Letters to my Grandchild

  Em, you left for England before me and by the time you got back on 4th September I had left for Spain and I didn't see you for nearly 6 weeks.  That is a long time in a little girl's life and when I got back you looked so grown up!  You had a lovely time in England and Mom and Dad said you were really well behaved.  You went on the London Eye, you went to animal farms, went to Hamleys Toy Shop - one of the biggest in the world - and had your face painted like a little tiger! You met my friend Pat Cooper who is Graham's Mommy. They used to live in Durban and Mark and Graham played table tennis together and often slept over at each other's homes.  Graham came back to South Africa to be at Mark's wedding.  In the photograph here you can see Mark, Greg, Graham and Kevin. I was walking in Spain until then end of September.  You came to the airport with your Mom and Dad to welcome me home.  I was so happy to see you again!  I do...

Hello my darling Em, You are growing tall, like a weed!  At the end of January we measured your height and marked it on the inside of a cupboard in the guest room.  You were 87cm tall.  At the end of April you were 90cm tall.  You also have beautiful blond hair which Mom often puts into a pony-tail.  You look like a little angel! I went to Spain for three weeks to walk the Camino and while I was away you kept asking if you could go to Spain to see your Danny.  I missedyou while I was away but Tammy sent me emails from you.  This is one of them after her 30th birthday party at our house.  "Yesterday I went to Kelsey's birthday party she turned 3. She lives in our complex. We bought her a my little pony doll and mommy wouldn't let me unwrap it :( I have been playing with Craig all weekend and he keeps asking to to say delicious and I won't (but I smile and giggle at him a lot). He is such a nice man and mommy and daddy say he is 'so go...

Hello my darling Em. You survived your first BIG fall with no fractures - what a miracle - just a very swollen face!   You went to a birthday party with Mom and Dad on Saturday morning.  You were sitting on Dad's lap and as he tried to negotiate his wheelchair onto a concrete path his front wheels caught on the concrete and the whole chair tipped forward.  You flipped off his lap,  face first onto the concrete and Mark had to put his right leg down to stop himself from falling on top of you.  There was a lot of blood from your mouth and Mark and Tammy took you to Westville hospital. The doctor said that you had bitten your tongue and that it would heal in a few days. They had to put a wad of gauze in your mouth to absorb the bleeding. When you got to our place you looked like a very hurt, miserable little girl with a split lip, a fat face and a bloody gauze in your mouth. Mark was still shaken, white in the face.  I didn't know who to com...

New Year's Eve 2010:   This has been an eventful year for you Em.  You started crawling in January and by July you started walking - in spite of a fracture to your right tibia in May.  You also started signing at the start of the year and once you got the hang of it you learned a new sign nearly every week!  Please, thank you, cheese, ice-cream, apple, drink, dog, cat etc etc etc. You have been for regular Pamidronate treatments every two months but from next year it will be every three months. I think the treatment is really helping and although its a bit traumatic for you and your parents, it is wonderful that there is something to help make your bones stronger. In April you started going to the Shongololo Day School with your Mom and you loved it right from the start.  Unfortunately you had your 3rd fracture in May but it wasn't long before you were back at school and then you started standing, and walking, and my hair started turning white! You had a...

You are two years and one month and this Christmas is going to be very special.  You understand about presents and parties.  On Saturday your Mom and Dad invited me to the children's Christmas Tree party at Derivco (where Dad works).  I was a bit worried about you being afraid of Santa because when I took you into Checkers at the Pavilion about a month ago you screamed hysterically when you saw a mechanical Santa playing music and saying 'Merry Christmas... ho. ho, ho!"  I had to rush you away from him and calm you down.  When I went back to the shop I saw that the Santa had been moved!  Maybe you weren't the only child terrified by the large man in a red suit waving his arms about ringing a bell and shouting out Christmas ho, ho, ho!? At the Christmas Tree party Santa arrived in a little train engine.  You didn't mind the fairies but you weren't too keen to get close to him.  Inside, there were displays of food - snacks, ...

Hello my darling Em. You are now 22 months old, have a vocabulary of about 50 words, understand at least another 100 words, can still sign at least 20 words.  And sometimes you sound just like your Mom!  When you see something wonderful you say, "Oh WOW!"  (Just as she does).  When we say thank you to you, you say, "No problem" and when something disappoints you, you say, "Oh no!" And, you have become a Mommy's girl.  You don't like to let her out of your sight and if I play with you, you take your Mom's hand and say "Come mommy, come."  You wave your little fingers as though calling a dog! On Saturday I babysat while your Dad drove your Mom to the airport. (She was going away for her friend's hen party).  You woke up while he was gone and when I went into your room you were rubbing your eyes and calling, 'mummy-daddy, momma-dadda!'  As soon as you saw me your face dropped and you said, "Oh no!"  I couldn...

Hello Em my darling.  I am baby-sitting this morning while Mom helps out for a couple of hours at Derivco.  Because I'm still nervous of you walking, I plonked you in the pram and took you for a nice long walk after Mom left.  We usually go eastward up Anthony drive all the way to High Ridge (about 2km) looking at birds, flowers, dogs, cats, other walkers, aeroplanes etc along the way. There is one verge along the way that has a long hedge made up of different coloured bougnvillas. You know the word Bouganvilla and I always show you the flowers on our plant at home. Here are some of the colours we see. When we walk along Anthony, we look out for the bouganvilla and I pick a few flowers of each colour for you to Oooh-and-aaah over. You also like the Hibiscus hedge at the corner of High Ridge and Anthony becuase the branches with flowers on are low enough for you to reach. It is so sweet when you take on and hold it to your nose to smell! This morni...

Whoo-wheee!!!!  Mom sent a message to say you had taken your first steps!!  You stood up, in the middle of the lounge and took four steps unaided!  If I had been there, I would probably have rushed forward and grabbed you as you took the first step!  We are baby sitting tomorrow night and but I don't think you'll be doing much walking on my shift!!

I went away for two weeks Em.  I accompanied Patty on her dream trip to Russia.  Patty has wanted to go to Russia for a long time but her health has deteriorated so much that she thought she would never get there.  So, on 22nd June we left for St Petersburg for a river cruise on the Neva, Svir, Volga and Moscow canal system to Moscow.  It was wonderful but I missed you while we were away.  Last weekend you had to go into Parklands for your PAM treatment.  Mom said that Dr\Roos was away so Dr Jonathan Egner did your treatment.  I've known Jonathan for a long time - since the early days of SAIDA.  Did I ever tell you about SAIDA?  It stands for South African Inherited Disorders Association and in the '70a and 80's it was really a big, busy, active organisation with about 16 affiliated genetic disorder self-help groups.  Jonathan was involved with the CF (Cystic Fibrosis) group - I think he still is but his prime interest is paediatric...

Hello Litle Em, You had your Pam treatment again this weekend.  It is going much better now that you are allowed out between treatments.  You were in a different ward this time, sharing with a little boy - 18 months old - who was in for chemo as he has cancer of the kidney.  It is really sad to see some of the children in Parklands and we are so grateful that you are not sick, don't have a disease or a life threatening disorder. When Mom brought you round to the house, I tied a bandage on your dolly so that you both had a bandage on your head. 

Hello little Em, It was a BIG day for you today!  You attended Day Care with your Mom this morning for two hours, just around the corner from our house.  When Gumpie and I walked the dogs we came back up Heather Road hoping to see you at 8h30 and as we turned into the road, we saw your Mom's car and Dad right behind her.  So, we were able to see you before you went into the house. Mom said that you loved it!  She said you laughed a lot and loved being with the other babies.  Your favourites were Aiden (who is very quiet) and Hannah.  It went really well and you will now go twice a week - Wednesdays and Fridays - from 08h30 to 10h30. I am SO pleased that you are going to be able to socialise with other children Em.  You were 18 monthsold on Sunday and you have never had a friend or other children to play with.  You are always with adults and, as a result, you have a wonderful vocabulary, are quite precocious (in a good way) and you are advanc...

Hello darling Em, Two weeks ago you went in to Parklands for your Pamidronate treatment - but this time it was different. Dr Roos agreed that you could go in as a day patient. The hospital made a bit of a mess with your first appointment though. When Mom and Dad took you at 8am they were told to come back at lunch time as there were no beds available for you. So they went back at 1pm but then Dr Roos was consulting and couldn't get there until after 5pm. The tube and drip only went in at around 5:30pm so you had a long first day, only getting home after 9pm. Mom says that you screamed when Dr Roos put the needle in and then started signing and saying, "No more! No more!" Poor Dr Roos was quite upset! The next two days went much better and Mark and Tam brought you around here on Saturday so that they could have a little rest. You still had the port in your head and a bandage to keep it in place but it didn't seem to bother you.  On Sunday the treatment went very smoot...

      Em - you are such a cutie pie!  You love to play and interact with people.  You shout with glee everytime you see a child; you shout 'hey-yo!' when you see people at the mall or in stores; when a phone rings you shout 'hey-yo", and you are so astute that when someone talking on the phone starts closing off by saying, 'ok then, thank you...' you shout 'bye-bye' even before they say goodbye. You are a bright, clever, fun-loving cutie! 

You love water!  On Sunday at Patty's we sat outside on her lawn and I filled an old cat litter box with water for you to play with. You had such fun with the hosepipe and the water!!  Love you baby Em!

You copy everything we say - even when we try to emphasize a sound,at the beginning of a word you copy that!  I've been teaching you to say 'More' - showing you the sign for more and saying the word.  You started out by doing the sign but now you just say the word, "mmmmmmmmmmm..muh"  It sounds so funny! We took you to the animal farm at Asagay and you tried to copy the sounds the animals make.  'Gog, gog, gog, gog..." for the ducks  "puh, puh, puh" for the chickens and when you tried to make the pig sounds you just blew a rasberry!! You are afraid of animals.  I don't know why that is but you blink, pull back and clench your hand, and stick your tongue out when an animal comes near.  Even little dogs get the rasberry treatment although you did touch this little puppy when we held it up to you.  You weren't having anything to do with the pony! You actually shouted at the little black pigs when they started snuffling around o...