by Brendah Nyakudya,  a single mum to a 4yr old girl. Admittedly not the best cook, but loves exploring the outdoors with her little one. A political and social commentator she has just started a blog As I see it. During the day she works for management consultants in Johannesburg.

Every so often my daughter says “Mommy I am going to marry Ben tomorrow, because he is my boyfriend and he said so”.   Its sweet and I earnestly pray that for her love is indeed that simple.

As a single parent, love and dating are such complicated issues.  On the  one hand I am an easy date because of my hassled lifestyle.  Anything that doesn’t include me cooking and begging someone to eat, far away from the constant cries of “mommy, mommy” would be my idea of a romantic date. So on a bad day, a drive to McDonalds with an adult man, just the two of us would be romantic.

But on the other hand, because I am a single parent, I am the toughest client to please.  People always assume that when someone has a child its harder to get back into the dating game. It’s a correct assumption.  But the mistake they make is thinking the child is the hindrance to them having a social or a love life – the opposite is true, it’s us, the parents, who get in the way.

As a single mom I have become even more cautious and critical when approaching the dating game, because I now have a little life and heart I am responsible for.  I no longer have the luxury to just “kick it” and see how it goes. People say I am too picky but I have to be!  The minute someone shows interest it would be remiss for me as a mother to not gauge how they would be as a parent.  It’s too risky getting attached to someone who cannot connect with your child.

Trust is another big issue because unfortunately the world we live in is cruel and dark. Everyone has read those devastating stories of sexual and physical child abuse at the hands of those we loved, trusted and let into our lives.  How do you protect your child from that?

And that’s not all! Logistical factors also come into play. When do you introduce your child to a “suitor?”  Do you do it early in the game, before you get attached, so you can test it out but risk your child being introduced to lots of different men should it not work out or do you wait until you are sure, which has its own disadvantages should they not get along and you have already fallen in love.

All these things rush through my head the minute someone asks for my number and it may seem psychotic, but it’s my reality and these fears and issues are real and sometimes too daunting to even face for “dinner and a maybe”.

Which would probably explain why this Valentines I will be having dinner and dancing with the love of my life (read: forcing a 4year old to eat and then jumping around to Boogie Beebies).

But I will sleep happy, content and in love.

by Kojo Baffoe a man, a father, a son, a brother, a husband, a friend, a poet, a writer on a quest to make sense of this reality, with words. Author of ramblings .

We had it all figured out. From the wedding to first child, we had had a solid five years to find the place and our rhythm. Our life together operated like a well-oiled machine. We did not have to think about it. Everything had its place and its time. Weekends we would often curl up on the couch, under a shared blanket and watch movies – well, I’d watch the movies and she would sleep – or we would go out for dinner to some of our favourite restaurants. In fact, once a month, the missus would identify a new restaurant and we would invite friends to join us to test it out.

Also, whenever we could, especially around our anniversary, we would go off to some quaint self-catering or bed and breakfast for some rest and recreation. We’d book spa treatments and spend the rest of the day in bed, braai in the evenings with each other, wine and good music for company. Yup. We had this whole marriage game down to a science.

While exciting and frightening, even the pregnancy period was relatively straight forward. The third party in our relationship went where the wife went so we maintained the dinners and the like. To that we added a regular visit to the gynae and, as the time drew closer, antenatal classes.

And, in a short, amazing moment, all of that changed. People tell you but I don’t think it really sinks in until it actually happens. A baby consumes ALL of your life. A spanner in the works does not quite capture how brutal and how extreme the change is; life-changing, amazing and wonderfully profound but still brutal. We were barely keeping our head above water.

Also, because the bulk of our families live in different cities from us, we couldn’t always drop him off for a break. And, while we had a great nanny, one of us always had to be there to ‘babysit’. We also discovered new dimensions to each other … we were now parents in addition to husband and wife. And Kweku demanded the attention and, at two and a half, still demands it.

How do we maintain romance in our relationship after the birth of our child? I don’t know. I don’t know if we even maintain it. We are still working our way through it. We have tried different things, including the infrequent coffee date or dinner date. Now that Kweku is older, it is easier (for us) to leave him and go out in the evening. Sometimes we get it right. Only sometimes. But, we do realise that we were before he was and therefore we cannot lose sight of us, no matter how blessed we are to have him.

By Gina Jacobson, a mom, a leo.  She works for a  non-profit organisation, is a procrastinator, loves sci-fi, sushi, good books and scrabble.Her blog is made up of A Bit of This a Bit of That.

With our 4th wedding anniversary coming up followed very closely by Valentine’s day I have been very busy thinking up ways to make that weekend romantic and intimate for Paul and I.  It’s also made me think about how often (or not so often) we get ‘lone’ time.

One of the ways we ensure that we don’t go stark raving ‘TellieTubbies-Tweenies-MeToo-BoogieBeebies-GetSquiggling’ mad is by getting my mom to have Aaron over for a sleep over every 2nd or 3rd Saturday night.  We spend that time relaxing by watching TV or going to see a movie or spending time with our friends.

I think we do need to make better use of that time by going out for dinner just the two of us, you know, the whole spiel, candles, wine, and dessert.

Another idea that recently came up is going out of town for a long weekend.  When Paul mentioned going to Cape Town our first thought was child-friendly accommodation.  Then I though to myself, well, maybe its time for Aaron to have an extended sleep over, 2 nights with his nana?

Just imagine 3 days, 2 nights, child free in another city…

It would be like having a mini honeymoon.  It doesn’t even have to be in Cape Town, it could be in Magaliesburg or some place else that’s only a few hours away.

I also think that part of the fun is making the plans to spend ‘lone’ time together, the anticipation and excitement.

So, while I go and start making these ideas happen, tell me what you do to make time for yourselves…

by Philippa Cross who would rather be outdoors than in, alone than in a crowd. She prefers dogs to cats, with a major leaning towards bulldogs. She hopes to win the Pulitzer prize for her yet unpublished novel. She started Thumb Media with a partner in June 2009

She’s absolutely gorgeous. Her phases are never mediocre, always extreme. That’s what keeps her in the news.

I’m talking, of course, about Angelina Jolie-Pitt.

 She started out dark, mysterious and scary, what with a vial of blood around her neck and reports of a Velcro wall in the bedroom she then shared with Billy-Bob. Then she outgrew the whole dark scary routine and embraced motherhood, transforming gracefully into a nurturing mother-earth figure. She became an ambassador for something or other and built an orphanage somewhere. I think the same place where she found her first son. A cute little chap. And she brought him home to America and named him Maddox.

Like Brad, who’s performance in Legends of the Falls inspired every second mother in the 90s to name their sons Tristan, thanks to Angelina, the last 5 years has seen the names Shiloh, Knox, and Maddox in the top 10 baby names worldwide.

When Madonna copied her whole routine, and her newsworthiness started to wane, she transitioned again, to beautiful wife of the most desirable man in Hollywood, if not the world. And she didn’t just meet him; she STOLE him from under the nose of Jen. Not an easy thing to do.

With the front page announcement of the split of the Pitts fresh out of Hollywood, the question on everyone’s lips is this: What’s next for Angelina and the kids? Here are some options  to consider if she’s serious about retaining her number one spot in terms of fame, she could….

Watch this space.

by Fiona Ingram, a  South African writer who loves books, travel, animals, antiques, and adventures of all kinds! Read Fiona’s  author site and find out about her recently published children’s adventure novel

Reading with your child is a wonderful pastime with so many benefits. Not only does this special ‘together time’ strengthen the bond between you and your child, there are other positive results. You’ll see the growth of your child’s vocabulary, awareness of the world, social behavior skills, listening skills, confidence, and many other developmental aspects. However, in a busy day filled with work, chores, ferrying to and from school, where does the frazzled parent find time to capture those few precious moments called ‘free time?’ Here are a few ideas on how to incorporate reading together for the family with not much time to spare.

Reading doesn’t always have to involve books. Our world is full of text. Use it! A busy parent can create a fun game in the car where the child reads road signs, billboards, helps with a road map, or spots registration number plates and creates words with the letters.

Shopping? The supermarket is a great place for looking for labels, reading labels, helping with the shopping list, and checking the listed ingredients on a tin or packet.

 Have fun while you cook. If you’re busy, have your child read something to you while you’re preparing dinner. This time it can be a book they are currently enjoying, something from the newspaper or their choice of magazine. Encourage your child to express an opinion about what they are reading to you. This will draw your child closer to you because your interest will cement the bond between you. Children love being the focus of their parents’ attention, and especially when they are doing something special with the parent.

Kids love baking! Make cookies and candy even more fun by getting your child to read the recipe to you first while you collect all the ingredients required. Then they can continue reading the instructions while you perform the task. Later (while the family is eating the cookies) you can say how much help they were. Praise is vital to your child’s performance. It boosts their confidence and makes them want to do this again.

 Dining out? Your child can have fun reading the menu and deciding what they want to eat. Having friends over for dinner? Ask your child to create a beautiful illustrated menu to show your guests. Most kids love the opportunity to get out those crayons and coloring pencils.

Audio books are a wonderful way of helping your child concentrate and develop listening skills while you’re driving. After a few minutes, stop the tape and ask your child questions about what they just heard. Make it interesting by asking what they think will happen next, or what they would do in a certain situation. This will help your child engage in the literary process in a fun way.

Find time in tiny bites. Don’t think that reading to or with your child involves 60-minute marathons. Just before bed is a special time between parent and child. Just 10-15 minutes every evening is possible, and will reap marvellous rewards.

Whatever you do and however much time you manage to squeeze out of your day for reading with your child will all be beneficial. It’s not the daily amount of time that is so important; it’s the quality of your word time together that counts. Don’t forget to have fun because that’s what it’s all about!

by Kerry Haggard,( @kerryhaggard) writes for a living, parents for fun, joy, excitement and curiosity, and is married to @Brettski for love.

 A friend and I were chatting recently, about the tough choices (or lack thereof) that moms are given. To put your children through decent education, you most often need to be a double-income family – but what are the implications of not being at home for the crucial formative years in your child’s life? “What about job-sharing?” she asked.

 I turned to my bff (the web) for research, and learned that in the US and Australia in particular, job sharing is common. Two people with similar skills share a full time job – and the salary that goes with it – so that they can still work at a level for which their skills are suited, adding valuable experience to their CV, and earning a decent income, while being available to invest important time in their children.

The sharing is done in a number of ways – either one works mornings and the other afternoons, or they take all the tasks for the position and split them, so that everyone else knows who is responsible for what. Another common way of working it is for each of the parties to work three days a week, so that there is one day where they are both around, to make continuity easy for everyone else that they are working with.

It seems though, that most of these situations arise where women working together create the job-share, once they have the buy-in of their existing employer – it’s not the kind of vacancy you would see advertised.

 I would so be keen for this kind of progressive thinking in the South African workplace – but the question is: are any South African companies up for it? Are they willing to adapt the rules to keep and nurture their best employees – those who have another full time job as mom and homemaker?

Bontle Shadi Makgwa, a single mother of twin Todd’s… 6 in July plus  carer of 3 siblings going through varsity and high school.  Aware and grateful for what she has, feels priviledged and believes this also brings responsibility

As a ‘Jozikids’ Mom, I was very disturbed by the disaster that occurred in Haiti and just felt the pain that those children affected could be feeling  as they now have no mother, father, sibling, friend or guardian anymore.  I got home after looking at the pictures I downloaded from the internet, after having shared them with my colleagues at work, I showed them to others  so that they could see and understand.  I explained to them what had happened and asked if they could pray with me for all those little children,  just like them , in the hope that they could one day be happy little ones.

My pledge is: to all the other mothers around South Africa to show or explain to your children what is going on there, make them aware how blessed they are, teach them to be grateful (no matter how young they are, the sooner they learn, the better) and a thought in prayer from a little one here at home can make another little child in Haiti have a chance in hope.

My deepest prayers and thoughts.

By Laura-kim single mom, recently divorced with 2 kids and the author of the blog Harrased mom.

My children have been attending a small private school in my area. It is no where near the level of a Crawford or St Stithians so while I got excellent education I wasn’t paying exorbitant fees.

We were all happy.

But then Kiara headed for Gr 1 and the jump in fees simply was not manageable for me. It would mean that I would be spending a huge portion of my salary on school fees leaving nothing left for anything else.

So I moved them to a public school, with the intention of then saving money, enabling us to start moving forward on our journey to financial independence. HA! Well it has not worked out like that at all.

Last year November I registered them at the said public school and had to pay R5000 to guarantee them a place (I paid R1600 for registration at the private school per child). Then I received the list of stationery and headed off to the shops! HA! What a mission. The lists state clearly that we must buy the names specified, which is great – if only you can find the names specified. So 6 shops later I decided to throw caution to the wind and I bought the products I could find. In total all the stationery and toiletries I had to buy cost me around R1800.

Then came the best part- the school uniforms of this public school. The girls wear dresses, very pretty little dresses that cost R235 a pop! I couldn’t only buy one and even two is stretching things. I work. I don’t have time to wash and dry uniforms every day. Her shoes were R179 (shoes which I think are already too small, two weeks into the term). The tracksuit was over R500. The golf shirt for her sports activities is R117 for one. she has a sport on 4 days of the week – so again, one is not enough. Her costume cost R170 plus she needed a navy blue towel (Are you adding this all up?)

Cameron fortunately still fitted into his gray shorts and shoes from last year, but I will need to buy new ones next term. But his plain blue school shirt was R75 (it’s PLAIN BLUE). He also needs a sport shirt – at R119 (prices increase as the sizes do) and soccer socks (for cricket also) at R45 for one pair (clearly it costs huge money to put a blue stripe on a sock). His tracksuit was also R500 but I ran out of money so he has the bottom (R300) and a jersey (R39.99 at Pep) – I will get the top for winter. His costume was R100 plus the blue towel.

Let’s not forget the school bags, the lunch boxes, juice bottles – totally R300.

In case all those numbers confused you let me tell you – since November last year I have spent R11 000 on school stuff for my children at a public school. And it is a happy day for me when they come home and don’t ask for something more – these days have been few and far between since school opened two weeks ago.

Now I don’t earn a huge salary but I earn a lot more than most people who are sending there kids to this school – HOW do they manage? How do they find R11 000? I used all my savings, asked their dad for money and borrowed from my mom to be able to afford it.

I am all for uniforms – really I am. But do we need R235 dresses? I don’t buy dresses that cost that much. Do we really need golf shirts for R117? Do the gray socks really need that blue line through them? I honestly don’t think so. The school has major issues with children wearing the correct uniform and I can now see why. Change the uniform and I guarantee everyone will be uniform tomorrow. To me its better having everyone in plain colours than having half the school wearing one thing and the other half another!

My kids have now had to get used to eating peanut butter sandwiches for lunch because I cant afford more than that right now – I am busy repaying my mom and trying to save for next year!

By Wendy Walker the mother of 10 month old Jaron who keep her on the go and inspires her and her husband Bruce as they head up Babyproofessionals.

There I was in my heavily pregnant state – back aching, feet more swollen than my baby shower balloons and anxiety increasing with every direction I glanced in my home. Detergents within reach of a creeping crawling baby. Loose bookshelves that threatened to tip if I walked past too quickly, not to mention the climbing antics of a toddler. How would I know if the sweet furnishings n the crib were a secret death trap? What would I do if my bay stopped breathing? As my huffing and puffing turned to gasping, well-meaning friends tried to convince me my child “probably” wouldn’t succumb to any of the hazards I’d seen played out in my mind. Probably wasn’t good enough for me. And so off I went to do my research… and the classic advice “Get on your hands and knees and see the house through the eyes of a baby” just wasn’t going to cut it in my pregnant state, not to mention the drilling and hammering and picking and sticking that would have to follow an expensive spree for baby proofing items.

“There ought to be professionals to do this kind of thing,” I thought to myself. And so it was that BABYPROOFESSIONALS was born – a professional baby proofing service offering everything from assessments and educations to supplies, installations and an online safety store.

In the course  of our training and practice, we have found home items that can be dangerous to your child. Here are 5 of the many examples:

Of course the average home is riddled with many more dangers than these, but we’ll keep that for another article! Keep SAFE and enjoy your little explorer!

Have you had any close shaves at home with safety? Tell us about it.

by Philippa Cross who would rather be outdoors than in, alone than in a crowd. She prefers dogs to cats, with a major leaning towards bulldogs. She hopes to win the Pulitzer prize for her yet unpublished novel. She started Thumb Media with a partner in June 2009

I am amazed how many people haven’t the faintest idea about how to approach toddlers and children, and how to respect their space. So many people believe that because they are little, their rights to personal privacy are somehow diminished. They reach out to touch them, grab a hand, pinch a cheek, and plant a wet sloppy kiss on their cheeks. Even complete strangers in Pick n Pay have walked right up to my trolley, and grabbed a little hand before I could stop them.

Like every mother, I think my children are gorgeous. They have perfect little faces full of childhood innocence. They have huge blue eyes, white blonde hair, and fat rolls round their knees and wrists in that adorable way only toddlers can pull off.  They are as pinchable and as kissable as can be. But I know better than to pinch their bums without permission though.

Even when they were tiny little things I approached them as I would approach a stranger who’s space I was seriously about to invade. I was gentle, respectful, and I asked permission. I never just assumed because I was their mom that I could lift up their t-shirt and plant a big zerbit on their tummies. I wanted them to be the masters of their young bodies right from the beginning. Obviously, there have been times when I’ve had to do what I’ve had to do. I don’t get their express permission every nappy change time, or every bath time.

I can’t be alone in having to keep a vigilant watch over my children when people visit. And when my sons don’t warm to them in the first 30 seconds of them walking through the door, I find myself apologising to them, trying to spare their feelings.

“Don’t take it personally, Nathan is just very shy. Give him some time and he’ll warm up to you.”

Bollocks to that. Nathan is three. You’re 63. You’re old enough to know better. Nathan’s not shy. He’s normal. How would you feel if someone 4 times your size walked into your house, marched straight up to you and tried to pick you up, puckered up their over made up lips and planted a wet soggy one on your cheek? You’d probably get the fright of your life and call the police. Why on earth should he know who you are and why you want to kiss him?

On the other hand, I do all I can to prepare the little chaps for just such occasions.

“Aunt Lillian hasn’t seen you since you were a tiny baby.”

“When I was a baby and I had a dummy and you changed my nappy?”

“Yes. Since then.”

“Like Dylan.”

“Yes, since you were as small as Dylan.  Aunt Lillian hasn’t seen you since you were smaller than Dylan is now. And she’s going to come and visit us today.”

“At our house?”

“That’s right. She’s coming to our house to visit you and your brother. And she’s going to want to give you a big squeeze and a kiss.”

“Like I kiss Hadyn at school?”

“Do you kiss Hadyn at school?”

“And Skylah.”

“You kiss Hadyn and Skylah at school. What does Teacher Anne say?”

<Giggle>

“Will you give your mom a kiss then?”

<giggle>< run away>

At which point I use the prerogative that is mine as his mother alone, break my rule, chase after him, pick him up, and force 100s of kisses all over his cheeks and his tummy. Just to show him who’s boss.  That will teach him not to give his mom a kiss!