Walk The Talk

Monday morning Dad left for work a little later than usual. The reason being that it was Nelson Mandela’s birthday, and all over the country, at 8:05 people were going to sing Happy Birthday to him. It was estimated that 12 million school pupils joined the ranks of countless adults at companies doing the same thing. A special birthday song was even written for Madiba’s 93^rd birthday, and we all spent some time familiarising ourselves with it. So, just before 8:05 we switched the TV from Disney Jr. to one of the local news channels and sang our hearts out.

Another South African icon, Gambit the Dolphin, also shares he’s birthday with Madiba, so I sent him oodles of wishes too. Any of you not yet familiar with Gambit from my previous blog posts, here is a reminder: he’s my favourite Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, and at 517kg and 3.95m, he’s the biggest dolphin in an oceanarium in the world. He is also the oldest and longest living dolphin in captivity in the world. It’s amazing to think that he consumes about 25kg of fish per day, which is twice my weight. He’s the proud father of seven of the nine dolphins that have been born at uShaka Sea World. If you’re wondering, he celebrated the big 4 oh (40) this year.

On Tuesday it was back to music after the school holidays, so it was really nice to see all my friends again, and of course my favourite teacher Liesel. Back home I made a butterfly, with Mom’s help. While making and decorating the butterfly, Mom taught me all about where butterflies come from. In the evening, when Dad came home, I couldn’t contain my excitement at explaining to Dad how it goes from a creepy crawly (caterpillar) to a pupa and then a butterfly. Mom even coached me to say the word ‘chrysalis’. I also explained to Dad that the ‘eyes’ on the butterflies wings are meant to scare off predators. Dad seemed truly impressed at my new found entomological knowledge.

Later in the evening Dad built me the most awesome railroad with Legos. We played and played until it was my bedtime, and then again in the morning.

I was really missing Daddy on Wednesday morning so I decided to phone him at work. Dad and I had a long chat about butterflies, which was still top of mind for me. I also asked him where my Iggy book was (In The Night Garden book). Dad gave me very clear directions to find it, but I wasn’t really interested in finding my Iggy book as I just wanted us to chat.

For the second time this week Dad ended up getting to work late on Thursday morning – this time because I started a game of hide-and-go-seek with him and we were having such a good time that Daddy didn’t realise how late it was. When he did notice though, he didn’t seem to mind too much, and played a couple more rounds with me. In the afternoon I was supposed to have speech therapy with Vicky, but because both Mommy and I had colds she decided to cancel thereby preventing our spreading our germs. During the course of the day I pulled my red wagon around the garden while I learned numbers. It was exhausting work, so I ended up having a snooze in the hammock outside.

When Dad got home from work on Thursday he had a long chuckle at the state of the garden – he said it looked like a ball bomb had exploded there. During the day, Mom and I took every single ball, regardless of shape, size, colour or state of repair into the front garden. There Mom and I played with the balls, and even the kitties joined in. During our playtime I decided I needed to make jelly, so Mom popped me at a table in the middle of the lawn where I proceeded to make red jelly. I also spent a good deal of time learning shapes during the afternoon. All the balls on the front lawn amused Daddy so much that we spent an hour playing soccer in the evening which only had to be abandoned because of poor light. I did however manage to impress Daddy with my knowledge of shapes before going indoors. As he scattered my beanbags around the lawn I told him what they were: rectangle, diamond, star, square, circle, triangle. I beamed with pride.

A trip to Granny was on the cards on Friday. After collecting her we headed off to Yeesh where I had a jolly play. Afterward we engaged in Granny’s favourite pastime – shopping. During the course of the afternoon I got spoilt with some art supplies, a transformer car and a t-shirt which I chose myself. It was a really long but exciting day, and by the time we arrived home, Daddy was already there from work.

Saturday Daddy and I spent a good deal of time playing in the garden, with all my balls, and then back on the patio where I built another play-dough house. While we were in the front garden playing, Mickey the cat impressed us with the most amazing feat of catching a dove that was perched nearby. Although it took off, Mickey jumped skyward and snatched the bird from its flight. Although we were all truly impressed at Mickey’s skill, a chase ensued to catch Mickey and get him to release the helpless dove. Mickey evaded Mom and Dad for a short while, but eventually they caught him and made him release the dove. Dad examined the dove for major wounds, and once satisfied that the bird suffered more shock than injury, released it onto the wall. Interestingly enough the dove watched us play from his high perch for a long while before flying off.

On Sunday morning I took part in my first official sporting event – the 702 and Discovery Walk The Talk. As it was my first event, Mom and Dad entered the shortest leg which was 5km. We arrived with some time to spare before our start. The walk to the start in itself was quite intense, as parking was at a premium with 50000 walkers entered for the event. We were a couple of metres from the officials who fired the starting gun, and Daddy warned me it would be loud, so I covered my ears. We all counted down to the gun, including me, and as the gun went off so did we.

I really enjoyed the brisk walk, with Mom and Dad forming a shield around me, as there were so many people, and some were really walking fast. I did fall twice, but fortunately no harm was done. Every so often there was loud music for the walkers at which point I’d stop and do a dance, much to the delight of the other walkers! After about one and a half kilometres I started to tire, and Mom popped me in my jogger. After another kilometre I was fast asleep! I could hear Mom and Dad chatting cheerfully as they walked and pushed the jogger, and as we passed the entertainment tents with the loud music I’d start bopping to the tunes, in my sleep!

We finished after midday, making fairly good time of less than an hour for the 5kms. We all got medals, for which I woke up, as I didn’t want to miss my first medal awarding.

Some facts worth noting this past week was that gold reached a 36 year high of $1600/oz. When I asked my Dad why a 36 year high, and what happened before that, he explained that the Bretton Woods standard prior to that governed the price of gold at $35/oz. In 1971 this fixed price was abolished, and ever since gold has appreciated in value. Another noteworthy event was that Twitter, the micro blogging service, turned 5 years old. A fact worth knowing is that at its inception, 224 tweets were sent, which is now equivalent to the number that are sent in 1/10 of a second! In total, about 350 billion tweets are generated per day.

Well, that’s it for this week.

Lots of love,

Jay-Bee

Figure 1 My butterfly art (19.07.2011)

Figure 2 My art story: Me in the sun next to Roxy pops, who is behind the gate. There is a bee on my chin, and Roxy has a bone. (13.07.2011)

Photo 1 Some painting . . .

Photo 2 Dad and I hard at work building a railroad

Photo 3 Stanley goes down the spiral

Photo 4 Who’s there?

Photo 5 Doing some construction

Photo 6 Sticker book time

Photo 7 Getting ready for Walk The Talk

Photo 8 And we’re off!

Photo 9 Field is looking strong

Photo 10 Doing a bit of a ride

Photo 11 The finish!!!! Medal time.

Photo 12 Yah! My first medal

Photo 13 Feels more like a graduation

Photo 14 ‘Til next week