To my surprise, the last week has flown by. I thought it would be unbearable, the waiting, but I am feeling surprisingly ok. Every so often scary thoughts will whack me out of the blue but on the whole we are coping well.

Speaking of which, yesterday I got the bill from Dr B. Apparently it costs quite a lot to get a chronic illness these days. R700 for the consult alone. Brain cysts are cheaper - Dr A and Dr S charged only R400 each.

The big kids are with my parents at the moment for their holiday sleepover so it's quiet here. Stephen is asleep. He is incredibly talkative and smiley now. And singy, shrieky, kicky and wriggly. It is amazing to watch him and see how he is totally enthralled by the excitement of swinging his limbs about. He loves: milk, baths, siblings, milk, nappy changes, milk, his baby gym, his thumb, milk, kicking, singing, milk, the baby carrier on Peter's chest, milk. Less keen on: the pram: Hates: the carseat.

The Christmas tree is up, there are four stockings above the fireplace, and the pile of presents is slowly growing. The kids have been poking, rattling and prodding mysteriously shaped packages. They are most stumped by the five identically shaped packages, one for each member of the family (excluding Stevie).

We took the kids Christmas shopping at the weekend so they could help choose presents for their cousins and for each other and little things for their grandparents and us (we give them a small budget and let them go for it). It is a major exercise in persuasion, diplomacy, espionage, deceit, arithmetic and multiple shopping baskets as

• they must stick to their budget
• merchandise should not be destroyed
• shopkeepers should not be too traumatised
  
• inappropriate presents should be avoided (perhaps this strawberry body lotion isn't quite the thing for grandpa)
• I musn't see what they're choosing for me
• Peter musn't see what they're choosing for him
  
• they mustn't see what their siblings are choosing for them
  
• if Peter or I see something we fancy we send a secret signal to the other to shepherd the child that way

On Monday, which was a public holiday, some friends (with three kids aged 9, 7, and 8 months) invited us to spend the morning with them at Inanda Dam. They have a powerboat and an inflatable tube thingy (sort of like a tube with a bottom) they tow behind the boat that the kids can ride in. The kids had a blast as the experience is somewhat akin to waterskiing. It keeps taking me by surprise how Danny is suddenly getting quite grown up. He was very keen to ride on his own after loving having a first ride with Robyn. We started out very slowly, not sure if he would be frightened. He looked very solemn and serious and at first I thought he wasn't enjoying it. Then I realised what he wanted and we sped up a little, then a lot. The faster and faster the boat went, the wider and wider grew his grin.