My sister has many talents and can help co-create human beings but she sucks at 3 things: Cooking, gift purchasing and wrapping or any sentimental holiday related ritual, and remembering anything. One of the best bits of having siblings is doing remember when. Hey! Remember that one time when we did X, Y, Z? No. How about A, B, C?? No. To make matters worse my husband shares this quality.
So Arsehole, in honour of your 47 years on this planet and the fact I am stuck in a room with 9 puppies with the shits, I will give you 47 fun, random, interesting and non interesting facts.
1. You are the very 1st person I remember and was the most important person in my life forever.
2. My 1st haircut was not a special moment at the hairdresser, it was you hacking off pieces of my hair with a sharp object. (it was the seventies, sharp scissors and 2 year olds were not an issue)
3. When we rolled in that big barrel and it went over my finger causing me to lose a fingernail you tried to get me not to cry because you knew you would be in shit.
4. We used to sit in the big cardboard box Dad kept for us and eat dry jelly out the packet.
5. You peeled off the wallpaper on your side of the room at night.
6. You were only 5 when you saved my life by pulling me out the pool at a family braai. My heart had already stopped beating which might be why I am a little special at times.
7. Only you were allowed to be really ugly to me, anyone else, not so much. You even hit someone with a large garden spade on their back. Fork! You could have killed them!!
8. I was so jealous when you were in grade 1 and could read and I couldn't. I used to beg you to read to me.
9. You were never a girlie girl
10. When I was a little less than 2 and we stayed at Granny's house I climbed out the bath with my one leg spread over and you stuck your finger up my butt. I screamed blue murder.
11. You hated sleeping over and I loved it so Mom had to pretend you were not allowed to.
12. When we had a big fight we were sent to our rooms. We finger knitted a long rope and tied it to a cup to swing to the other one so we could write notes to each other about how much we hated the parents. Our house was not that big so we could have probably just talked but it was more fun.
13. You never really cared what you wore so long as you were comfy.
14. You had un-diagnosed ADHD. You lost everything and Mom would go ape.
15. This ADHD meant you were a nightmare at school. Teachers cringed when they saw my Loebenberg name and asked me if I was your sister.
16. You were always super bright and I had to work harder than you. It sucked.
17. We used to break into Auntie Ria's house and jump on their trampoline. Afterwards we would squash berries into the cover.
18. We always got caught because I sung like a canary and then we would get a hiding. (The nailpolish bust, Auntie Marilyn's pumpkins)
19. We also used her phone to prank call everyone with the classic: Is your refrigerator running...
20. One Christmas I got a blue and yellow bike and you got a tent. Dad pitched the tent in the lounge and it was so cool.
21. We stayed in the wendy house one night with the bunnies who chewed the electric cord. When I touched it I got an electric shock. I bet you wouldn't let me tell Mom.
22. We used to wrap up dog poo and tell Beauty we had a gift for her and then give her the parcel.
23. We left dog poo on peoples doorsteps and rang the doorbell and the ran like hell.
24. We collected little snakes from the fields around our house and held them in our hands.
25. When houses were built we would ignore all parental instruction and play in the big sand piles with the lime in that burned our legs. We would also steal the brown window putty when they just put the windows in.
26. We teased Andrew Jansen so badly he punched his fist through the glass window in crazy frustration.
27. You got to lick out the bowl 1st after Mom baked. When it was my turn you grabbed it and rinsed it out in the sink. And I still loved you?
28. We were at the park once and someone had written FUCK on a tree and you told me what it meant.
29. We used to skinny dip with Dad every night and he used to hope the pervy Afrikaans neighbors would see his butt.
30. Poor Dad was so young. On his birthdays we would wait for him to come home and the shaggy rug on that ugly oval coffee table would be taken off and Mom would put bowls of smarties and chips out.
31. The 1st boy you loved was Antonio de Brito
32. You allowed me to stay at your ABBA dance party and we danced in the garage. I was so careful not to do anything that would have me kicked out.
33. You told me I HAD to kiss a boy with tongue before I started high school. I felt immense pressure and eventually kissed Cedric Bachelor at a barn dance after he had asked 3 girls who all said no.
34. Mom made me wear your entire old school uniform when I started high school including your shoes??
35. You used to steal tins of condensed milk out Mom's cupboard and call it Tertia's Speciality. I was allowed a 10 second suck from the hole you made in it.
36. You shaved your legs when you were in primary school but you were not allowed to. You cut yourself like crazy and we had to go outside and bash your leg with a brick so Mom and Dad wouldn't know. Seriously!
37. We teased both our siblings. Nina had her wild hair so we told her elephants pooped in her hair.
38. We told Paulie he was actually a girl and our sister and we called him Paula-Bernadette. We even sprayed him with deo.
39. One of us would hold him down and the other would fart on him.
40. I felt so left out and jealous when you went to varsity. I missed you so. You really were my best friend.
41. Mom bought you those really naff clothes you probably never wore.
42. When we went to double bill movies I had to sit on my own a few rows behind you while you smooched some chap. You threatened to take my life if I told.
43. When you lived in your own place you changed from a messy pig to a total neat freak.
44. The day you got your new car you were allowed to choose between the red Citi Golf or the Blue. I was so jealous.
45. When we had the big talk with Dad you would cry and I would look out the window stubborn as all hell.
46. You never allowed me to hug you so I would make you sometimes. Actually I think I might next time I see you so brace yourself.
47. Mom eventuality threw out that red, blue and yellow floral skirt you always wore. That and the Avis t-shirts.
I could add hundreds more. Because you are practically a hundred a years old. I love you and I always feel lucky because while all these people admire you and follow you, no one gets a list like this. No one else was loved, protected, teased or tortured as I was. Happy Birthday Arsehole x
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Monday, November 23, 2015
The return of Maternal Mel
I have been maternal ever since I can remember. My first doll I fell in love with lived on the shelf at the Hypermarket Store until she became mine. Her beautiful crib lived in the local tuisbedryf (local home craft store) and Father Christmas bought it for my baby Marie. Marie had other dollie siblings and they took up most of my bed with me squeezing my body at the end. She was my fave though and my most beautiful baby. My sister Tertia flung hers across the room in careless abandon. She pulled my dolls hair and told me they were not real but I knew otherwise. (Big sister torture!)
Fast forward to me being 24 and pregnant with Daniel. Absolutely thrilled and all consumed by this miracle growing in my belly. I was fanatical about being healthy and beyond excited. The birth was awful and traumatic at a state hospital but my face had changed. I had experienced love in its purest form and I was forever altered. I insisted on breastfeeding despite being a single young mom working night shifts and racing from town to Durbanville at 6:00am so I could feed my boy and relieve my knockers. Why was I so very hard on myself who knows? I probably still do it!
Then we have Rebeka 6 years later and once again I love my even bigger belly with my squirmy baby that kicks and pushes. She emerges after a better birth weighing 4.2kg. She is hard work, a cross baby. I am once again drowning in breastmilk and hormones and permanent exhaustion. I am 100% raw and vulnerable and I try and hide in my cocoon with my baby not wanting to hear anything that makes me sad.
2004 and my last baby is born. Zack Gary turns out to be Sofia Josephine and it is love at 1st site. I am smitten with this baby. I hold her in my arms for the entire 1st year and only put her down to sleep alongside me or when I nurse her in the quiet of my bedroom hiding from my other 2 kids.
Later I try and convince Gary to adopt and we almost land up adopting but it doesn't happen. We even consider IVF as reversing the vasectomy would have taken too long. In that time I felt that familiar feeling of expecting a baby. I feel soft and beautiful and feminine. I know its a cliche but that is how I feel. Special. And then it doesn't happen and I try and squash all the longing and maternal hormones back into a box that feels too small for such a big feeling. I am cross and bitter but like with everything else, time passes and I get over it.
And now...now these maternal feelings come rushing back only this time its my dog and memories from places far far away come flooding out. Her labour was hectic. Her 1st baby girl stillborn. I called her Anna which makes no sense as that was the name of my daughter I never got to adopt. The puppy was the largest of all and perfection. I think of all the mothers I know who have stillbirths or lost infants shortly after birth. Mothers from the hospital when I ran Bosom Buddies, my friend who lost Ethan, another who lost her daughter Sofia Grace, my own nephew who I never got to see. I will this puppy to breath, I won't dare compare my feelings to anyone who has had a baby born sleeping but I can only imagine the disbelief at looking at the perfect child you cannot believe is not alive. During the labour we land up losing 5 little puppies. One had died in utero and was very small. I felt no sadness with him and did not name him. The others, 2 girls and 2 boys. Anna, Rosie, Ollie and Boris. Gary took them to the vet to be cremated. The labour was hectic, one little one was gagging and I placed my mouth over his and sucked out any fluid and rubbed his little body and prayed like crazy till that tongue turned a beautiful pink. And since then I have been on this frantic quest to keep all 9 alive and thriving. My Josie-Bunny was only 200grams, half the size of her brother. Nature vs nurture? Well sorry for you cruel nature but I cannot lose another pup. I feel irrationally responsible for the 4 we lost.
So I sit and listen like I am listening now to their mewling and breathing and occasional hungry cries when mom is not around. She has become less interested in feeding them and of course that makes me crazy anxious. Gary and I take turns to sit in the room at night in case she lies on one and crushes it. I feel total new mom exhaustion, worry, pride, love, panic. When I go to the shops I want to rush home to my babies. All my cellular memories of loss, of love, of nurturing are right back out again. Raw, real, crazy maternal me is back. How will I deal with it when they go to their forever homes? I hope by then I am so over it. By then they will chew and nip and bark and destroy my house. I will clean up wee and poop of 9 pups. I will deal with it then and right now I will embrace this experience with exhausted mind, body and soul and love my little furbabies: Evie-Pops my feisty girl, Amy-Rose my gentle big girl who loves to nap, Josie-Bunny so small but strong and determined, miracle happy go lucky George, Big Jack Jackson who is the pick of the litter and easy going and affectionate, Lincoln my tough boy who feeds and then goes off to nap on his own, Maya Papaya who fights through her brothers to get her teat, Paulie my little boy who loves his siblings and his Mama and then Molly my second biggest girl who also loves to hang with the bunch and is so easy. I am blessed, overwhelmed and a little bit cray-cray!
Fast forward to me being 24 and pregnant with Daniel. Absolutely thrilled and all consumed by this miracle growing in my belly. I was fanatical about being healthy and beyond excited. The birth was awful and traumatic at a state hospital but my face had changed. I had experienced love in its purest form and I was forever altered. I insisted on breastfeeding despite being a single young mom working night shifts and racing from town to Durbanville at 6:00am so I could feed my boy and relieve my knockers. Why was I so very hard on myself who knows? I probably still do it!
Then we have Rebeka 6 years later and once again I love my even bigger belly with my squirmy baby that kicks and pushes. She emerges after a better birth weighing 4.2kg. She is hard work, a cross baby. I am once again drowning in breastmilk and hormones and permanent exhaustion. I am 100% raw and vulnerable and I try and hide in my cocoon with my baby not wanting to hear anything that makes me sad.
2004 and my last baby is born. Zack Gary turns out to be Sofia Josephine and it is love at 1st site. I am smitten with this baby. I hold her in my arms for the entire 1st year and only put her down to sleep alongside me or when I nurse her in the quiet of my bedroom hiding from my other 2 kids.
Later I try and convince Gary to adopt and we almost land up adopting but it doesn't happen. We even consider IVF as reversing the vasectomy would have taken too long. In that time I felt that familiar feeling of expecting a baby. I feel soft and beautiful and feminine. I know its a cliche but that is how I feel. Special. And then it doesn't happen and I try and squash all the longing and maternal hormones back into a box that feels too small for such a big feeling. I am cross and bitter but like with everything else, time passes and I get over it.
And now...now these maternal feelings come rushing back only this time its my dog and memories from places far far away come flooding out. Her labour was hectic. Her 1st baby girl stillborn. I called her Anna which makes no sense as that was the name of my daughter I never got to adopt. The puppy was the largest of all and perfection. I think of all the mothers I know who have stillbirths or lost infants shortly after birth. Mothers from the hospital when I ran Bosom Buddies, my friend who lost Ethan, another who lost her daughter Sofia Grace, my own nephew who I never got to see. I will this puppy to breath, I won't dare compare my feelings to anyone who has had a baby born sleeping but I can only imagine the disbelief at looking at the perfect child you cannot believe is not alive. During the labour we land up losing 5 little puppies. One had died in utero and was very small. I felt no sadness with him and did not name him. The others, 2 girls and 2 boys. Anna, Rosie, Ollie and Boris. Gary took them to the vet to be cremated. The labour was hectic, one little one was gagging and I placed my mouth over his and sucked out any fluid and rubbed his little body and prayed like crazy till that tongue turned a beautiful pink. And since then I have been on this frantic quest to keep all 9 alive and thriving. My Josie-Bunny was only 200grams, half the size of her brother. Nature vs nurture? Well sorry for you cruel nature but I cannot lose another pup. I feel irrationally responsible for the 4 we lost.
So I sit and listen like I am listening now to their mewling and breathing and occasional hungry cries when mom is not around. She has become less interested in feeding them and of course that makes me crazy anxious. Gary and I take turns to sit in the room at night in case she lies on one and crushes it. I feel total new mom exhaustion, worry, pride, love, panic. When I go to the shops I want to rush home to my babies. All my cellular memories of loss, of love, of nurturing are right back out again. Raw, real, crazy maternal me is back. How will I deal with it when they go to their forever homes? I hope by then I am so over it. By then they will chew and nip and bark and destroy my house. I will clean up wee and poop of 9 pups. I will deal with it then and right now I will embrace this experience with exhausted mind, body and soul and love my little furbabies: Evie-Pops my feisty girl, Amy-Rose my gentle big girl who loves to nap, Josie-Bunny so small but strong and determined, miracle happy go lucky George, Big Jack Jackson who is the pick of the litter and easy going and affectionate, Lincoln my tough boy who feeds and then goes off to nap on his own, Maya Papaya who fights through her brothers to get her teat, Paulie my little boy who loves his siblings and his Mama and then Molly my second biggest girl who also loves to hang with the bunch and is so easy. I am blessed, overwhelmed and a little bit cray-cray!
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