Another sizzling day

If it gets any hotter than today, I will have to rethink my wardrobe. Here is the back of Ike's head, look at all his hair!! Ike is really into doors, open shut open shut open shut. He now apart from pointing, claps, waves and shakes his hands... finally! the classes must be paying off.

Nate is now getting into swinging himself in a swing and the knotting a swing up to go round and round. He says look at me alot and can really express himself quite well. If he doesn't nap, he sleeps at 530pm and wakes at about 5am. If he sleeps later, he still wakes at 5am, its either loren's noise in the morning or that sliver of sunlight at sunrise which is now 455am.

I have resorted to sleeping really early and am feeling alot better than last week.

Really HOT day

Summer is around the corner, today was just sizzling hot, I wonder if it its combined with the altitude but I felt dizzy, charmaine said she felt dizzy as well.

Both the boys in bed by 6 and both will probably be awake by 5:30 tomorrow. Ike is quite tired from all his cruising but didn't take a second nap today after a big 2 hour nap in the morning. He does a really good squat now but not quite a stand. He must feel so sore at the end of the day.

Nate scraped his knees today at school, he must have insisted on bandages as he came back with two big ones, they were the ones that are hard to rip off so I had to rip them off fast before the shower, but it was still painful, he cried for a long time! The last time he cried so hard must have been his diaper rash. I need to find him some loosy goosy longish pants to wear, he falls so often that even his longish pants have holes in them. Everytime he goes to school in shorts he gets his knees scratched up so much so that he would want to wear long pants to school.

Hope there is some rain soon!

Some strange weeds

I think these wild daisies / weeds will be those big pom pom like things that nate likes to blow in summer. They are really not like any flower I have seen before. The garden route must be amazing with all the wild flowers popping up. I must take a shot of my landlords garden near the garage area, she ripped out all the lavender to put in indigenous plants, its gorgeous.

I have started growing my own goji berries, they have now sprouted!

This week

feels long, esp. after a nice holiday. Looking back at the pics that I took, I am surprised at how much i did this week. All I remember though is feeling tired (Ike back to waking at 4 am for a big poo) and I now have antibiotics for this cough.

Took Ike to another activity based in dainfern, he is liking all this stimulation tho he does not like baths anymore, am not sure what changed after mozambique, he just cries the whole time he is in a bath, maybe he wants to shower instead?

On the environmental front, I found a company that will pick up and recycle almost all non-organic trash. The organic stuff goes to my worms and I just placed and order for another worm farm - the worm factory and the tumbleweed composter (compost in 3 weeks!), I hope this will handle all my summer garden clippings. Next year maybe I look into how to recycle the washing machine water and solar power? For detergents we use a bacteria cleaner that eats up dirt.

My swimming pool is another pet peeve, it is high maintainence, environmentally unfriendly in a land where water is scarce and high evaporation rate and the amount of chemicals I throw into balance it, or make the silt sink (which is this shot). I have asked about turning it into a big sand pit but if I drain the water the walls will crack or something like that. This is the white elephant in our home.

Thanks for all the condolences, many asked about the funeral, if it is anything like my granddad's it would have been quite a party, or rather my memory of my granddad's funeral.... some scenes, I remember everyone is folding paper money, the stack was so big it filled a basketball court. My granddad had 4 wives, 22 children and I don't know how many grandchildren and great grandchildren. But there we were making origami gold ingots, he also had paper houses and paper cars, paper electornic goods, paper clothes, burnt as well, which led me to think of another business, kits that families can put together at the funeral as opposed to buying ready made ones. But I was disuaded by the fact that the exobitant paper things are mafia controlled and all this burning is bad for the environment, better to write a single check and burn it. Or as my dad the economist says, chinese hell or heaven is suffering from super hyperinflation.

The monk chanting was the hardest to bear, having to sit and chant for sometimes a few hours. The procession is kind of fun, the staying up and chatting with other cousins about the "good old days" when we were kids biking around the neighbourhood is probably the best part.

17 days till marcia is here! 24 days till I see chicken rice and wanton mee in KL.

Postal services

Everyone here has a pet peeve, some hate it when the electricity or water stops, others are when there are strikes, I think mine is the postal system. Gone are the days of passing a post box and tossing in your letters. Now one has to wait till the post office opens, then as they also serve as "banks" or deposit taking institutions, one has to watch for dodgy characters (our post office was just robbed a month ago). Letters never arrive at the physical address and P.O. boxes make one's address look suspicious (never mind "Africa" in the address).

Then... the postal system has no standardisation of value of stamps to different continents (prob the price changes every year?) so its Rand 4.65 to send a letter to Asia, dictated by size of envelope and not weight. Usually it means there are a min of 4 stamps that I need to tear and then paste. Of course the stamps then come with borders that take up space on the envelope. Sometimes they have different denominated stamps, I have to paste up to 6 or more stamps. Oh and you must paste the airmail sticker too.

The stamps are really pretty though which make them targets for mail theft or stamp theft. The postal officers take a long time to calculate the value of the total purchase of the stamps and take their time tearing it too, which means I should buy in bulk, which I did but then a month later the cost of posting changed!!!!! But they are quite sophisticated with the bar code scanner to get the total price, its just when there is no electricity or when it breaks down, they need a calculator, when that is not available.... it takes forever. I have significantly cut down sending mail and post cards (there is just no space to put the stamps!).

Pics

Here are some misc shots taken, someone once mentioned to me that young kids and banana's don't really go as the the fruit is squishy and has a funny taste. Well its ike's favourite fruit, here he is just attacking it, almost devouring the skin (competition for my worms!)

Took ike for a look around the fish tank shops, he really enjoyed that, now with him taking only 1 nap, I get to take him to many places, I still have to take the stroller as he is 11kg and is hard to lug around, even in back pack he feels heavy. Speaking of the stroller, it may look beat up but its still very functional and hardy, when people manuever it they are surprised at how easy it is to push. Thanks Yu-lynn!! the stroller has now logged another country onto its impressive travel list - mozambique.

This long looking vege is the butter lettuce I have been growing in my garden, I wonder if the supermarkets just harvest them early and they resemble the more familiar ball shape... then they start to head skywards, like this one. It went to Michelle, she said it was the tastiest butter lettuce (solely fertilised by worm pee) she has ever had (over politeness?).

Nate is now into the plaster/bandage stage where every small cut requires a big bandage. he is quite choosy about the type that goes on, the best that heal his pain quickly are bob the builder. Here he takes his wounds a step further by insisting they be wrapped in a towel before the shower so the bandage won't fall off.

The shuster boys' great-grandmother, my ama passed away today. My family in KL are sad but glad she doesn't need to go on suffering. A good book on how we die in our day and age is "The way we die". She leaves behind all her 8 children, 17 grandchildren and 19 great grandchildren.

Mozambique Part II

We had one day of rain, which was nice, it was cooler and the sand was more conducive for building castles, Ike hasn't got the concept yet, he thinks we are building barriers to improve his crawling ability.

There are lots of crabs, they seem like easy prey, there were also these nice lizards that would tan on the boardwalk deck (which i didn't take a pic off), nomsa was pale one day as a (non-poisonous) green snake plopped in front of her. Some frogs too, the wind was too strong for any mosquitoes. The place we were at bordered the Tembe elephant park so some of the guests saw an elephant or two.

Here is Nate with his "paper", it is a sheet of paper and a catalogue of thomas the train toys, nate can stare for hours at this piece of paper so the drive was quite easy with him, he sleeps with this piece of paper until it becomes all torn up, then we tape it up and then it lasts for a few more days. It is truly "ham choy" (salted vegetable) when it has to go, I have jokingly told him we can make ham-choy soup out of it and he wants to do it, forget osmosis, might as well internalise it!

Ponta Mamoli - Mozambique I

For those who live near the sea and beach (sentosa is counted!), you are really lucky! It took us 8 hours of driving to get to this place. Africa is a big continent! But it was a really nice break. I miss the smell of the sea.

Day 1
Nomsa : I am scared of the ocean
Nate to Loren : No dada. don't go in the water, lets go back, there are crabs
Ike : pointing to land, away from ocean, ooh ooh (head back?)

Day 2
Nomsa : After splishing around, wears shorts instead, jumps around the surf
Nate : picks seashells
Ike : plays in the sand at the halfway point

Day 3
Nomsa : trying to get salt water to bring home to her family (???)
Nate : playing at the waters edge jumping around, enjoying the wet sand and drinking the salty water
Ike : bopping towards the ocean

We got to do some yoga, see strange seeds, saw a few pods of dolphins, a mother and child humback whale, snorkelling, no horse riding (no nate's helmet size). Ike did lots of eating (whats new?), naps, ahhhh.... all to the sound of crashing waves.

Ike and Nomsa shared a chalet, she now knows why we sleep with our dogs and not the boys. Ike consistently woke at 4am and then decided for 2 nights to wake at 12 for a milk snack and chat! Got home he slept all the way to 5am again.

More Flora

I tried very hard to take more pics of buildings and surroundings to give people a view of the landscape here but it is still the flora that makes me want to whip out my phone (actually carry it everywhere). These are all plants we (Ike and I see) on our walk.

The cactuses here are all going into bloom and they pop out from many multiple points. The red one is really nice, it reminds me of a design my cousin wanted to submit as a debeers jewelry design, he described exactly this flower but as he described the final product and the way the diamonds will shine and move at the ends of the stems, he suddenly burst out laughing saying it would look like a huge inverted toilet brush. I must send him this flower pic.

Finally after 10 months of hunting, I have found a company that will come to pick up any trash that is not organic (no need for organic trash since I have my hardworking worms) and that is recyclable, for about an annual fee of US$50 but that is great, they will recycle it and this thought actually makes me very happy.

I also found a whole bunch of books that are reading for vermiculture... I think it is a bit late to order them now for Marcia to bring over as her bags already weigh a tonne!

Halloween more pics

Here is the chalk image we did on our wall, next year we'll paint with real paint and redo the house, maybe marcia should consider coming around halloween or staying till halloween? Less than 30 days and bubbi will be here... I have booked lion king tickets and cut out many activities to do.

The pumpkin carving is my first attempt ever, I took the image in the dark (mine is the one on the right) as there are still marker pen lines, I like shelley's, no lines and a really innocent face, michelles was really good too, she did a cat that was frightened. Needless to say, mine was not the one stolen!

Loren is back from Rwanda tomorrow, he says its like Singapore, no crime, no beggars, very clean streets. The gorrillas were very interesting to see as well tho erik described a big trek up and down and high elevation. We will go when mom is here to watch the kids. We are off to mozambique on weds, quite excited, hope the kids will last through the drive. Then mid december we are off to cape town for nearly 3 weeks, we rented a house by the beach and will be there over Xmas and new years. Oded and family will be coming so will a few friends from the UK.

Halloween

Friday was wet and so was saturday, today was nice and lovely again. So we found out that halloween here, no one does up the outside of the house, except us... everyone does up their... golf carts. Here is a pic of one that came by our house for trick or treats. We found out why no one does the outside... three out of four pumpkins were gone the next day tho none of my decorations are missing. My big spider is a big wet and soggy.

We had a good time trick or treating and eating all sort of creepy eepy food. Next year we need to find a golf cart in order to cover more ground on the compound!

Walks with Ike

Instead of pushing the stroller and taking more or less the same routes, I have decided to put Ike into a baby backpack and take the nature routes, I get some weight training for bone density (though not as intense as Taipei and up those stairs). He seems to quite like it, here's a shot of the red birds that are back and then i did not adjust the zoom and when I took a pic of him behind me, his face got blown up, this is as close as you get to his chubby cheeky-weekies.

It is cold again here, with the rain and wind and clouds, we are back down to 11 degrees in the day time. Brrrr.

I quite like the new routine with Nate not napping, I leave him in school till 2, sometimes I manage a mini 15 min nap. I get more time with Ike and then in the pm, time with Nate, today when I picked him up from school we zipped off to buy a new pair of rain boots, his old spidey one has holes. Yesterday we dropped Ike with Nomsa to Clamber club and Nate and I went to have tea and scones at the little country, english type cafe on top of Crabtree and Evelyn. He even got his own mini teacup.

By 630pm both of them have crashed out. Not sure why Ike has moved his waking times to 430am and Nate wakes up several times at night, maybe he is lacking some sleep as with the nap he would total 12 hours, without the nap he is doing 11 hours or is it already the age where their dreams are scary ones?