Thanksgiving was our first holiday as a married couple. At least it was to me. It is not a recognized holiday in South Africa, and Chris could easily unrecognize every holiday! He was under great stress from work when I mentioned its approach. (I still haven’t mastered the art of timing important conversations!) He was overwhelmed already, and hastily responded, “I don’t want to deal with it!” I cried over a bowl of leftover chili on the 4th Thursday of November that year. (Not our newlywed moment.)

We’ve got a major pandemic on our hands over here, guys. I think it’s more contagious than COVID. It’s “the problem” pandemic. My home was recently caught it, and it drove me bananas.

A VERY widely accepted sentence starter in Cape Town is, “*The problem is…”* You hear it everywhere you go. Lifa unknowingly started engaging conversations as a platform for his problems.

I stopped eating sugar three years ago. Yet I keep making those dadgum No Bake Cookies every year as though they are the recipe for joy. The great news about 2020 is that we get a fresh start on EVERYTHING. We get to re-think how we do things and why because every.single.thing. is different.

It is harder than ever to make a decision in this age of unlimited access. Ideas and opinions fly from every direction, a thousand miles a minute. It’s not just family and friends putting in their two cents anymore. It’s the whole wide world. I can EASILY spend all the time I have to play looking up the best activity for kids. I spend all the time I have to read or write looking up helpful resources I’ll never utilize…

We all know 2020 has been a very different kind of year. As I think ahead toward this holiday season, I see that I am different too. In a year of forced isolation, I have nurtured a stronger faith, healthier marriage and wider community than I could have imagined. 2020 pulled out the weeds, slowed down the traffic, and kept us home to do the hard work. We get a fresh start for the holidays. All the old rules and old ways are out the window!

You were the first GoGo I knew, so I called you “GoGo” like it was your name... so everybody else did too. It took me years to find out your actual name.

You took me into your home and loved me like I was yours long before we knew how to verbally communicate with each other. You took Lifa into your home and loved him before I did.

Hello from Sleep Regression City! Little Jam and I are having regular late-night rendezvous in the nursery. The last two weeks have been a bit of a blur. I’ve grasped for quiet times with my Bible as much as I could, but have hardly cracked a page. Lifa (who does not sleep like a baby, but sleeps like a normal human being who sleeps all night) gets up at 6am every morning to have an uninterrupted quiet time.

Do you know the infamous “afternoon slump” as intimately as I do? The one that makes you turn to afternoon coffee, even though you know you shouldn’t and it won’t even help? The one that makes eyes so heavy, voices so cranky, and dinner so hard to make?

I turbo through my mornings with amazing efficiency, trying to get dinner made and the day’s tasks done before the afternoon slump hits (which also happens to coincide with every other human’s time of greatest need). My turbo mornings inevitably leave me even slumpier in the afternoons.

There’s a print shop right down the road from our house. They make all the random projects in my head do-able. I email them often, tell them my idea, and they work their printshop magic. I call the staff “Benjamin’s ladies”, and it’s always a treat to visit them. My latest project was brightly colored, laminated cards with pictures and my handwriting on them.

Spring has sprung! It’s time to swim and play! None of Lifa’s clothes fit. New wardrobe time for our man-sized child! I’ve always just come home with new clothes and awed and amazed him by my amazing sense of style. Suddenly, Lifa has his own sense of style, autonomy and really cares about what he wears. I guess that’s a good thing!

Yesterday while I was trying to cook and clean, Benjamin was next to me pulling everything out of the cabinets to throw around the kitchen. It’s our working agreement. I handed him a shopping bag and empty granola bar box to add the to mix and kept working around him. The next time I looked down, he had swung that shopping bag over his head and created a cape, which he kept on for the rest of the evening. (The most adorable choking hazard.) Benjamin is too young to know he created a cape, but it stopped me in my tracks.

I have to buy Benjamin a new pair of pants today because ALL of his pants are wet and muddy. Good news! The Cape Town drought is OVER! Just a little over a year ago, we were all showering in buckets and recycling water too many times just so the city would not run completely dry. Now I CANNOT keep my child dry! We’ve been cold and wet for days, and we are celebrating! Benjamin is especially celebrating.

My sister is very pregnant, and I’m dyyyyyyying to touch that belly. I want to celebrate pregnancy milestones with her so badly I’ve started craving what I ate while I was pregnant. (Note: I am definitely not pregnant! It’s just a very weird way I’m responding to missing my sis!)

Yesterday was Ladd Family Screenapaloouza! (It’s very weird that auto-correct just kicked in and added a “u” to that word. Is screenapaloouza a real word?!) Chris preached the message for church online, and Lifa was featured in a worship dance video for kids. I live with legends! I had been prepping all week to record a short video series for Help Club for Moms, and we decided Sunday was the best day for me to film.

We’ve been winning all week! Not by circumstance, but by heart posture. (And with coffee… and not all the time.) I hope you’ve a winning week too, even if it was just one win.

Another way to find a win is to remember your other wins. Remember God’s faithfulness. Remember Jesus left heaven for earth because you are worth dying for. Can you remember a time when you felt like you couldn’t and God did? Or can you remember a time that was absolutely ridiculous, and you still came out ok? That’s what I’m remembering today!

Lifa’s got one more week home from school. There was a long time of no school, and then there was school, and then school closed again. We’ve loved having him home, and we’ve had some wonderful moments in our beautiful city together. My boys love each other with a very special love, and I thank God for that every single day.

But despite all the pretty pictures and sweet stories, we’ve got some boredom, grumbling and pity parties happening at the Ladd house. If you read yesterday’s post, you might know that it’s “Find a Way to Win” week, so we created an action plan!

Lifa: "Hey, Mom. How many people are in South Africa?"

Me: "Hey Siri, what is the population of South Africa."

Siri: "In 2019, the population of South Africa was 59,622,350."

Lifa: "Ok, think about this. What if every person in South Africa gave 5 Rand? We could help so many poor people with Coronavirus! What if ever person even gave 50 Rand?" (R50 ZAR = $3 USD)

School has closed down again! The world calls is a global pandemic. Benjamin calls it his best life.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has closed all South African schools for the next four weeks with the exception of Grade 12 students taking only one week off and grade 7’s taking only two weeks off. That means we get our Lifa home with us for another two week holiday.

I could count the number of hours I’ve spent away from Benjamin since his birth on my fingers and toes. He gets plenty of time with his mom - especially since Lifa’s at school, Chris is working, and Benjamin and I are still social distancing for safety.

He’s developed supersonic senses for the sound of his dad coming into our room at bath time. They’ve developed their own language. He knows when Lifa switches the light on in his room and will barge right into the bathroom to greet him if he leaves the door cracked. Those two are Benjamin’s heroes….

The other day, while I strapped my extremely heavy toddler into a carrier on my chest, I had a weird Mom moment. As I shifted his weight and thought about the progression of carrying Benjamin from a newborn to now, I habitually took in a big whiff of his skin pressed against mine. I love the smell of his skin. That’s where this rabbit trail began...