Some things change, some stay the same

With Graeme working at my Alma mater, I've found myself revisiting customs, events and school history. This morning, for example, he asked me who taught the girls about their skirts. I knew instantly what he was talking about. The girls are specifically instructed, by the school, about keeping the skirts of their dresses down and between their legs. They're taught to think about who might be able to see up it. e.g. when you walk or sit on stage, when you walk up/ down stairs, when the wind blows. It's one of those things that that I'd completely forgotten about until he mentioned it. Apparently, they're still doing it. Good for them, I say. I wish someone would teach the girls at my school because most of them have no idea about that kind of modesty!

But then, other things have changed. Like this pathway.
My first tutor room was just behind those doors. What is now a narrow, brick-paved path, used to be a wide, gravel path - wide enough to drive an ox-wagon on. When it rained, well, you'd traipse through a bit of a mud bath.

The garden on the right didn't exist, and the garden on the left marked the start of the matric quad. The matric quad has now moved to a quad on the other side of the school, which is smaller and isn't as pretty, but has more shade and is closer to the vending machines.

The only constant in life is that change will occur.

Photographic exhibition

We took Nellie to the Musuem today - pretty good value at only R15 per adult. Anyway, the reason we went was because it is the last weekend of the Wildlife Photograph of the Year exhibition. Although I know that I really should not have taken photos (for copyright reasons), I couldn't resist 3 of my favourites.

This is Graeme's favourite. It's an Artic sunrise, lighting a polar bear.
My second favourite is this one of leaves after rainfall. Look inside the water droplet. What do you see?And my favourite favourite is this one. The story goes that after 3 hours, the photographer gave up waiting for one of them to win. I remember, as a child, seeing a poster up in an office, with a similar sketch of a frog holding on to a bird's throat, refusing to be swallowed. The caption read something about perseverance. I think this is a much better picture of perseverance!

Baby 3 scan photos: 5 Feb 09

Here's the little one side on - you can see the spine and ribs beautifully, as well as the facial features and ears.
This one was taken a few moments later, showing the little one sucking a thumb. Aaahhh sweet!

And finally... can you guess what this one is? I'll give you a clue - the bright white circles are the feet, and you can see the leg bending away on the left. The third, smaller white patch in the middle is....???

Yup, our baby is a BOY!!!!

We are both in a bit of shock. We were utterly convinced we were having another girl, so he's taken us rather by surprise. I'm thrilled cos it means one of both, but I'm also rather nervous. Boys are reputedly much harder work as babies and small children. Plus, there's the added problem of having to buy a whole new wardrobe and toy sets. Sigh! There I was really hoping to get away with hand-me-downs. But, on the upside - this is the first boy in my blood side of the family (I'm not counting my step-siblings children here, but there are still 7 girls!!) so my family name lives on for another generation. Yay!

Now.... what on earth are we going to call him?! I've only been thinking of girl names. Back to the drawing board.

Nothing traditional. Nothing too long. Nothing that has a weird nickname. Nothing with a pagan meaning (like the god of war, or something). Something that works with our mouthful of a double barrel surname (poor mite!). Something with a spiritual meaning. Nothing starting with J. Something that works in an African culture, in English and in Afrikaans (but can be from any culture/ language). Suggestions, anyone???

Please God, may he live to meet his family, take his first breath, open his eyes, cry, smile, eat, poo... Ha ha... My mom's first response was - good for you, now what about another one after that so you can have 2 girls?? Ha ha!! I think if he lives, never mind has all his fingers, toes (which he does at the moment!), etc, then I will be quite satisfied to stop there.

Will he play rugby (should we allow him to play rugby, or just Touch???), or cricket, or soccer? Or will he want to be a ballet dancer??? AAAHHH!! Boys! What do you DO with a boy?

I'm sure we'll figure it out as we go, just as we did with Nellie. I was so convinced that he was a girl though, which meant that lots of this stuff would be old hat... now I feel like a first-time mother again.

Wow. A boy. On balance though, I really am thrilled. What a blessing. A son.

Movies

We never go out to movies. There's the hassle of finding a babysitter, or paying for one if the usual grandparent pool has been exhausted. Then you have to drive all the way there and find parking. Then you have to pay for the movie, and you always get suckered into buying popcorn and coke and sweets at exorbitant prices because you were running late and so didn't have time to pop into Spar and buy some sweets to sneak into the theatre. And then you can't pop to the loo during ad breaks or by pausing the movie (which is a crucial option for me at the moment).... So we don't go to movies all that often.

Despite all these drawbacks, I really love going to the movies. But I love watching movies at home more.

But we never hire out movies, because when do we ever have time to a) drive over to the video store or b) come to a mutually pleasing decision about which video to hire? I mean, please!

So usually we wind up watching whatever movies are on TV. And, sadly, we don't even have DSTV... (too expensive, too much hassle to set it up, and we'd probably wind up TV addicts more than we are). Nope, we're E-TV and SABC viewers.

What that means is that we've seen all the movies (at least once) that come on. But we watch them never the less. Something is better than nothing, and we're usually too tired to concentrate on reading a book, or haven't had time to go to the library before it closes to take some out.

Last night we had a very pleasant surprise though: there was a movie on that neither of us had seen. 'Mr and Mrs Smith'. It's about a couple who are both assassins, but neither knows about the other. We weren't expecting great things (after all, this is terrestrial TV!), but as it had Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, there was eye candy for both of us.

Well, slaan my dood! What a good movie! We giggled and laughed our way through the (entirely predictable) plot, and loved the action scenes. For a Monday night, it was great viewing. Who knew that terrestrial TV actually could produce the goods.

Bandage

Here is Nellie with her bandage on her burn. It's a second degree burn, but only about 3 x 3 cm large. She's been really brave thus far about having her bandage changed. Tonight was not such a time however - Graeme had to hold her down so that I could change it and put more antiseptic on it (see next post for the after photo... I couldn't get a 'during' photo, for obvious reasons). Not a pleasant experience for any of us! But now she's smiling again. Chocolate does wonders!

New bandage

New bandage