3 posts tagged “kids”

It feels like it doesn't take all that much to be a lousy parent.  I can always be more patient, more understanding, more considerate, more attentive ... I can always be more for our little boy and whenever I am less than I could be for him, I just feel terrible.

We visited my friend Di and her kids yesterday afternoon. We hadn't seen them for quite a long time and with Christmas next week we had gifts to give them too. I couldn't believe how big Andrew and Simone have gotten.  Di's eldest daughter, Cassie, wasn't there.  She has become a voracious reader at 14 and is working through Jane Austen's books so we gave her Sense and Sensibility for Christmas.

Simone and her mom are really into scrapbooking so we gave her Christmas themed pages and other stuff so she can put together a Christmas special to chronicle their holiday season.  Di showed us what she has been doing in her scrapbook and the thought I had was that scrapbooking is pretty much analogue blogging.  The formats are pretty similar actually.  Her current pages are about her dad and have photos of him throughout his life.  She has also been taking lessons and they do seem to make a difference to things like layout and design.

Andrew is 4 already.  It really is a pity we don't see him that often.  I am his godfather and it would be great to get to know him a bit better.  Like most boys he is very physical and in the time we were at Di he walked in with a tennis racket and ball and the soccer ball we gave him for Christmas.  He also showed me how fast he runs and put on a bit of a performance which I captured on my phone (there is no sound because it would have been Di's conversation with Gina in the background):

I was going through my home movies and also found this video from last year.  It was pretty much the same type of visit and you can see Andrew opening his Christmas gift for that year.

Actually, it is almost lunchtime on Monday.  We had a pretty good weekend this last weekend.  I know I have been a little scarce here but between my hassles posting updates and everything else, I got a little sidetracked.

We had a braai on Saturday which was a lot of fun.  We decided to have some friends and family over and the weather worked out really nicely.  As I hoped, it was around 26 degrees (centigrade) and I even got a bit burnt.  I jumped in the pool, my brother wound up doing the meat and everyone seemed to have had a lot of fun.  I have posted photos to Flickr.

The puppies had a quite an experience.  They were around so many people, got to swim (often not when they wanted to) and had to contend with a little girl, Jessie, who was there with Sam and Lawrence. 

They behaved a bit better with Jessie although they did get a little too aggressive at one point.  It is a difficult one, we want them to adjust to children and the only real way we can achieve that is to expose them to more children.  We didn't socialise them as well as we should have to we'll have to keep working on them in the coming months and years.  I'm sure they'll be just fine in time though.