Archive for October 2013

Home Archive for October 2013

so, i had a small "big chop" around November last year. I say small as really there wasn't much there to chop off. mummy says my hair was happily growing on the sides only and threatening to make me look like wolverine. not on her watch. she chopped those flyaway hairs and began to anticipate the sudden onslaught of a full head of afro hair. 5 days later there was still nothing and she fell to her knees in prayer. ok...slight exaggeration. it did feel like she was rushing into my room everyday to check on progress. a few months passed by and it seemed that i was destined to look like wolverine's lovechild as the same areas began producing hair again! only this time, the hair had brought more friends along with it. the front centre section was still as bald as a football pitch in the zimbabwean rural areas. mummy was distressed. in this same hour of distress, her friends were popping out babies whose hair was so full and thick it seemed my hair had been given to whoever was to follow as a bonus.

mummy thought about all the wonderful things she had imagined doing with my hair, when it suddenly occurred to her that she could actually do something. she'd seen a quote: start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. that, my friends, was the end of my hair's free, gypsy-like existence. mummy began to treat my head as though it were full of thick afro hair. she started giving me weekly conditioning washes and tended to each strand. one day she noticed that my hair had actually begun to fill out and i could have little bunches. that was the guillotine well and truly down on my wild and free days. my hair has actually come a long way and i am now getting more nervous about what is to come. i've heard mummy chatting to her friends about the "stretching comb" and the use of vaseline and sometimes even butter to pretty much, fry that hair straight!

it seems the stretching comb was all the rage in my mummy's pre-teen years. she and her cousins would take it in turns to sit on the kitchen chairs and crisp out that hair! after one such stretching comb session mummy's aunt said "you look like a bird! is it really that desperate mwanangu (my child)?" you see, her hair had been chopped quite short as it had gone ginger from relaxers (to be fair mummy's hair is quite brown and goes ginger in the sun without much help - except the time she put lemon juice in it as an experiment. but i digress). this same aunt pointed out that only prostitutes had ginger hair (black prostitutes that is) - and so she chopped it off with the fervour only witnessed on edward scissorhands. on that same day, on the way to sunday school, a local boy decided to point out that her hair looked like it was a stairway. she acted like she didn't care and continued to walk, looking like a kingfisher basted in butter and slow roasting in the Zimbabwean sunshine.

all i ask is that i never have to have butter in my hair and a hot metal comb that's been heated on a stove near my head.

xoxo

so the last few weeks have been interesting...hence the general silence. i love this blog, and all it embodies. i started this blog just after my baby morayo-hope was born: partly to silence the voice in my head that had a running commentary going and partly for another reason....a pretty big reason.

you see my biological mum died when i was 7.

i remember a lot about her - i can remember all the way back to when i was 2. i remember her smile, i remember her voice, i remember her laugh and i remember her playfulness. i remember doing the bum-jive with her and my younger brother in front of the stereo (something i cant wait to do with M-H & Judah!) - she would knock us over with her hips and we'd go flying in different directions and come back for more. i remember one christmas she made me a basket full of practical gifts like knitting needles & wool, a mini sewing machine and pieces of fabric. oh yes, she was very handy with a sewing machine. she would sit there and sew and sew and my brother and i would be under the table playing cars, pretending we were in a delivery truck. incidentally her sewing machine is what i got when they gave out all her things after she died. sadly, this was taken when our home was burgled and so now i have nothing. i remember going to botswana with her and she bought me a red "georgette" outfit and we ate dumpling stew at the market. then some of the goods we'd gone to buy were stolen. the list of things i remember is endless. but thats all i have, limited memories. as i grew up i wondered more and more what she was like. what was her sense of humor like? what did she think about me? i wish i could just know, i wish she'd written it down somewhere, i wish she'd left a secret stash of letters. but who plans on dying in their mid thirties - my age?

our family weeks before my mum passed away. i'm in my red outfit.

when i had morayo-hope it hit me like a tonne of bricks. i would never know what she thought when she had me. how it felt to hold me for the first time. what was the labour like mum? were you happy when you saw me? how much shopping did you do? where did you buy that pram i see in the pictures? you see, these are things only a mum can tell you - because it's our hormones that dictate a lot of what our husbands agree to during pregnancy & birth . as i looked at morayo-hope i wanted her to know. i wanted her to know everything i felt about her when she was born. my excitement, my changing her 3 times a day because i wanted her to wear everything i bought her and prove to everyone that i hadn't bought too much actually - she wore it all! i wanted her to know all the people who were around in the formative years of her life, so that when she's older and they say "oh my, haven't you grown?!" she doesn't roll her eyes in a "tell me something i haven't heard 10 times already at this family reunion!". to know just how loved she was & is. i especially wanted her to know me through this blog - to understand the me that i am. to know that i love fashion, i love writing and i love her and think she's beautiful beyond words. to drum it into her head so much that no matter what anyone says, she still knows she's beautiful & valued. to know that there is not a thing on this earth i wouldn't do for her and that yes, i am a little bit nuts. that i have my insecurities. that i plan on being around beyond her 7th birthday but i know my memory will not be able to articulate all my history as well as jotting things down on a regular basis will.

so, as she looked at me trying outfits on with a sarcastic look in her 3-month old eye this blog began. i could sense her just being like "God, yes. I see why you sent me here. this woman needs help."

p.s - i have a mum whose been my super-mum since i was 10 and she is beyond anything i could ever imagine. she deserves her own blog post & will get one. my sister and i call her our angel because we aren't totally sure she is an actual human being. we'll let you know once studies are completed!

so why did i share all this?? partly to reveal why i started this blog as over the last few weeks i've been battling within myself about what this blog is. it started really as a love letter to my baby and it's slowly taken on a life of it's own. i know for some, there is some style inspiration here and for others it's the joy of having someone else to laugh at that tickles your fancy! if you enjoy the style aspect, then i am happy to let you know there's actually a whole new blogazine by myself & another stylist friend of mine starting called "mamas closet" which will have a lot of style centred stuff for mums & mums to be, featuring yours truly & other stylish so & so's! you can like the facebook page which will be updated with info on blog start date. i just want this blog to stay focussed on the end goal ;). i also hope i can in some way inspire any of you that are parents to keep a record somewhere of the love you have for your little ones...

as for enjoying a laugh at my expense, stick around...the voice in my head is still talking...

(a lot of tears were shed in the writing of this article but no children or animals were harmed.)

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Newborn Photo Session Part 2

of hair and of mum...

let the dapper dude speak...

she said to make myself comfortable....

back to the grind....

a post from mummy's heart