So Dumiso Dabengwa’s Zapu wants a dead comrade to be buried at the National Heroes Acre. The party has actually written to Zanu PF making the rather ridiculous request. But why? Zanu PF has it on record that the burial shrine is a members only hallowed ground, so what’s likely to change now? Perhaps it’s a case of making the usual necessary noises to heap more muck on Zanu PF that they continue denying kosher national heroes and vanguards of the struggle due recognition. But isn’t that known already?

You have to recall how many times Zanu PF has had to posthumously declare some long forgotten ex-Zipra stalwart a national hero after some botched attempt to ignore the dead hero’s “liberation war credentials.”

The wise leave natural justice to the gods, and Zanu PF has long dared the gods. In those same inscrutable ways this party may well just be burying itself alive.

Tom Soper gives some pause for thought. He writes about the “hooks” he uses to connect with the good that life dishes up. Get hooked here.

I wasn’t shocked when I read the findings of a recent report in the UK on parenting which revealed that most fathers and mothers lie about their baby’s sleeping habits. One in every three parents of the more than 11,000 parents interviewed on Netmums lies about their child’s sleeping habits to show they are perfect parents. The reason being there is so much pressure faced by mothers and fathers to show that they are good parents.

Luckily I don’t belong to this one third, my numero uno (my number one), which is what I call my son, who is 7 months, picked up his sleeping routine naturally. I tried to work on a routine when he was a month old and after three nights of trying I gave up. Now he is able to put himself to sleep and can sleep ‘well’ at night. When I say well I mean he doesn’t cry, in fact I don’t give him the chance to cry when he is hungry. I’m very alert so I can hear him toss and turn and before he knows it, milk is delivered. He sleeps for his 10+ hours, which means if he goes to bed at 7pm I expect to be woken up by him playing and humming at about 5am.

I have been one very lucky mother. But still at times I find myself under pressure to compare him with other babies. Being a first time mum I read a lot of baby magazines. You know how professional editors are, when they write that a baby at such a certain month should be able to do this, they quickly write at the end ‘Note that babies are different and their development will differ too”.

Having been hit by this true line in magazines I resorted to looking around for babies at church or in a kombi or in the supermarket and comparing them with my numero uno. At times especially at church I would ask how old the baby was and I would weigh the baby in my hands and do a silent eye-to-hand-heart comparison. This was becoming more of a bad habit for me and I had to face the reality that not all babies are the same. I quickly knocked some of level of sense in my head that, yes I can compare my numero uno, with Betty’s sunshine but these two are different and yes I should take heed of the editors note and live by it.

I have learnt that there is more I can gain from engaging in a conversation with the mother at church sitting next to me than calculating the baby’s weight. There is more to benefit from having coffee with Betty and have our angels play together. And definitely my numero uno will benefit a lot if I take him out of those walls he is used to seeing everyday.

The battle to control the Internet rages on as some countries push to have Internet governance fall under the United Nations (UN). Countries like Russia, China and India are at the forefront to have the UN granted the mandate to run the Internet. The United States of America is currently enjoying the dominance in running the Internet space through bodies like ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) which co-ordinates codes and numbering systems and deciding on new Internet addresses. The US feels the current Internet regulations are working effectively and any proposals for change will create  “greater regulatory burdens on the international telecom sector”.

My friend was recently stopped at a police roadblock in Harare. The police officer requested to see her license, which she showed him. She said he went on to check the motor vehicle license disk whilst still examining the driver’s license. And when he got back to the driver’s window he requested to see the fire extinguisher and other safety accessories. She opened the boot where her fire extinguisher, two reflective triangles, reflective vest, spare wheel, jack and the wheel spanner were. To her surprise the police officer told her to hang the reflective vest on the driver’s seat.  And yes she was so shocked. It’s true that most motorists in the city have their reflective vests hung on the driver’s seat but is it mandatory for one to do so? When she shared the story I was equally shocked but for a while I thought she was joking until she convinced me that it happened. I thought that this was Zimbabwe police’s ‘latest’ line in trying to find fault with motorists.

This morning I overheard a proud parent showing another her young son’s penmanship homework. She was thrilled with how tidy his writing was – and how he stayed inside the lines.

I want to be the parent who’s thrilled when her daughter writes outside the lines. Surely that’s where progress is made in this world – by people who don’t stay inside the confines we prescribe for them?