Hmm, looking back over my blog for the last little bit, it is painfully clear that I haven’t been doing all that great a job of keeping you up to date with all the happenings in the Lotter household. So let’s sort that out, shall we?
Starting with Chantelle, well she is finally back at work having started the 1st of this month, and as can be expected everyone is absolutely thrilled to have her back (shame, except of course for Annelie, who filled in for her over the maternity leave period, and who will now have start looking for something else to turn up). With Andrea having to close up shop on her GameBox experiment, she now finds herself returning to Gordon’s Beach Lodge to partner up with Chantelle once again, meaning that the GBL work roster returns to more or less what it was back when Chantelle first started working there, which is a good thing because it means that we are finally back to a far more stable calendar! (And it is pretty cool because Andy’s little Annabella is only a month younger than Jessica, so the two new moms have plenty in common!)
Of course, this then leads into the question of what about Jessica? Well the good news is that we managed to get her accepted into a great little daycare centre here in Gordon’s Bay, but the bad news is that they only have space for her come the 1st of July. So for the next three months we’ve had to make a bit of a plan, which works out to me working from home on a Tuesday, Ingrid taking Jessica for a Friday, and then the remaining three days split between to Grandma and Ouma, both of whom will drive out to Gordon’s Bay to come look after Jessica on their active duty days.
Also, with Chantelle’s shifts having returned to the work every second weekend with every second Thursday off mode, I now have to further pull up my already awesome Top Dad socks and earn an even bigger best Daddy in the World mug because apart from the Tuesday run, I’m also now tasked with solely looking after Jessiebean for those weekends when wifey is at work.
Still, no complaints from this side, as we desparately need the second salary, and it is undoubtedly good for Chantelle to start getting out of the house and properly interacting with people again. And hey, we’ve already have our first roast Sunday lunch back at GBL with the extended family, so no hassles there! :)
Moving on to Jessica, well my little girl is doing fabulously well and growing up quicker than what I can keep up with. Outgrowing clothes left and right, she’s also started to finally pile on some healthy baby fat, meaning she is looker cuter by the day! She’s interacting with us more, making loads of sounds, smiling non-stop, thoroughly enjoying her baths and learning things like cause and effect – in other words if she does something like knock a hanging teddy bear with her hand, it is bound to start swinging which in turn brings her great joy! :)
And on the topic of movement, wow is she ever fascinated with anything that moves. Looking to entertain her? Just lay her under a ceiling fan!
She is also growing stronger by the day, lifting her little head up and holding herself in the air, sitting upright in the Bumbo seat, etc, etc. She is still enjoying mommy’s breast milk to the fullest and we remain the luckiest parents in the world considering she never throws up (other than a few escaped dribbles), sleeps through the night (generally from 20:30 to at least 05:30), and is generally just a fantastically well behaved little lady during the day (except of course after an injection. Those mess with her horribly!).
But make no mistake, when she’s not so happy (and this is usually in evening around 19:00), well let’s just say our neighbours are now saying they can hear her at last! :) (Idols material, I’m telling you!)
Moving on to the house. Although we haven’t done much to the interior of the house due to a severe lack of funds over the last while, we have been putting effort into the garden and the front beds are beginning to look quite nice, with lots of colourful flowers wherever you look. I’ve been doing a lot of replanning and shifting concrete slabs around the yard, and there is still plenty of work that can be done before we can call it quits before winter.
That said, we have been a little hampered thanks to the lack of tools caused by the garden shed break-in, but thankfully insurance is paying out, so any day soon we’ll be restocking the shed. (On that note, Auto and General are ridiculously high when it comes to their excess for theft!!)
Oh, and mentioning expenses Both Getz’s have now been serviced, mine for its 30,000 km check up and Chantelle’s for its 120,000 big one.
As for the past couple of weekends, we have had some good fun with the recent 1 year birthday party of Michelle and Gary’s little David, the christening of Malcolm and Andri’s Arum, Sunday lunch with the Lotters, Sunday lunch with the Ellenbergers, one or two date nights that invariably involve leaving Jessie with one of the grandparents, catching an early movie and then chowing either Panarottis or Spur, and of course for me, plenty of blogging as I plow a lot of time in getting my content buffer up to a good three or so months ahead of time!
My karate training with the Funakoshi dojo is still continuing strong, though it might be a little impacted now on the nights when Chantelle works a late shift and I need to take over Jessica. Also, I’ve managed to keep up a nice and rigorous training regime, with my early 06:00 jogs in the morning and my lunchtime elliptical trainer shenanigans at the gym. I’ve also finally started sinking more time into my reading (and by reading I mean of course manga and comic books). The only thing I haven’t really been doing is playing games. My poor dusty XBOX will just have to lie and wait for a bit – Jessica chews up one’s free time far more than one could ever imagine! :)
Oh, and the cats are doing fine too.
Right, that should cover just about everything that I can think of for now! So now you know the state of affairs of the Gordon’s Bay Country Mews Lotter Clan. Happy?