, & then on the chair & then on the carpet & then just to keep it interesting.. in the potty!  Turns out you dont even mind cleaning up after yourself!  Thought that cleaning might encourage you to pee IN the potty, but no - you enjoy cleaning.  Ai jai jai jai jai!!

I can't hide stuff as easily from you any more.  this morning you fetched your chair from the lounge, took it to the kitchen, opened the fridge & took the cheese out from behind the bottles of mayo & mustard where I was hiding it on the top shelve.  You then brought it to me in the lounge, doing your victory dance singing "Kasies, kasies yum yum kasies!"  I couldn't help it.. I just had to give you some kasies :-)

I love that you make me laugh so much every day.  You're so cute, I almost wish that you would stay this age forever. Well once you're potty trained!  Love you baby girl! xx

My perfect baba..

So when we got you we imagined how perfect you would be & what perfect parents we'd be.. as I'm sure all prospective parents do.  But boy were we naive!

We had our first "Head Master Office" Discussion this week.  Turns out when you're frustrated at school YOU BITE! 

First thing I thought of when she told us was how your dad & I mocked the lady @ the school we're hoping to send you to.  We went to enroll you because there's a waiting list as long as my arm.  One of the things she told us, with a very stern face is, "Biters are expelled!".  We shook our heads in utter dismay, ofcourse biters should be expelled... But when we got home we had a good giggle about the whole scenario! 

Moral of the story: Don't mock people..

So what is this perfect mommy of yours going to do?  Nothing!  Apart from giving you as much of a speech as you can give a 19-month old..  & Loving you to bits, teeth & all!

Turns out I'm not so perfect after all & neither are you.  Seem's I've got some reading to do on how to handle situations like these & you've got to learn some communication skills.   

Fact is though, as I was watching you go off with the nanny today to go play in the park I realised once again just how perfect you are for me!  You are happy!  And what more can a mom ask for? 

You've been happy & content since the day you were placed in your daddy's arms.  You smile & giggle & laugh all the time & you love how quirky we can be together.  I'm quite a serious bore on my own but with you & your dad I come alive!  Your dad's a bit of a nerd & to top it all he looks a bit chinese!  But to us he's the hero that kills the bugs & fixes things (& secretly dances like a crazy person when nobody's watching). 

You see, together we make the perfect family in my opinion.  Caramelle - Daddy our Portuguese but chinese looking hero, White Chocolate - Mommy! & Chocolate - you our little dark baba girl! We cover the whole spectrum of sweet chocolates, one of my favourite things!  We're my kinda perfect!

Baby girl.. I hope you dance!

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

I hope you dance
I hope you dance

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Livin' might mean takin' chances, but they're worth takin'
Lovin' might be a mistake, but it's worth makin'
Don't let some Hellbent heart leave you bitter
When you come close to sellin' out, reconsider
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

I hope you dance
I hope you dance
(Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along)
I hope you dance I hope you dance
(Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder, where those years have gone?)

A Beautiful Song by Lee Ann Womack

*************************************************************

This song has always been a nice-enough-to-listen-to song for me.. but I heard it playing on the radio recently & now that you're in my life this song has taken on a whole new meaning for me. 

You see, some of us are behind-the-scenes kinda people, some of us are writers, some singers, some painters, but you my girl, You are a dancer!  It's a wellknown fact that African people have rhythm.  That's black Africans, just so we're clear, cause your dad & I have ZERO rhythm between the two of us :-)  But you, you've got the ability to sway those little hips of yours to the rhythm of just about anything in the pretiest way I have ever seen. 

And you find rhythm in Everything!  You'll hear a catchy advert & you'll start swaying away like the music is talking to you.  You dance to the tune of the wind & the waves.  And when there's no music, you make your own & dance to that..

My favourite dance to date is the one you do in the mornings.. You stand in your crib & dance to the song that daddy made up for you.  You stand, dummy in the mouth - cause you're a little grumpy in the mornings - & when one of us start to sing you'll start smiling your little dummy smile & dance.. whilst still in your sleeping bag!

I think what gets to me most is your confidence.  You dont care where we are or who is looking or what time of the day it is..  If you feel like dancing, you dance!  My prayer is that you will always have that confidence.  That you'll always find the rhythm in the situation & DANCE to it Danielle-style. 

Mommy loves you my little dancer. xxx

An Olive-style Christmas

Baby girl, something you'll learn over the years is that I love christmas.  In fact, I could have been one of Santa's helpers  - for sure one of my top ten jobs if I had to list them.. But now that you're here.. it's a whole different ball game all together!

Of course it all starts with the tree.  We have a lovely tree with beautiful decorations & lots of flickering little lights.  I'm glad to report that @ 18 months you LOVE them too.  You coo every night when we switch on the ligths & you've redecorated the entire bottom part of the tree & ofcourse there was no stopping you when you discovered that some of the decorations are actually edible!  Needless to say - none of the edible little chocolate decorations are left on the tree. 

Naturally no decently decorated tree goes without matching christmas socks.  For a lack of a chimney we've put them on our bookshelve & you stand there admiring them like their art work displayed in the Louvre. 

One of my favourite things at christmas time is the music. I know, I know.. It's cheesy!  But I love it!  In fact, every year I add to my collection of christmas cd's. Much to your dad's disgust!  I play them every chance I get & sing along to the tune of christmas.  It's just heavenly.

Then there's Ouma Malie's oats cookies.  As a child the baking of those cookies announced that christmas was on it's way and it's a tradition that I've kept alive, one that I hope to pass on.   You helped bake them this year, as much as an 18 month old can assist in baking.. I suppose your real assistance will be with the eating part - seems you've got no issues with the taste or texture of these particular cookies.  Ouma Malie would have been proud baby girl!

Where's the gifts you ask?  Well, apart from the one's that you've already opened.. the others are under our tree.  You've been promised a good pakkie slaai if you open another one of them but you seem content with what you've gotten so far & have been making us pretend tea in your little pink tea cups all week.  The rest of your pressies will be packed in when we leave for holiday & you can open them on christmas morning.  Oh, I look forward to seeing your little face when you open them!


There is a book - my favourite one for this season but you don't seem to mind too much that we're reading it every night.  It tells the real story of christmas, complete with carols & nursery rhymes, poems & everything christmas.  We read from it each night, sing & dance - and yes even daddy sings.  

I hope that you will love this time of year as much as I do, growing up & when you have a family of your own.  But more importantly I pray that you will understand why we celebrate this time of year.  You see, allthough it's not literally Jesus' birthday, its the time of year when we celebrate that he came to earth for us.  It's a time where we celbrate having a Godly father that loves us.

Merry christmas baby girl.  Mommy loves you! xx

Our first day as a Forever Family

So the upcoming anniversary of the day our daughter was placed with us has left me emotional & exceptionally nostalgic.  The celebration of her birthday was exciting & filled with party planning & prep.  But her gotcha day is something completely different & to me in some ways even more special & now I find myself thinking of everything that we've done, haven't done, should have done & perhaps should not have...

The Sunday before we fetched her felt like it was never going to end.  I remember that we prepped her room until late that night & when both of us were lying in bed exhausted, we were thinking 'did we do enough?'  ' Are we ready for this?'  I suspect pregnant parents feel the same before going in to hospital.  We woke up bright & early, fetched Nanna & Auntie Sonia & showed up @ the adoption agency all bright-eyed & bushy-tailed to fetch our baby. 

Naturally there were papers to sign & speeches from social workers - nothing that I can remember, to be quite honest.  And then it was time for us to meet her..  Her caretaker, auntie Cindy, brought her in & gave the most awe-inspiring handover speech.  I was stunned at the time, incapable of even crying.  She explained to Danielle in such a loving way that we were going to be her forever family that I'm convinced our, then five month old, daughter understood every single word. 

And so with a short speech & a kiss on the cheek she was handed to her daddy.  He took her in his arms, kissed her & did - what I now refer to as his Mustafa-thing - whilst saying a not-so-silent prayer to God for answering all our prayers. Then it was my turn to hold her & I remember looking at this little girl thinking, ' ok so we've got a baby now.. what now?'  I noticed that she was hungry & gave her a bottle, something that thank goodness her caretaker had brought - It had not occurred to me to pack milk & a bottle!  But she had toys to keep her entertained in the car! :-) 

We had a good little photo session with her, us the social workers, care takers & Nanna of course.  She kept her cool, but I realise now how totally strange it must have been for her & how scared she must have felt.

It was a struggle to get her into the car seat, must have taken us at least 15 minutes & I suspect that the social workers had a good giggle @ us!  The drive to our home was filled with smiles & playfulness.  Once home the celebration meal had to be cooked.  You see my husband's family is Portuguese & an event is nothing if not combined with the perfectly prepared meal!  However I didn't get to eat any of that specific meal that day as the day had turned out to be waaaaayyy too long for our little bundle & she started to make her feelings heard.   Neighbours had heard of the little one's arrival & started coming to see her. With even more unknown faces now around her she raised the bar of making her voice known to us & Paulo quite literally escorted people out of the house so that she could have some breathing space.  Yet, she kept crying & was unable to sleep so we drove home, only a short distance away from Nanna's house. 

We have a cool printout against our fridge that in short describes how to love a child - one rule on this printout says: 'When crabby, put in water".  So we decided that she probably needed a bath to feel better.  WRONG choice!  She screamed throughout the bath & even more when we started dressing her.  Until eventually, after two hours I had reached my breaking point & started crying with her.. She stopped & looked at me with a face that said: "O crap, they've put me with retards!  They don't know how to look after babies!"

We put her in bed with a bottle & a prayer, and just like that it was the end of her first day with us.  We went to bed still in utter amazement that someone had actually given us their baby.  Other than Jesus dying on the cross for us, it will Always be the most amazing gift we both ever received & we will remain forever thankful.