Gobbilicious

I love Nathan at this age! He's just so cute I really could eat him up!

He's learning to talk, and almost every week sees new words being added to his vocabulary. Recently, he learnt about trucks.... except that because he can't say 't', it comes out right. He can't say 'd' properly either, so both 'truck' and 'duck' come out as 'kak'! (For the non-Afrikaans speakers, 'kak' is an Afrikaans swear word that means 'shit'. ROFL!) It's rather interesting to be driving along with him in the car, only to suddenly hear him shouting out as loud as he can: KAK! KAK! KAK! I wonder what other drivers think?

New things he's learnt recently:

• how to put a dvd into the dvd-player (seriously!)
• how to open the front gate by himself
• that standing on the lounge table gets a reaction from both parents
• that drawing on things with a black permanent marker also gets a reaction from both parents

Yup, he's a boy!

But he does have a tender side. He's started obliging and giving big MWAH kisses when I leave for work. Today we went for a picnic at Kirstenbosch, Graeme fell asleep on the picnic blanket. Nathan came and sat next to him, and gently stroked his head. Aahhh!!

Educational technology

For those who are not in the know (i.e. you aren't on the Christmas newsletter list, aren't on Facebook/ Twitter and don't email/ phone/ sms ... we still love you though!) I have a new responsibility at work. I have been given a reduced teaching timetable in order to pick up responsibility for educational technology.

This is a new post at the school, so I'm kind of figuring it out as I go. Essentially, the post has several key priorities - research the current educational technology (from clickers to making use of cell phones in school, to making use of Moodle or anything else vaguely related to schools and learning); creating a holistic & integrated approach for the implementation of EdTech at our school; training of staff in all & anything that will improve their job (i.e. learning how to use email or Excel, or Skype, or whatever).

It's a very exciting post, and I'm loving it already. Of course, as with any job, there are frustrations, but on balance, I think I'm really going to have a fun year. I get to play with gadgets and the web and stuff and call it work! Sigh! Such a hard life!!

Talking is such fun, and other stories

Over the Christmas period Nathan has started talking nineteen-to-the-dozen. His repetoire now includes:

Bye bye! See you!

WOW! Look at that!

Ki-Kyu (thank you)

Car!

NO!

More!

Uppie!

Down!

Mama!

NiNi (Daddy - don't ask, I don't know how NiNi is Daddy, but it is!)

Nel!

Oupa!

Tata!

Wear this! (handing you some or other item of clothing)

Shoes!

Oink

Moo

Miaow

And yes, nearly everything is followed by an exclamation mark.

The cutest use of words this past week has got to be when he handed me a smelly, dirty sock and said, "Shoes! Wear this!" and then got VERY upset with me when I refused. Sweet child!

He continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. This weekend we measured him and he is taller at 19 months than his sister was at 2 years. He's wearing size 8 shoes (and they're on the tight/ small size), and his clothes are now in the 3-4yrs category. Yup. At 19 months. I have no idea how we're going to keep this child in clothes if he continues to grow at this rate, so if any of you parents of boys out there want to pass on any unused clothing our way, I would be most grateful!

Still - he brings such joy into my life that I can't help but love him - or maybe he brings such joy into my life because I love him....

Snip, snip, snip

The Dec hols are my traditional once-a-year luxury of a professional hair-cut. (I simply don't have the money to spend to have my hair cut every 2 months or so - do you know how expensive even the most basic haircut is for a woman? Yet another reason why Jewish men pray daily to thank God for not being a woman. *rueful smile*)

So this year, I decided it was time for a COMPLETE change... and I cut it all off.

I haven't had short hair since 2000, so it's taking a while to get used to - I keep reaching for the ponytail that isn't there. I'm loving it though! Now I remember why I chopped it all off a decade ago. I'm going to have to find a nice cheap hairstylist who will keep it short for me. If you know of anyone, let me know!

There are more photos of the kids' hair cuts on Nellie's blog.

Present time

Some photos of the kids from this morning. Nathan will get his BIG present tomorrow. In the meantime, here he is playing with some of Nellie's.

Christmas family madness (video)

Christmas time is here again...

We have 3 families to celebrate Christmas with - my mom & stepdad, my dad and stepmom, and G's family. My dad & stepmom have 6 kids between them. G is one of 4 siblings, as is his dad. So you can see that we're part of a rather large clan. And trying to get them all together in one place is nigh on impossible. Hence, we have a 3 year rotational plan. This year it was G's family's turn to have us. They're a mad bunch, but in a nice mad kind of way.

One of the uncles traditionally organises home-made Christmas crackers. Each cracker contains a teeny gift, along with a forfeit. The forfeits range from having to read a poem, sing a song, reminisce about Christmases past, taking part in bizarre competitions, acting out some charade or other, etc. Then, there's the family forfeit, where everyone has a role to play in some sort of mini-play or tableau or carol singing thing.

This year, the theme was the nativity tableau. Every one was assigned a role, and then had to sing a song that went with their role. The catch was that they had to all sing their bit at the same time. I had a really hard time trying not to laugh while holding my phone.

I'll post the video in a separate post, cos it's large (nearly 7MB). Enjoy the madness that is my family.