Sun Halo

Hi all,

It’s been a rather hectic and stressful week for all of us. Despite Opa’s quintuple bypass surgery going really well a week ago he has suffered a devastating stroke during the week. I’ve not been able to see him myself, as littley’s like us aren’t allowed to visit patients in ICU, but Mom and Dad have told me that the entire left side of Opa’s body is not functioning and his speech is grossly impaired. In spite of this, Dad and Opa exchange notes to each other to communicate, so I’ve donated a whole bunch of my markers and notebooks to Opa for this.

As a result of Mom and Dad going back and forth to visit Opa, my week has been a little on the quiet side. Monday morning Mom and I did some major shopping for household goods. We were indoors at the shops when Dad starting IM’ing photos of the sun to us. You may be wondering what’s so special about that? Well, on Monday morning there was a sun halo visible for almost 2 hours over Johannesburg. It created quite a stir, and pretty soon people all over Johannesburg were posting their pictures of the halo around the sun to Twitter and Facebook. Before the morning was over, the topic of sun halo was trending in South Africa, and the next day it was even shown on CNN! What excitement.

During the afternoon, Mom and I spent a great deal of time in the garden. Mom tended to the pool and I got busy with other stuff. Eventually I decided I needed to swim too, and I climbed into the pool fully clothed. What fun! In the afternoon when Dad arrived home there was still enough light for him to build my trampoline. Mom and I helped, and pretty soon we were all bouncing up and down in the trampoline pod. I was having a ball.

Tuesday morning Mom and I decided to give Toptots for a trial class. I loved it, and Mom agreed that we would join the class for the rest of the term. During class we drew a lot, danced, sang songs and played outside. After class I had a nice snooze, and then in the afternoon Mom conducted a BabyGym class at home.

On Wednesday morning I had music. As always I loved my time with teacher Liesel. After music we met Dad at hospital where he was visiting Opa. In the afternoon we then visited Cornel and little Juané; it was an awesome visit. We arrived home quite late and we all decided to go out for a quick bite to eat. A new shopping centre had opened up the road, so we went to the Wimpy there; it was awesome. We also walked around the sparkly new centre and did some shopping. While shopping Mom found an inexpensive tea set which I desperately wanted. Back home Mom, Dad and I sat on the Persian rug ‘drinking’ tea.

The Haahoo Park (Delta Park) was first on our agenda on Thursday morning. I played so hard that when we left Mom had barely pulled out of her parking bay and I was asleep. After my snooze we spent some time in the garden in the afternoon but it started to rain. Mom spun me round and round in the rain – it was so awesome. We then ran giggling through the rain back to the house. I spent an age playing in the bath with shaving cream, and loved it.

Friday we spent most of the day at home. Mom and I were very industrious in the afternoon tidying up my cupboards, and I rediscovered lots of forgotten toys.

I found Saturday to be exceptionally busy, and to make matters worse I was fighting a cold. Mom and Dad both had separate work matters to attend to so I was at Granny’s place for the most of the morning and into the early afternoon. Once Mom and Dad and I left there again, I promptly fell asleep in the car. As had become custom in the house, Dad went off to the hospital in the afternoon to visit Opa.

On Sunday I was still fighting my cold, so as we were getting ready to leave the house I fell asleep. Dad used the opportunity to snooze with me. Once we were all up we shopped for a mosquito net, as I’m being ravaged by them at the moment, despite tonnes of measures being taken to prevent being stung. Afterward we had a late lunch at Piatto and then we all went off to visit Opa again.

That’s it for this week. Please keep my Opa in your thoughts and prayers as he now battles to recover from his stroke.

Love,

Jarrod

Photo 1 Sun Halo over Johannesburg

Photo 2 Fully dressed in the pool

Photo 3 Helping Dad construct my trampoline

Photo 4 Dad and I on my new trampoline

Photo 5 Being cute

Photo 6 Chilling on the trampoline

Photo 7 Dad and I having tea

Photo 8 At the Haahoo Park

Photo 9 Ready to slide

Photo 10 Shaving cream time

Photo 11 Making notes for my weekly blog

Photo 12 Reading to myself