on being a new mom

being a mom has its fair share of joys and challenges. many things about parenting fall into both the joy and the challenge category- like breastfeeding, napping, showing off our precious little one but my favorite at the moment is unsolicited advice.
here are a few that i have gotten in my first seven weeks:
feed her porridge, she needs a blanket, she needs a hat, where are her socks?, she need lotion, you shouldn't bath her so often, hold her like this, support her neck more, don't sit her up- she needs to lay down, trim her nails, oh she has a rash try _____, and the list goes on. my favorite was the lady in church who came down off the main stage to reposition olivia and didn't even speak a word to me. most of this advice drives me crazy. i realize that many of these ladies giving me advice have more experience than i do but do they not remember what it is like to feel ill-equipped to do the job and have people constantly giving advice?
of course there have been some great bits of advice that i didn't ask for but have come in handy or at least make me laugh. my favorite is from my Kenyan friend, Lorna, "heat rash is better than pneumonia, so wrap her up in another blanket".

-m

new address

we have a new address!

so please send all of your fan mail for olivia here:

Vissani
PO Box M83
Mabelreign, Harare
ZIMBABWE

ps. her parents like receiving mail as well.

mcdonalds

yep! i finally had mcdonalds after 1 year and 20 days! thank you south africa.

pictures of olivia

can be found here

kumusha

the months of april, august, and december are school holiday months here. a few things happen during school holidays: 1- everything stops so that people can go on holiday as a family and 2- lots of people go to their musha or rural homes. our neighbor just got back from visiting his gogo (grandmother) at her musha. he hated it because she made him work in the fields and to a 7 year old city kid that isn't exactly fun. but one thing he was excited about was that he came home with a rooster. when i first heard about this i was told it was a chicken. that's great- they will eat a yummy meal of tough (zimbabweans love tough meat) farm raised chicken! but no this was not a chicken it is a rooster. and it was not eaten the next day as i was first told but is still alive 5 days later. so all night and all day i hear that rooster call. good thing i have a little girl who likes to wake up in the night as well and give us something to do or that rooster would just be really annoying.

i guess we don't have to live in the rural areas after all- they will just come to us.

-m

more of olivia

meet Olivia Marie Chipo Vissani

my first cry

dad just cut my cord and now i'm free!

my happy family

ambuya and sekuru helms