Moscow State Circus

We went to the Moscow State Circus last night! It was absolutely brilliant! I haven't been to a circus for years and years. I always was a bit loathe to go as a kid, because I felt sorry for the poor animals and then I had enormous allergies and my swollen nose and streaming eyes eclipsed the show more often than not. :) I think with animal activism these days, they aren't allowed to do the animal tricks anymore. All the better for me. Even more impressive was the fact that most of the performers were men

James stayed with his Oma and Poppa (Rein's folks), so we were able to go for dinner before and even gambled a wee bit afterwards (lost my R100 within about 20 seconds - dismal).

I am going to try and upload some pics of James' room in our house and of James himself in his SOuth African attire (ie totally starkers posing next to his motorbike). James' language is developing so beautifully, as I'm sure those of you with 2 year olds are finding. He has started to use adjectives now, like "there big car" or "ballllllllooooooon too high". He has also learnt to say ow here, but often just for attention or to get a band-aid and says "itchy nose" very often too or "hair in mouth".

BTW, I must amend what I wrote in my very first blog about the toy selection here being totally dismal. I think that impression probably had something to do with trying to find presents for James at 6 pm on Christmas eve. I found a cool baby place, called Baby City with a great variety of baby supplies (even size 6 diapers, we have been squeezing James into 5's which are readily available). They are much pricier than US stuff, but we can get them.

A day in the life

We've been eaten ALIVE...by mosquitos, actually. I never ever remember being plagued by the buggers in Seattle like this. They drone and whine around your head and every time they're quiet, you know they're having a feast! Woke up with plenty red welts this morning - arrgghhh! Need to invest in a good mozzie repellent machine today.

Life here is flipping chaotic. Ian has moved in with the merry Holness household, and for those of you who know Ian, you will realize how chaotic everything actually is now!

I had a minor breakdown last week trying to sort out everything on the home front. I find it quite stressful having to manage workers, as I've never done that in my life. I've also had to make decisions on things like retaining walls and concrete screeding, which I'd never heard of before. The workers also need tea at regular intervals and if we were living at the house, that wouldn't be such a mission, but I have to trek from one house to the other bearing flasks of tea!

We have painted much of the house now! Yippeee! And it makes a significant difference. New baby's bedroom had been painted in "Gentle Lavender"; however their idea of gentle is ummmmm.. quite bright to say the least. We are planning on doing a few white polka dots to break the intensity and to make sure that our little baby isn't totally overstimulated from the first moment she's home! The living area has been painted in "sand castle" and we are doing a Nemo theme in J's little room, so his walls are light blue. My Mom has undertaken to draw and paint a Nemo themed mural on the wall/ closet at some stage, but since everything just seems to barrel ahead here, we have no idea when we'll get around to that!

Anyway, on another happy note, I saw Karen (SA friend from Seattle) and her folks for lunch on Saturday. Guess where? Mugg and Bean. It was great reconnecting in SA with a Seattle-lite and bemoaning a) the inefficiencies here b) the weather in Seattle. We felt like it was a great thing to be able to join our lives here and there in some small way. So we don't feel plucked totally away.

Not much else. I think I might have mentioned before how tough we are finding it to understand a "South African" white person's mentality towards labourers. We so often feel that the workers are being exploited and yet this is the way things work here. Rein says he saw about 15 workers packed into the back of a bakkie (small pick-up) and wondered how they felt. They were all men of around 30 or older and he wondered if they felt demeaned by the whole process or if they felt that they were just earning an honest wage. He also saw 2 children of about 4 and 7 begging at a traffic light the other day. They would run into the road and beg at every car while the light was red and then run to the light and hug it while it was green so as not to get run over. Rein said he wondered where the parents were and how they could allow such a thing. He wanted to give them enough money for a day's begging and then send them to a park. I think being overseas and not having that distinction in class (or is it race) has definitely opened up our minds.

I am having someone to dust and clean inside 8 Black Street tomorrow. When I asked Margaret how much she charges, she hesitated - so I asked if R100 was OK. She was totally overwhelmed and said it was far too much! No, no she said R60 (which is about $10). This is for the entire day beginning at 7:30am and working till 5:00pm! I was so shocked!

Anyway, enough about workers now. We are going to Hermanus for 10 days in Feb just for a total break! Lots of beach and sun and sand. And Rein is off for a 3 day "team building experience" to the Victoria Falls at the beginning of Feb too. They will be doing some white water rafting and game drives, so he is excited about that.

Missing everyone. Hope the 23rd is not too miserable for any of you. There was an article in our Sunday papers yesterday about January 23rd being the most miserable of the year. They did a calculation based on the approximate time that people would abandon their New Year's resolutions and feel guilty about it, realize they were in serious debt from the Christmas period and be right back in their working lives and came up with the 23rd.

So happy thoughts to everyone.

Olga

I haven't been eaten by the Tokoloshe* yet! Things have been crazy - oh dear, I guess I've written that in every single post.

A quick update on news: I got my Renault! We have named her Olga as she is certainly bus-like. :) She has plenty of space for car seat and 4 big- shouldered South Africans and can tow a trailer at the same time. Very proud of her practical capabilities! Olga also shows the outside temperature and today it was bloody 33 degrees celsius (91.4 F), so we have been sweltering again. But Olga has a great air con! Hee hee! She is not the most svelte car around, and looks a bit scratched around the gills, but she is a working lady!

My brother has moved into 8 Black Street for the meantime. He and his long time girlfriend, Stacey have split up and have sold off their beautiful little cluster home. Ian is stranded because of us being at my parent's house, and is going to be sleeping in the construction zone for a while. The spanner in the works is that Ian has a little Jack Russel terrier - - very very active doggy. We have no problem with Cal (named after baseballer Cal Ripkin Jnr) being there for the moment with the house in the state that it is. However, when the floors are redone and we have had all the walls and doors painted, we are less inclined to feel welcoming. All the intrigues of life with family again.

James has been enjoying the paddling pool, but had a bit of an accident today and ended up sliding naked onto the paving and scraping himself to smithereens ALL over! Poor little guy. Let me tell you, it was nothing that a few Winnie the Pooh bandaids couldn't sort out, but he still looks as if he's been through the wars! He kept on saying "Boof on bricks... boof on bricks....owie on tummy" to anyone who would listen. We also joined the ranks of the majority of South African parents today and took him to Builder's Warehouse without shoes!! We felt so terrible about it, but it really is so commonplace, he fits in now.

Oh and one last thing about the house. We have nice neighbours! We received a plate of muffins and a little welcoming card from the people in 6 Black Street (little boy of 2 and girl on the way) and the people in no 4 Black Street stopped to say hello and seem just divine. They have a 15 month old. We feel excited about that as the area used to be a really old one, so we hear that the houses are being bought out by young families and redone. It will be nice to have some next door friends for James once we're in there!

Not too much else. I don't think I mentioned that my hair is a nice shade of copper again with a few blonde highlights. My hairdresser said she refused to do foils until we'd managed to subdue my lion's mane and so we decided on a blonde colour shampoo with a slight hint of copper. Apparently colour shampoos are much better for condition than foils. Mmmmmmmmm, my hair has been BRIGHT copper for the last while, but with each shampoo it looks better and I quite like it now!

Lots of love to you all. Hope the rain has abated in Seattle by now..otherwise you might all be washed away!

*The tokoloshe is an evil, hairy, dwarf-like creature from black African folklore.

Remodelling... lives and houses

Hillmann House

8 Black Str. Garden

I was totally blown away by all the Christmas cards and emails I got from you. Thanks so much. My Mom went to the Post Office and came back with more mail for the Hillmanns than for her household. Feels so good to be loved and to see some of the gorgeous pics of your kiddies.

On the home front, it seems as if sunny days are eluding us and we have been having huge downpours for the last few days. It is quite weird, as they are already worried about flooding in some of the townships here, and we have had only 3 big thunderstorms and some drizzle. I wonder what would happen here if we had some Seattle weather?

Rein was most upset reading the blog as he said I hardly mentioned his name and didn't update anyone on what's been happening to him!! Poor bunny. Anyway, he is doing very well. He actually needs to wear smartish clothes every day to work, which I love enormously. No more skateboarder's shorts and t-shirts. He gets extra special kissies from me every day now! :) He has bought a beautiful car, Audi TDI, for himself... which gets taken out of his car allowance for Msft, as well as petrol contributions - YAY! Work is slow at the moment. He is working on a project at MNet (South African pay broadcaster), but since he needs to be on the project from inception, he is quite frustrated by all the bureaucracy already. Oh gosh.....

Our house: I have been madly trying to get our house ready for us to move in when the furniture arrives. We decided to go with an older house, in excellent condition, with a STUNNING, established garden for our little boy AND girl to play in. That being said, we have a lot to do. There are wooden floors, covered by a carpet, which we have to rip out. We have to redo the whole kitchen and of course, we're going to paint. All before we move in. The advantage of being in South Africa is that labour is significantly cheaper than in the US. We have a painter who is going to paint our entire house for about $600 (obviously excluding paint). What a bargain!

I have just had meetings this morning with two kitchen designers and have had to decide on what kind of cabinets, countertops, stove, extractor fans etc we like. All very exciting, but nerve-racking at the same time. Rein is not available during the day at all, so most of the decisions are being left to me. Rein has definite ideas about things like recessed lighting and granite countertops....but we'll see if the budget agrees.

We had our first picnic lunch at our house on Sunday. Rein's parents came to see the house and we sat under the big tree, ate yummy things and watched James run through the sprinkler. It was also so great for me to drink my cool lemon drink under the shade and watch hubby dear mow the lawn, shirt off to catch a tan. :)

As for a car for me, I had my eye on another Toyota initially, but then fell in love with a little 2003 Renault Scenic, which is much more like a Mommy mobile, with copious amounts of space for kiddy paraphenalia. We'll probably get it tomorrow or the next day - YAY! Very excited! Will send pics of that too. I'm going to try and attach pics of the house. Forgive me if they go a bit squiff, because I'm still not too familiar with all the blogging tools of the trade.

It's a............

I went for my first gynae appointment yesterday. Baby is happy and due on June 7 2006! Everything looks fine. I was so relieved about it, because although I'd been feeling so much kicking and squirming, I hadn't really thought about having a baby with everything else that's been going on.

So, should I keep you all in the dark....


You will not believe it......

We are having a.....


GIRL!!!


Yes, I nearly tumbled off the examination table when the doc pointed out the "koekie" as he called it! Hee hee. We are over the moon.... but as my Dad says, Prince Harry was supposed to be a little girl until the very last ultrasound, so we are trying to be nonchalantly ecstatic (impossible for me as you can imagine)!


Grandparents are also in shock, since we might have broken the Hillmann curse of 100 years of boys! Hillmanns are too scared to tell Oma Hillmann (Rein's Gran) for fear she'll drop dead from shock.


I am going to the mall today to buy my first pink outfit! Also going to eye out my car. Will update blog as often as I can.

So much love to you all.

Reflections after 2,5 weeks

Happy New Year to all my dear friends!

Time has just flown on this side. There is so much to do and the days are just not long enough to fit everything in that has to be done. I must admit that it's not too stressful! There is far too much tea drinking and socializing in between the errands.

Here are my thoughts on our situation after this brief period of time:

Positives:
* James is having an absolute ball! He plays outside from morning till night. He knows all the dogs' names and feeds them copious amounts of biscuit treats (so he's a real favourite with them too). He feeds the koi fish with my Dad. He has not worn shoes since we arrived, except for brief forays into the mall - which he hates! :)
His speaking has developed in leaps and bounds. He is saying "me" now, which for us is a major milestone, as in "doggie lick me".
It is wonderful and heartwarming to see how he is thriving.

* We have a HOUSE!! More about that later.

* Having a family support structure for us and James. Even when dealing with things as simple as getting a gardener. (Yes, we have a gardener - YIPPEEEE!)

*Summer weather.

*South African food. I had THE most delicious salad yesterday with litchis and chicken and real tomatoes.

* I feel much more confident asserting myself here than I did in the States. Probably has something to do with insecurities about my accent there. And those of you who were witness to my rantings about "not belonging" in the US - my hips and butt fit in perfectly in South African society these days. :)

* Clothes shopping while Mom looks after James and then meeting the family for lunch at Mugg and Bean! I am a spoilt chicken at the moment and enjoying every minute!


Negatives:
* Arrrggggghhhh! Can I say frustrating bureaucracy? Opening bank accounts, cell phones, getting temp driver's licences etc are all interesting experiences. We have had to mostly rely on "not what you know but whom.." when dealing with all these admin details. For example, we have a home loan with Std Bank, but they wouldn't open a cheque account for us. Had to go through my Dad's contacts there and Msft had to get our cell phones for us. (BTW, I have a bright pink cell phone now - I can hear you all chuckling). On the plus side, everyone is most friendly (maybe has to do with just having been on holiday). The sales people or consultants joke in a very familiar way, which would be totally frowned upon in the US.

* I have not once felt unsafe here, but there is definitely an undercurrent of "being careful." I can't just string my bag across the back of my chair in a restaurant - I have to put it under the leg of the chair and under the seat in the car. Before we can move into our house we have to put up a 6 foot wall, otherwise we just couldn't move in.

* Enjoy the selection of stuff in the US! Shopping for Christmas presents for James was dismal.
-----------------------------

I know we are still in the euphoric stage of life here and it will certainly get much harder as time progresses! We are under no illusions, I promise you. But I am feeling very positive. I do think it will take a huge amount of time to reintegrate with our friends here because we are on such different pages. I think it helps that we are all starting or have just started families. Anyway, what I'm getting at by saying this is that I miss you guys. You are all so special.