Bath time fun with Fizzles!

South Africa is in the midst of a drought and bath time has become kind of boring for my kids who used to be have a bath filled with quite a bit of water and loads of bubbles.  Since we’ve been on a water saving mission of late, they are not allowed bubbles anymore and they’ve been quite anti bath time because of this (and by they I mean Gemma, Kade actually couldn’t care less).

Until a few weeks back when I was at the pharmacy picking up a script for a sick child (again!) and I noticed these cool little tubes on the counter.

They promised to make bath time fun and I quickly threw one of each colour into the medicine mix and decided to try them.

What I love about these little water colour changing tablets is that they are completely safe to use and don’t mark or stain my kids.  They can be used in very little water and my kids absolutely love them!  They laugh and giggle as the tablets fizzle (excuse the pun) away in the water and we’ve had great fun mixing the colours to try make new colours out of them (I wish there was a yellow Fizzle so we could really teach them how to make colours cos so far we’ve only been successful in making a really cool purple by mixing the blue and red Fizzles)

The kids latest thing is to jump into the bath before the Fizzles have dissolved and to put their knee’s on the tablet and let it run down their legs screaming “I’ve got red/blue/green blood”

Such a lot of fun for bath time!

Disclaimer : I was not paid for this review, my kids just really loved them!

 

 

They weren’t lying when they called it the Tough One!

There is this thing that you get when you are a runner.  It’s called runner’s FOMO.

In April of this year I had entered to run a 21km race called the Cradle.  I was sick as a dog and ended up downgrading my entry to a 10km and then sat with my RWFL buddies to wait for my running partner who was running the 32km race.  The more I sat and waited the more the FOMO built up.  I knew there was no way I could have run *that* 32 feeling the way I did that say BUT I knew that I wanted to start training for another 32km.  The problem was that the only 32km race left in the race calendar was the RAC Tough One!  TOUGH ONE.  I mean, the name kinda says it all right?  But I was in the thick of runners FOMO and my running buddy who was also in the thick of running FOMO sat there and said “ok we are entering tough one.”

That was the start of it.  What transpired in the next few months was training and on my part a lot of doubt in my capability to run that far.  I was training every weekend (even when we went away to Zebula and Kruger) and increasing the distance gradually to get close to where I knew I needed to be.

Yesterday was the BIG day!

They were not lying when they named this race – guys, it was REALLY TOUGH!  With an elevation of 527m you can just imagine how hard it was.  I was lucky enough to have Cliff ride along on the race route encouraging and cheering us on.  It was so great having him there helping me and my buddies stay strong in mind.

I was feeling strong until around 24km and then I hit the wall.  I battled till around 28km where I felt ok again and then I hit another wall with only 1km to go!  However even after all of that, somehow at the end when we heard we only had a minute to break the 4 hour mark we managed to do a sprint finish and came in under that 4 hour barrier!

The race itself (besides for being tough) was so well organised – water points were always well stocked and they were spaced every 3km which was awesome.  The marshalls and JMPD were great and the crowd support was so nice.  There were some families that had set up water stations outside their gates and around the 26km mark there was this guy handing out watermelon and nik naks – that watermelon REALLY hit the spot!  The only negative I had been that there were not enough loo’s at the start – the queues were really long and thankfully I was not needing to go!

 

All in all I am so CHUFFED that I managed to do this race.  I am so proud of myself for pushing through and crossing that finish line.  The mental barrier of doing more than 21km’s is amazing.  My body can survive and keep going for 32km’s.  Now that I am preparing for the Oceans Ultra I am feeling a little more confident in my ability to do the distance required.

Lets do this!  Oceans here we come!

Lets talk about Mommy Judgement…

Today was one of THOSE morning’s.

You know the one… the one where you are tired and can’t drag yourself out of bed but know you need to get cracking otherwise you’re going to be later than you normally are.  The one where all you want to do is drink your coffee to wake up but your kids are going “mommy, mommy, mommy, mom, mommy, MOMMY, MOM, MOM, MOOOOOOOOOOOOM” and you shout “just let me drink my bloody coffeeeeee” which spirals into them crying cos you shouted at them and makes their ears turn off so you end up repeating yourself 500 million times and end up shouting some more to get anything done and the family out the door and into the car?

Yes, I see you nodding your head – you have also had these mornings.

By the time I got to the school parking lot I won’t lie I was over it.  I got the kids out the car and told them to grab their bags.  Kade grabbed his and then grabbed Gemma’s too but his hands were full and I could see he wasn’t going to manage to carry it all.  I said “leave it boy I will carry it” and he didn’t listen.  For the millionth time.  So I raised my voice  shouted “just listen to me, I said leave it!”

Across the car park, there was another mom getting her kids out of the car and she judged me SO HARD.  I got given a death look of note and I think she even shook her head slightly at me.

You know what?

I know how it must have looked – this bitch mother shouting at her kid for trying to help out.  But what she judged in that moment was a culmination of a bad, bad morning.  I’ve been her some mornings, watching another mom lose her grip on her temper but you know what?  I smile at that mom and say ‘I TOTALLY know how you feel, good luck for the rest of the day’ or will show her some solidarity with a side wink or a shrug or something.

Why do we JUDGE each other?  I bet you that mom today has shouted at her kids so hard that her throat has hurt.  I bet you she has told her kids to get out of her space so she can shower in peace.  Yet in that moment where I couldn’t hold onto my temper in public at my kids school she judged me.  In her eyes I was clearly found wanting.

Just because we are HUMAN and are not PERFECT every second of every day, just because we SHOUT at our kids doesn’t mean we love or appreciate them any less.  It makes us normal.  Mom’s who are just doing the damn best we can.  Let’s support rather than judge.

Because I won’t lie, it sucked to be at the end of that woman’s judgement.  I felt like she thinks I am a bad mom.  I know I am not a bad mom, I am a good – no,  I am a GREAT mom who just has bad moments.

Tonight I will hug my kid and I will know that while I’ve angst’ed about this the whole day, the matter in his head was forgotten by the time he realised I had forgotten to pack his hat for school.

 

 

 

The Great Train Race!

COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED AND OUR LUCKY WINNER WAS CASSEY TOI!  CONGRATS CASS!

Ever since Kade was a baby he has absolutely loved trains and his obsession with Thomas started young.  We had all the track sets and our collection of trains had included Thomas (about 4 of him), Percy, Emily, Diesel and even Harold the helicopter!

We were recently invited to attend the premier of the Thomas and Friends The Great Train Race movie and we couldn’t have been more delighted to attend the event.  We got to the event slightly late cos Gems woke from her nap later than expected and boy was it in full swing – face painting, balloon animals and the raddest Thomas play area ever.

The movie itself is super cute.  Thomas and his friends have all been jazzed up and brought into the 21st century and who knew they could sing so well?  Fans of the tv series will totally get what I’m saying, when I say that for the first time I actually found myself liking the fat controller ( he always comes across as rather brusque and unlikable in the series… just me?)  I loved that the movie really focused on theme’s of “being true to yourself” and “do what you do best” but honestly the bit that I loved most (watch out my inner feminist is about to rear her head) was that the pretty FEMALE engine entered the same contest that the hard-working MALE engines traditionally would have : that being the shunting contest.   I also loved that it wasn’t only Emily that was entered into the best looking contest (the trains got some brilliant paint make overs) but one of the other male engines too (his name escapes me right now).  Way to go Thomas and Friends for bending gender bias!

The movie is also only 61 minutes long so even our Hurricane sat riveted the whole movie long.  It is showing at Ster Kinekor Theatres until this Sunday so if you want a really nice family afternoon out (and a way to beat the heat wave in Jozi at the moment), I would recommend going to see it.

Once again the kids were spoilt rotten with the most awesome goody bags at the end of the event – we have to bath every night with our Thomas face cloths, and the puzzles and megablock toys have entertained them no end.

All in all we had a divine afternoon with Thomas and his friends.

I know that many of you must be Thomas fans and I have a fabulous mystery Thomas & Friends hamper valued at R300.00 up for grabs!

This hamper consists of two Thomas toys that are aimed at kids 18 months and older – and the best part is you CANNOT get them in South Africa – so if you are the lucky winner your Thomas fan will be THE ONLY kid with these in the country – how COOL is that?

To enter click on the Rafflecopter link below and let me know in the comments what you think the toys in the hamper are!

a Rafflecopter giveaway