We’re still 4 days away from Wiggles intended arrival date and already thje sleep is slipping. Not that I have been comfortable enough or strong enough of bladder to get a full nights sleep in some time, but the last 3 days have really taken the mickey.

3 nights ago Aidan had his first midnight wandering in 2 weeks of sleeping in his big bed. I was in bed reading at the time, so I heard his little feet hit the laminate flooring and caught him at his bedroom door, blankie in had, not quite sure where he was headed. He allowed me to lead him back to his bed with no fuss, and stayed there for the rest of the night, but my peace of mind was shot. I spent the rest of the night waiting for those foot steps, afraid that if he made it to my bedside without me noticing him, I would give him and myself a screaming surprise when I did realise he was there…

2 nights ago the dogs were restless, our and the neighbours, and we kept waking up to random “Woof’s”. So did Aidan. And at around 2.30 he was fully awake and calling for Mama… Thankfully Dada could also do the trick, and got him back to sleep, but that was another restless night.

Last night we were woken at 2.39 by our alarm going off. Hunny killed it with the remote, and checked the zones for the culprit, but the system said nothing was wrong. This brand new fancy alarm system has been a pain in the behind since installation. Starting with installation taking 3 times as long as advised, and numerous re-visits due to passive sensors being to sensitive, and miss-programming of the keypad, mixing up the zones so that sleep mode armed the bedroom and disarmed the balcony. Great if you want to sleep on the balcony. Not great for sleeping in bed.

So when the alarm appeared to be alarming with no apparent provocation, well, we weren’t impressed. Likewise when 20 mins later the armed response company hadn’t called to see what was up, or sent a car around. There appeared to be no cause for concern. House and dogs were quiet. But still. Malfunctioning alarms aren’t cool.

Just about an hour later, as we were finally dozing off again, the neighbours alarm started off. Sigh.

This morning when we were in our more alert minds we realised it was probably the neighbours alarm both times, and only co-incidence that they shut it off at the same time as Hunny hit the remote. And that’d be why the alarm wasn’t as loud as we were expecting. And why the system had no breach’s in it’s history. And why the company didn’t call.

You do and think silly things when you are tired. But to think this is even before the newborn makes her appearance – well we are in for a long few months…

This big corporate bank building where I am currently working has a vibe off its own. Taking up a couple of blocks of downtown, it has room to house quite a few fashion oddities, so at least once a day I see something that makes chuckle. Sometimes they’re just a little ironic, sometimes a little out of place, other are just outrageous. Seen recently:
 

1.       A woman wearing a pair of black patent leather boots that gave the distinct impression of being part of an S&M kit

2.       A woman wearing a two piece suit (but with ¾ length pants), all of leather. Tight leather

3.       What is it with the leather around here? Another leather pencil skirt

4.       You sometimes stores sell a suit with two options – pants or a skirt? This morning I saw someone wearing all three pieces at once. Pin stripes pants, covered by a pinstriped knee length skirt, teamed with the pinstriped jacket.

5.       A woman wearing an elaborate headscarf covering her hair and shoulders, I presume to preserve her modesty, but dressed from the shoulders down in skin tight apparel.

We told Aidan this week about his new sibling on the way. He is 21 months old, so has no idea what we are on about, but tries to repeat what we say anyway, with some amusing results:

“Aidan is getting a yittle mister”
“Aidan is getting a master”
Before finally pulling of “Aidan is getting a sister”.

But the reaction of laughter he got from the “Aidan is getting a master” comment means that he still deliberately uses that mispronunciation sometimes

Yes my boy, we are all getting a new master, if my recollection of your early days is correct!

1. I really want to get a picture of this, but I’m afraid to brandish my cellphone in downtime for fear that someone will smash my window and take it from me. There is this guy who sleeps on the pavement right by the highway off ramp. Right there, every morning, looking like a bundle of rubbish, but it you look closely you’ll see human form under the blanket and cardboard.

He’s a meter away from a 3 lane off ramp. And on his other side is the concrete wall/pillar of the actual highway above. How does he get any sleep? Isn’t there anywhere softer on the body and quieter on the ear he could choose?

2. The block on which I park has security guards with dogs on the corners, to make sure folks make it from their parking garage to their office block without getting mugged. I feel for those dogs, because really, what kind of life is that for an animal. I wonder if it crushes their playful spirit. So I took some comfort seeing on doggie playing tug-o-war with his master over a plastic bottle yesterday morning. I’m glad that service dogs can still play a little.

Every time I think that I couldn’t fit anything more into my life, I find that I can. But at what cost?

Part and parcel with being deployed to down town Joburg comes traffic. Lots of it. My new location adds roughly an hour to my travel time daily. Okay so half of that is stolen from sleep time, but the other half is taken from my son. And probably more than just that because I no longer am as able to run errands in my lunch break. I am also often annoyed and exhausted once I finally do make it to him.

I say that I wouldn’t give up my job even if I could afford to, but truth is that you can’t really evaluate that properly until you are in that situation. If I gave up my horses and the expenses that came with them I could probably give up my job, but then who would I be?

I’d be a clean slate waiting for a fresh start, but I would also be wiped clean of major contributions to who I am.

Hmmm, something to think about on this Sunday evening.

I started a 6 month contract this morning in bank city downtown. I have spent the past week sending evil vibes to the boss who has posted me here, because I’m adverse to change and I don’t go downtown without a busload of other people.

As I was getting into my car I realised I hadn’t charged my Blackberry so would be GPS-less too, argh! But I made it with only one attempt to turn the wrong way down a one way street. Which resulted in a trip around the block.

And you know what, its not so bad. I still have to actually leave the parkade, traverse a block and start the job, but hey I survived the drive.

From the parkade, several levels up, I can see people hanging their washing on apartment block rooftops. Different lifestyle this …

Three years before I started a blog I started a blog. Hunny created it and told me to post some stuff on it. I didn’t grasp the concept very well at the time, but I wrote some stuff and posted it. And then I promptly forgot about it.
I have no idea where it is now. It’s out there somewhere still, I’m sure, but I don’t even recall the name, and I didn’t put my name to it, so chances are good I won’t ever find it again.

This blog can’t suffer that fate, if only because I own its domain, and that domain is my name. So unless I forget me name, it’s safe. It’s not safe from neglect though, I’ve proved that time and again.

I’d like to find that old blog of mine though. It was a great snapshot of my life at the time. In a crushing job, planning a wedding on shortish notice, and suffering greatly under the stress that came from the crappy job.

My how times change! Now I’m married, have a gorgeous boy child, and really battle to get freak-out stressed about work. Pity that, because that level of stress is a great diet plan for me. Sure I get annoyed; angry sometimes. And when faced with something new and daunting I still get some knots in my stomach. But that’s nothing like the wreck I used to be when things weren’t working and I had to go and sit in the toilets for a while lest I cry in front of my co-workers.

Two things have contributed to this. First off, I have a much better bunch of colleagues. These guys do actually work as a team, not against one another. But mostly it’s Aidan. I finally have the ‘this is not the end of the world’ perspective I have always been searching for in my work-life.
Because seriously, the world will not end if our software is down for a little while. Hell, I don’t even work on the kind of stuff that could kill a couple of people if it’s not operational (think medical software), never mind the stuff that launches nuclear weapons and kills whole nations.

Now when 2PM comes around, I go home. Sure I’ll pitch in and stay a little longer if it will actually achieve results, but now I have a boy to go and collect, and love, and be fascinated by, and be frustrated by, and laugh at, and laugh with, and teach, and learn from. And that is just so much bigger than any job I have ever done.

Dear friend H and her man P have just adopted a gorgeous boy, they brought him home yesterday. Congratulations guys, and little KB, you’re joining a great family and extended church family, and you already have totally devoted parents, welcome little guy:

A little background on H & I’s friendship, we’ve been friends for just about ever, or around age 12 anyhow. We went through some tough teens times together and remained inseperable even though for the most part we went to different high schools and universities. We even had this awkward teenage phase when we dressed in identical skimpy outfits (shod in the iconic 8 hole Docs), died our hair the same colour and trawled the malls and youth groups together. Aaah, those were the days. Thankfully there is precious little photographic evidence

Shew! What a busy month! Or has it been longer than that since I last posted? Maybe it has … So I’m back at work. I have also learnt that my work has added my blog to the list of blocked websites. It’s all you work colleagues reading the posts I haven’t been posting recently, I just know it. Love you guys

Since I last shared my life with you I have lost some wisdom, quite literally. And I felt so brave about it. I dropped Aidan off at his first day of crèche and dutifully took myself off to the dentist to punish myself for being a terrible mom who leaves her 4.5 month old baby at crèche so she can selfishly return to work. I started him at creche a week before my return to work, because I had important stuff to do like go to the dentist. And also to get us into the routine.

The dentist confirmed my suspicions. My wisdom teeth, which had been sitting comfortably in my jaw, had chosen the rip old age of 29 to make an appearance. The problem was that they were sitting so skew that they wouldn’t be able to do this on their own and hence would require the services of a maxillofacial surgeon. My dentist promptly scheduled me an appointment with one for the following afternoon, and off I went.

Dr Surgeon confirmed that my teeth were indeed very skew with one lying almost totally horizontal, but that they could be removed under local anesthetic. Here’s where my bravery came in. Instead of allowing myself time to ponder over the decision, I said “all right, lets do it now”. And right there and then he shoved some needles into my gums and grabbed some pliers and out they came.

Well, that’s the short of it. The experience was a little more traumatic. When I close my eyes I can still relive the feeling of the scalpel cutting against my teeth, and the ripping feeling as Dr Surgeon told me to ‘return pressure’ as he was applying all his strength with one foot against the chair to remove my most stubborn right not-so-wise-skew-growing tooth. And the feeling of relief mixed with ewe-gross as it starts to break free. Followed by the not painful but still disturbing feeling of someone stitching your gum pieces back together.

But hey, I did it. This from the chick that was too squeamish to try a natural birth

Aidan loved his first week of crèche by the way, and his care-takers loved him.  Apparently he was a happy smiley baby for them all week long. Not so much the following Monday when he developed a fever, but that’s another story for another day.

It is 6:30 on Friday morning and I am at work – one of the perks of getting a lift with my morning person husband. In fact, waiting for me held him up around 15 minutes. But what starts early ends early, right? Or so I am hoping. I need this weekend right now. I’m tired and grumpy today, for more than one reason, but probably the most of it is bad sleep.

This “pregnant chicks should sleep on their left side” thing isn’t working for me. On Wednesday night I tried my left side with pillow between my knees and woke up on my back with my right arm above my head and my left hand clutching the pillow – which was on top of the covers … I suppose that didn’t work.

Last night I thought I’d try right side with pillow. I woke up on my back with the pillow next to me, and both arms above my head. Man I hate it when I do that. Gives me serious knots in my shoulders. Plus: this is winter! They get cold! It seems to be an involuntary thing I do in my sleep when I have trouble breathing – like when I have a blocked nose, or have a small baby taking up the space where my internal organs once were. This is gonna be fun.

There is good news on Trucks front though. The nice people from Steve’s Auto Clinic say that he should make a full recovery by Wednesday, and at about a third of the cost that Mitsubishi quoted us. Still not pleasant, but manageable.

Here’s hoping this day improves, there really is no excuse to be grumpy on a Friday.