Persistent (to the point of irritation) and determined. Short-tempered. Emotionally manipulative. Blue-eyed with a big smile – so it’s easy to get away with blue murder. Loving. Affectionate. Knows exactly the right thing to say at the right time. “Mommy, you’re the most beautiful mommy in the world.” Old soul. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, I don’t want to bath, I will shower in the morning.” Chance-taker.

Addicted to Angry Birds. Better than his mother at Angry Birds. A charmer. Soft-hearted. Confident, yet prone to moments of shyness. Puddle jumper, cat chaser, plastic-motorbike-rider. Story-teller with a vivid imagination. Lover of comics, superheroes, balloons, playground and having his face painted. Eater of pickled onions, olives, steak, spaghetti bolognaise and gherkins. Hater of eggs, oats and potatoes.

Wicked sense of humour. Still, a boyish one. Fart jokes are beyond hilarious. Lover of the Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. Drinker of chocolate milk and ice tea. Dresses himself. Water baby. Brave little swimmer. Wearer of goggles. Obsessed with animated Transformers and Optimus Prime. Says the darndest things. (After singing baa baa black sheep) “Mommy, why does the little boy live down the drain?”

Clumsy, big-hearted. Easily excitable. Easily offended. Can hold his own in an argument. Sticks up for his mother. Is his own person.

Awed doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel.

How does one choose between all the photos taken over the months as the perfect picture to sum it all up, to sum up 2011 poignantly and eloquently? How does one pick between which arguments and which battles were the most memorable, and which victories were meaningful? How can we even hope to distill the funny, fleeting moments with the small people we have created, when they pass so seamlessly, one into the other?

Days blur into weeks of routine and comfort and doing what feels good and before you know it, the year is done.

And honestly, I’m pretty fucking relieved it’s done. It’s been long and complicated, and quite frankly I’d sooner be done with it. I’m quite willing to let this year go un-recorded in some sort of traditional highs/lows/turning points kind of retrospective. Why? Because attempting to explain the kind of year I’ve had? You probably wouldn’t believe me.

And I know I’ve basically implied I wouldn’t be discussing any turning points or the like, so I won’t. Suffice it to say there have been many, and I’m looking forward to a slightly calmer, more-room-to-breathe kinda year. Lots to decide on, important official things to tick off the list.

And that, gentle readers, shall have to serve as an obituary of sorts for this last year. A handful of oblique sentences, and no, unfortunately there’s no photo, either.

As for summing it up: 2011? Get thee behind me, bitch.

Needless to say, we’re lovin’ it.

What are your holiday plans?

You had an amazing time at your birthday party – the gladiator water slide and the jumping castle are two of your favourite pastimes – and having both in the same space was pretty much your idea of heaven. Despite being sick (tonsillitis, yet again) you enjoyed the heck out of your party. The tattoo suckers were a massive treat. In fact – had we bought nothing else but a few boxes of tattoo suckers, I don’t think any of the kids would have minded. I spent about 24 straight hours in the kitchen – baking, cooking, preparing, grating, cutting and generally enjoying myself. (It’s true. My favourite part about your birthday parties is the preparation of the food.) And your dad and I always seriously over-cater in terms of everything – although this year we were better than previous years.

The weather was amazingly hot. As it always is. You adored having people sing happy birthday to you, and relished blowing out the candles on your Hulk cake, that your Granny ordered for you. You stuffed your face with cupcakes and kept up the tradition of eating the head of whatever your cake was that year as you devoured Hulk’s head.

You had an even better time once everyone had gone home, and it was just you and Jackson – and the run of Dave’s house. You bathed, jumped on the bed, (am also a bit mortified to report: may have poohed on Jackson’s bed) ran around, played games, and generally exhausted each other out, to fall asleep 5 minutes into Rebecca telling you two a bedtime story. After 10pm that evening.

You cried when I picked you up out of Jackson’s bed and you woke up and realised I was taking you home. And you cried for Jackson all the way home too. I have a feeling that you two will be friends for life. It will be good for you. Just don’t get him into too much trouble, please!

Over four years I’ve watched you develop into your own, independent-as-far-as-possible person. You love to shower by yourself, dress yourself and more than anything else in the world – you love Ben 10, superheroes (both marvel and DC), Lego, terrorizing the cats and strawberries. You love taking pictures of yourself and posing in the mirror.

And even though I’m sick to death of picking up a squillion Lego pieces and am beyond bored of Ben and his cheesy one-liners, for you I will haul out that monster box of blocks and build cities and robots and suffer through yet another episode of Ben and Gwen.

You love reading your daddy’s big encyclopedia on comic book heroes and baddies. You adore the big book on Hulk and your pop-up books on monsters and Dracula, even though you’re still a bit too little to be able to restrain from yanking out some of the pop-up creatures.

You think farting and toilet jokes are hilarious and you’re always proud of your poos. And I’m not ashamed of the fact that I think the fact that you think fart jokes are hilarious – is kinda awesome. Because it’s so easy to make you laugh.

You have a magnificent laugh. Boy-ish and care-free. And a wicked cackle when the something you’re laughing at is particularly naughty or disgusting. You’re a total boy, and I must say I sort of revel in that. I’m not very girly, or soft – and I love how rough and tough you are.

The one thing that does make me soft and completely melt my heart is how much of a mommy’s boy you are. Much like your daddy. And that, my son, is not a bad thing. You love to kiss and cuddle, you love to snuggle before bed time and you love drawing me pictures. Everything you make at school is made with me in mind – your daddy is a little jealous, I’ll have you know.

You love singing songs and building puzzles and baking with your dad. You love your motorbike and your grandparents. You’re a little shit-stirrer and a heart-breaker and an emotional-manipulator – but you’re mine.

You’re ours. And we’re grateful for it. All of it. All four years of YOU. Ups, downs and rollercoasters. Helplessness, heartache, happiness, overwhelming love and responsibility and reward.

And growth. So much of it. How we’ve all grown in four years. My, my, my….

And love. More than anyone in the whole world, ever. From the moment we laid eyes on you.

Happy birthday, son.

The Body Thrills online store is finally done. It’s finally live. It’s finally finished. We did it and it’s out there. I had help from some amazing people – who poured their love and soul into it and breathed my vision into life.

Lexi Fontein – the designer with the magic – completely read my mind and took the picture I had in my head and transformed it into an amazingly sexy and slick brand. The pin-up girls, the vintage Victorian flourishes, the fancy fonts and gorgeous colour-scheme – Lexi totally channeled my essence and personality – and it’s visible in every single little detail on the site. She’s also incredibly good at weeding out the unnecessary requests and puts her foot down when I suggest anything that she feels isn’t right for the over-all feel.

She’s excellent at dealing with panic, tight deadlines and she goes out of her way to form a personal relationship with each of her customers. I was INCREDIBLY thrilled to be working with her on this project. She did a stunning job giving my product labels a total makeover. And an even more spectacular job on my store – I’m sure you’ll agree!

Alana Meyer is who I chose to photograph my products – I met her at the beginning of the year for the Sass Designs dress shoot that I was involved in, along with some other hot blogger girls. Alana’s main talent is her amazing wedding photography – but she didn’t hesitate when I approached her to do product pictures. It proved a bit challenging with her busy, busy schedule (she’s one in-demand wedding photographer, let me tell you!)  I spent a fun few days with her overseeing the picture-taking – and am very, very pleased with the results. She made my products look every bit as beautiful as she would one of her brides – so thanks, Alana!

Byron Rode. A former Durbanite like myself, was also only to happy to lend his services to the Body Thrills online store project. Byron co-founded Tangram – a creative agency focusing on brand, website development and design, Mac and iOS development, mobile applications and internet consultation. He worked his nerdy magic on the development of my site, and taught me how to use the WooCommerce toolkit. (Which I adore, btw!)

Byron is another smart cookie that can totally read my mind – and was practically implementing changes and making tweaks before I’d even suggested them. He’s patient with my blonde questions and will explain things a million times if necessary -  and I really appreciated his one-on-one dedication to my project and its myriad requests.

Graeme Lipschitz. The connector of the dots and the puller of strings. Twas him that introduced me to Lexi Fontein (who happens to be his wife) and him who set the ball rolling toward getting a proper, grown-up online store. He is officially in charge of all things vaguely marketing-related and makes an awesome cheerleader – both online and off – and is head-over-heels in love with  Body Thrills products. Which is as it should be, as Graeme & Lexi have taken on partnership in the Body Thrills brand – and what an awesome addition to the family these two make!

Lastly – and most importantly. A big thank you must be said to my fiance. The man with all the patience in the world. The man who bank-rolled my brand makeover and encouraged me every step of the way – even when encouragement meant kicking my ass into gear. He’s done his absolute utmost to give me everything I could ever want – and to make all of my dreams come true. I am totally lucky and totally blessed to have him.

And totally blessed and immensely fortunate to have such immensely-useful and totally generous friends too! So what are you waiting for, have you checked out the Body Thrills store yet? There are some incredible Christmas specials going on, you know!

Right?

Last year, sometime before the festive season – my darling beloved fiance gets it into his head that it would be cool to get The Kid (all of three years old) a bearded dragon for Christmas. Like everything he does, he researched the shit out of bearded dragons on the Internet, found a place to buy one, and there it was. In my lounge. This itty bitty reptile.

And it was totally cute at first. It was little, it was fascinating and The Fiance enjoyed feeding it baby crickets and The Kid enjoyed watching him. But then holidays were over and Fiance returned to work, and I was left (most days) with the task of catching baby crickets. Soon the task became catching almost-giant crickets – a task which is VERY difficult to do without tweezers (someone broke the big plastic pair we had from a first aid box that made the task a bit easier. I’m not pointing any elbows, but it certainly wasn’t me. So then I was forced to use SIDECUTTERS. To catch crickets. Do you feel my pain yet?). It’s also FUCKING difficult to catch crickets in a box, while trying to hold the lid of the box with your other hand, to prevent the other cricket occupants of the box from jumping out and escaping. For months and months I had boxes of crickets perched on my desk, right near my computer – and MAN do those things STINK and seriously. They never fucking shut up. Constant chirping. INCESSANT.

Keeping the box of crickets on my desk didn’t seem like such a bad idea – The Fiance wanted them there, because he sat IN MY CHAIR AT MY DESK when he caught Mojo’s food – until we got a kitten. A curious, persistent cricket-eating-cricket-LOVING kitten. Seriously, no jokes. When she heard the lid being pulled off the cricket tub – she was up the stairs and rubbing herself all over your face while you were trying to catch crickets and trying to stick her head in the box.

It was easy enough to fend her off by tossing her outside, but then Xena waited until I was out of the room, jumped onto my desk and swatted the box of crickets, spilling out 90+ crickets, cricket shit (which stinks) and gnawed-on carrot shavings, onto the new carpet in the loft upstairs. There were crickets in my couches, under my desk, in the cupboard, under the rugs, on my chair – FUCKING everywhere. At about a hundred bucks a pop for a box of crickets – which lasted about 2 weeks – I was, at that very moment in time, panic-stricken and a little bit ‘aw fuck, are you serious?‘.  I wasn’t about to let a new box of reptile chow go to waste – but at the same time, I didn’t want to actually have to TOUCH any of them. Damned if I did, and damned if I didn’t, I shrieked my way through catching at least half of them, with the assistance of the housekeeper. She was actually in hysterics at how hysterical I was and how much I shrieked, as I tried to corner a cricket and catch it in a tea towel. The cat cleaned up the rest of them – and it was only once I could no longer hear a single cricket chirping anywhere in my house, did I forgive her.

The Fiance got shat out for leaving his box of crickets on my desk when he KNOWS WE HAVE A CAT, DAMMIT and I demanded that we investigate other food sources. I bought a R120 bag of lizard pellets. Mojo never even TRIED to eat a single one of them. Just turned his scaly nose up and gave me the ol’ fuck-you eyeball.

Superworms and silkworms are marginally easier to catch with a pair of sidecutters (it helps that these fuckers can’t jump or scurry to another part of the box) but then the lizard can’t eat them every day, because they’re too fatty, apparently. Superworms also require their heads to be snipped off before you feed them to the reptile, on account of how THEY FUCKING BITE. Yup. Worms bite, people – they are not, in fact as HARMLESS as they seem. Consider that myth busted. Silkworms eat and crap A LOT – and I’ve just been through three years of nappies and shit, so I’m not cleaning up anyone else’s shit. In fact, i think the housekeeper tossed out the tub of silkworms, on account of how full of silkworm shit it was. Ooops.

Roaches (yes, hissing cockroaches) lasted (i.e: didn’t peg if you forgot to feed them – wtf is this anyway, feeding the food?) a lot longer than crickets, but come rain or shine, The Fiance had to take the box outside to catch them, and had to swear an oath to hunt down and immediately kill any escapees. All I had to do now was grate carrots for him to eat between his roach and worm meals.

And I would have been totally okay with doing just that, as long as The Fiance still wanted the thing. But Mojo, after shedding four or five times, turned into a boring brown (I still think he’s beautiful) – when my beloved had wanted a yellow bearded dragon. Apparently the colour you get is luck of the draw (whatever), but he’s pretty much over Mojo. Novelty has worn off. And since Mojo has been nothing but a grumpy c**t whilst he’s been shedding, no one’s been too keen on giving him much personal attention.

In exasperation the other day, after being bitten by a worm, I tweeted in jest the other day and offered off my lizard, complete with terrarium and a free box of roaches. The Fiance had been debating putting the thing for sale on gumtree (after all, we spent a fortune on that terrarium, lighting, electricity, crickets and assorted other creepy crawlies) for some time, but I think he was more than a little relieved when I called him to say that Angel was interested in the lizard for her son.

The Knucklehead, as he is affectionately known by his mother, seems like he has what it takes to be a better lizard mom than me. And so, just as soon as I’ve persuaded (read: found the right bribe for) The Kid, I’ll be one of those awful people. One of those people that buys an exotic pet, and then a few months down the line, gives that exotic pet away.

But seriously. Can you blame me?

I’ve learned my lesson though. So this year, when The Fiance suggested getting The Kid a PSP for his birthday, I agreed without hesitation. Why? Because at least I won’t have to catch crickets for the PSP. That’s why.

“This is mommy,” he says. “Mommy when she’s cross*.”

* In my defense: it was probably because I’d just discovered this, behind the couch. In permanent marker.

With less than a month until my Kid’s FOURTH birthday, I find myself a little startled. It was just the other day that I sat down at my PC (yes, those were my pre-Apple-everything days) and wrote him a post on my blog for his first birthday.

His birthday party then was planned months in advance – now, it’s a handful of weeks away and I haven’t even sent out invitations. His fourth birthday just came around so quickly it sort of took me by surprise. Seriously? He can’t be FOUR already?

He’s amazing. And I’m not just saying that because he’s a product of my own genetic material – he really IS amazing. His ability to forgive and constantly expect the best out of people all of the time makes me grateful for his capacity to love and let go. I hope that it never gets taken away from him – because the ability to forgive is one of the most important skills in life. I hope that no one (myself included) ever takes that away from him.

He’s innocent and full of the fun of fresh boyhood and yet has a rather old-soul slightly warped perception of the world. His grasp of sarcasm and how he relates it to each oh-moment in his life just makes me wish I could bottle those moments to return to (much like dumbledor’s pensieve) at a later stage when I need to be reminded.

Reminded that this little demon child currently swinging the cat ’round in circles in the laundry basket is capable of the sweetest (albeit snottiest) kisses and the most incredible hugs. The volume of love is incredible, as is his penchant for destruction, mayhem and (lately) Lego blocks. He can spend hours building robots and cities and Iron Giants.

He’s also made immense progress in other areas, and has gone from completely toilet-phobic and only wanting to Number Two in a nappy (as well as needing a nappy at night for sleep) to fully potty-trained and no longer needing nappies at all. In fact, he found swimming nappies in his cupboard and made me toss them because “I’m a big boy now, Mommy.”

And he is – he sleeps the entire night – at least eight or nine hours and has his wee when he wakes up in the morning. It’s been about two months now, and we’ve spent them nappy free, with a total of four accidents. And he’ll Number Two in the toilet daily – for two Wilson’s toffees. Heh.

That stuff might not seem like a big deal to you – but think about it like this: being out of nappies and using the toilet is one step away from him no longer needing me to wipe his bum. Which means he’s growing up and we’re eventually going to reach a point where he doesn’t need me for anything.

Again. I can’t believe he’s nearly four. It feels like he’s been a part of my life forever and I can’t imagine me (or my life) before him. It kinda seems a bit hollow and meaningless in comparison.

I return again to the potential for love within this child. It’s infinite and he has so much to give. He’s taught me so much about what love really is. That love that’s so different (yet just as strong) as the love I have for his father. In a way, he showed me the truth in the words ‘love is not selfish’ and learning this lesson is what made it possible for me to embrace a love of another sort.

Four years – the first was the easiest and the hardest. I felt too needed, too flustered and too new at this. The terrible twos didn’t seem that bad in comparison to the terrorist threes. Smacked bums help nothing and he laughed at me the other day after I administered one.

My son, my love. My heart. I look forward to him being taller than me by the time he’s seven and I look forward to everything else that growing up brings with it.

I walked out of a mall this morning to discover my car – picture above – still where I parked it – but not in the same condition it was in, when I locked it and walked on my merry way into the shops to exchange a pair of shoes I bought last week.

No one was around, no one saw anything; not one of the car guards or security guards knew anything about what had happened to my car. Obviously. Just my freakin’ luck.

Fuck. My fiancé was unbelievably calm about it, his legendary temper didn’t even make a hint of an appearance.

And me? I’m just sad. My poor mommy car has been through so much. I don’t really blame whoever pranged into my car and just drove off – after all – what would you have done if it was you?

So yeah. That was *my* day. Please tell me yours was better?