Obviously these photos were taken when it was A LOT WARMER than it is now…

My little princess. 

Moving cars with Oupa.

Feeding the birds everywhere we go…

Special bird seed holder I decorated for her. 
At home:
It’s officially slow cooker season! I got up a bit earlier yesterday to chop up some vegetables and stuff for ours and last night all I had to do was cook some rice – ta-dah! Dinner was served. What a pleasure, seriously. Of course nothing is without its own challenges and my daughter will not eat it if you refer to it as stew, so we’re calling it meat sauce and that seems to be okay. A rose by any other name right?
Robbie the landlord has had quite a collection of contractors around lately. First, he had an alarm and armed response installed – which I thought was kind of hilarious since he doesn’t even lock his door most days (I did tell him that, and he said it’s mostly for his wife’s peace of mind and she’s paying for it too). Then yesterday he had a whole team of tree fellers in there. Almost all of the trees on his side of the property have been taken down because he was scared one of them would fall on the house. What a mess! The whole side walk and driveway was covered under debris and pieces of palm tree yesterday and it’s a real challenge getting out into the road at the moment cause you can hardly see past all the crap. He did say sorry for the chaos and that most of it will be carted away by the end of today.
Nicola is very upset about him chopping down “her” trees and wants me to give him a hiding on his bum…”So hard as jy kan mamma!” Mwahaha, I did try to explain that they aren’t actually our trees, they belong to Robbie and he can cut them down if he wants to – but she remains unconvinced.
At secret place:
There’s a new sheriff in town. At long last Box-Of-Frogs’ replacement had started working here officially…and we had such great hopes for him, but it looks like they will all be dashed. I’m only getting to meet him later today, but based on what I’ve heard so far I already dislike him so much that I am actually considering NOT doing business with the place he worked at before anymore. We have recently had a massive influx of people from there and they’re all the same – good old boys club, if you know what I mean?
In this week, New-Sheriff felt it appropriate to end off a meeting by saying that they should wrap it up because the women probably needed to get home to cook dinner…in a meeting with only two women and about ten other men…neither of those women married or even responsible for cooking in general. Like seriously, WTF?! I can’t believe that anyone thinks that’s acceptable generalisation in this day and age? That’s probably not the worst thing he’s even done or will be doing, but it could be a sign of things to come and attitudes that will have to be put up with or not. (It’s probably just as well that I don’t get to rub elbows with the upper floors round here, there is no way that I would have kept my mouth shut after hearing something like that). He could just as easily have said that they need to finish because everyone would like to get home to their families, instead of making it a gender thing.
Anyhoo…I believe it’s time to dust off my paperwork and investigate alternative locations of cheese.
Nicola:
She very proudly informed me this week that she had another run-in with the L-bully at school this week, and that she hit her really hard like I showed her. I asked if L-bully started it and she said yes, then I congratulated her and told her well done. I asked her what L-bully said after this happened and she says the little girl told her to go away (not so nice getting some of your own medicine, is it?).
Anyway, there haven’t been any incidents since and Nicola was positively beaming at having defended herself succesfully – so far so good. I’ve contacted the Judo club for which I received the link on my previous post and asked them if they would consider giving lessons at Nicola’s school from next year – or if they could tell me where they have lessons on Saturdays. Also Vonnelize’s company, Manners4Minors are coming to do a Bully Workshop at our school next week – and I’m really looking forward to see what Nicola makes of that! (Thanks for organising that Vonnelize, I really appreciate it).
Now onto more light hearted stuff!
Nicola has become very aware of the letter N. She knows that her name starts with it and feels quite strongly about it being HER letter and no one else being allowed to use it!
So I thought it might be a good time to introduce an alphabet chart? No rush, but if she’s interested in letters then I want to give her the opportunity to learn more about them.
I bought the Afrikaans one, but now there is only one problem…Nicola argues about what almost each picture means, so her alphabet is going to look a bit crazy! Mwahaha, I’m not really stressed about it – it will work itself out in the end, but let me share with you what the alphabet according to Nicola currently looks like: (the blank ones I can’t remember now off-hand, sorry. I should have taken a photo to remind myself!)
- A – Arend (Eagle) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n griffen.
- B -
- C – Chinees (Chinese) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n pappa.
- D – Donkie (Donkey) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n perd, en hy het ‘n baie groot neus.
- E – Eiland (Island)
- F – Fiets (Bicycle)
- G -
- H – Huis (House)
- I – Iglo (Iglo) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n grot.
- J – Juwele (Jewels)
- K – Koerant (Newspaper)
- L – Lam (Lamb) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n skaap…hy’s baie wollerig, en jy kan nie hom touch nie, hy sal jou byt!
- M – Muis (Mouse)
- N – Neute (Nuts)
- O – Oranje (Orange)
- P – Pikkewyn (Penguin)
- Q – Quiche (Actually that is the english word, but afrikaans doesn’t really do Q’s – in Afrikaans it’s called Souttert) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n pizza.
- R – Radio (Radio)
- S – Slak (Snail)
- T – Tande (Teeth)
- U – Uurglas (Hour glas) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n sand glas.
- V – Viool (Violin) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n kitaar. (I’ve tried showing her the difference, so now she tells me it’s a guitar you play on your shoulder)
- W – Windmeul (Wind mill)
- X – Xilofoon (Xilophone)
- Y – Yskas (Fridge)
- Z – Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe ) – I’m not sure why they didn’t just go with a zebra on this one but Nicola recons this is a map, and she’s not wrong.
Good for you my baby – question EVERYTHING!
This might spell potential disaster for her spelling, but there’s nothing wrong with her reasoning.