The Mealie...

Jake picked his first mealie (corn) on Saturday morning too and I cooked it up for him for lunch yesterday. Not sure if it's a biased opinion or not, but it was the most perfect and delicious mealie I've ever eaten...

Late on Saturday afternoon, we headed down to the Blue Peter. It's a great spot to finish the weekend off on a Sunday afternoon and it's normally packed. Saturday's are a very different story though and it was pretty quiet. It made a nice change to be able to actually get to the bar without any pushing or shoving. I had a cousin down from Jo'burg to visit his sister, who's here for 6 months, so the whole family decided to meet on the beach for sun downers and pizzas. The weather was incredible, so it was a good spot for us to spend the evening. To me, Saturday was the perfect summer's day - it was HOT and calm and we spent most of the day lazing in the pool. I am NOT a winter girl. Jake behaved like an angel, so we were all relaxed and happy and I was a very proud mommy. The sun shining through the clouds made the sea glitter and of course, I took too many photos again. Our party came to a bit of an early end (we continued with coffee and Belgian chocolates at home though), when the thick clouds rolled in and an impressive thunder storm began. Jake wasn't impressed - he's petrified of thunder, so he was only to happy when the heavens opened and we had to make a dash for the car.

Since my dad had his bone marrow transplant, our family has felt a special tie to the Sunflower Foundation. The foundation is responsible for raising funds that go towards bone marrow type testing, increasing the number of South Africans listed on the bone marrow registry and, thus, allowing people (via doctors) to find potential donors they wouldn't previously have had access to. Needless to say, sunflowers remind us of this amazing foundation and of the journey we've been through with my dad's and the successful treatment of his leukemia. We're so lucky to have him with us!!

Last year, Jake and I successfully grew a few sunflowers in pots. This year, we have a proper patch to work in, we decided to plant a few more. They've grown beautifully and are so much taller then last year's potted ones. Next year I'm going to convince Jake that we need to get a whole lot more planted!! The first flower opened last week and there are a few more that are going to open over the next few days. I just love their bright cheeriness when I open my curtains in the morning. Thanks to my macro lens, we've realised just how stunning, complex and utterly beautiful sunflowers really are...

This bee spent a lot of time hovering over the sunflower over the weekend. He/she was huge (like 2 - 2.5cm big!) and at first I was worried that it was a queen, but realised that queens don't do dirty work...

The birds and the bees...

Having a garden is educational. More educational then I was expecting, especially when you pay closer attention to the details. So, on Friday morning before work, Jake and I visited his veggie patch, as we do every morning. It was 7:30 and we had a few minutes to kill before leaving for school and work. I was trying to get some photos of Jake's first sunflower of the season and he was messing around, as usual, making sure that everything was as it should be. He came across these 'goggas' (bugs) getting it on and wanted to know what was happening. Thankfully, he was happy with my 'they're mating' answer. This time anyway. He's been very concerned with how baby Connor's going to get out of Jo's tummy and has asked Jo once how the baby got in there, but she told him to come ask me and he'd forgotten the question by the time he got to me. Phew.

I don't actually have any issues discussing the birds and bees with my son and I believe that we have the kind of relationship where he'll feel comfortable asking me these questions, when the time's right.

Here's another example of sex education in the garden. Below is a male butternut flower's bits...

And this is the female one...

The female flower is attached to a fruit and it has to be fertilized in order for the fruit to grow properly. If it's not fertilized, the young fruit dies. Unfortunately, in today's world, there aren't enough bees and butterflies to do the pollination job properly, so one of our 'jobs' in the garden is to fertilise the female flowers with the male flowers. Jake knows which ones are the boy ones and which are the female ones and he knows exactly what he's doing when he picks the boy one and pulls the petals off (undresses it) so that the boy bits can touch against the female bits. It's an education, I tell you!!!

Correction...

Her name is Jenna, not Gemma. Get it right, Mom!!

1 more thing...

Older women...

It seems my son has an affection for older women. And he seems to have quite a string of girlfriends. I'm not sure whether they like him, but at this moment in time, he's going to marry about 7 different girls (OK, there are really only 4 of us). I think we might need to change our cultural beliefs before he reaches 15, to accommodate...

Seriously though, first, he wants to marry me. I think this is a fairly common thing amongst young boys. Jake recently gave me a plastic ring that he'd gotten in a lucky packet (it's actually really pretty, I might wear it out to see if I get any comments) and told me it was an engagement ring.

Next in line is Sophie, who is the gorgeous young bride-to-be in Mamma Mia. Jake loves the movie and the sound track (he listens to it every night at bedtime and knows all the words) and he absolutely adores Sophie. Since I've explained that you can't actually marry your own mother, Jake's decided she's the one.

Hot on the heels of Sophie, is Jodie. Jodie's was at school with Jake last year and she's a full year older then him. Sadly, Jodie's gone to live in Port Elizabeth with her family, but the romance continues across the miles. Jake made sure that there were Christmas presents sent in the post for Jodie and her little sister, Maia and they've chatted on the phone a few times. It's too cute listening to them chatting away, completely unashamed. "Do you miss me?", "do you still love me", "have you got a new boyfriend at your new school", "when are you coming to visit me again" - seriously!! It pulls at the heartstrings!!

The latest addition to his list is a girl called Gemma, who's also a year older then Jake. He managed to find out her name on the first day of school and every time she walks past me, he points her out. Unlike the rest of us, she's got dark hair, so maybe his taste is changing. Anyway, I felt quite heartbroken when he came home from school on Monday and told me that he asked Gemma if she'd marry him and she told him that she was marrying someone else. But, he is a persistent bugger and continues to pursue her, all the while telling me he loves me (and Jodie and Sophie) more... Time will tell.

I must be honest, when Jake told me about his rejection by Gemma, it made me feel quite heart sore for the men I've turned down in the past. OK, I haven't done it that many times, but still. Shame. It must take a lot of balls to walk up to someone and ask them out - to be turned down, must be shattering. I'll have to be a lot more careful in the future!!

Funny thing in this whole story is that I was in Pre-primary school with Jacques. We were in the Yellow class together, so I'm taking special note of these girls Jake's fallen for - you never know, one of them might be my (dread!) daughter-in-law some day (when Jake's like 45!).

Lots of love, Sue xxx