Marshmallows & Merlot

I don't really know why I'm writing this. I don't know precisely what this post should be about. Odd, I know, given the fact that I am typing this and it's turning into a post of its own one word at a time. I guess... no, I don't guess, I know that I need to write. And let the chips fall where they may. As 'Days of our Lives' dramatic as that sounds... I'm not in a particularly neon pink place at the moment... it's been a tough couple of weeks. Think Survivor meets The Apprentice meets Mean Girls . You see, I'm a words person. It's both a strength and a weakness.  Do I remember every dirty look, childhood 'lie belt' smack or Standard 5 'disco' I wasn't invited to? No. Do I remember every hurtful/judgemental phrase ever said about me or to me? Yes. Every word. Fun Fact: My grandmother telling 14-year old me that I was 'a well-padded girl' still gets my butt to gym on a Monday morning.    Wanna build me u

  You know, one of those moments where mom guilt and other mom judgement meet to sucker punch you in the parental gut while you do your darndest to smile and nod and be graciously ‘grown up’? One of those moments.  Allow me to elaborate… There I was chatting away merrily to a mom I hardly know at a birthday party when suddenly it happened – “Oh. Is that how she crawls ?” she said. “Um, yeah. We call it a ‘kershuffle’, half crawl, half bum shuffle,” I said. ‘Other mom’ kept quiet for a moment, observed my kershuffler closely, frowned, an uber concerned frown, and said (in a super serious, head mistress meets carb-phobic dietician tone) “You do know how important crawling is, hey? You should really do something about it.” Um. Yeah. The sarcasm cometh… Do I know how important crawling is? No. No. Of course I don’t. I’m totally 100% okay with the fact that my first born, the love of my life, has short-circuited a major developmental milestone and gets judge

That. That has got to be my least favourite question at the moment. I've been trying to figure out just when it was that this question moved from mild annoyance to full-blown get-the-woman-a-martini meltdown territory and I've figured it out... Rather than one big thing, it's an accumulation of little things. You know, little things like... Little Thing #1 ... you were en route to Woolies, you even parked and got out of the car. You even strapped on the baby pouch carrier thingee and managed to fish a written (not scribbled) shopping list out from inbetween the wet wipes and a slobbery Sophie . You were good to go, you grabbed a trolley, you even started filling it and then, well, the angelic little cherub strapped to your leaky bosom suddenly morphed into a wailing banshee playing the bagpipes (badly). '   'What's for dinner?'he asked. 'There's a Mimmos menu on the fridge,' I said.   

and I'm not talking in an esoteric, gave up coffee, embraced juicing, 'swear by kale' kinda way. I'm talking in an HAD A BABY kinda way. Yes, grew an actual living, breathing, ten-fingered, ten-toed person in my belly*. A person who is now nine months old, still rocks the mohawk she was born with and has earned herself the hashtag #littlelenses . Not the most creative hashtag in the world for a copywriter – pretty paint by numbers – but hey, I haven't exactly been getting my prescribed 8 hours of shut eye for the past 18 months** So, I had all these lofty ideals about having a newborn bundle of joy that slept and ate and slept and ate on a sorta 'rinse and repeat' cycle, which was going to give me plenty of time during my four months of maternity leave to reflect upon the magic of motherhood and blog about those first few weeks through baby powder scented tea breaks. Um. Yeah, right. Let's just say that – for me – the emphasis in the phrase 'mater

Aaah yes, my not so newly acquired baby bump.  I say not-so-newly 'cos I am, as of today, 25 weeks pregnant and have the bongo drum playing sensations from within my belly to prove it. And, should I find myself momentarily forgetting that I am with child, said child has been known to make her presence known with a roundhouse kick to the ribs that would make Jackie Chan wince.  Warning: This blog post contains oestrogen-fueled, progesterone-enhanced content best avoided by members of the male species. Internal tap dancing and bladder bouncing aside, the second trimester has been a pleasure . Nope, not being sarcastic, weeks 14 to 26 have been pretty darn pleasant. While I ate my weight in easy-to-peel naartjies , drank 100% orange juice like a camel stocking up for the great trek and fantasised about 3pm power naps under my desk throughout trimester one, trimester two has been morningnoonandnight sickness free. It's also been characterised by less hormone-induced hys

The thing about neglecting one's blog is that a day of 'I'll blog tomorrow' turns into weeks of it and before you know it you realise that it's been over a year, yip, an entire 12 months since you clicked on 'new post' and actually did something about it. And, well, before you have time to get completely overwhelmed by what to post and how to post it, you just dive on in and give it a go. This explains the past two long sentences – I have no idea where I'm going with this. So bear with me... I guess a good place to start is to set the scene. Unlike the majority of last year's posts, this one is not being written by a woman working 60-hour weeks, living for wine o' clock and popping schedule 5 nerve blockers like smarties. This is, in fact, being written by a woman with a bionic spine and a baby bump. Yes, you read that correctly. And, yes, I will explain.