Mommy "Pressure" Moments

Boy, has my youngest laid it on thick! There is no bigger pressure in the world than mommy pressure.

My youngest had a school project a few weeks ago where she had to create a birthday invitation. She brought it home and showed it to me. Quite the right timing as well as her birthday was coming up.



Sample of Missy's invite

"A birthday invitation: You are invited to Missy's 8th birthday at the Spur on 5 December from 8:00. Please bring your costume."

I felt a slight pang of guilt. I have not given her a proper birthday party in the last few years. I felt scrutinised with some other type of peer pressure as my youngest looked at me expectingly. But of course I knew my youngest was not doing anything at all. The feeling was all in my head. I was ashamed in thinking that I've been depriving her of a birthday celebration befitting a young kid her age.

The next day I was on the phone to her venue of choice, the Spur.

The Spur is a South African steakhouse, specializing in steaks and grills. What was nice was that the Spur catered for kids' birthday parties. They had jungle gyms and a computer room/entertainment area for the kids to play in.

I was very lucky to have been able to book the venue the Sunday noon before my child's actual birthday, which was on a Monday. I think I would have been crushed more than her if I had not been able to book, knowing of course that I should have arranged this long ago.

I told my youngest that night. We worked on her birthday invitation. The real ones this time. She was ecstatic. And for a little while, mommy pressure was off until the next load :-)

Have you ever felt precious mommy pressure moments?

This post is shared with Mommy Moments this week.

The DSTV HD PVR 2P

Wowowee! Almost every single letter in the title of this post is in CAPS. It feels like the words are being screamed at you: "Hey, you! Look at me! I'm new and great!"

And just like the maddening words, the HD PVR 2P impressed.

This decoder/PVR model has been out for a while now, actually since May 2010. But the family only plucked up the courage to do the purchase now. In truth, I probably forgot to mention that our old DSTV decoder (a very old model who shall not be named) conked out on us one evening. This simple event took us right back to the Middle Ages where sticks and stones had to be used to create fire. I had visions of kids jumping up and down on the bed and hubby cooking up batches of stews and steaks all for entertainment...I knew we could not go on without satellite TV for the next 24 hours.

The HD PVR 2P is a smaller (cheaper) version of the HD PVR. As the name states, it works well with other HD (High Definition) equipments, like TV, DVD players, etc. It lets you watch a channel and record another at the same time. It also lets you connect a second decoder to the PVR and be able to watch a second channel at another TV (this is called the ExtraView)....at a small extra fee, of course.

So far, I have been delighted with my purchase. So delighted that I've also bought a DSD1131 decoder to play as my second decoder. I had some "fun" connecting the ExtraView as well, but that's probably good enough for another post.

So if you're thinking of christmas gifts to oneself, this won't be a bad choice at all. Affordable too. For more, visit DSTV.