E - Vida

The morning after the event, I woke up with a fright - What's the time?! What day is it?! Oh no, have I overslept?! It's 6am. Relax Ashleigh...the event is over. You can sleep a little longer. On Saturday night, before pre-event day curfew, my roommate shared a horrific story of how her watch had stopped working the night before a big race...there she was enjoying her breakfast at a leisurely pace, while the Venue Operations Centre frantically awaited their brief and emergency radios before the race. Some people in this business don't travel without at least 2 backup alarm clocks for this very reason!! Standing at the Start on Sunday, as I watched the umpteenth team head off, I glanced down at my watch and realised that her story had literally stopped my clock! Fortunately, (I didn't care too much about watching the clock after a successful 3.30am rise n shine and) I was safe... Perhaps my watch was just tired - because she started up again after sunrise...

It's a little after 4am and I'm watching my family form letterland characters with their bodies, across my bed. Unless I'm the 'underline' in the word, I have no place to lay my head here... That's a pretty normal situation these days - The only difference today is that instead of a sleepy tussle for my rightful place in the alphabet bed, I'm wide awake, mentally preparing for my drive out to Swellendam at 6am. And it's just dawned on me: this is the first event of the peak season for me, I'm almost on my way out the door and a daunting goal (Ethan's self-soothing) is 3 and a half weeks in motion. Yippee!! I remember thinking about this a lot before heading back to work in August, wondering how (and if!) it could be done and whether I would miss this event altogether because of it - or drive through daily (which aged me considerably during our events in March)... And here I am, almost 4 weeks clear of a 4 year practise - and ev...

Tomorrow will mark 2 weeks since Ethan gave up his no.1 'soother' and grew up just a little (lot) bit more! But today's he's swaddled up in his big Sis' pink blankie as he battles day 4 of the Awful Bug that has plagued the duPs since Thursday... "Don't call me baby" is what his strut has been saying for weeks now - picking out clothes (and shoes!) to wear, carrying his adult size water bottle under his arm, handing me the peanut butter for his sandwich and initiating the hugs and kisses at bedtime. So you see, this swaddle is just a cover... ...Underneath all of these furry layers on this sunny Spring day, lies my 19 month old son who's growing up! Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Scrolling through some photos this afternoon, I came across one of our friend Tarrin-Rae and her new baby girl, Isla, born last Thursday 31 October 2013. Isla Grace Graham I struggled to contain my own emotions as I observed this special moment in Tarrin's life (and new Isla's too) and thought back to my own experiences. I immediately asked Tarrin if I may use this to share a bit more of what I some times feel as a Mom... At first glance, I see relief . She's finally here! We can see her face in real life and we can say out loud "I am a Mommy!" Like my own kids, Isla was in no hurry to be born and labour was induced. What's worse than having to wait 40 weeks to meet your newest family member?? Having to wait longer still! I must confess, that this feeling was mixed with a fair dose of disbelief  on my part too - when I sat quietly resting between visitors and feeds, I had to pinch my literal self and realise - the baby was here. Then I see comfort ....

October turned out to be quite a bright and busy month for our family and P-J's summed it up pretty accurately in this photo collage (cool, free programme) and I don't even think he realised it!  First came the birthday - an entire weekend of celebrating! And this, I admit, was where the idea was not only fed, but also watered and nurtured into a little seedling... Then last week, we sold our trusted, reliable, well-loved Opel Estate Station-wagon. A little surreal still. The Opel was our first car purchased as a family and despite some work needed soon after we bought it, she served us well.  When I think about some of the things we did - piling our swim things and Crespo into the back for beach days, moving our and other people's house many (many) times, loading all of our belongings into the car and on to the Shosholoza Meyl train to Johannesburg, bringing home both newborn babies from the hospital... ...I have to wonder how we could've parted with...