Young mommy

Being a young mom was awesome. I was always the youngest mom at all the P.T.A meetings and I loved the fact that when my daughters got to high school the other mom's thought we were sisters.

The day my eldest (now turning 22 in November) was born, I was 16 years old. I fell pregnant as a teenager and got married two weeks after I turned 16. I gave birth on November 22nd 1988 in Constantiaberg maternity ward. As I was not there the day before to pre-order my lunch, they brought it to me with a small bottle of red wine. I remember it so vividly it was a bottle of red Nederberg wine 1984 vintage (nogal). When the nurse brought it to me, I looked at her in disbelief. "who is this for?" I politely asked, pointing to the wine. "Its for you" was her reply. "Wow" I said, "but I'm not even old enough to drink". Then she looked at me with a look that said; but you're a married woman with a baby, what are you doing here.

Being young when you have your first child can be both scary and exciting at the same time. Not having any 'life' experience I didn't know what to expect. My mom tried to tell me of her experiences and covered most of the basics, but failed to mention one teeny tiny and particularly horrifying experience. I had to discover first hand what an enema was!!! Yip and now I know!!!

Friends and friendships

I have always considered myself a friendly person. Someone who can befriend anyone. You don't have to run in the same circles as me to be my friend. You don't have to have a lot in common with me to be my friend. In fact the more different you are, the more interesting I find you. Thanks to the internet there is also a whole range of social media in which we could connect and form all sorts of different friendships. You don't have to be like minded or think in a similar way to me. I enjoy conversation and a healthy debate. A little argumentitive banter is always good, as long as we realise at the end of it all that we can agree to disagree. I guess what I'm trying to say in a round about way is that we are all different (no surprise there) and that we should celebrate our differences-> ooh a very politically correct statement! I personally would find life very boring if we all thought and acted the same. Yes it's nice when people agree with you on an issue, but I find it far more exciting to meet someone who can look at a situation from a totally different perspective. I love meeting new people and learning about their life experiences. Yes sometimes that means I open myself up to being friendly with people who may, to an outside observer seem an unlikely companion, but hey that's me! (that's how I roll) My mom used to say: "this is my daughter Karen, she can talk to a stone" My first 4 years in school all my reports ended with "Karen is a chatterbox". I guess this was partly due to the fact that I was an only child until the age of 10 and desperately wanted a sibling to rival with. However having said that I like befriending all kinds of people I have realised recently that this also allows me to invite some not so savoury characters into my life. I also realised that people judge you by the company you keep. It is a sad but true fact that, if the company you keep is good, people will try and find your weak spot and focus on that. If the company you keep is bad, you will inevitably get tarred with the same brush and be perceived as equally vile, no matter how innocent that relationship is to you. So Sometimes in life we have to step back from what comes naturally to us and say: Is this good for me? is this friendship harmful to my well being or my families well being? and if the answer is yes, well then there is a tough choice to be made.