I am Truly Sickened.

I have tried to avoid the news lately because all it does is depress me. However, it is hard to ignore the biggest news story this week in a social media age. Twitter is especially has blown up since it has come to light the murderers are British Nigerians - like me.
I am personally scared. Scared for me & my family judging by the fascist comments we have heard & by the fact that in our local elections, fascism seems to be on the rise here.
I would like to say that no matter what Hate is Hate. People often use a cause as an excuse for doing bad things when in reality, they are just bad people.
I really feel for the dead soldier's family and I pray that God gives them comfort. He was just a normal person going on his business - like me.
What sort of world are we living in where people think its okay to kill an innocent? What sort of world are we living in where people think it is okay to talk about retaliating to "those immigrants" or worse actually doing it? Those immigrants are British when they win gold medals & trophies. They suddenly aren't when things like this happen?
I would love to still believe that racist & evil people are in the minority and the human race as a whole have a steadfast morality. I pray so for my son's sake.

Toddlercalm : Week 1

Have you heard of Toddlercalm? No? Well I think this along with its predecessor, Babycalm should be a requirement for all parents. I'll tell you why. It is the science of parenting made accessible. We are currently doing a 4 week course. however there are various ways to get a bit of toddlercalm in your life. The 4 week involves meeting once a week with other couples we have 5 in our group. What I liked was how Naomi our teacher said its not a method, definitely not one size fits all.

She made gentle parenting make sense. Some of the dads were not sure at the beginning even though their wives & I all know each other from a gentle parenting forum. She really broke down why it is impossible for your 2 year old to manipulate. For one they are egocentric - they only see their point of view, they haven't got the ability to see that if they do xyz, it'll upset you & make you feel sad for not doing things their way. They do things because they are sad/angry etc.

The dads got to question and we all wrote a list of all the qualities we want our teens to have - ironically for them to have those qualities they need the 'annoying' ones they have now. Eg we would love our son to be a determined, gentle, free spirited teen who isn't afraid to be himself. I find his determination & focus to be taxing as a 2 year old. That made me see E in a different light!

I loved how she made it clear that this wasn't permissive parenting, this is gentle compassionate parenting. Our children need boundaries.

To recap our first session, we talked about the triune brain theory, Piaget & maslow's hierarchy of needs. We talked about how our toddlers are in a little scientist mode, trying to discover his world...

I will be doing a little write up after each meet!

 

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Curiosity kills the cat...

There is something that I always wanted to do but kept putting off. I wanted to get my straighteners and see what my hair would look like straighter. You see I haven't had straight hair since 12/12/10. Since my big chop, I haven't used any sort if heat on my hair, I let it dry naturally mostly in a bun.

Today though, I gave in and I have come to 2 conclusions.

1) I don't like my hair straight because it doesn't look like me anymore. I think it's great that I have embraced the wildness of my hair.

2) I am glad I did this if only to cure my curiosity. I won't lie, it was kinda cool to see that I'm now shoulder length.

Without further ado, here are pictures!

 

To those of non African descent, are there any questions about African hair you'd like to ask? Email me. I'll try and answer.

 

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Perks of being our own bosses..

We get to have more of these moments...

 

That's Ethan trying to help hubby carry his new books...

DH finished earlier than normal so we went for a walk on the beach!

 

With the HUGE pluses of having DH home more comes sacrifices of having to cut our costs right down as we can't afford to disrupt cash flow in our business. Also not knowing if you will make ends meet. But we trust God for that - he hasn't let us down ever. I will write a post in the coming months of another pro/con of being in a couplepreneur relationship too. I have only been doing it for 5 months so I want to give it more time.

 

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My Journey: Endometriosis?

If you read my blog, you'd remember my posts about the possibility of my pains being caused by endometriosis. I don't see the gynaecologist until 2nd week in may but till then I have been doing a few things to help myself.

I have been going to the gym, not to go crazy but to gently exercise my joints. Aqua-aerobics is good fun. I have been listening to my body more. No more pushing past my limits, E.g. at the gym on one of the machines, the trainer had programmed 15kg unto my key but I tried it and I knew it was to heavy for my right hip to handle so I tested the weights going down and 5kg was what I could handle, in the past I would've ignored that, but no more.

Back on these again!

The biggest change was going dairy & gluten free. I'm on day 4 so quite a new change. I read in "Living well with endometriosis" that those foods have hormones in them which encourage the endometrial tissues to grow & inflame thus giving you pains. This is a test cycle, I'm on this diet for 2 cycles to see if it works for me. Also hoping to lose a few pounds (which is quite motivating, I won't lie)

Going gluten & dairy free has produced some less desirable traits - mega mood swings, headaches. I have read that this is common as I'm detoxing. It's not fun.

I will probably be blogging about this as I go.

 

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Ethan's awesome Hungry Caterpillar 2nd party!

What a party! 9 of Ethan's closest friends and their parents came to celebrate my baby's birthday. it was a weekend of parties seeing as out of those 9, 2 tots had their parties the day before. So we partied all day and then prepped for E's in the evening whilst watching mama mia. we had a mini family party then too.E opened his presents from both grandmas & other family members.

That's E blowing out his candles! "Buff dae!" He exclaims!

I got all my ideas from Pinterest! Check out my Ethan's 2nd Birthday Party board. My hubby, Mil,Mum,sister & the little man himself helped me set everything up . I got our organic veg box guy to supply the fruit we needed, We really went to town on the theme. Without further ado here are pics from the party.

My hubby made this awesome cake!

We had food made with inspiration from the book, if the caterpillar ate it, we had it on the menu!

We had tractors, recorders, pencils, fruit scented erasers, bubbles & a huge swirly lollipop in each party pack.

The decor was simplistic but effective, my hubby made the wall mounted caterpillar. We already had the caterpillar bunting, a gift from one of E's aunts.

This shot was taken by my mum just before we sang happy birthday! There after E went to bed. It might be his party but my baby just wanted milk and bed.

 

The day was good fun, I was glad I told parents to bring spare clothes as predicted the toddlers loves splashing whilst playing in the courtyard at the water table. We also had the bubble machine going - which was such a hit!

You can tell how tired he was getting .

I was really happy with how it all went and thoroughly glad I have just one party a year to plan!

 

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Ethan is turning 2!

Let's celebrate with a give-away! In the kit you will find:

A bottle of wine
A Rugrats DVD
A bar of Montezumas Choc
A Weleda Baby mini Kit
A Champneys Set
 Things to make your weekend that bit more fun!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


I will be back with news of who won & how his party went. It's a pintrestastic party - All will be revealed!