All it takes is shoes

I was the kind of new mom that stayed in her pajamas WAY too long into the day. I know in the beginning when your body is a mobile feeding machine it’s the obvious way to go, but I’m telling you I took the slob look to a whole new level. I remember when my first child was born in Beijing, and at about 6 weeks old my mom flew in from South Africa to help me with her for 2 weeks. On day no. 2 of her trip it was MY MOM that pointed out that I had yet to wear a top. I had been loafing around for the last 6 weeks with my boobs on hand at every turn and covering myself up with a fluffy gown only when ‘airing my sore breasts’ was no longer a valid excuse. In fact I am quite sure that the only reason I started getting dressed was because maternity leave was over, but I am quite sure that for 4 months my husband didn’t see me in anything that wasn’t loose and pajama-like. Fast forward to baby number two and we’ve landed in South Africa as a family of 4 and with 6-week old Titus in tow. Once again I am spending my days in nothing more than my white fluffy gown (the same one from my first child mind you although looking a lot less white). There are days poor hubby does not see me change for days, and not because I have not cleaned myself, but because the pull of that fluffy almost-grey gown is just too strong. I get up in the morning, and even if I am going out, it’s the first thing I change into when I get home. And just try to be productive in your floppy gown. It is physically impossible. No matter our intentions you just cannot get down to anything serious looking like the Michelin man. The day my then 2-yr old smashed her face into the coffee table and bled for an age through her mouth, I ran to my neighbour’s house in…you guessed it….my white fluffy gown. Thankfully she has 4 kids of her own so I am hopeful there wasn’t too much judgement, although with 4 kids she still managed to be dressed by 12pm.

Now you realize that the gown is just the icing on the top of a very disheveled package. It goes hand in hand with unshaven legs, hubby’s slippers and whatever hairstyle gets the hair off your face.

And this is a common reality for most new moms, and moms in general, at some stage. I have personally read loads of self help books on the matter (I kid you not there is a book entitled FRUMPS TO PUMPS that I flipped through once). I even confided in a friend who tried to help me with accountability in this area who in a very helpful way suggested showering at the start of my day rather than the end as a way of prying the gown off me first thing.

But the amazing discovery I made regarding this topic has actually only occurred after baby number 3. Yes, I have looked and felt frumpy for almost 6yrs if you count pregnancy. The trick is in the shoes! Yes ladies of slump, this is where you need to make the change. It’s not with your hair (although a bit of hair and make up effort never hurt anyone), its in the shoes.  Like that old Sonny and Cher song – if you wanna know if she* loves you so, it’s in her shoes, that’s where it is.

So there you have it. My pearls of wisdom with 3 kids under belt. Nowadays, if I want to be productive I wear good shoes ALL DAY and that seems to do the trick. I am unlikely to slink back into my slothful ways wearing a cool pair of shoes, although when those shoes come off and those feet make their way onto the couch it is seriously down hill from there. Beware. The previously white fluffy gown is sure to follow suit.

Saying goodbye to my Facebook profile

It’s the strangest thing really. When you go to delete your profile you get a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. Gosh – will I survive this? Will I exist without this in my life? Will I be OK if I do this? That sinking feeling that just confirms I have an unhealthy connection to this virtual existence. That I don’t know who I am unless I know what people are doing, where they are and with whom, and if, in turn, they know what I am doing and ‘like’ it, or at the very least – envy it. Yes, that is the sad reality that is life in 2015. 6 years ago when I signed on to facebook for the first time that wasn’t the case, the 24yrs I lived prior to facebook was also not like that. Back then, I relied on good old stories from people I was still in contact with to find out what people were up to, and if I didn’t know so-and-so got married I didn’t care. But that is not the existence my children will have. They have grown up watching mom on her phone checking people’s status’ and standing over a bowl of half-poured-cereal posting pictures of their latest birthday cake or a family event so everyone would know what adorable kids she has. I admit I have missed out on eye contact just because I wanted facebook to know what I was up to. And that’s about to stop. I am bout to start living life the way it was intended, in the present, with actual people around you. Not virtual friends, not connections from the past that you forgot long ago (for a reason!)


I am forfeiting my facebook persona (along with my twitter account) and getting my time back. Time to write, to blog, to be creative, to read. To have the chance to form ideas and thoughts that are entirely my own and not a copy of something I have seen elsewhere or read. And I am going to get back to engaging with my family and my REAL friends, and finding out how their lives are over a real conversation and a cup of tea rather than through a newsfeed. But I am a certified facebook addict and they say addicts are always addicts so I will have to keep myself in check. I’m sure when my children want to start having their own accounts I will once again become tempted to step into virtual reality, but it’s here again I feel the strong sense that I must lead by example. That I must show them that an existence on facebook does not equal an existence as a human. That the human interactions we have every day and the really important things we preoccupy ourselves with are what matter, not what so-and-so said about such-and-such. I want them to form their own opinions before they decide to be bombarded by what everyone around them thinks.


I am overcome with fear as I do it. All the things I’ll miss out on, all the things I won’t know. It’ll be like everyone around me is walking around with access into an elite social club and I’m not cool enough. FOMO kicks in (Fear Of Missing Out). I also think…should I announce it to people? Should I let people know that this is the end of the road for me? That I am signing off for good. Surely they have a right to know – to be sad for my (and their) loss. Perhaps we’ll have a moment of silence. But they will probably judge the sentiment, and spin me as some weirdo so I won’t do that afterall. I’ve decided to slip away quietly. Like I never existed. Like vanishing from all eternity. Only that’s the lie isn’t it? That’s what facebook would like you to believe, and yes that is what society in general is telling you. But once my account is deleted, I will still be here. In the flesh. I will be alive and breathing and thinking and I won’t have ceased all cognitive functions. I will be OK. I am enough. My family is enough. My life, just as it is, is enough. I do not need to plaster it on status updates for it to be more important, or more wonderful than it is right now, when only I know about it. My children’s births, birthdays, first days of school, missing teeth and broken hearts will not feel less real not published for all to see. Our holidays and travels will be just as special. And instead of taking selfies in cool places just so people will know we were there, we’ll just enjoy being there. Right there. In the moment. And only we’ll know how truly amazing it was. And that is enough.


I can do this. I can take the plunge. I can be enough. For myself and for my kids, and for my husband. Just as I am. Before facebook I had a life. And now, 6 years later, I am getting back to living it.




Side note* I completely went off facebook for 3 months after writing this post, and then accidentally (while logging onto pinterest) re-activated it. I am now keeping myself in check like an addict who attends AA meetings. Some days I am better than others, but I have vowed to my kids I won’t relapse.

A Room for you...In my Heart

So I am having my second baby in China. Goodness me, I did not expect any of this when I signed up to live in Beijing for 2 years! But here we are, in our 3^rd apartment, having expanded our ‘stuff’ from the original 2 suitcases and now doubling our family in just under 5 years. We are fortunate to live in a beautiful 3 bedroom apartment on the 28^th floor, and while I would love a garden for Zipporah to play in, I could not be happier with our view, large windows that let in lots of light, and the home we have managed to create for ourselves (with a lot of help from our friends at IKEA of course). But we have also outgrown it, and so with the impending delivery date looming ever closer (end of May), I am in a pickle because I simply have to “nest”. Any woman who has ever been pregnant will know the feeling: that urgency to organize, sort, plan and shop for your little one’s arrival (no it’s not just an excuse to spend money guys!) It’s a genuine feeling you get, with all those hormones raging inside of you, that you simply cannot control. Take me for example, I have no idea where I will be living in 3 months from now (not even sure which country), but my compulsive urge to make a home for my unborn child is so strong within me that I have literally re-arranged every room in our house, and spent hours strategizing lists and purchases, lying awake at night thinking about every nook and cranny and where things should go. I am really just re-arranging the furniture! But I can’t stop. There is no room in this house for our second child (not if we’re to have granny come and stay to look after the toddler), and so my poor son is to make his home in the corner of our bedroom for the first 6 weeks of his life.

This is very different to the way that Zipporah came into the world. First, she was very planned and from the moment we knew I had conceived we talked about her, imagined life with her, and dreamt about her. Everything was new and exciting and we planned our existence and chose our next home with her in mind. This pregnancy was slightly less planned, and you have a lot less time to sit around and dream about motherhood when you have a real-live-in-your-face-every-minute-of-the-day toddler to keep you busy. Zipporah slept in her own bed in her own room from the day she left the hospital (some of you are shocked I know), and every colour in that room – from the curtains to the carpet had been carefully planned. Not only does our second-born not have a room, or a colour scheme, but he has a makeshift bed. He will, initially, be sleeping in what used to be Zipporah’s bath and compactum (this sounds worse than it looks but essentially it is the truth). And I consol myself with the fact that at least I have however, managed to get a custom-made mattress in there for him. Lucky guy!

Our little one’s arrival comes at a time of great change in our lives, and the fact that he’s coming, or that things are changing, cannot be changed. So we will make the best of the time we have in this home, and whatever other homes we live in before we find our son a room, with a colour scheme, and set up his proper crib. Until then, he will have a place in the corner of our bedroom, but most especially in our hearts, and that will have to be enough for now. I can’t feel guilty it’s different the second time around, it just is. But I know that this new child will be no less loved than his sister ever was, I can only pray he knows that, even now.

The Joys of Parenting in Beijing

Just when I thought I had learnt to navigate the craziness of China, I had a baby, and here we were back on square one.

The stakes seemed to change once we became parents in China. Not only were we navigating the mire of first time parenting – but we were doing it in a country that thought the way we did everything was mad. And they don’t mind telling you so!

It started the very first day we brought Zipporah home from the hospital. Shaky, only 5 days post-op, we nervously strapped our daughter into her car chair and drove exceedingly slowly to our front gate. Once there, Kyle proceeded to help the baby and I from the car and into our apartment on the 28^th floor, navigating various restricted access doors and elevators. It was a glorious autumn day in October and the sun was shining, with only a gentle breeze. Our daughter was wrapped snugly and huddled close to mama. All seemed well with the world until we were assaulted in the lift by a group of nattering old ladies who thought Zipporah should be wearing a hat, and oh she’s only 5 days old – what on earth are mother and child doing outside?!

We proceeded to take Zipporah, usually fast asleep on our shoulders/in her pram, out for daily walks for the rest of Autumn, willing her to savour the 3 weeks of glorious weather Beijing gets per year before the chills of winter set in. And every day we got the same response – “she shouldn’t be outside, Chinese babies and mothers stay indoors the entire first month!” They also don’t bath for the first 2 weeks, so what makes you think I would follow either of these stupid theories. We got quite the reputation and people would mutter around us whenever we got into the lift; Kyle relayed to me that what they were saying about us was a much less polite version of “stupid, irresponsible foreign parents”. You would think this wouldn’t bother us too much, but when they are literally pulling our child from your arms and yelling at you, it’s hard to just turn the other cheek.

Unfortunately, things did not get much better after she was a month old. They just managed to find new things to yell at us about. This is because the Chinese culture is a very community-orientated one, and babies are shared property. I also don’t think it helps that because of the one-child policy children have become such prized possessions, and are therefore treated like glass dolls until they are at least 18yrs. Everything she ate got taken away – she wasn’t allowed to eat meat, sit on the floor, play in the sand, run, climb or anything else potentially dangerous. She was supposed to sit like all the other drooling kids in her pram during any outside stimulation. Yes, China is breeding generations of kids with sensory, language and gross motor issues, but my goodness at least their hands remain clean!

So we get used to being yelled at, eventually. And then we have to get used to our child stopping traffic because she is SO BEAUTIFUL. I feel like Jennifer Lopez when I take my kid outside, the paparazzi start snapping away on their mobile phone cameras from the moment we step foot out of the door! They don’t ask permission, and they don’t even try to be discreet. I have been in busy markets, trying on clothes or bargaining with a salesman and when I turn around my child has been whisked away to another stall and is being photographed with every twenty-something female within a 10-foot radius. She has been poked and prodded, squeezed and hugged, which I supposed I should be grateful has contributed to her easy-going and friendly demeanor with strangers.

And to add insult to injury, we are choosing to be Zipporah’s primary care givers but not summoning the help of our parents and in-laws all the way to China. This is very frowned upon in China, where grandparents raise your children and move in with you when you have your one and only child because you cant be trusted to do it properly yourself. Oh you should see the stares I get when I walk outside with Zipporah (now almost 18 months), pregnant, pushing the pram AND carrying groceries. My goodness, us African woman must be made of tough stuff to manage all that unaided! I often think of my very competent friends back home who manage much more, and with much more grace. I suppose you just learn to deal with your lot in life.

Grandparents raising children is a strange phenomenon that brings about very sad consequences – ill-disciplined and wild children are everywhere, with their grandparents running frantically behind them giving in to their every whim and desire. The fact that I discipline my child gets us even more attention. Tantrums are never tolerated and when my (darling) does have a melt-down, I deal with it in a stern manner, wherever we are. But this parenting-privilege does not come without its price in China, and we are usually pointed at, gasped at, and scolded from way off in the distance.

I now have some coping mechanisms that have enabled me to navigate this minefield of parenting an African child in Beijing. These include allowing her Chinese nanny to take her outside to socialize most days, and force her to explain our weird foreign philosophies to more than curious other mums and grannies. Feigning complete ignorance in the language when I am approached and quizzed about my child, minimizing what we call “damage control” by keeping meat-related products only for consumption at home. And of course giving in to the invariable assault on our privacy when we are out and about, instead of rant and throw cameras, I have come to accept the paparazzi as a way of life.

I know that you will get different styles of parenting wherever you are in the world, but I am looking forward to one day living in a place where we can blend into the crowd, and when we do something others deem inappropriate, they have the decency to keep their opinions to themselves!

A cute kid in Beijing

Being a cute kid in Beijing is hard work (you got to give the people what they want!) - but it's something Zipporah is more than used to by now, and a role in which she plays up to. Here she is being passed around a table of Chinese strangers. This child really thinks she is Chinese and has no problem being friendly; there may be trouble when she doesn't get this much attention and affection back in her own country though :P

The Story of Zipporah's birth

Many people have asked me what it was like giving birth in a foreign country, and every time I recount the story to them, I am amazed at how Kyle and I managed to do it on our own. In all honesty, my daughter's entrance into the world was rather traumatic. This is something along the lines of how it went:

I had been going for check ups at a private Chinese hospital down the road from our home. There is a foreign hospital here too, but the exorbitant rates they charge together with a few strange birth stories had put me off a little; plus I figured if anyone knew how to deliver babies it would be the Chinese...they do after all, deliver the most! Now many pregnancy mags will tell you that it is important to have a "special" bond with your Gynea and that he/she should know your hopes and dreams for your delivery. What rubbish. I had a perfectly cordial relationship with my OBGYN which revolved around her 10 English words and my 10 Chinese words. My visits were brief, and much like a cow being ushered this way and that to be milked- this cup and that bathroom (but we only want your 'middle' wee), then eat this boiled egg and drink this hot milk, now sit there, drink this sugar water in 10 min, go for your blood, go to the nurses station, now for your scan. (All of this in Chinese of course, which meant a huge leap in my medical vocabulary over the 9 months). Our scans were also very short, during which time we were told our child (whose sex we still did not know) would have a big head, short legs and a big nose. Oh the visions we had of our newborn before she arrived in this world! With this being my first pregnancy, I had no preconceived ideas of how things should/could've been. For this I am grateful.

I did manage to communicate with my Gynea that I was adamant on having a natural delivery however, and that the hospital should do everything they can to make this possible for me. This because I was planning to have more than the allotted 1 child in China, because I was, I reminded her, an African woman. She agreed, and we waited until my 40th week. When there was no sign of baby budging, she told me that at 41 weeks they would be inducing me (hospital policy from which you DO NOT deviate). A date for the induction was set, and I spent the next week walking, squatting and drinking just about anything to bring on the labour.

Alas, come September 29th, there was still no sign of baby, and so off we went into hospital, knowing that come what may we would be returning as parents.

I went in for the induction with a friend, and while I had the length of a petite Chinese nurses arm inside me, yelling at me to relax for goodness sake, I remember thinking this was just the beginning. Contractions followed soon thereafter, and I did everything my South African midwife friend had told me, I was squatting, I was going with the contractions, and I was sure all was going well. I even enjoyed my Chinese lunch when it arrived. Four hours in however, the Chinese nurses looked concerned when they did the internal exam. Surprisingly, the fact that my contractions never seemed to grow progressively worse had gone unnoticed (I just figured I was handling labour exceedingly well!) After 6 hours later a horde of doctors and nurses came in and proceeded to ramble on in Chinese about the fact that my labour had not progressed well, I was not dilating, and in fact my cervix remained unbroken. This was a lot of medical terminology for my poor husband who was taking it all in and attempting to translate for me. This from someone who has only learnt the Chinese word for "period" at my first check up.

We were sent back to our room and given two choices: try another induction tomorrow (which they were doubtful would be any more successful) or have a Caesar in the morning. If the induction failed a second time however, they would definitely Caesar at the end of the day because baby needed to come out. We later discovered that I have an inverted pubic bone which makes labour difficult, particularly with big babies, and so with all this new information, we were given the night to weigh up our options. Disappointed, disheartened, alone and confused we sat together in our room and prayed for every other possible outcome: that labour would progress in the night on its own, that a second induction would succeed, could I leave against medical advice and just wait until baby was ready to come out?...Anything to avoid the C-word which we had all but banned in our vocabulary. We called home, we called every medical professional we knew on the planet, but all confirmed what the docs were saying. It didn't make the fact that nothing was going to according to plan any easier though. My body was not doing what it was supposed to, and I was sad we didn't yet have our babe in arms. I was given an injection to end the contractions and told I should get a good night's sleep.

Come 9am the following morning we had agreed to a C-section, followed by the signing of hundreds of hideous consent forms which basically state, with characteristic Chinese bluntness, that the hospital is not responsible for any of the tragic things that could result from the surgery! I was beside myself by the time they came to clean and shave me. Thankfully my husband never left my side. At 11am I was told they were taking me to prep for surgery, Kyle asked whether he should come along to which they replied " if you like". Thank goodness he did! because not 20 min later I was lying naked on the metal bed, told to 'lie still or die' while they injected me with an epidural, and sliced open even before I had said I had gone completely numb. Kyle was allowed into the operating room only because the translator was unavailable and no one else spoke English, and he witnessed the whole gruesome thing. I was completely unprepared for such major surgery, all the pulling, tugging and ripping that felt so unnatural. No one told me what was going on, and when Zipporah was born and Kyle rushed over to be with her through all her tests, I was left alone while they sewed me up for what felt like forever. Everyone talking over me, poking and proding. I didn't feel like a new mother at all. Even when Zipporah was presented to me, I had to fake a smile for the photo, all the while my mind on the discomfort I felt in every other part of my body.

By the time we got back to the room, I was all 'wired' up to machines, in quite a lot of pain, and unable to move. Things didn't change much over the next 24 hours and by lunch the next day I told Kyle that if this is what having a child entailed, we would only be having one. Sorry, I was done.

Thankfully I had the most wonderful friend who came to visit soon after the delivery who shared her own experience of a C -section, and who consoled me with the fact that eventually I would feel better, be able to move normally, and that bonding with my beautiful, bouncy baby of 4.2kgs would come in time. I was grateful for her timely advice and proceeded to take the next 3 days in hospital in my stride. I didn't laugh out loud when they washed my wound with tea, or warned me sternly against having sex for the next 3 months. I wore my allotted 'convict' like pyjamas and gown, didn't mind my engorged breast being fondled by the nurses, passed my dodgy chinese food off to Kyle when mealtimes came and was even grateful they never attempted to take my baby away from me, only for bath time. Looking back it was a very special time for our new family of 3, and by the end of day number 2 I was completely besotted with our tiny princess and would have given my life for hers, everything long forgot.

Leaving the hospital was daunting, but my recovery at home was smoothe. Looking back I am so grateful that we opted to take professional medical advice instead of fighting for a natural delivery. In the end, the fact that Zipprah and I were healthy and well was all that mattered. I remained a little disappointed that I never got my shot at a natural delivery for a short while afterward, but only God knows what we can handle and maybe it all would have been too much in a foreign country.

In just 10 short weeks baby number 2 will be born to our family, in the same hospital, in China. Call me crazy but now I feel like I know what I'm in for, so when they start rattling off in Chinese I actually feel like its normal. Heck, having a baby in an English speaking country scares me now! My advice to anyone having a baby is not to have ANY expectations. Whether you have natural or not, you have no idea what you're in for, and the most important thing is not the way the baby comes into this world, it's that it does, and mom and baby are both healthy. As for having a baby in a foreign country...would I recommend it? Hmmm...maybe not, unless mommy is there, or hubby is super helpful, efficient, sympathetic and proficient in the language (which mine was). But each to his own.

Our Daughter Zipporah