One handed blogging

(no capitals...)
baby-boo iscurrently asleep on me. not something i usually encourage but he's so utterly gorgeous today i can't put him down...combined with having been such a good boy since his first injections yesterday...
that really was a horrible experience for me though - having to hold him while pain was inflicted on him - twice...
Right, now I have two hands...he was so totally zonked out I thought I'd try putting him down (usually doesn't work all that well...) and he's stayed asleep long enough for me to have a sandwich so I thought I'd return to this.
I don't really have anything to say. Although we are starting to come back to life/sanity/whatever, all I do really is feed and change nappies and try to get some sleep. Feeding can be lovely but is also very, very hard. Changing nappies can actually be a lot of fun, Baby-Boo is often at his happiest when able to kick about on the changing mat. Trying to get sleep...can be exciting when it works (bed time has been fairly consistent this week, before 11.30. Very exciting for me who used to like to be in bed not very much after 10...) and can be soul destroying when it doesn't (and you have no idea why because as far as you can tell everything is exactly as it was yesterday.)
So, like I say, not much to say here but I thought having made an effort to blog again, I'd try to keep it up.
I shall do more pics soon. And perhaps one day I'll post the "birth story" not particularly because you want to read it but because it might be nice to write it.

Better late than never...

That title applies to the arrival of our beautiful baby boy as well as to the arrival of this blog post.

Baby-Boo is currently asleep on me in his sling and my back is beginning to give up (plus I want to see if I can get him down stil asleep so I can sleep too...) so this is again a very quick post but so overdue I couldn't leave it any longer...

So Baby-Boo was born on December 3rd at 21:36 by sort-of-emergency caesarean. He's doing very well now. He lost a lot of weight at first but once he got the hang of eating, he hasn't really stopped. He's piling on the pounds now but is still a relatively petit chap, compared to most of his friends anyway.

So, all you really want is pictures so you don't mind I'm not writing much more, right? I've only uploaded one camera so far and don't have the absolute cutest, cutest pictures here but for starters...they are me and Baby-Boo when we first met, Baby-Boo at about three weeks old and Baby-Boo and Husbink at six weeks. :) More, umm, soon, umm, ish...

Just a high speed update...

...cos I need to be napping!
I went back into hospital again on Wednesday morning with wriggle-bottom's head out of place again and have just come home this morning. It has been very stressful because I just kept being told different things and different midwives/doctors had different levels of paranoia. So at one point it was a c-section on Friday, then Monday, then an induction in theatre in case of emergency, then waiting for it to happen naturally but in hospital in case of emergency...now home!
I didn't really cope very well with getting sent home today because of having been told so many different things but I'm here now which is really good. I'd like about 24 hours to unwind and get a decent sleep and then I'd really, REALLY like to go into labour! (And it would be kind of cool to go into labour while really wanting it rather than being terrified of it, don't you think?)
Hope you are all well. Thanks for the comments on the last post :) I'm really hoping that the next post will contain pictures of my son!

I Want...

• To Sleep On My Back
• A Nice Big Glass Of Wine
• Pate. Any sort really.
• Brie. In the same meal as the pate. Or not. Anytime really. In a baguette, with bacon and cranberry sauce. On its own. With the wine...
• Soft Boiled Eggs. Soft Poached Eggs. Sloppy Scrambled Eggs.
• A Proper Hug From Husbink. Currently, I have to stand side-on and lean, otherwise I can't actually reach him.
• To Get Out of Bed Without Groaning
• To Get Out of Bed Without My Hips Popping
• To Be Able to Walk My Normal Speed/Distance
• A Large Peanut Butter Sandwich. Or six.
• An End To The Braxton Hicks. Who thought they were a good idea? "Is it labour? Is It labour now? What about now? That's three hours at 20 minute intervals...are we heading somewhere? Oh, no, they've stopped now..."
• Most of all, more than any of the other things, more than anything at all ever, I want my baby. I want to hold him, not carry him in my tummy. I want to see his face, not imagine it. I want to tickle his toes, not my tummy where his toes are.

It hasn't been the best of weeks. I spent Wednesday-Friday in hospital because my baby's just too active and won't keep his head down. He was manipulated into position on Thursday morning (fortunately, he was at that point only about three inches away from position so it wasn't a full turn. Still really rather painful and my tummy muscles are only just recovering now. At least they are mostly recovered, I figure going into labour with already sore muscles probably isn't the best.) and managed to stay there until Friday afternoon so I was allowed home. (Actually, there was one fun thing, I've been scanned quite a lot and in one of them they managed to get some pictures of his face. Ok, they don't give much idea of him, but I can sort of look at my baby now.) We went in again on Sunday because he'd shifted a bit, but this time perhaps only half an inch and so following a scan, it was home again. Today, he seems to have stayed still but I still had to ring labour ward with some questions I forgot to ask on Friday or Sunday. It made me feel like a fruitloop. Now I just have to get through tomorrow and I get to see my midwife again on Wednesday. I just want my baby. I want him to be well and safe and in my arms. Everyone due ahead of me (that I know, clearly, not in all the world) has had their babies now (which includes my absolutely gorgeous nephew. I went and bought him extra presents today cos...umm...I wanted to...) so It Is My Turn. Now please. Baby please. Now. Thank you :)

Final Flings

Last night, with much apprehension on my part, we drove to Newcastle for the evening to see Mr Eddie Izzard in his new stand up show, Stripped.
We bought the tickets oooh, about nine months ago... I'd been umming and ahhing for ages about whether to sell them. We even had someone prepared to buy them right up to the day before if things should happen. I'd been keen, then I wasn't keen, then I realised how keen Husbink was so I was keen again then all the migraines and bad weekends and all the rest of it happened (I may not have blogged about that...in a nutshell, my lovely smooth pregnancy got a little less fun and every weekend got ruined for a while with one bout of illness or another. I was unimpressed and it also made me feel a lot like giving up and just hibernating until he comes out.). So I was pretty much sure that we shouldn't go and wouldn't go and that it would be a really bad plan to go.
Part of the reason that I thought it would be a really bad plan was because Husbink had been on nights all week and so neither of us would be really up for heaps of driving. However, Husbink got a better sleep at work than I did at home on Thursday night and so...I was persuaded.
I'm glad we went, I'm glad we didn't give up and get tied to home before we really had to. We took my hospital bag in the car so that I didn't have to worry and we went. It was fun. We saw the last night of the Sexie tour so this was pretty much as close to back-to-back shows as possible - six years apart. I couldn't enjoy it as much because my bump isn't all that keen on uncontrolable laughter and when you have to stop yourself from finding things funny...
Anyway, this isn't meant to be a review of Mr Izzard (though it is tempting, it was very good in places, slightly off-on-one in others and for me a little sad in others - but overall very good, I've chuckled to myself quite a bit today); this is meant to be about final flings.
Husbink and I are living in hope that we are going to find the time to go out for dinner and have a real date thingy before we become three. We are hoping that we will find time for enjoying each others company (in amongst the getting-the-house-ready and Husbink starting to revise again stuff). But who knows? It could be tomorrow. It could be another five weeks. But I'm glad we went last night. I'm totally wiped out today, but I'm glad we went.

A really weird coincidence...

A lot of the time at the moment, I can feel the little one wriggling around in my tummy. He's a busy lad and whenever the midwife says "is he moving ten times a day?" I just laugh - he's often done at least half of his quota before I get out of bed...
I can't however guarantee what is going to make him move (though Husbink's hand on my belly often makes him stop...he's showing signs of being a little difficult!) but there is one thing that I'm sure is just coincidence but it has happened too many times now and is frankly a little weird...
My ankles have a bit of a tendency to lock (they always have done, or for years at least, this isn't a special pregnancy issue like all the others I could witter on about) and I have to strain a little and make them crack.
And he jumps. Not just after the crack but as they crack, he jumps. He can be totally still, having a little rest but an ankle crack equals a jump. He'll then go back to sleep. My elbows click but he doesn't jump for them. Just my ankles. Crack-jump.
It has to be coincidence but it's happened so much and it is really rather bizarre!

It's a miracle!

So.
I used to have lots of trouble with my hands when we lived in Leeds. Lots of trouble with dry skin, cracked, bleeding, ow... Mostly I blamed this on the OCD at the time.
We left Leeds, the OCD got better and so did my hands.
After a few years we moved back to the same lovely county and the same lovely water board. And my hands.....OUCH! For the past year and a bit they have been getting worse and worse. I concluded pregnancy wasn't helping. But all it takes is a few days away from here at my parents' or even better at Husbink's. My hands clear up amazingly quickly.
I'd pretty much given up on the hope of them getting better while we lived here and just resorted to using a huge amount of handcream day and night.
Two days ago, I ran out of soap in the bathroom and found a random bar of moisturising soap in the drawer. It is a miracle! Yesterday and the day before I forgot to put handcream on during the day and my hands were only really dry at bed time rather than destroyed. At the moment, there are just a few little patches that aren't quite supple...
I've used various different soaps while we've lived here (it all comes down to what is on offer, right?) and various different degrees of super-moisturising handcream but nothing has worked like this! Woop! I am no longer in danger of bleeding on people's tablecloths (this happened at a student's house last year).
Ok, not the most exciting post in the world but one of the most exciting developments for me!

Running a Marathon at 34 Weeks Pregnant

I was at the starting line...I was running faster than my really rather sporty cousin...I was halfway through and it was getting dark...I stopped to go to the loo and got lost...I never quite finished...

So I'm having a lot of weird dreams at the moment! Many of them I can't remember when I wake up, I'm just left with the emotion (to be honest, it is usually a yucky/stressed/upset feeling...) and then perhaps later in the day I'll get snippets of it (like the dream with someone telling me that if I was going to drink during pregnancy it was better to have a proper glass of wine than the occasional sip of Husbink's whiskey/beer and that the occasional sip would probably kill the baby...) and then I'll understand why I've been so upset...

So it was kind of nice the other morning to wake up the other morning having just had a fairly straight forward crazy dream like I'm used to. I always dream a lot. I always remember my dreams. They are often fairly entertaining (for me anyway...) The most confusing part of the marathon running dream wasn't that I was managing a marathon with this huge belly...it was that I was already pregnant for the second time...so I had my current baby at 34 weeks and baby number two was at about 12 weeks at the same time...clearly my dream had gone a little sci-fi/fantasy at this point!

Ah well, back to the real world of Bargain Hunt, Home & Away, Diagnosis Murder and making very good use of BT Vision...

Keeping up with the news...

It's been one of those weeks.
Story after story knocking the previous one off the "top spot".
Sometimes, it feels like news hangs around too long, a story is dragged out and we know every tiny detail possible and that can really be pretty yucky.
This week however it seems like we've been rushed, one thing to the next and what was the top story may not even feature in the next bulletin.
Particularly it was the Philippines that made me feel that. Lots of devastation, lots of need, lots of horribleness and then it was totally gone from the news - not just from the headlines but the whole news as first the tsunami and then the other earthquakes took over. And then the distinctly unsavoury more local news.
So what is my point? I don't know. I "felt bad" that the Philippines were being forgotten. I "felt bad" that they weren't getting the attention any more. But is it right or wrong? Or neither? I find the obsession that comes with some stories far worse because it doesn't seem to be healthy or helpful but in this case I feel that if the headlines are gone too quickly then will people be less likely to give money or time or whatever to helping.
Since being nasty to the Oxfam man, I've been thinking a lot and wondering a lot about what the nation as a whole does in terms of giving time and money to whatever cause it might be. Do "chuggings" (have you heard of that? can't remember where I heard it, "charity muggings" - the ones who stop you in the street) or door knockers stand the only chance of getting donations from most people? Or what about the often horrendous NSPCC adverts? Do people need to be properly shocked?
I wasn't intending to start going into that yet as I'm still pondering. Hmm...

Husbink and the Sunglasses

Once upon a time, Husbink had some sunglasses. Then one of the arms fell off so he got a second pair while keeping the first pair with a taped on arm in case of emergencies.
A short while later, the second pair started to disintegrate. I think this time it was that the lenses kept popping out.

A number of years passed and it became evident that Husbink could not hang on to a pair of sunnies for more than a year, often quite a lot less... One pair fell down a crack between rocks in NZ, another pair had again the continuously popping lenses, another pair I think got left on top of the car... It goes on.

He used to have the same problem with mobile phones though mostly that was actually just one horrendous week when he lost three phones in four days. He had to prove himself capable of keeping one before being allowed his swanky new phone!

On Monday, we went out for a nice walk and then to the designer outlet place on the edge of town. We had the camera with us from the nice walk and Husbink was carrying it. He hooked his sunnies through part of the strap and off we wandered. Back at the car about an hour later, no sunnies...it was all so familiar. The shock, the despair, the questioning, the guilt...

He had had these ones for a little over a year so I guess that is quite enough really and apparently...he never really liked them anyway!

(Apols for delay in posting, partly no brain, partly no time, partly waiting for a non-baby post to present itself!)

I was horrid to the Oxfam man...

So, I'm a little slow moving but seriously, not that slow! Not yet...

I'd just finished my tea nad was reclining on the sofa in the hopes of avoiding indigestion when there was an aggressive knock at the door. To be fair, with our door knocker, it is quite hard to do anything but an aggressive knock. I pulled myself off the sofa, already wondering why I was bothering as it wasn't going to be anyone of interest and toddled towards the door. At which point it was knocked aggressively again. I picked up my keys, went into the hall, the person knocked again...

I opened the inner door while they were still fiddling with the knock, perhaps considering a fourth attempt...

On opening the door and seeing it was an Oxfam man...my irritation did not subside. It perhaps increased and I opened with "I heard you the first time". I paused briefly before continuing with "And we already support you". The man, who was not getting the hint said "Ah, but which project?" to which I replied, "I don't know, I don't really care and I'm so much not in the mood." He'd left our front yard before I shut the door.

I feel bad because he had to pull himself together from the shouting pregnant lady and move on to the next house but...I'm not exactly calm yet.

The thing is, although he riled me with his triple knocking impatience and although I generally find people at the door selling things/asking for money pretty irritating, it was actually my final customer at work today who really got me started...

Twenty minutes before I was due to leave, the phone rang. Normally a lengthy call with us is about five minutes long, ten max so I didn't fob the call off on someone else. I really should have.

It started with "My name is Mrs Blah, I'm actually really rather a regular customer in your shop." Right. Not a good start. If you are regular, you don't need to tell us, we know you. She followed it up by telling me that they live pretty much the length of the country from our store. Very regular.
However, they would be coming next week and wanted to be sure that we had everything they wanted to look at. She proceeded to give a comprehensive list and I was able to find everything she wanted. She then passed me on to her husband. How I wish I had passed the phone on too.
Foolishly, I assumed he would be as organised as her...
He began to waffle on through about half the stock we have, not specifying a colour. Or, indeed a size.
I asked him when we discussed the first garment what size he would like and he said "Hmm, it goes from S-XXL, so I imagine XL, possibly XXL." I told him we had a few in XL but XXL was harder to find and we would be unlikely to have any in but could order them for him. We moved on to the next item. Some trousers. I asked for his waist size and he suggested I was being difficult and asking questions too hard for him. I had to simply reply "ok, we've got a reasonable range of sizes, there should be something..." Back to tops. He told me an item and I said "Ah, we're a bit limited at the moment, we don't have any in in extra-large."
"Extra large? I'm not extra large! Dear me, I never said that, I would never say that."
I paused. Took a deep breath. "What size were you interested in then?"
"XL. Or possibly the one down from that. Never extra-large."

I forced myself to physically smile for the rest of the conversation. It was the only way I could hope that I sounded even vaguely interested or polite. Sadly, I will be in store when they come next week. It might of course be fun to point out what S, M, L and XL stand for...someone suggested he might've thought XL meant extremely luxurious...

A blog on the page is worth two in the head...

You know what it's like...
You haven't blogged for a while. You've got loads of posts in your head. You've even started to write a few of them.
But it has been too long. You can't just come back with an average post now, can you? You must burst back onto the blogging scene. So every post gets analysed and checked and never finished and certainly never published.
So you wait until your brain totally disengages and you just post whatever - like I did on Friday, about the meercats... but still, a blog on the page is worth more than two in the head, right?!

I like silly things....

So I've had a horrid day. Stupid horrid. Things going wrong, being frustrating, wasting my time blah blah blah.
I have been miserable and grumpy and sad and teary and emotional and horrid to Husbink and slightly loopy and...so on.
This evening, Husbink is building our new wardrobe and I have been sitting on the bed doing jobs on the computer. These jobs included quite a lot of looking at various bits of insurance and so on.
So I was going to look at gocompare.com and confused.com and...then I remembered that someone said that if you actually go to www.comparethemeerkats.com as opposed to comparing the markets...you can do just that...
I laughed. A lot. So, so much. I compared two meerkats, one from Honolulu whose hobbie was battle re-enactments and another from Bangkok who was all very arty...
I cried with laughter as I read the list of hobbies that the meerkats had and which I could choose from. Particularly, I liked "martial artistry" and "belly jiggles".
Ok, so if you spend too much time on comparethemeerkats.com, they do eventually send you to comparethemarkets.com but it's still very good silliness. Or it is when you have previously been having a horrid day.

Multitasking? Cute?

So, when I was about seven, my Brownie troop had a float in the Halloween Parade in our town in New Jersey. (For those of you who haven't experienced that kind of Halloween, it is very, very different to any form of Halloween in the UK - a very family friendly occasion and just a good excuse for a family carnival.) So, we were doing Snow White. There weren't enough of us so do it on our own so we joined with another troop...which led to two Snow Whites because it couldn't be agreed who would provide one...
Anyway. I was a deer. Which was quite nice really cos the costume was warm! So, we'd been told to keep waving and smiling all the way along the parade route. I was a very good little girl, so I did. It was quite late at night though (I have no idea how late but I was very sleepy) and so there I was waving and smiling and doing everything I was told...and yawning...
The parade was always on the local TV station and as our float went past the commentary stand, this was the voiceover... "Oh my, I've just seen the cutest thing! A little deer, waving and smiling and yawning all at once!" ...and there was me, fast becoming the celebrity of the Brownie troop...
Fast forward twenty-blah years to last weekend. We were at a friend's wedding in Cambridge. It was a lovely day but pretty exhausting all that standing around (I quickly found that the miracle heels I bought for a wedding last summer that were much higher than I'd normally wear but had lovely padded soles couldn't tolerate the extra stone and a bit I weigh this year...standing around was not at all comfy (fortunately I had spare shoes that were an improvement)) and the chairs were really not all that fab either. So early evening I'm slumped in a chair, Husbink had brought me a cushion from the car and I'm kind of zoning out from proceedings. In my own little world...one had stroking bump, one hand stroking Husbink's back.
Suddenly there's a flash and I look up confused to see one of the bridesmaids smiling..."rubbing bump and hubby, so maternal, so cute!"
The pic is on facebook with a fairly similar caption...
Multitasking? Cute? ;)

Actually, I didn't.

Something has been irritating me about...umm...life? Technology? People? Companies? I'm not quite sure who to blame...

Just now, I switched on the computer, got myself online and saw that my virus software was doing a big update. All well and good, I like it when it updates. This was a particularly big update but they do happen sometimes too so I was not bothered (other than that it was making everything else a little sloooow.) Until the end. When up pings the message "Thank you for choosing to download the XXXXX (virus software) toolbar." What?! I didn't. I don't like it. It gets in the way. It suggests that I was use Yahoo! to search not Google. It takes away the shiny new (ok, not very shiny or very new...) Google page that I had been getting used to whenever I opened a new tab. It generally irritates me. But when I look at whether I can delete it or shrink it or anything else, it emotionally blackmails me "With this, you are sooooo protected. Every webpage you look at is thoroughly checked by my magnificent powers of security. Nothing can possibly go wrong...while you have me!" Ok. Fine. Make my browsing experience a little more irritating and possibly a little safer but don't suggest that I chose this method and Don't Thank Me!

That being the main bit. How many times do you get unsolicited mail/email/phone calls/whatever that start with "Thank you for choosing..." this product, to support this charity, to align yourself with this political party, for recycling your nose hair..... When you did no such thing, made no such decision. Just be honest!

"Hi, This is a piece of junk mail. You don't really want it but we're sending it on the off chance that today is one of those days where you feel like reading everything that comes through the door. It is a good excuse for not doing the cooking/vacuuming/washing up/tidying that you are meant to do. It feels virtuous, reading the post, doesn't it? Well, now we have you in that frame of mind, please can we sell you something/beg for money/play on the heartstrings?

Chances are you aren't reading this so we'll just slip in a couple of insults or inappropriate jokes cos frankly, who is going to care?"

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr................

Rant over. :)

Sorry for the lack of posting. This is mainly because I wanted to do that holiday post that I mentioned before but haven't been in the mood (does anyone else suffer from bursting into Glenn Miller whenever they say "in the mood"?) for it and so haven't wanted to post anything else because then the holiday post wouldn't happen...ah well...

In a total aside, and to leave things on a happy note, have you ever seen a wild puffin? If not, I thoroughly recommend it for the soul, for your well being, for good health and good cheer! I saw my very first puffins while we were on holiday in Anglesey and then we went last Friday to Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve in East Yorkshire and saw lots more. They make me smile so very much. I must look like a loon peering through binoculars grinning madly to myself. Husbink had the camera and took lots of photos but we don't quite have a big enough zoom yet. But I think you can tell they are puffins. :)

Compulsory Annual Post

So it is Wimbledon again. It seems that something happens that makes me want to blog about it each year...so here we go.

Last night I stayed up (ok, for normal people it wasn't that late but I'd been planning an early night with my book as Husbink was on nights) to watch the Murray match. Having seen at least some of all of his matches so far, I found this one really intriguing - because it felt so much more familiar.

At last, the crowd knew what they were meant to be doing. At last, there were sections that I couldn't watch. At last, I had to walk away from the TV fairly frequently - because I really did have to get other things done and couldn't fritter away the entire evening on a game of tennis.

Watching last week, Husbink and I had both felt that the crowd - including us - didn't quite know what to do with straight sets. This isn't what we are used to from "our man". We are used to agony. When Murray was simply playing fantastic shots, there were cheers, there was applause but it was slightly lacklustre. Once things started to go a little pear-shaped, we were comfortable again. We can scream and shout and cheer. Hanging our heads one minute, pulling out our hair before leaping up in triumph, pumping the air the next.

I'm always a little amazed by the British desire to support the underdog. In some instances, as with tennis matches, this is partly due to the fact that you get a better game if the underdog puts up a fight, but I think there is more to it than that. We feel like the underdog so often (which is a whole other discussion) that we support them whoever they are. When one of ours starts to do well, yes we enjoy it but we don't quite know what to do with it. The Ashes will be at their best if England scrape through. A resounding victory in each Test and we wouldn't know where to look.

I don't want to go through the trauma of the end of the fourth set last night again. I would like Murray to win each match from here on comfortably but for us the spectators, the experience might be slightly dimmed.

PS we were on holiday last week and shortly (when I have done the picture sorting thing) there will be a couple of lengthy posts...including some propaganda)

I have decided

So. The journalism course. That didn't go so well. :s
BUT. In a very helpful sort of way. I'd been pondering journalism (quite a bit at Husbink's encouragement) for quite a long time and, although some of my issues with the course are with the course, I have now established that it isn't something I want to do. I'm not, umm, hmm, thing enough. I'm really not quite sure what thing is. It's not that I'm not curious enough. It's not that I'm not disciplined enough.
If anything (and this is going to sound quite dumb and like I should have known beforehand), it's just that I don't like reading magazines all that much. Meh.
So, I've paid for it, I can't have a refund, I'll still receive all the tutorials. There have been some interesting nuggets in what I've read already so I'm sure I'll read through them all at some point and that what I pick up will be useful so I'm not beating myself up over this. What I am doing is being fairly sure what it is I want to do now. Which is quite a marvel for me!
1) I want to be a mum. Well, durrrr!
2) I want to be a tutor. As I finished with my GCSE students a few weeks ago I realised just how much I enjoy tutoring. I currently have a couple of younger students (who are very hard work) and I briefly had an adult student that I may pick up with again in September. These are both good but it is actually the year 9/10/11 stage that I really enjoy. It is fun maths, easy enough for me to teach and also the bit where many people suddenly realise a flare for some part of the subject. It's great! I know I won't have any new students for a year now (probably) but I know I'll want to go back to it as soon as I can.
3) I want to make a serious go of getting one of my novels published. I will finish editing. I will do my research. I will send it off to all the right people. It may not come to anything but it is certainly not going to come to anything wasting away on my laptop semi-finished. This was the main thing that became absolutely clear from the journalism course. I love to write and I love to write what I love to read - I love to read novels, I love to write novels. I don't love to read articles, I don't love to write articles. Wish me luck!

Silly...

So, lately Husbink and I have talked about names quite a lot. Obviously.
There is an abundance of names for girls that we like we we've stopped talking about them for now as it is just a case of picking one...but boys? Much harder we are finding. So hard that we've pretty much given up on sensible suggestions and are just enjoying being really, really silly.
The other morning I tried to raise the names question again, sensibly. It went ok for a while. We discussed various potential options but none that we were really taken with... Until Husbink suggested "Carl" I can't remember how it came up (oh yes, by this point we'd started listing characters from favourite TV series or films...so this was after Carl Sach in Boston Legal...having rejected Denny and Alan already). So yes. Carl. Which when you put it with our surname...(if you aren't getting it, say it a little faster ) (and apologies if you don't know our surname, this will make no sense. Hey ho.)
I was in a very silly mood by this point and it was all a bit too much. I didn't stop laughing/crying for a long, loooong time.
If it wasn't going to cause lasting psychological damage to our unborn child I would not be seriously tempted to call him Carl. If it is him.
We are not to be trusted with such serious things as naming babies!! We are also considering spelling things with their initials...oh dear...

An Excitable Pregnancy Post

So I've been having lots of nerves this past week - is everything still ok after the scan? Is the baby growing ok? Heart still beating well? Etc...Etc...
So this morning I made Husbink listen to my tummy. He really, really didn't want to because he thought if he couldn't hear anything I'd just get more stressed. I assured him that wasn't possible but that maybe he could reassure me. So after some wheedling, he had a listen. Then pulled a face that really, really alarmed me before saying "do you know what? I think I can hear it!" so after a few moments of chattering, he said "can I listen again?" and this time was very confident that just by sticking his ear against my tummy, he can hear the heartbeat. Very exciting! When he gets home this evening he's going to try to get his stethoscope nicely positioned so I can hear too. :)
I do still have moments of complete confusion at the thought that there actually is a baby growing inside me. It isn't some abstract concept, there really is something in there. Crazy!

I do feel rather sorry for Mr Brown

I know it isn't fashionable and I suspect it isn't sensible but I do feel really rather sorry for Gordon Brown at the moment.
I've had a soft spot for him for years and years since his baby died. (My mum wrote to him as someone who had been through the death of a baby and at that point was working for FSID (Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths - you know why they prefer to use the initials!) to empathise and received a very kind letter back - not entirely personal but not entirely impersonal either. It was enough to impress me.)
So anyway, I suspect the poor chap should never have become PM under any circumstances but certainly not under the circumstances that he did. And now the world seems to be falling apart beneath him, poor poppet.
He's not an upfront leader type. He's not charismatic. He doesn't inspire people. He shouldn't be there. But now he is do we have to be so horrid all the time? Yes, he should resign and maintain just a little bit of dignity (actually, I think it is too late for that - his only shot at dignity now is for something AMAZING to happen that vindicates everything he's ever done...so holding on and hoping perhaps is *his* best option just now) but please, please, please can we/they/everyone just be a smidgy bit nicer to him while he goes?