"Don't touch the hair"

Who has the the unequivocal right to say this?
If you can wash your, or your child's hair and then pull a comb through it – you don't.
If you are a man with short hair that has been gelled into baked Alaska peaks with an up-standing, side-waving flick at the front – you don't.
Who does? Me.
When we adopted our first child, a boy, I took cognizance of two things, ethnic hair is different and I know nothing about it except 'Black is Beautiful'.
Stand in front of the shelves of ethnic hair products in the shop and ask yourself one question: What is your intention? Stimulate root growth, moisturize the scalp, moisturize the hair, relax, detangle, soften, shine, and if so, with what? Olive oil? Avocado? Coconut? Mayonnaise? (really) ... "I don't know," I said loud and petulantly (why aren't these products white folk friendly?) I just want to be able to comb it without him screaming and wailing.
The rational answer is to ask someone. For this you have to prepare yourself mentally, practice your pranayama and move into a deep state of calm and serenity ... in Pick 'n Pay.
Once said state is achieved you look around for a friendly face ... then you look around for a less rushed-looking face ... then you ask the nearest person.
The first look that crosses your adviser's face is disbelief, not that you have a black child, but that you may not know what black actually is. Thinking this can't possibly be the case the next expression that crosses said face is suspicion, as though I am asking her to let me in on her hundred-year-old matriarchal chakalaka recipe.
Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo and detangle spray was what I needed and an Africa comb.
What my boy has is a No. 1 cut.
Ah! But what about the girl? Advise here is freely dispensed as though one does not concern oneself with the minutiae of boy's hair but the importance of girl's hair cannot be overstated and you clearly know nothing.
NEVER CUT IT! LEAVE IT TO GROW!
If you cut there will be no braids, no cornrows, no cute twists and little dreads.
For this hair must be washed and combed so my angel doesn't look like a Mau Mau who has spent two years in the Aberdares. So back to that vast intimidating shelf.
Night one: Wash, rinse and massage in conditioner, but do not rinse. Wrap hair in scarf as sponge-wet and to prevent conditioner coating bedding.
Night two: Rinse and massage in moisturizer then comb.
I have been blessed with a little girl with the thickest, curliest, most beautiful mat of hair that takes a full hour to comb through. I then wrap her head in a scarf and the next morning, GORGEOUS! A perfect sphere of soft, glistening, thick pile adorns her head.
I'm showing off, gloating, boasting, "Look what I've done!" "What I've accomplished!" Then I remember she was involved too and add, "What a clever girl, you were so good, look how beautiful you are."
No one may touch THE hair, no one.
Three days later I'm exasperated, she has been recalled to the Aberdares.

Mom: A quick reaction unit

In a mad attempt to finish my work before Christmas I have taken a moment to assess the detritus on my desk. Aside from the requisite PC screen, tower, scanner, printer, keyboard, UPS and speakers, I have:

• 1 x Sony Z1 movie camera to play interview footage for research.
• 2 x useless Comrades Marathon running magazines. To be returned (with thanks).
• A sheaf of emails relating to the status of the para training of the Rhodesian African Rifles.
• 3 x tea cups – sadly empty.
• 12 x tapes, not in order, with hours of interview footage for research purposes, now all in the incorrect boxes thus I now have no clue what's on which tape.
• 1 x notebook including notes on everything from the beginnings of the Police Anti-Terrorist Unit to the contact details of all the butcheries in town.
• Application forms to register an NGO.
• Said NGOs working constitution.
• 12 x books, all large format on the Rhodesian bush war, ranging from books on individual regiments to memoirs to complete histories.
• Empty toilet rolls to make 'binoculars' for the game reserve camping holiday we have planned.
• 2 x A2 sheets of paper with notes, sketches and other information pertaining to the book I am writing.

... or trying to write.

As I zoom out the playroom floor has mysteriously disappeared in a cornucopia of building blocks, Christmas food parcels, tea sets, musical instruments, crayons, puzzle piece, play dough ... and this to the ever-increasing wailing of two young children fighting over a wind-up dog, the kind you put on a pencil: the head on the front and the tail at the back, then you wind it up and it walks. They don't have a pencil, just a head and a tail.

As I get my facts straight about the first Fire Force jump from Buffalo Range by the Rhodesian SAS on 22 September 1976 (?) the wailing has turned into a full-blown fight and they are at my chair, each brandishing half a dog.

Any parenting book will tell you that by getting cross and shouting you are merely adding another tantrum to the mix, well sod that, a short, sharp few word, swift discipline, each to their own naughty corner and now ... the sweet sounds of a happy game in progress down the passage.
... and me? Back to Fire Force: a complete vertical envelopment of the enemy, encircle it entirely and, very quickly with highly-trained, highly-motivated and highly-disciplined troops ... MOM!

The Little Red Number

You're pushing 40, you've known your husband almost half your life, you have two children, a bond and an SUV. What you no longer have is a sexy wardrobe; it's practical, sensible, user friendly and comes in a variety of shades that just about conceal most food types and bodily fluids.
Of course this isn't true for all, I gawk at 'Paris Fashion Week Mom' every morning I drop my daughter at playgroup. But I'm a hands-on, outdoorsy mom and anything tight, short, low-cut, lacy or racy no longer occupies space on a hanger.
In my twenties I could open my cupboard and do anything from a modern Scarlett O'Hara to Scarlett Johansson (without the lips). So when your tenth wedding anniversary comes up and there is literally nothing I can buy my husband that is romantic, pricey and comes in a box I'm forced to think out of that proverbial box.
Ha! I will be the gift. I will be Julia Roberts sitting at the bar counter somewhat nervous but oozing sexy in that racy, lacy, low-cut, short, heeled little number. But I'll see her and raise her one, mine will be RED. Yes, red; the colour of love, the colour of passion, the colour my husband has never seen me in, the colour I don't have.
I live in a small town – news travels fast – so I ask two girlfriends for help, both refer me to 'Little Miss Perfect'. Groan and horror. The mom that makes all other moms feel totally inadequate; the one who remembers to put a jersey in her child's bag, remembers which days are swimming days, coin laying days, cancer sprayathon days, funny hat days and every other possible day schools can come up with to make most moms spin. But not this one; she's composed, a hint of makeup, her hair is clean and blow dried, she works full time and I bet has that Stepford Wife gourmet meal ready in the evening as she tenderly kisses her successful husband hello, and no doubt is a ... in the bedroom. Her kids eat their vegetables without threats of imminent extermination and colour in the lines.
We couldn't be more different so we acknowledge each other from a distance, greet when we must but are pleasant at close quarters, as I said, it's a small town. Turns out she's the only one in this small town who actually may just have the Little Red Number I'm looking for.
Why don't I just buy one? For all the reasons above.
We have never celebrated our anniversary, we seldom even remember it. But this is a round number and I just know he's bought me something romantic and pricey that comes in a box. So I'm determined and will not be swayed. (Fortunately we don't have to meet at the Wimpy, there is a larger town a little distance away.)
He'll receive a mysterious note to meet me at (tbc) and there I'll be, waiting, gorgeous, more beautiful that the day he first saw me .. a full night's sleep and slightly later than 5am start permitting.

Of Poppies and Potties

I always remember to remember, and then forget Remembrance Day. So I got a head start and shared my most meaningful video on Facebook yesterday. Then of course I remembered, all day.
But in remembering it gave me the opportunity to teach my children something very close to my heart and important in my family.
It's tricky to get the meaning across to young children for two reasons, it's a complex abstraction and they have very short attention spans. Remaining true to myself I had no doubt I could teach them this in an afternoon, a short one. My self belief is unshakable until shaken. My daughter (2) knows she played with red glitter and saw daddy in a photo. My son (4) may have stored, although possibly misfiled three or four keywords and knows he coloured in, in the lines.
Briefly, which is so difficult for me I'm going to bullet point it:

• Printed one easy & one standard colouring in picture of a poppy
• Sat on floor and told them today is a Special Day
• Called Remembrance Day, because we remember today
• We remember all the people who have ever kept us safe (from chat forum, thanks)
• We remember birthdays with cake, Easter with eggs and today with a flower called a poppy

"Do we have poppies in the garden mom?"

"No."

"Why?"

• They coloured their poppies in
• Sat on floor again and looked at photo of daddy in uniform, in the bush – radio, rifle, the whole shebang
• Looked at daddy's grandfather's medals
• You get a medal for being very, very, very (can repeat up to 20 times for emphasis, they do) brave

Then I did a very quick recap on why the day was special, and my son asked why daddy was different. Ha! They (read: he) gets it. I am vindicated. I am a super mom, a hero of the cause, champion of the 'boys'.

Pleased, I asked: Different because he was a soldier? Yes. I told him lots of daddys were and are soldiers and we are very proud of them. We are very proud of daddy.

I felt chuffed and triumphant and asked: So, what do you think? 

Simultaneously:

"Can we go ride our bikes now?"

"Wee-wee."

Mom time: Just me, me , me ... and him

Four. Four is an absolutely fantastic age. I'm loving four. It's all about the world around you. It's inquiring, it's inquisitive, it's energetic, it's enthusiastic, it's exhausting.
If you're paying attention it's up close and personal, in-your-face development that is fascinating to watch, and not a little scary because you can literally see the influence you have on your child. What you say and what you do matters, because they will say it and do it tomorrow, so what do you want them to say and do?
They're learning right from wrong, distinguishing between fantasy and reality, understanding the concept of consequences ... or at least most of them are.
There are a lot of "it's not okay to say that," and "let's talk about that later", and "did that really happen or were you hoping it would happen?"
But then you always get those tiresome few who appear to have spent these all-important developmental years in the laundry cupboard because aged 40 they seem incapable of telling right from wrong, and in this case, sadly, fantasy from reality.
I'm approaching the 12th kay of a half marathon recently when a man trots up alongside me, gives me a long look which I am aware of but cannot meet. It's paramount that I look straight ahead otherwise I will fall over my feet, or someone else's.
He says: "you have baie mooi boude."
Really?
You've come all this way to run through the misty Kaapschehoop mountains with wild horses, suck in deep lungfuls of gorgeous air, cruise downhills and THAT'S what you're looking at?
So I say: "Really? That's what you've chosen to look at?"
He says: "I'm not a boobs man."
Excellent.
Lucky me.
I say: "You shouldn't be looking at either."
And then the without-fail clincher: "It's a compliment!"
Urgh!
Not only does this jolt my perfect running karma but it grates because the last is said over his shoulder as he accelerates, leaving me and my "mooi bode" used, withered and violated in his dust.
If only I could have tossed a carefree laugh to the wind over MY shoulder and said gaily, "well watch them disappear then."

Why mom's should not drink from dodgy creeks

Picture it ... because I did ...
Roughly on the seven kilometre mark a runner, light and effortlessly makes her way into the creek, Rose's Creek. It's late evening, the light is just managing to still push through the canopy of overhead trees and touch the creek in such beauty that runner pauses, crouches, marvels up and down, thinking: this is why we moved out of Jo'burg.
She splashes her face with the cold creek water and then in a mad moment slakes her thirst before flitting up the mountain trail filled with the sense of embodying the very essence of a forest nymph.
An hour later she's doubled over the toilet purging her body from the unthinkable, cloying bug ingested in that beautiful creek.
I will not let myself imagine what is happening above said creek and what I could possibly have swollowed.
I was in the bath with my daughter when Rosecreekious set in and I started turning green and salivating copiously. But what to do? Mom's can't get sick. One in the bath, one in the shower, no soap applied as yet, warning orders to give: 5 minutes, then you need to tidy up and switch the shower off. Then first try and catch 2-year-old girl who thinks this is play time and hiding and running away from mom while naked and wet is a fabulous idea. Ten minutes later the shower is full blast and a second warning order issued as little one swept up and now screaming because, really, mom, you are such a party-pooper.
Then drying off, then greasing up (my children are very dry). then jarmmies, the lengthy rigmarole of kissing and 'ugging all and sundry goodnight, then bottle, lights out, jarmmies again, into bed, out of bed to choose a book, back into bed ...
"...ahhh, you start reading (he's four, can't) mom will back in a mo."
Thank goodness for helpful, if somewhat crippled husband.
So much for the picture of health and light footedness.
Not right that we can't run in the mountains and drink from its creeks.

The Warrioring Crusader and the Grinch that stole Christmas

As parents my husband and I, at this very moment, are fielding everything from dry nights for our eldest to potty training for our youngest, making the mammoth decision on selecting a primary school and answering the endless stream of mind-numbing questions. This is our favourite from the weekend: Can a lions eat rocks?
Then there's the endless stream of instructions, cautions, requests, beratings and, yes, commands, raising of voices, shouting and more recently patient discussions on why you can't eat Niknaks for breakfast, why you shouldn't blast your sister with the hosepipe and why we don't drink bath water.
In all this it would be quite nice to have an hour to yourself. I'm very clear on that: "This is mommy's weekend too." Of course daddy has to pick up the extra slack then but it's that or mommy goes to mad.
As an aside both my children have come up with songs that repeat the word mommy an astonishing number of times. One is simply: "mommy, mommy, mommy." to the tune of nah, nah-nah, nah, nah.
Yes, by the end of the day you wish you were hearing impaired and yes, I often go to bed at night saying sternly to myself: "I will not smack the children tomorrow." And I wake up begging for patience as they fight, over me, first thing in the morning, jostling for territory on the bed.
Oh and we both have jobs, you know, to earn a living to pay for that incredible primary school and the luxury I have of being a mom from midday onward.
This is daily parenthood. Hovering like an ominous cloud over all this, that we try our best to ignore, are the BIGGIES: peer pressure, bullying, drugs, teenage sex ...
But I absolutely love all of it. Every single moment and I would not trade a single refrain of "mommy, mommy, mommy" for anything in the world. My heart bursts with love and pride and absolute amazement every time I look at them.
So when faced with the decision on whether or not to include a family member for Christmas who has days before returned from administering to the Ebola-infected masses in West Africa how is it that we, having obviously said no, stole Christmas?
A better plan would be to offer your medical services in a refugee hospital in Syria or Iraq, that way you either come back, or you don't. Sniper bullets have no incubation period.
Humans are inherently afraid of what we do not know or understand.
Insanely, a return from a European city stricken by a flu epidemic would have precluded our Grinch-like behaviour. But then we know flu, don't we: it is the single biggest annual killer.
Go figure.

Season Two, Episode One

If our first adoption was like navigating our way through a minefield then our second adoption, that of our little girl, was more of a ground offensive with us as the target suffering barrage after barrage of incoming fire. We were the French troops at Dien Bien Phu, Picket's confederates at Gettysburg – out-gunned and out-manoeuvred no matter which way we turned or to whom we appealed.
A 15-month long emotional assault with weekly incoming sucker punches. Finding our way to our daughter opened our eyes to the scandalous industry that is the South African social welfare community and its lackey, the 2005 Children's Act, to be fair it's the regulations that govern the act rather than the act itself.
You could comfortably say that by the time we had her in our arms we had seen it all, heard it all and felt it all. We were raw, frustrated on every possible level and in no doubt as to where adoptive parents feature on this particular food chain – they don't even make it up the first rung.
So, when in March I accompanied my son to his friend's fourth birthday party, and the mum's got talking, as is our want, and the conversation turned to sharing our boys with girls when they're older (every mother's nightmare), I was blindsided and struck cold with these words:
"I'm so glad I only have boys [three] because at least then when they're older and they impregnate [sic] a girl it's not their problem."
This mum has no idea how lucky she is that by this stage our daughter had been safely home and warmly bonding with us for a year and that this had not taken place at said boy's third birthday party.
Of course I was astounded by this archaic thinking (thankfully I wasn't the only one), but having lived and breathed every word of the Act and its regulations – which now grants equal rights to the biological father as the biological mother – my jugular began to twitch.
Both biological parents must sign consent for a child to be 'adaptable'. Once consent is signed, either or both have 60 days in which to change their minds and rescind said consent. How often do you imagine the birth father is around to sign consent?
In the absence of his presence an advertisement must be placed in one local, one regional and one national newspaper for a period of 90 days. If he does not respond to that he forfeits his rights as a parent.
These two chunks of the new born's life do not run concurrent to one another.
The above opinion on the boy's responsibility is not, unfortunately, unique. So the baby waits at a place of safety for five months. But wait, that's not all. The government in it's questionable attempt to place children with adoptive parents of the same race, "so they don't loose their culture," instituted a national register, known as RACAP (Register of Adoptive Children and Adoptive Parents). The Act states that this register is simply to keep a record of children who are adoptable and screened adoptive parents. It even makes sense: at any time an adoption agency or accredited social worker can have a look at the weekly updated list and know exactly where a child or parents may be found.
That's what RACAP is on the outside. Inside it is a festering cancer of racism, because the real purpose of it is to give black couples (who by the way can adopt from birth) an extended opportunity (a further 30 days) to adopt any black child on that register. Again this period does not run concurrently.
Six months. That's how old the baby will be before it may legally be placed with a loving couple – desperate to start a family and shower a child with love and opportunity.
So tell me Party Mom, when will that attitude change so that the millions of unwanted children can at least have a chance at a happy, fulfilled life? Because here's the rub: couples who want to adopt, want newborn babies, or babies as young as possible. They don't want to miss a moment. And they certainly don't want to miss three months of their child's life because 'it wasn't your son's responsibility'.

Dodging the mines to adopt in South Africa

Three years ago I became, not depressed, but flat, restless and unhappy. This is the antithesis of me. I’m upbeat, have more energy than I can use in a day and am a positive person. I laugh a lot and I had stopped laughing. I have a big smile and I had stopped smiling. And I felt enormously guilty.

I had everything. Perfect husband, a close relationship with my family, a small close circle of friends, the perfect job, a lovely home and yet I couldn’t get one thought out of my head: is this it? I felt so guilty about this recurring thought that I didn’t tell My husband because it would make me seem ungrateful and because, more importantly, make him feel awful.

After a while of this torture, just like that, in a flash I realized what it was: I had the capacity in my life for more and that more was children. Up to that point I thought I didn’t want children so the idea that I wanted to be a mom was farthest from my mind.

When I discussed this revelation with My husband he was excited and we immediately set about that dreadful word ‘trying’. Because that’s what it became, very, very trying. I’m the kind of person that when I want something I want it now. It takes me time to make the decision but once I’ve made it, I want it to happen now. And it didn’t. Not that month, not the following month, not the following year (or two or three) and not after four AIs and two IVFs.

Infertility has been referred to as a complex life crisis, psychologically threatening and emotionally stressful. That single sentence blandly sums up a world of obsession, tension, financial burden, mechanical sex, weekly dietary changes, herbal remedies, blame, self-loathing, indignity, embarrassment, jealously … all neatly cloaked in the myriad things that accompany hormone treatment. It’s a living nightmare, hideous on so many levels. So much so that when our fertility doc said we needed to look at donor sperm my brain flipped. No. No more. Even though My husband was happy to continue I just couldn’t do it. And he respected that.

Over the years we’d touched on the topic of adoption, once, fairly seriously, around the dinner table with my folks. And in that minute when the doc was talking donor sperm and R80,000 I knew without a doubt that I wanted to adopt.

We went home and Googled ‘adoption’. Clicked the first entry, a private agency and phoned. We were told in implicit terms that they were no longer taking on couples who wanted white babies, their waiting list was just too long, and they were only doing trans-racial adoptions. Oddly the idea of adopting a white child had never really taken hold with us. The few concerns we had about adopting a black child were mine, not My husband’s. I worried about two things: would this baby feel like mine and would the child, growing up, experience unfair challenges about having white parents. Finally, what had become my mom’s mantra sank in: a child is a child.

At the introductory meeting with our social worker she said something, which I know she came to regret (and she’ll smile and concur): the process happens as quickly as you drive it. So I drove it. We completed the intensive screening process in six weeks. For the first time I felt empowered. I was now playing an active part in our starting a family and even if these activities were psych evaluations, medicals, affidavits, police clearances, extensive in-depth interviews, I was driving it and I was doing. In between evaluations on the strength of our marriage, financial status and individual psyches I was teaching myself how to sew, making my first, gorgeous baby quilt, sanding down and varnishing the wooden floor in the baby’s room, getting ready.

Then the bomb dropped and my world fell apart, again. I really wanted a little girl. I know why. Because my mom and I have such an incredibly close relationship, I wanted that too. The final step in the screening process is the home visit. After our social worker had ascertained that we actually did live in a house, we sat down to talk about ‘our’ baby and I asked how long it would take. She said that there was no telling, that we would have to wait; it could be six months, it could be a year.

That was it; the past three years came flooding out in uncontrollable, ugly, snotty sobs. Not wise in front of your social worker when you want to portray the picture of stability. When I went to wash my face and blow my nose she told My husband she was worried about me. Fortunately My husband, in his calm way, was able to alleviate her fears. When I came back she said it was because we wanted a girl. In general women keep their daughters so there are far more boys available than girls. She also told us about a four-month-old little boy – in fact she had mentioned him to us a few times over the previous few weeks – whom she felt would be a perfect match, but cautioned us against taking ‘second prize’. Discuss it and come back to me, she told us.

Three things happened. One: we went for a long walk and realized that what we’d hoped for and prayed for, for so long, was right there, in front of us, yet we were still looking all around it for something else. Two: Mom said, “Just because you might have a daughter doesn’t mean that you’ll have the relationship that you and I do.” Three, and probably the most important: before we left for our walk we phoned my folks and explained all that had happened. Mom said she needed time to mull it over and talk to my dad. Throughout the years of us trying to start a family my dad had not said a word; he kept his council throughout. When we got home I phoned. Dad answered – another thing that never happens – and he said, “Sometimes the things in life that are most unexpected work out the best.”

We met our little boy on a Wednesday afternoon. I cried as I held him in my arms and he laughed and smiled and gurgled as though he’d known me his entire four months. He chose us that day and we chose him.

Although I was mad about him and drank him in at every possible moment it took time for the feeling that I was looking after someone else’s child to go away and for quite a while I over-compensated with him emotionally; my mom straightened me out on that. A little while ago I found myself, quite seriously, explaining to My husband why Luke was going to be tall. Mid-explanation I realized that his height and physical characteristics had and would never have anything to do with us. But in every other way, he is our child and we could not love him more if he was biologically ours, In fact we believe we love him more because we chose each other on that beautiful Wednesday afternoon a week before Christmas.