Month: December 2008

Progress with a side order of Setbacks

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment
Little One Sleeping

It is this time of night again when all is quiet except for the mosquitoes buzzing around my head. I feel a sense of peace and accomplishment today; little one is sleeping, the dishes are done, the toys are picked up from the floor, with all bits and pieces accounted for, and I have fixed one of Robert’s toys – the stacking rings which he destroyed recently. I still have a stack of books that need urgent care and attention after a close encounter with toddler terror; it is hard to catch up.  However it is nice to know that I am ending the day a tiny bit ahead, who knows what setback tomorrow will bring.

I was at work yesterday and I handed in my sick leave, and had a generous helping of humble pie with management in the ivory tower. I saw with my own eyes the form where I filled in my part time option incorrectly; pretty stupid eh? The guy I called the blond cretin was on duty travel so at least I was spared his gloating. I really haven’t changed my opinion about the planning side of our office.  Even in the five minutes I spent there waiting for the person in charge to show up, I was acutely aware of the shallow intellect and inefficiency.. life is a never ending tea break up there,  while below deck, we strain and slave away so that the ship stays afloat, so unfair really. But staying with ther here and now, I have blown my chance to show superiority over the incompetents of the ivory tower; I was just as bad, I am even worse than them because I assigned myself, not somebody else, with a wrong option.

Today I had the day off, and Robert and I set out for some errands. We walked as far as Moullie Point, where I got some paperwork from Robert’s doctor and got to the police station where I signed a proof of address and inquired half-heartedly about the wallet that I really lost two months ago. On the way back I went to the library and got myself a replacement for the library card. Robert was asleep so I spent some pleasant time browsing in the library.  Membership to the library is free to South African citizens and permanent residence, which is pretty good, but the quality and the age of the books is not top notch for lack of funding, I would actually prefer to pay a membership fee if it means access to better and more varied books. The Sea Point library has a corner for kids and there is a children’s librarian who has a reading program every Wednesday and I am hoping to take Robert there next week.

We walked quite long today, but it was a sunny and warm day; a perfect day in Cape Town and a great day to be South African. We bumped into a friend and may people stopped to talk with Robert, and he had such a ready smile for everyone. This was such a contrast to my experience in Europe, but I guess it is easy to be friendly when the sun is shining and everyone is in a holiday mood.

Before we got home I also managed to do some shopping, and filled my backback with fruit and vegetables.  Last week I bought some peaches and nectarines and they were both really tastelss, so I almost skipped the nectarines this time, but I am glad I didn’t; they turned out fabulous.  Robert got his first taste (and sticky feel) of plums; I let him handle them and mess to his heart’s content.. Later he ate fruit yoghurt and then sausage, and contiued to sample with me everything I put on the table.

I am always happy when Robert eats well. His appetite hasn’t returned to normal yet, and the culprit this time might be teething; he is cutting two molars at the same time : top right and bottom left ( he already has one bottom right molar). Maybe I can also blame teething (in addition to my own sickness on Sunday) for his renewed interest in nursing. Even when he is ready for his daytime nap now he comes up to me and grabs my shirt saying : Mama. The funny thing is that he never called me this name before, so I think he uses the word to refer to the breast, really funny.

Today I also noticed that he is saying something that sounds like : danguda, dagoda,  as if he was speaking Chinese. Later I figured out that he is  repeating a sentence he hears from me all the time : don’t go down. Also today I think he reached a very important mile stone. He was playing with the pots and pans and using their lids as a mirror. He usually looks to his image and says baby ( baba or babbi) – and I said to him : Yes, baby Robert.He responded by looking at me and pointing to himself; he understood the  reference, and could identify his name.

So this is all fine and well, my little boy is growing and his cognitive skills are developing, it is wonderful to be able to watch that every day..

While we are still on the subject of progress, I received a phone call from the furniture shop and my things are ready in the warehouse, and all I have to do is wait for them to be delivered (and pay the balance of course). I will close on this progressive note, and will talk more about setbacks some other time.

Unbelievable?.. Believe It !

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

Good Morning !

And this is the pretty sight that greeted my half awake eyes, as I wanted to put away the cups into the cupboard. I looked stupefied as slowly my brain comprehended what my eyes focused on; my “lost” wallet.. WTF ? And how on earth has it ended up there, among cups and bowls? Please do not ask me.

Is it the onset of old age? early Alzheimer? I have no idea. All I know is that I succeeded in hiding it so well that it took me over 48 hours to find it again.  I should perhaps blame Lucy for not cleaning properly, but I doubt it would have made any difference, because I immediately canceled all the cards. Later I found out that the stop on the credit and debit cards is permanent and cannot be reversed, so I just incurred charges for nothing.  Well, the good thing is that I do not need to buy another wallet and I do not need to reissue my bookshop membership card. I still need to get a new driver’s license and a new library card though, or perhaps I should go to the police station before that and ask whether somebody handed in my other wallet, who knows? I mean with my strange luck it might be even sitting there .

Today I also got an answer from work about my schedule. Apparently I have signed myself into the flexible shift option by mistake. Again, I am mystified at how this happened. I have to watch myself very carefully, it seems like I am losing it slowly.

Books, Catfood, Reading lamp and Radio, Conveniently on One Shelf

Today I took my flu-ridden body to the doctor, and she gave me only two days of bed rest.  So unfortunately I will still have to put in two working days before being off for two weeks. I really cannot wait to have some holiday, set up our Christmas tree and try to organize this chaotic existence. I am still living mostly out of boxes and have very little storage space, and this contributes hugely to my problem of losing things (see below).

Disorganised is an Understatement
Disorganized is an Understatement

In other news: This is the first post I am writing from my new laptop, which I am slowly setting up. First I got rid of Windows Vista and downgraded to old trusted Windows XP Professional, now I am setting up all the drivers and the programs. Working with a laptop is way less clutter than a PC, especially handyman’s special PCs which are a result of components randomly placed together by semi competent technicians. Not that I have anything to complain about the after-sale support of my PC Salesman, who recovered my PC many times up into its third year of service, but I digress.  My new laptop is a SONY VAIO VGN-BZ15GN, and it was a considerable investment, because I wanted it as a desktop replacement so it is not one of the lighter variety. The reviews place this machine in the fair to good category with criticism leveled at its display resolution, but after looking at a CRT for ten years this TFT display looks like the greatest thing ever.  The salesman warned me that this is not a powerful gaming notebook,  but gaming is the least interesting function for me. The most important thing is a good keyboard, a built-in camera, good processor speed, and reliability; I believe I will be getting all of that from my new machine.  Soon I will be able to retire and sell my old noisy machine and enjoy the wonderful liberty of working, anywhere anytime, by marrying the notebook technology with my mobile 3g modem; life is great.

An additional anecdote: It turns out that I am a closet SONY fan. In addition to my notebook there is my (almost lost) Sony Ericcson K810 cell phone, and my SONY Radio, Casette, CD, MP3 Player.

Starts, Stops and Stupidity

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

I recently read an article on Babycentre about extended breastfeeding and it calmed down my increasing feelings of guilt at my lackadaisical approach to weaning.  Most of the time I am letting Robert drive the process, and I have no intention of covering my nipples with chili sauce to put him off – which is a remedy I vaguely remember from the less worldly mothers of my native country. Robert is actually very mature about the whole thing, he rarely requests to be nursed during the day and I have managed two nights in a row to put him to sleep without resorting to the comfort of breastfeeding.  I feel comfortable that weaning will take place sooner or later, perhaps even before the end of the year.  A month ago I managed to reduce breastfeeding to nightly sessions only, but then his prolonged sickness was a setback; breast milk was the only food he wanted, and it was the only thing he was able to keep down when he had the stomach bug.  Today I am having another setback because I am suffering with an incapacitating flu (yet again), and breast milk is an easy meal to offer when mom is bedridden.

I believe my frequent bouts of flu are intimately linked to my emotional and mental state. The flu hits when I experience an emotional setback, a conflict at work or a disappointment, this weekend has witnessed two such incidents.

I guess I am not so lucky after all, the black cloud that my ex husband purported to float around my head is still very much there. Never mind my near miss with the cell phone; On Friday I lost my wallet for the second time in two months. Since this follows so closely on the heels of similar incidents, I can hardly make any excuses except for perhaps stupidity, confusion and absentmindedness.  I mean this is now the third time that I have something fall out of my pockets (from the same shallow-pocketed pants I may add) but I never really took notice of the problem until now. Well, not many people are this dense.  In the aftermath of the event I made a quick google search with the sentence “I always lose my wallet” and all I got was writings from party animals and people who generally get themselves too intoxicated to remember what they did on nightly revelry, let alone where they lose their wallets in the process.  Ah well, shit happens I guess.

My bad wallet jumped out of my pocket early Friday evening somewhere en route on Sea Point Main Road, and I only noticed its absence early on Saturday morning when I was getting ready to go to work.  I was too frustrated to go to work and I actually phoned to get out of it but a very nice Duty Manager was on the floor in the morning and she asked me to try my best to get there and I couldn’t say no. Lucy did not have any small change to lend me for the taxi and I do not have a change box at my little flat, so in the end I picked up a two-Euro coin and used it for my transport. At work my friend the Duty Manager gave me some money to tide me over until Monday when I will be finally able to go to the bank and get a new bank card.

The day progressed like a normal day at work usually does, no disasters, no major happenings. As I was ready to leave my Team Leader indicated that he wanted to speak to me for ten minutes about my quarterly review.  The review was encouraging, despite the fact that I made one serious mistake involving the transport of Dangerous Goods, and another less serious one which resulted in a complaint from a customer airline. I also had two incidents of late comings recorded during the time; it is hard to punctual when I depend on public transport and the early arrival of my nanny, and things easily spiral out of control when anything else goes wrong.

As I was leaving the little man from productivity planning, the star of my previous woes with the work schedule showed up. He had apparently been putting in extra time on this Saturday to prepare the shift roster for January. I went to get my copy and was unable to believe what I was seeing there. After all the trouble and the degradation I went through trying to explain to my situation to management, they put me again on flexible shifts, working afternoons as well as mornings.  I think I went straight to the little man and showed him my schedule, and he gave me a puzzled and uncomprehending look : “this is what I had” he muttered, and the only thing I could do was retort : “You guys are really funny, you know that?”. I just walked away, trembling with my pent up rage, and the desire to strangle and trample the blond cretin.  At the water cooler I bumped into a colleague, who pointed out to me the futility of getting mad and letting my mouth run away with me, whinging only as I usually do. He put into my head the idea of filing a formal grievance, which I definitely intend to do.  I cannot even begin to describe my feelings of utter rage at the incompetence and inefficiency of the people who plan our working schedules.

My worries about this recurring problem made me forget momentarily the problem with my wallet, and in any case my cards were safely canceled by then and there was nothing left for me to do other than casually ask at some of the places I passed yesterday, if anyone had handed in a wallet. At the first Supermarket I asked, there was strangely enough a wallet but it wasn’t mine. The fact that people seem to find things and hand them in, encourages me to ask further. I do not like it because it makes me relive my stupidity again and again (every time I ask) but I hope that the exercise will be humbling enough for me to learn a useful lesson.

Robert’s dad brought him home at three, and he was burning up with fever, presumably the side effect of his MMR vaccination, so I was caught up with this problem for the rest of the night.  Sponge baths and suppositories absorbed me with wallet and work forgotten for while. However I still managed to email my incompetent management to ask about the scheduling; my tone in the email was not as poisonous as I felt. I am saving all my wrath though for the grievance letter which I have started to work on.  Another battle for the walking wounded… life can get too interesting sometimes.

Lost and Found

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

My absent-mindedness almost caught up with me today ( yet again).  This happens two months after losing my wallet on board a bus – a situation I haven’t recovered from yet, I might add, since I haven’t had the time yet to replace my driver’s license. The near miss today was my cell phone.

The day started in the usual rush to get Robert to day care and myself to work. I had arranged with his father to pick him up early today so that we can take him for his immunization, but in the rush I forgot to take his immunization card.  So the day did not bode very well from the start.

At the Cape Town Mediclinic Robert sat through two injections on each shoulder crying only for the second one. He was however very fidgety as I carried him to the parking lot. I took out my cell phone to call his father who was out of sight as we returned to the car, but before I could use the phone, my ex showed up and we quickly got into the car and headed home.

I only discovered that I misplaced my phone two hours later as I was ready to leave with Robert. I went through the usual routine of phoning it and was dismayed that I did not hear it in my flat. The next check was to phone my ex, which is rather embarrassing for me, because my ex always lambasted me for my absentminded and disorganized nature. Surprisingly this time he was rather accommodating and went through searching the car twice, and then offered to walk to the Mediclinic and ask at the desk. He came up with nothing and I resigned myself to the fact that I have seen the last of my cell phone. The only question in my mind was when should I actually give up and order a new one ?

I researched and located a replacement at a cost of R2500, it could have been worse I thought. Then I remembered with dismay all the photos I took yesterday and never had time to download. I also realized with shock that I lost everyone’s number including my nanny’s. I managed to find her number somewhere else, which was somewhat of a relief because my only contacts to her -Jackie and her mom- are not talking to me anymore. In the end and after futile phoning to my lost cell, which was always ringing forlornly somewhere, I decided to go to the shops. For some reason I started buying the things that I was putting off, never mind the fact that I was going to have a huge bill for a new cell phone shortly.  Robert was oblivious to my trouble and slept peacefully in his buggy. Today he wore a lime-green shirt on top of his army camouflage pants and looked so cute, and again I thought of my missing cell phone and its camera.

Shortly after our return from the shops I made one more call to my cell phone and to my amazement someone answered, saying that they found my phone on the sidewalk; I had dropped it right in front of our block. The kind man explained that his housekeeper found it and I was so pleased I told him I would give him all I have in my wallet as a reward, he said that his housekeeper will be pleased.  A few minutes after this phone call the kind man arrived with my cell phone, and he only took part of  the money I offered in gratitude. My good Samaritan lives and works a few blocks away as a children photographer, so I am certainly going to see him again for photos with Robert.

What a surprising and pleasant end to another misadventure. Thank you Cape Town, there are still good people out there.

Update on Robert: My worries about Robert’s eating calmed a little after his measurements at the clinic. He actually put on a few grams since he recovered from tonsillitis.

Today his stats today are as follows:

Weight:  10.35 kg

Length: 82 cm