Plett Holiday - Jan 2006

2006 was a year of holidays.

Our first holiday was in January 2006, when I took the two kids on an aeroplane down to Plett to spend time with my Mum. Jordan was only six weeks old and Brendan was 4. The holiday did not start well. Bad weather meant we could not land in George, so they flew us to Cape Town, back to George and finally back to Jhb. After ten hours in the plane, we were back where we started and had to try all over again the next day. Not a great experience when you are flying alone with two small kids. The rest of the holiday, however was really amazing. Mum used to keep Jordan for three hours every morning - in between breast feeds - and Brendan and I used to go to the beach. It was just what Brendan and I needed. We built castles, played games, swam, walked and talked. Some really really special days after six weeks of chaos after Jordan was born. Brett and Natalia were also at Plett in January. Brett was really great with Brendan and spent lots of time playing with him and taking him out on his board.

Looking back at 2006

Looking back at 2006




2006 was a year of change for me. I changed my car - which I really don't do often (only my 4th car since getting my licence) . I changed my job - also something I don't do often. And finally my life changed as I adapted to having a second child. 2006 was also a year full of fun, friendship, challenges and lots of holidays.






I was on maternity leave for the first three months and took advantage of all the extra time. Nicole and I went to Mums and Babes which was a first for me. It really was lots of fun - even though our kids were quite small and not always up to all the activities. It really helped me bond with Jordan after all the stress experienced before and during his birth in 2005. Nicole and I spent lots of time together which was great and she got me hooked on scrapbooking which was something I thought I would never do.











Brendan started at "big school" - Grayston Preparatory. He was so ready to go and so excited - but after only a week decided that this was not where he wanted to be. He had a terrible first term where the teacher had to pull him off me crying hysterically every morning. It was a really stressful period and I thought about pulling him out of the school on several occasions. We sent him to a therapist to try understand why he hated school so much, but it turned out to just be a really bad case of separation anxiety. He just wanted to be with me all the time. I bought him a little photo graph album with photos of me and him together and the rest of the family and that really helped. To this day - over a year later and 3 albums later - he still takes his photo album to school and is usually holding it when I fetch him in the late afternoon. He also had a really great teacher who he got to really love and feel comfortable with and in the

second term a new class member Steven joined the school and the two of them became really good friends.

One of my favourite photos for 2006, was this photo of Brendan and Jordan taken in March 2006. Jordan was almost 4 months old and loved playing with Brendan on the bed.

In April 2006, I had to go back to work and Jordan started going to the Nedbank Creche. Amy was also right there with him, which was really great. Jordan also started solids at this time which was really messy. Brendan was starting to see the benefits of a little brother - especially when Easter came along and he got to find and eat Jordan's easter eggs.

My Boys

An updated picture

To get you started

To my dear friend,

I hope this is the start of something you can keep up to date.

Love

Nic