Jan

All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go

Hello all!

My week seemed even more hectic than what the Obama’s underwent during Barack’s inauguration. Well I guess the 10 inauguration balls that Barack and Michelle Obama had to attend in one night was pretty hectic, so I’ll concede ‘The Most Hectic Week’ award to him. But he’d better look out, as I’m snapping close to his heals! My hectic week started off on Monday with my turning seven months old! Dad waited until the very last minute to go to work to wait for me to wake up give me a happy seventh month birthday hug, but I slept late. Dad is most saddened by the fact that I do sleep pretty late on most mornings, resulting in him and I not getting a chance to exchange a few words and hugs before he has to leave for work. He’s even resorted to travelling to work by bike again to dodge traffic when he leaves late, waiting for me to wake up.

Once I finally was awake, and Mom and I did all our morning errands, we headed off to Cresta with Granny. Not only was I seven months old on Monday, but my cousins Tamsin and Ryan also celebrated their birthdays on Monday (yes, on the same day, but they’re not twins – apparently Aunty Kim figured having Ryan and Tamsin on the same day required her to only remember one date for their birthdays, and if she forgot one, she forgot both, thereby showing no favouritism)! First we headed off to the photo shop where we had two artistic photos of Ryan playing his acoustic guitar and his electric guitar enlarged and framed. For Tamsin we came across a beautiful black velvet jewellery box. I convinced Mom to take me to the card store where I got Ryan and Tamsin a special ‘cousin birthday card’ each. Back home, after Granny had left, I climbed into my Jolly Jumper and Mom started baking cup cakes and dessert in the kitchen. While she busily mixed ingredients I frantically exercised my legs by jumping up and down. Pretty soon the bouncing motion of the Jolly Jumper caused me to drift off to sleep. Mom found me with my chin resting on my arm, snoring lightly and dribbling. She couldn’t let this opportunity pass by, so I was photographed in this embarrassing pose, of which you’ll find the evidence below. To be kind, however, Mom did bundle me off to bed where I snoozed for the remainder of the afternoon. I awoke to the wonderful smells of baking coming from the kitchen, at which point my hunger pangs took control of my vocal cords to let out an enormous yelp. I was fed, but sadly none of the yummy things from the kitchen going ons!

Dad arrived home in time for my evening bath, something that he managed to maintain for the entire week. After bathing and dressing we headed off to Aunty Kim’s place to wish Ryan and Tamsin an awesome birthday. We dined, sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to them, and ate lots of cake and festively decorated cup cakes. Dad left before Mom and I to go to gym. Later in the evening Mom and I, arriving home, found Dad in the lounge with Sonic and Shatzi trying in vain to catch the tiniest mouse I’d ever seen. I could hardly believe that this tiny furry creature that accidentally strayed into the house could give one grown man and two super fit and agile cats such a hard time!!! Eventually the little guy was caught in a box and released unharmed in the garden. The three of them seemed exhausted.

Sadly I again missed greeting my Dad on Tuesday morning before he had to head off to work, so I awoke to only find Mom at home. I was really saddened by the fact that I couldn’t spend as much time with my Dad as I did with my Mom. His excuse is that he needs to ‘make money’ to ‘pay the bills’ whatever that means. I wish I had a magic wand to make all the ‘bills’ disappear, and get Dad’s printer to ‘make money’ for him. I can’t understand why he hasn’t thought of making his own money yet!? I’ve often noticed my Dad placing documents on the glass screen of the printer and out the other end comes an exact copy of the original document – why can’t he just do the same with legal tender? If I didn’t sleep so tight at night I would get up and try it myself!

Anyhow, back to reality! Tuesday morning was a hectic as a presidential inauguration – I was triple booked! Being so hectic, I can understand how Barack Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. got the oath wrong on their first attempt. Of the three bookings on Tuesday morning I opted to go to physio, based not on what I most wanted to do, but rather based on what I most needed. The other two appointments were social; to meet a friend for coffee or to go to Mommy’s Club. Physio was great and I felt like a new baby after my treatment! Almost on a daily basis I can feel the benefits of all my treatments as my muscles strengthen and I’m able to perform more tasks and actions. The afternoon was pretty chilled as we had no engagements, so Mom and I just lazed about and bonded. Tuesday brought with it a further breakthrough in my development in that I started eating solids three times a day. This brings with it great possibilities as I can now introduce a lot more variety into my daily diet. Having Infatrini or milk as my primary diet gets somewhat boring after a while. Again Dad was home in time for my bath, so I spent the early part of the evening bonding with him. The evening was pretty uneventful as we spent some family time together.

You guessed it – Wednesday morning I overslept again thus missing greeting my Dad before he had to go to work! Midmorning Mom and I headed off to Tina’s place for Baby Massage Classes, a real favourite of mine. Mom and I have so much fun there together, and to boot, Dr Sonja, my chiro, also arrived to show the mommies some exercises. I was so thrilled to see her that we almost immediately made an appointment to see her the following week. Sometime after Baby Massage, back home, Opa arrived for a brief visit. He’d had an appointment in Randburg and he couldn’t resist to pop in for a hug and a kiss. Dad was home to bath me in the afternoon, and pretty soon afterward we were getting dressed up to go out. I eagerly grabbed my diary to see what was on my schedule to discover we were going to Angela’s farewell. She’s heading off to Cape Town for a year, and I had to meet her before she went, and to thank her for the wonderful gifts she’d sent home with my Dad. We arrived at the Baron on Main, and I was over the moon! My first visit to a pub. We arrived and discovered that Ang’s table was in the actual pub, and not the dinning area. As a result, and major sadness on my part, I was not allowed to enter. Fortunately we did get a chance to see Ang, albeit very briefly. Back at the car, given that we were all dressed up, we decided to head to Hyde Park and make up for the evening by eating waffles and drinking Caipirinahs at JB Rivers.

It rained most of Thursday, which was a real bummer for Dad, as he queued outdoors at the licensing department to confirm his booking for his driver’s licence (for a bike, not a car – he’s got one of those already). Mom and I headed off to Discovery Health to meet with Bronwyn for some tea. While there I also met Lisle, which was an absolute treat. Both Lisle and Bronwyn are huge fans of mine, so it was really great chatting to them! After leaving Sandton we ambled on home and chilled for the afternoon. Dad arrived home in time for another visitor, Tanya! Dad and Tanya had been at Varsity together, in the last century; I had been looking so forward to meeting Tanya as well. We chatted well into the early evening, making plans for me to meet little Morgan, who is a few months older than me, and Anthony, Morgan’s Dad. I can’t wait to spend some more time with Tanya, especially once I’m older, to hear all about Dad’s nerdy days at Varsity.

Thursday’s excitement came in the form of my being able to grab and pull both my feet to my face now. Many of you will think that this is not all that extraordinary, but given that I was flat on my back for the first 5 months o f my life, I never got the opportunity to develop appropriate muscle tone and flexibility, so to date I’ve favoured pulling only my right leg to my face. Thursday, after a number of attempts and weeks of practice and exercise, I’ve finally managed to pull both legs up simultaneously, without too much effort.

Friday morning I awoke again to find Dad had already left. Apparently he left extra early to go for a ‘crash course’ on how to pass one’s bike driver’s licence. Given that it was a crash course, I was expecting Dad to come home battered and bruised, and his bike in bits and pieces. Strangely enough he and the bike came home in one piece – clearly I misunderstood the meaning of a crash course. While Dad was learning the intricacies of stopping, starting and turning a bike, Mom and I headed off for some physio. We were home just in time to dodge the biggest rain storm I’d experienced. Mom called it a cloud burst, which I found quite interesting, as it seemed ‘window frenzy’ would be a more appropriate term as Mom tossed me on the cot and raced around the house, taking roll-call of the cats and dogs while simultaneously slamming all the windows shut. The downpour was short lived, but the after-effects were quite fascinating, as most of the back garden was a few inches underwater, the road had turned to a river, and Maiden Park, opposite which we live, had become Maiden Lake! Sadly the flooding had waylaid our plans of ribs on the grill with Tanya, Anthony and Morgan, but this has already been rescheduled. I was expecting Dad to arrive home looking like a drowned rat, but by the time he left work the rains had stopped and the roads were already dry. In fact, he even stopped into the Green Busters toyshop in Greenside to buy soap bubble mixture imported from Germany. Mom had to make more cup cakes for Tamsin’s party the next day, so once Dad was home, I was put in his charge while Mom went shopping. Dad and I spent the time on the front patio where Dad blew hundreds of soap bubbles. I giggled until my belly ached as I tried to catch the bubbles, or as they popped on my nose, hands and head.

As usual on a Saturday, Dad took charge of my morning cares, and we spent some quality time bonding during the course of the morning, doing exercises, chatting and watching Mythbusters on Discovery Channel. Mom had to go to Aunty Kim to drop off goodies for Tamsin’s party, so Dad and I spent some quality time together. We watched some TV, did exercises, and pretty soon the camera came out and we were trying to photograph the barbets as they setup home in a nesting log just outside Dad’s study window. It was approaching midday and getting hot, so it seemed the barbets had decided to stay ‘indoors’ (or ‘in log’ to be more precise) and out of the heat. To lure them out of their log, Dad put an apple in the tree, and voila, they arrived! As Dad was shooting pictures of the barbets eating their apple I chewed on a stick of biltong, cheering him on. All the excitement of photographing the barbets soon got the better of me as my eyelids started getting heavy. Soon Dad was snapping more embarrassing photos of me as I slept on my doughnut gripping onto a soggy piece of biltong.

Mom arrived home soon after and we headed into a lazy afternoon. By mid-afternoon both Dad and I started feeling a little groggy, so we snoozed together, curled up with each other. Later, after waking up, Mom bathed and dressed me and I remembered we had plans for the evening. Off we headed to Bev and Claire’s place for a braai. There I met Megan and Marilyn and immediately made new friends. We spent the evening chatting and drinking, and pretty soon dinner was served. We listened to some laidback music while Dad wondered around the garden taking photos. Matt had received bunches of roses which Megan arranged and Dad then photographed – they looked stunning. All too soon the evening was over, and the three of us headed off home.

We all stayed in bed late on Sunday. Once we were up I helped me Dad tend to the pool while Mom cooked lunch. Opa was coming to join us for lunch, so there was much excitement around the house. I was hanging around in my Jolly Jumper when Opa arrived, so he and I chatted while I showed off how strong my legs were getting as I bounced up and down. Soon we were all seated at the table, including me, where my Bunnykins plate, bowl and cup had been set. We chatted over lunch, but I didn’t make it to dessert as I drifted off for a quick power nap. After my power nap Dad, Opa and I spent some time in the garden; there we touched the trees and smelt my Mom’s herbs that she’s been cultivating for a long while already. At the pool we contemplated our going for a swim later on in the day. Unfortunately the afternoon brought with it some rain, so that put pay to our swim. By mid-afternoon it was time for Opa to leave. Mom and I had snuggled down for an afternoon nap, but not before I kissed Opa goodbye.

Well that’s it for this week. During the upcoming week I’m going to resume my occupational therapy, my chiro, as well as a visit to my dietician to determine if my diet is still appropriate for my weight and growth. Next week’s blog will provide the outcomes of these appointments, as well as another weigh-in scheduled for Saturday, combined with further inoculations.

Hugs, love and kisses,

Jarrod