Teething, Painting and Singing

A bit of an update in Mia's world is due!  :-)

She's busy cutting her last molars.  Number 17 and 18 are through, two more to go. She got both molars on the left side first, top and bottom - all along I've been waiting for the bottom right one to come through, and meanwhile the left top one came through, amidst fevers and niggles and bad sleeping patterns that I just couldn't understand.  Now for the last two.  Eish!!

Mia loves painting.  It's a bit messy, so I'm reluctant to bring out the paints at every opportunity - but that doesn't bother her, she just paints with water, and if I don't give her water, she makes a plan: spits her juice out into her painting cup, and proceeds to paint with her juice!  And not just paper... Her toys get painted too! Sticky, sticky, sticky...  If Mia wants me to also "paint" with her, she tells me, "mommy, have some paintbrush!"

At bedtime, while I rub some cream on her, I sing a special song.  "You are so beautiful" by Joe Cocker.  I've done this for quite a while - long ago Mia already started singing the "meeeee" part along.  Recently, however, she can sing the whole verse of "you are so beautiful to meeeeeee, oh can't you seeeeeeee!" And she goes so high and off tone and it's just the most special precious beautiful thing I've ever heard in my whole life.

xx

Family Photoshoot

First wee in a potty!

Oh gosh, what a bittersweet, exciting moment!

Mia is two years and one month old tomorrow.  So far, she really hasn't shown any interest in potty training, and so far my approach has been very relaxed, I'll let her guide me when she's ready.

We do let her sit on the potty before bath time.  For a long time, she refused to even sit.  The last couple of days, she does sit for a while, but doesn't actually make a lil wee.

Tonight she made her very first wee in the potty!  I wasn't even in the bathroom with her, just Wyn was.  I did a lil victory dance for her and smooched and praised her, she looked so chuffed.

The next journey ahead of us - lots and lots of loo trips!
xx

Mia's 2 Year Photoshoot

Had some piccies taken this weekend, by the fabulous Karin Meiring, to record Mia's second year.  Her birthday went by without a single piccie of the 3 of us together, so this is the perfect opportunity to get snaps of us together.  We did a few family pics in the garden, and then the rest of the shoot consisted of Mia baking and icing cookies.  :-)  Supercute, and so much fun!

 

  

 

 

 

This was our sneak peek - can't wait to get all of them!  Definitely going to print and enlarge some of them.  And will have to print some for all the grandparents. :-)

xx

 

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and other little stories :-)

Mia took me totally by surprise last week, by singing the entire Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to me!  It's just the cutest thing I have heard in my life.  Not all the pronunciation exactly, but you can hear exactly what she's singing.  Officially her first nursery rhyme that she can sing - bless.

I'm doing much, much better this week, after the slump I hit last week.  The world is filled with rainbows and butterflies once again. ;-)

We had a great weekend filled with family and friends, and yesterday we had a lil family photoshoot at our house, where Mia baked and decorated cookies.  Can't wait to see the pics!

I've started a personal challenge.  It's 40 days until our holiday to Pine Lake, and it's less than 3 months to my 30th birthday.  I need something to boost my weight loss mission - and a personal challenge sounded like just the solution.  I started a separate blog to track the 40-day journey.  http://jessv40days.blogspot.com/   Feeling very motivated and inspired!

Last week I had a glass of wine, which I put down on the table at dinner time - and didn't notice Mia climbing up on a chair while I went back to the kitchen to fetch our food.  She pulled the tablecloth towards her, knocking my glass of wine over and spilling everything.  As Wyn and I walked towards her, she looked at us and said "Mia drink alles!"  How we laughed - she figured that before she can get reprimanded for messing, she'll rather 'admit' to drinking everything.  I got a fright, but realised the wine glass was far away from her - it definitely all spilled. 

I need to work out my Christmas present budget...  Excited for the festive season that's literally just around the corner!
xx

Mia Jill ~ Two Years Old

I'm in a horrible mood

For the past few days, I’ve been feeling irritable, jaded, tired, bored and lacklustre.  Not a good feeling to have, no!

I’m not sure what the cause is.  Maybe just the time of the year?  Maybe the anti-climax after all the birthday and anniversary celebrations of September? Maybe just a bit stuck in a rut?

Whatever it is, I need to get over myself!  I feel so lethargic too.  Dragged myself to the gym yesterday, spent about 2o minutes hobnobbing around there, going from one machine to the next but not doing anything constructive and then gave it up as a bad job.  I felt so irritated with everyone there, the cleaners were in my way, the other gym members were breathing too hard, the announcements over the intercom pissed me off!  Came home, looked in despair at the shelves in the study and all Mia’s toys that I want to organize – and curled up on the couch with my book.

Now – I go look in the kitchen, trying to feel inspired for dinnertime, and nothing comes to me.

I’m feeling so peeved at my weight loss mission that’s standing still – I feel so uninspired and demotivated, just can’t get back into the proper mind-set.

What’s my problem! Seriously need to do some soul-searching and build a bridge and get over it, snap out of this horrible mood!

Mia isn’t suffering due to my mood – she gets laughs out of me – but poor hubby is being targeted by my short temper, the poor man.

Right, time to fix myself.

Yes!

OK!

No wait, I’m going to go lie down a bit…

xx

My Parent24 Blog

I originally started blogging in January 2010, when I had just found out that I was pregnant.  I wanted to track my pregnancy journey, and then everything that would come thereafter - the rollercoaster ride of being a parent, and being as frustrated as I'd never have thought I could have been and loving more than I knew my heart to be capable of.

Unfortunately, the blog platform that I had been on, changed to a new format that I just really couldn't adjust to - it was not as user-friendly as I had been used to, the community feeling got lost, and I just realised I was blogging less and less and feeling quite unhappy about it.

Thus this new blog was created, and I'm super happy with it!

I copied many of my old blog's entries into Word Documents, so as to be able to keep them in some way - and some of them got added to this blog, in the different categories under the heading.

However, for reference, I would like to share the address here too:
http://blogs.parent24.com/jessicaviljoen/

Blogger rocks, tho! :-)
xx

5th Wedding Anniversary Weekend ♥

Wyn and I went to the Palazzo Hotel at Monte Casino for the weekend.  29th September marked our 5th wedding anniversary! 

My inlaws came to stay at our house to look after Mia.  We used our Vitality travel benefits through Discovery to book at the Palazzo, getting the accommodation at a whopping 45% discount - awesome!!

We arrived late Friday afternoon.  Booked in, checked out the room, and then went for a stroll through Monte Casino, stopping for a glass of wine at one of the streetwalk cafe's.  Then back to hotel, got our luggage brought to the room, changed into evening clothes, and back to Monte Casino for supper at The Meat Co.  Porcupine Ridge Merlot, Haloumi cheese starter and fillet steak main - divine - no space left for dessert!

We wanted to book a show for the following evening - there was a Marc Lottering comedy show on.  Unfortunately it was fully booked.

Saturday morning we slept til after 8 - blissful!  So strange to be so lazy and not have a million things to try and get done.  Went for breakfast at about 10, and saw a couple of Springbok rugby players - I wouldn't have recognised them if it weren't for Bryan Habana - I don't really know them very well!

Then we went for a stroll through the Bird Garden.  It's really nice!  Watched a bird show, and checked everything out.  Saw a bat sucking his winkie.  Yes.  So strange!!  And got chased by a guinea fowl, hahaha!  So that was quite eventful.  Then back to the hotel, and sat on the terrace and each had a cocktail - still too full from breakfast to have lunch!  Then we were debating whether we wanted to go watch a movie or have an afternoon nap...  The afternoon nap won!

The room is so dark if we close the curtains - we decided to set an alarm to wake us in two hours, else we might sleep through to the next morning!!

Then got dressed up for our anniversary dinner at La Scala restaurant.  I had specified that we want a special table as it's our anniversary - when we arrived, we got presented with a glass of complementary champagne, and I got given a bunch of flowers!  Really special.  Had a starter of minestrone soup and a main of chicken penne - had been planning on profiterols for dessert, but had no space!  I must really learn to only eat half the main course so that I can have dessert!!

After that, back to the hotel, and opened our bottle of wine that we'd brought along - Alto Rouge.  Sat on the bed watching a movie (Bakgat 2, hahaha!), eating choccie and drinking vino.  Heavenly!

Sunday morning we got up lazily again, had breakfast, and checked out at precisely 11am - checkout time.

So nice that it only took us half an hour to drive home!

Was awesome to give and receive the biggest hug ever from Mia.  She had a wonderful time with her Oumi and Oupi and they enjoyed her very much too.

It was a super special weekend.  ♥