From the ashes

Everyone has been talking about the Cape Town fires, but I've had little to say...until now. 

I thought I was okay until seeing the pictures of the charred, hollowed-out Mostert’s Mill. That's when I felt this emptiness.

Pre-COVID, I attended one of the mill’s open days with my family. I wanted my son to experience the awe I felt when visiting this working piece of history as a child. He loved it. When we talked about the fire, he kept saying that the mill couldn't be completely burnt down. Oh, the heartbreak.

But it is more than the destructive fire that saddens me. I think that, like many Capetonians, I have felt deeply affected since we've already lost so much in this pandemic.

Easter things - 4 Fun Easter activities for preschoolers

Happy Easter. Can you believe that it's our second 'covid' Easter? Last year my Easter efforts felt a bit thrown together, so I want to do a bit more this year. 

It's hit me how fast my child is growing up and how much of that growing up is happening in the midst of a stressful pandemic. It makes me feel sad thinking about all the things my child is missing. I'm also aiming to shed my serious self a bit and make my kid laugh more often. So this is what I'm doing in an attempt to make Easter more fun for my 4-year-old...

How do you find me-time as a mother?

Finding me-time as a mother is hard when you have kids at home, a ton of housework and no set lunch break. But, it's not impossible...

I was chatting to a stay-at-home mom friend the other day and she was saying how relentless her days were and how sometimes it felt a bit meaningless.

Did I gasp and instantly gab on about how meaningful I find motherhood?

Heck no, I just nodded because I get it.

Yes, motherhood is beautiful and it’s such important work, but it’s also hard, exhausting and frustrating. When you have little kids, there are days when you feel like an overlooked personal servant. The only way I can think to counter that is to carve out time for yourself and do something that feels meaningful to you.

So we started talking about how we find “me-time” as stay-at-home moms and what that even looks like, especially during a pandemic.

Backseat bird watching

We were driving in the car one weekend last year when my then almost-four-year-old was unusually quiet. He was deep in thought about something, staring out the car window. 

“The birds don’t have to wear masks?” my son suddenly asked. He’d been watching the birds flying above, landing on walls and street lights as masked people walked by along the pavements.  

“No, they don’t,” I said. 

“They’re lucky,” he said. 

Shoo, this pandemic has flipped our world upside down. I typed this out months ago and saved it so that I wouldn't forget how a virus could make us question everything. 

Photo by Viktor Keri on Unsplash

P.S. You might enjoy reading The small things are the big things. 

Finding a rhythm for 2021

I quit making resolutions probably about the same time I had a baby. Life becomes rather unpredictable when you have kids and I was done with setting lofty goals that made me feel inadequate rather than empowered.

Over the last few years, I sometimes come up with a word or a phrase for the year that relates to some areas of my life I would like to improve. Last year, my phrase for the year was ‘lighten up.’ It encompassed the ideals of living more joyfully by streamlining mundane tasks, spending more time investing in friendships, having more fun and yes, rather predictably, losing a little weight. And then COVID-19 hit us.  

It was hard to lighten up in 2020 and, since I still feel like I’m learning how to do this, I didn’t want to come up with a phrase or word for the year. But it came to me regardless – rhythm.