3 posts tagged “pregnancy”
Oh, I'm shit at this blogging lark. At least, when someone's not paying me to do it, obviously. Back from 3GSM now, I got home at 11.30pm on Valentine's Day to a rapturous welcome from Alice, which was even more rapturous when she realised I didn't have a card, flowers, chocolates, diamonds or even a free Qualcomm pen to hand over.
Preparations going apace for the baby, we now have cot, clothing, bath and numerous things from Boots which I don't quite understand what they do. Still no progress on agreeing a name, but we do at least have a shortlist, which I better not reveal here. Cats seem chilled too, LITTLE DO THEY KNOW...
Not much else to report really. I did some allotment digging yesterday, and I just bought the new Pro Evo Soccer for my DS, which is fecking ace. That is all.
It's started then. The endless flow of money going out of our bank account and into the coffers of people who make Stuff For Babies. The cot arrived at the weekend from Mothercare. It's very cool (left), as the side comes down so you can have it next to the bed, so it's like the baby being in bed with you, except with less chance you'll roll over while drunk tired and squash it. Don't call the NSPCC though - we ARE going to buy a mattress for it.
Then, Saturday was the pushchair day. We schlepped down to Cheshunt (and man, that's a sorry excuse for a high street if ever I saw one) to go to the Mamas & Papas shop there. I believe this makes Alice a wannabe Yummy Mummy, as it's quite posh. I'm not sure what the equivalent is for fathers who buy expensive stuff to look cool. Faddy Daddy?
Anyway, we didn't have a clue about prams, other than we wanted something that felt solid, had four wheels not three, and wouldn't make us embarrassed to be seen walking down the street with. I was quite keen on having some gadgets in there too - MP3 player in the hood maybe, or a kettle. But no such luck. Instead we got a Plika (I think) pushchair that turns into a pram, and I daresay into a robot if you pull the right levers. It's quite complicated, but it turns like a taxi (i.e. very fast), so should be good for hairpin skids in the supermarket.
The upshot: we've spent hundreds of pounds, and we now have Proper Baby Stuff in the house. Apparently some people think it's bad luck to do this before the birth, but to hell with it. I'd rather have it all set up early, not least because it'll take us the next 12 weeks to figure out how to pull the pushchair cord so it neatly folds into a standing position. It looked so easy in the shop...
Last bit of baby stuff (for this post anyway): we went to the hospital tour on Sunday, when parents-to-be get a guided look at the ante-natal, labour and post-natal wards, and ask all the important questions (do they encourage active birthing, are the birth pools likely to be free, should the father bring his own PlayStation 2 or is one provided etc). It all seems great, anyway - very relaxed regime, mother free to give birth however she wants, and only a slight risk that if they're full up when you arrive, you'll get packed off down the motorway to Enfield. I MAY have felt a bit faint during the talk about epidurals, but I maintain it was the heat. Those stuffy rooms, etc. Really.
Oh dear, I haven't Voxed for ages, and I don't even have good booze-related reasons like Gemma. I haven't been properly, respectably drunk in ages. And to compound my shame, I even managed to knock over a table of champagne glasses today at 3's press event WITHOUT the cause being earlier swigging. I'll be handing in my journalist credentials if this continues.
What else? Oh yes, Alice has been feeling movement-type stuff in her belly for a couple of weeks, without being entirely sure that it's the baby, but in the last few days it's been much more noticeable. It even obligingly kicked three times the other night when I had my hand on her tummy. It's all marvellous, obviously, very emotional. Next scan is the week after next, when we should get to see the bub again. We found this image, which is apparently what it roughly looks like now. Blee.
Also, we have 10 boys names and 10 girls names on a longlist, although I better not say what they are, for fear of jinxing things. Sadly, Busby didn't make the final list though, despite making us both snort tea out of our nostrils when we read it in the book. Neither did Ponce or Gaylord (likewise). Schoolkids can be so cruel, it's like giving them an open goal to aim for...
I've also started the final process of getting rid of my shitey old PC, by transferring over all the MP3s to my Mac. And there's a few thousand of them, being transferred 1GB at a time via memory stick.
Anyway, this means I've been listening to selected albums that I haven't heard in a while. This week: lots of Nick Drake, Led Zeppelin, and The Cure's marvellous reissue of Three Imaginary Boys, an album made when they were still scratchy post-punks. It has the best scratchy post-punk cover of Jimi Hendrix's 'Foxy Lady' you'll ever hear.
Work is mad busy too - full steam ahead on WiiWii, Tech Digest, Brandish etc, as well as my *gasp* non Shiny Media stuff (Pocket Gamer, Pocket Picks, T3 magazine, top-secret copywriting etc). Every time I think I've got this time management lark sorted, I take on too much work again and end up working until 10pm. Ah well, it will pay for lots of Wii games rusks and a Sky Sports subscription nappies. See how responsible I am.
What a long post. That's me done for five months then...
