Well here I am back in Cape Town.  I've been back for just over three years now. We made the decision to leave Johannesburg when Mark's job he had at the time was made redundant. We immediately looked on the bright side and after a little deliberation decided to take the gap and start the process of moving - no easy task but well worth it now that we have settled down and have become true Capetonians again.

It's been over four years since I began blogging and since my last blog... wow, so much has happened in that time. Life is such a roller coaster, taking us from one extreme to the next. The ups and downs have made their mark and it certainly hasn't been easy. Mark had to start from the beginning with a new business after loosing everything with the recession. Slowly but surely he has built a business up from scratch that involves energy saving technology. The business is still relatively young and requires investment to get it going properly so we still struggle financially. However, we are a lot better off than we were five years ago and the business has come so far. I feel really positive about the future outlook of things.

My children are so much bigger. Time literally flies by with them standing right in front of my eyes. I feel so honoured and blessed to watch them grow and be a part of their lives. They are beautiful souls that I cherish with all my heart.

Lily is at a remedial school - Oakley House Remedial School - where she being nurtured and helped to catch up academically. She is happy there and I am hopeful that we will be able to mainstream her in the next year or two. She is a wonderful, warm and wise soul. I have such faith in her and treasure all her little quirks and moments that I am so blessed to be witness to.

My beautiful daughter has just started her first menstrual cycle - her right of passage into adulthood. We have made it a special occasion for her, with flowers from Mark and Simon (her dad) making her feel really special. A day off school so mum and daughter can spend quality time together while she adjusts to the new experience.  We will do a special ritual of sorts to mark the moment. Like a walk in nature with the women who mean a lot to her and then all of us giving her some words of wisdom and blessing her on her journey forward in this life.

My little Luke is a total live wire!! He is a happy, charming, gregarious, intelligent, very active little guy. Right now he is in Pre school but will be going to SACS next year for grade R. We are very excited as we believe this school will suit him down to the ground. He challenges us constantly which can be exhausting at times. I have found it very hard to be consistent with discipline as I am sure so many mothers do. However, I am becoming good at following through and this definitely is the way to go. He still likes to come and crawl in with us at night and I welcome this as I know its not for long. Besides, how can one turn that soft, snuggly little body away - impossible!!

I have dabbled in a few things to try and create an extra income but it is difficult being a full time mum and housewife while working. I would need very good aftercare facilities or help that would cost money which would defeat the purpose of earning money to help the household. For years I've been working on myself doing work like rebirthing, inner child healing and going to therapy with a metaphysical healer. She has been my mentor in so many ways. My intuition has always been very strong and over the years I have found I was able to help people with this. This 'inner voice' is getting stronger and I often found myself in the roll of the healer. Finally I have come to a place in my life where I am ready to start working with people clearing blockages and shifting them out of negative situations and help get through all the 'stuff' in their lives. It is in fact soul work but I have chosen to call breath-work therapy. I have started with sessions now and feel like I have found my souls true calling. Watch this space!

Controlled crying

After much deliberation and with trepidation I began sleep training with my little boy last night. We have always had a ritual where I have nursed or rocked him to sleep with a lullaby which I must say I really enjoyed. When he is asleep I enjoy the moment, hold him for a while, kiss his soft sleeping face and watch him gently breathing. Then slowly I walk through to his room and lay him gently in his cot, close the mozzie net and leave the room quietly. It is a special time and one I never take for granted. But... yes there is a but. My sweet little angel is about to turn a year old and he is still waking twice in the night for a bottle and always lands up in my bed so keeps me awake at all different hours very often. Inevitably I am very tired the next day and often ratty and grumpy. This isn’t fair on my family especially Lily. I often find myself apologising to her for snapping at her, which is not how I intended to be as a mother to my children.
I don’t know why it’s been such a huge decision as I did it with Lily and never looked back. Yet the thought of leaving my precious little bundle to scream killed me and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Until last night that is. As I was about to begin hubby reminded me that once I started I couldn’t stop otherwise I would be wearing a cross on my back for a very long time. We did the whole routine and I put him down, and he cried- boy did he cry – and I held myself back from running in to pick him up and rock him to sleep. I went in every 5 minutes to lay him down and tell him I loved him. Then suddenly it was quiet. 20 minutes later and he was asleep. He woke at 1am for a bottle which I gave to him in his cot and then again at 5.30am. Then he and I had a lovely time together in bed snuggling and cuddling and enjoying each other before waking up lily and Mark. The day has come to an end so this story will be continued. Tonight is the 2nd night of ‘controlled crying’ and I will let you know how it goes...

New Beginings

Today is my wedding anniversary. My first wedding anniversary. Wow we have made it through a whirlwind of a year.

I met Mark on the Internet on a dating site. Three months later I was pregnant. Six months later we got married and three months after that our son Luke was born. Before Luke was born I relocated in January 2009 with my then 6 year old daughter (Lily) from Cape Town to Jhb to be with Mark. It was a difficult and emotional time for all of us. I was leaving my beloved CT which ripped me apart. I have amazing girlfriends who are like sisters to me living in Cape Town and my parents and my sister and niece are also there. Leaving them all was very painful. On Marks side, he had been a bachelor for 45 years and was now taking in a new wife and step daughter. He had been out of work for a while and was in a new job trying to get his feet on the ground and was also about to become a father for the first time. He was going through big stuff too. But more than that, I was up rooting my little girl, taking her out her school and away from her friends, and mostly, I was taking her away from her adored daddy. I felt terrible, the guilt knawing at me with each box I packed. She had cried many times, asking me why I was doing this to her and questioned me relentlessly as to why I was marrying Mark and not her daddy. She kept asking me when she was she going to see her daddy and now that he was all alone what was he going to do? To top it off our cat that was supposed to come with us disappeared at the last minute. I had the cat box and tranquiliser ready just before leaving for the airport, but we couldn't find him anywhere. There I was heavily pregnant running around the streets of Sea Point desperately looking for him. Eventually my sister said she would come back and find him and urged me to get going to get to the airport in time for our flight. As it turns out a neighbour took him in where he is very happy now and Mark has a Staffie which I have since learned are known for eating cats! As we boarded the plane and flew away from our beautiful city my heart sank.

Mark met us at OR Tambo Airport and we drove 'home'. I was an emotional wreck sitting next to my new husband who I was still getting to know (but who I new from the moment I met him, would make a good husband). A few days later my furniture arrived from CT and I began the painful task of unpacking and amalgamating my things with Marks. This is something one should be so happy about when one gets married but all I wanted to do was take my own stuff and go back to Cape Town back to my life with Lily as a single mom and back to our gorgeous Victorian flat.

A week later Lily started at her new school which had nothing on her lovely little school she had been at in Camps Bay. I hated the 'government' type school and the fact that it was so very different to our exclusive little world at CB Prep. To make matters worse, Lily clung to me in the mornings and cried dreadfully for me not leave her each and every morning for the first term . Together with my guilt and being heavily pregnant my heart broke for her every day. In the mean time I started to get to know her class teacher, Leigh Schoeman, who I began to realise was an exceptional teacher. As time past she soon noticed that Lily was struggling and that this was more than just the trauma of her current circumstances. With the help of a wonderful educational psychologist we discovered that Lily has ADHD and have been able to tackle this and make my child's life so much easier at school. She is now a happy little bunny who has made some lovely friends and loves her school. I too have made a good friend out of one her friend's. Nici's mom - Paula has been wonderful and arrived to fetch Nici from her first play date with lily, with flowers to welcome me here!

On the 7th March 2009 we welcomed our beautiful little boy into the world. Luke Patrick Meyer. My amazing mother came up from CT for his birth and to help out especially with Lily in the following three weeks. He is such a joy to our lives and although Lily was very jealous at first she is now a doting and very good big sister.

We slowly started to settle down. However, after Luke was born I found myself going into a dark space and hating everything about Jhb. One day a good friend of mine (Carla) told me off and said I should just accept being here and that CT wasn't going anywhere and that I could always return there one day. She kind of shook me out of my self pity and that day I decided to focus on what I DO have in my life as opposed to what I don't have. I am lucky that I have her living around the corner from me as well as my friends Derryn, Dee and Marion. They have all helped me to feel more at home. I also have my brother Andrew and sister-in-law Tina and my two nieces Amy and Olivia. Tina has been like a rock for me so I have this to be thankful for too. Nowadays I focus on my two gorgeous children, and my wonderful husband. I love the garden we have where we spend wonderful family time. These are things that lots of people don't have even if they are in the most beautiful places in the world. How blessed I feel!

For now I take each day as it comes and live with love and appreciation for all my blessings. I will never give up on us returning to Cape Town in the future, but have accepted being in Jhb as not such a bad option for the time being.