From week ... to weak.

Hello Friends (grab a cup of coffee, this one is a little long, sorry!)


I told you before how this week started of with Mandela day. The day when everybody gets to send a big "figurative hug" to Mandela by donating 67minutes of their time to uplifting the community. Well it was astonishing how many people rose to this challenge!


TLC had over 200 visitors on Monday! Our preschool corridors and one classroom got painted, we had 2 lunched prepared for us! (one on Sunday and one on Monday :-) ) and our babies had so many cuddles and our hardworking volunteers had such enthusiastic help - they thought they were in paradise!


It was Nadia's 4th birthday that day and anybody who knows Nadia knows that she has an oversupply of self confidence :-) Well imagine if you will her delight at being sung "Happy Birthday" to at school by 100 paintbrush wielding members of our Department of Social Development, then again by the group who had prepared lunch, then again when the kids got home and she got ot open her presents! She even had her picture taken with the chairman of PPC's "Chairman's fund" that helped us get our poultry project off the ground! Needless to say her rendition of "Happy Birthday Dear Nadia" has been doing the rounds for most of the week!


This was also the day most of the kids went back to school after their 3 week holiday, so there was a certain amount of logistical chaos ~ what with our now sickening car shortage being compounded by a national strike that has seen our petrol station run out of fuel for 4 days out of 7 lately!


Tuesday was marked by my Doctor's visit with Paul. Paul (12) is significantly smaller for his age (growing 0.8cm in 4 months) than he should be and the specialist who has been monitoring his growth patterns is now concerned that something is very wrong with his glands that are supposed to produce growth hormone or something. He has booked Paul in for a series of tests this coming Tuesday and we will have to see what is going on. Ofcourse Paulie would be one of the children not yet covered by our medical insurance ~ sigh!


Vivienne's Faith ~ a miracle of grace!

Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday morning and Wednesday evening went by in a blur as we attended meeting after meeting with social workers, donors, volunteers and friends.


Thursday I spent almost all of it in court with Similo and Nadia ~ the social workers have agreed to advocate that they get placed in my foster care so that they can finally be settled and I can enrol Similo in school for next year. After court Nadia was quick to remind me of my birthday promise of getting her haircut and her ears pierced ~ so dutifully I took her off to Southgate where she got her hair cut by (in her words) "her tall, bald boyfreind!" and then she had her ears pierced, finding the man who held the piercing gun far less "attractive" after he spiked her in one ear and then expected her to hold still for him to do it again to the other! She was quickly consoled when she saw the results and the pretty gold hearts that had magically appeared in her lobes :-) After that she managed to extract a pizza, a fanta, a toy cellphone and a pair of purple sunglasses WITH WINGS on the frames before we got her out of the mall and back to the car!


Thursday evening we attended a function at St Katherine's school. It was a Storytime Pajama Party being held for the small girls, so Theresa was attending. She had to dress up in her PJ's and got to bring a teddy along - all the girls snuggled together in the auditorium and were read to, while the parent's got to meander through the hall which was set up with books to buy (ofcourse :-) ) Well, I don't know how many of you know how much I love books (I was an English major after all :-* ) and whilst, as I'm sure you've notice, our life does not afford us with much "lesiure" time, I couldn't help myself and ended up buying an armful of books that I hope to be able to read ... at some point!

Theresa had to dress up as a character from a book on Tuesday ~ she chose Robin Hood :-)

After the function we had to make a search of the local petrol stations to find one were we could buy fuel for the minivan - otherwise half our kids would not be getting to school the next day! Luckily it did not take long and we managed to fill the jerry can we had and a few empty cooldrink containers, bring them home and funneling them into the petrol tank ~ thanks to a sawed of vuvuzela that acted as an excellent funnel :-)


And then Friday ... I WAS SICK! We had had several kids in and out of bed with the flu all week and usually I managed to escape such dramas but not this time! I was feverish, achey and my throat felt like perhaps I had swallowed some of that petrol from the night before. I spent most of the day in bed, presenting myself only for the 2 meetings we had and to say Hi to our faithful Ricoh chefs who had come to make a meatball meal for lunch :-) I dosed up on "Ambrotose" (thank you Susan!) and Viral Guard (thank you Sonia) and then I slept and slept and slept (thank you Ellen, Zoe and Mom who filled in on babysitting duty) and by Saturday morning I was much improved.




So there you go ~ a week in the life :-)
I hope it was a good read ... I couldn't sleep so I got up early, started one of those books I bought and thought I should let you all know what's going on :-)

We Love you all
Pippa