Friday, November 28
woofOn Saturday, we went down to London and Discovered Dogs, as is our yearly custom. This year's was the best one yet. So many beautiful furry faces. The trip coincided with some rugby match, apparently, which seemed to have the whole nation in its thrall. When we alighted at Kings Cross a crowd about 50 deep were peering into the window of the pub on Platform 8 to try and get the score. When we got to the gig, the first thing we saw was the Metropolitan Police's exhibit on their dog training programme, featuring a pen full of happy labrador puppies. Riotous applause from the large crowd clustered around the Met's tiny TV screen told us that it wasn't a publicity video that was being screened. We went off to watch the Met puppies - golden labs and springer spaniels - being put through their paces in the main ring. The newest recruits were introduced first, having been plucked wriggling from the pen and a crowd of cooing admirers. They were given balls to scamper after and one of labs squatted shamelessly in the middle of the ring and, looking extremely pleased with itself, did an enormous crap, which was hastily removed by a purse-lipped constable. Next there were displays by the gun sniffer and drug sniffer dogs. Calling for volunteers for the latter, the police officer MCing the display added the caveat that if anyone in the audience was carrying drugs, they were kindly not to put their hands up, please, as it would be awfully embarrassing and inconvenient if they had to be arrested. Wondering if this had happened in previous years I put my hand up and was picked out to take part in a drug sniffer line-up. Jack appeared bemused.
The rest of the day we spent wandering around the stalls gazing covetously at our favourite breeds (Westies, wire-haired miniature dachshunds - yeah I know they're comical-looking wee creatures but they're very sweet - those Hungarian ones that look like Rasta wigs with feet, Tibetan spaniels) - and Discovering new ones (Swedish Vallhunds, which look like small sawn-off Alsations, and Pyreneen sheepdogs, which are skinny and hairy and have pretty, triangular faces). Also took in some of the agility and behavioural training displays. And for once, the Pekingese stall wasn't staffed by bouffant snobs who hid the dogs when we approached, but by a very camp gentleman who let me pick up and cuddle his wee soppy dog, who reminded us somewhat poignantly of the late lamented Eric (although he was not as beautiful). All in all a grand day out. Maybe we'll take little mini-Elder next year. Then again, next year it looks like we'll be in NZ for Jack's sister's wedding. Congratulations, Charlotte and Ben! slurp
Now that I'm taking Fridays off work, rather than ceding to the urge to hibernate I've decided to try to make the most of the free time (apart from today, when I'm just sitting here blogging and waiting for flooring to arrive while the plasterer - well, I'm not entirely sure what he's doing down there to be quite honest but it sounds positively deadly so I'm keeping out of his way). Last Friday I went out to Ely to visit Kathie and young Robert, now nearly 5 months old. He's a fine wee chap, sharing his mother's loquacity as well as her voracious appetite. My word can that kid eat. In my limited experience of young'uns who've recently been introduced to solids (I use the term in a strictly relative sense), spoons, and what you should do with them when someone suddenly shoves one, loaded with pale orange mush, into your gob, seem to cause a certain measure of confusion. The notion that contents of said spoon are meant to stay in your mouth and, ideally, progress further down your digestive tract, is one that seems to take them some months to grasp. However not so with young Robert. My word can that kid eat. When a spoon is inserted into his gaping toothless maw he grabs it ferociously from his mother's grasp and attempts to shove it down his throat, occasionally making himself retch in the process. Efforts to withdraw the spoon in order to load it up with more food are resisted with shrieks of indignation. You'd think he'd never been fed before. Although he seems to require some type of feeding approximately every seven minutes, and squeals like he's been stuck with something sharp if food is not immediately forthcoming. (It's a wonder that Kathie hasn't been reduced to a hollow, dry, husk of a woman.) And if you should want to try to placate him by offering him a finger to suck, be prepared to lose fingerprints is all I can say. The kid's a prodigy.
Kathie told me that babies of Robert's age have a three-second short term memory, which turned out to have hilarious consequences when she tried to get him to swallow dilute orange juice to sort out some intestinal-related issue. This really messed with his young and inexperienced mind: judging from the horrified grimaces the juice tasted revolting to him, but he couldn't remember this for more than three seconds, and in any case, anything that comes out of a teat is milk and therefore good, right? Is basic pattern recognition. So attempts to feed him the stuff soon settled into a 3 second loop which may be summarised thus: 'Ooooh, a teat, which can only mean... MILK! FANTASTIC! I can't remember the last time someone fed me! *grab* *siphon* *horrified grimace* *spit out juice* *howl with rage* ... 'Ooooh a teat, which can only mean... MILK! FANTASTIC!...' Etcetera. (I thought it would be amusing to keep at it for a bit to see how long it would take him to give up, but Kathie soon took the bottle off me. Hey, I never said I was the maternal type.)
Thursday, November 20
it even hurts to driveOoooh, me back. I think it may have gone out in sympathy with the tiny woman in B&Q who hauled a huge kitchen unit off the shelf for me while her three strapping male colleagues stood around scratching themselves...
Speaking of dumb turkeys, here's a lesser-known event on the US political calendar. Well, lesser-known by me, anway. So which one gets sent to the farm for retired turkeys?
Tuesday, November 18
things that go bumpYesterday I handed in my maternity leave notice. After a seemingly endless first trimester whose misery extended well into the second, the pregnancy's now whizzing past and at already 25 weeks gone I'm approaching the third trimester, and starting to look like a butternut squash (especially if I wear the beige maternity outfit Kathie lent me). I plan to finish work on Jan 28 next year, approx 5 weeks before SDD (Sprog-Dropping Day). Which leaves me little over 2 months to go, with an extended break over Christmas (please God let our kitchen be finished by then otherwise we'll be feasting on microwaved gruel). Added to which my lovely workplace have allowed me use up some of next week's annual leave, so I'm currently taking one day off per week and plan to go work three day weeks in Jan. Must not get prematurely demob-happy.
On the subject of maternity clothes I have this to say: a) gaaaaaah! and b) what were they thinking? That pregnancy is a public spectacle, a spectator sport even, is certainly reflected in the amount of keen and occasionally prurient interest people take in the pregnant body. (for one thing, I've lost count how many times I've been eagerly asked if I've had any particularly weird cravings.) Its spectacular aspect is noticeably reflected in maternity clothes design - most obviously with T-shirts that draw attention to the bump by plastering them in legends such as 'Definitely Baby', 'Does My Bump Look Big In This' or (shudder) 'It Started With A Kiss'.
(But why stop at cutesy? Why not go for realism: 'It Started With Three Litres of Diamond White And A Tenuous Grasp Of Reproductive Biology'? What about 'Condom Failure'? Or 'He Told Me He Would Pull Out'? You could even branch out with a matching shirt for the expectant dad: 'She Told Me She Was On the Pill'.
Come to think of it, I believe there's a real gap in the market to be exploited here - here are some more snappy ideas:
'It's None Of Your Goddamn Business Whether We Were Trying Or Not';
'If I Want Your Opinion I'll Ask For It';
or:
'Touch My Bump Again And I'll Tear Your Arm Off And Beat You To Death With The Soggy End'?
Come on - the beauty of it is that the bigger you get, the more space you have for the slogan!)
Anyway, shopping in London for something to wear to Jack's Christmas do, I discovered that evening wear for pregnant chicks is also tailor-made to accentuate the obvious, and in as unflattering a way as possible. I avoided the sequinned mumus but tried on a variety of other hideous garments, the most alarming of which was a shiny black satin dress with a flaired baby doll skirt and a pink ribbon under the bust, adorned with a bow at the front. It looked like the sort of thing Divine would wear in a John Waters movie, but I wriggled into it anyway and emerged from the dressing room looking like a giant pregnant licorice allsort. (Maybe it would have looked better without the sports socks). After further angst and as Jack's expression of patient suffering grew more fixed, I eventually managed to find a rather styly little top in pale gold satin. In Mothercare, of all places, next to the rack of dungarees. So now I am going to look like a giant Christmas bauble with feet, but at least I will be seasonal.
BTW, For the record, I have had the odd mild craving but have not been sucking down soap suds, or coal, or axle grease, nor have I despatched Jack at 3 AM for watermelon or sturgeon's roe. Sorry to disappoint. About the most disgusting thing I've craved has been pork scratchings, but fortunately this only lasted a day. The most enduring craving has been for jellied sweets, and I must single out here for special mention the lovely Melanie, who prefers puppies to children (or to human beings in general, as far as I can tell) and is particularly and vocally unkeen on small babies, but who nevertheless showed up at ours one night bearing a huge barrel of jellied fish and chip-shaped sweeties because I'd mentioned in passing the previous night that I'd been eating lots of them and she'd been to the wholesalers. Thank you Melanie!
Monday, November 17
bump bump bumpSaw the midwife on Friday for my 24 week checkup, during which she measured my bump for the first time. Dunno what I was expecting her to use for this - calipers, maybe, a sextant, some type of surveying equipment? but in the event she pulled out a bog standard measuring tape, placed one end on my pubic bone and the other on the top of the bump, and announced that it's 24 centimetres long and as such exactly the right size for my dates. This is reassuring, given the economy version of the circulatory system we seem to have ended up with. (Look, if I'd been told there were meant to be two umbilical arteries, not one, I would have concentrated harder in the early stages, OK? Anyway, the assembly instructions were in Norwegian.) Not to mention the fact that well-meaning types keep carolling 'Wow, you hardly look pregnant at all!' - the one time in my life when I'd really be quite happy to hear that I look like a gestating sea elephant. Although I've heard that those unfortunate women who pork up big in the first trimester spend their entire pregnancies being told 'WOW, it's not due until MARCH? But you're so HUUUGE!' Which can be quite irritating too, apparently.
Calibrations aside, the bump and I have had a reasonably active social life lately. It seemed to enjoyed the third Matrix movie, especially the protracted and extremely noisy battle scene. At least I think it was enjoyment - it might have been trying to hammer its way free. Oddly given its apparent penchant for loud noises it didn't react much to the November 5 firework display on Midsummer Common. Maybe it really did hate the movie. Well, everyone else seemed to. (Although I quite enjoyed it really, which may say something about the effect of pregnancy on one's critical faculties.) My brother Jim visited last Monday, bringing with him a huge sack of baby stuff lovingly compiled by my mother, presumably from the moment she put the phone down after I'd rung to tell her I was up the duff. It's an impressive collection, all the more as she seems to have covered the gender bases by including both pink and blue versions of several items. Thanks Mam! Jim also graciously agreed to transport all my Christmas presents back to NZ with him. Thanks Jim! He also didn't appear to mind his lie-in being interrupted by the delivery of a ton of gravel and the demolition of several walls by the builders, who are currently scorched-earthing our kitchen. Had dinner with Lisa and Paul on Friday night at their local Chinese restaurant while Jasper stayed home and guarded the house. Spent the weekend in London, shopping mostly, Jack having lastminute.commed us a rather splendid hotel room on Oxford street. Well, anything to get away from the rugby. Timely arrival of Alison and James on Sat morning to give us a lift to the station spared us the spectacle of NZ's ignominious defeat, or at least the second half of it. Oxford Street and the Tube were a sweating, shoving, kicking biting and scratching hell (and that's to say nothing of Hamleys) but we emerged triumphant at the end of it all with the best part of the Christmas shopping done. Rounded the weekend off with lunch at a weird but endearing horror-themed pub near Marble Arch - the loos were hidden behind secret panels in the fake bookshelves, and once you got in there played moaning and screaming sound effects at you which to me seemed strangely soothing after the retail hell. Weekend of two halves, shopping winner on day. I better post this and get back to work. In the next instalment will relate singular nightmare of trying to find appropriate maternity gear to wear to black tie Christmas party. The horror. The horror.
Tuesday, November 4
Lying in the bath last night, not only felt but saw the baby kicking. Now don't go 'ee-yew' like that, it wasn't freakish and scary like in Alien, it was cool. And pretty soon I'm hoping to be able to train it to flick pickled onions straight off my stomach into my open mouth.Have just declined the offer to put in an order for next year's diary at work, which brings home the imminence of it all, really. What's more, the builder is coming tomorrow to smash down walls in our house in preparation for the installation of a commodious and child-friendly kitchen, we now own a rather respectable yet zippy new(ish) car (not a station wagon though) and I'm suddenly finding maternity clothes to be the most comfortable things in the world. (Maybe there is something to this possession by aliens theory after all...)
Monday, November 3
a father addresses his unborn child...'So, what's it like in there?
[Pause]
Dark, I expect....'
Having been somewhat stressed after the 20 week scan I've been unable to write anything lately. So much for the links between gestation and textual production, one of the central themes of my PhD thesis. Which just goes to show that academics don't know shit.
I can't write about scary stressful stuff - this isn't, for some reason, what this particular blog is about. However I think everything's OK now, so normal services will be resumed asap. In the meantime, the baby's been intermittently partying on down, especially late at night when I'm lying still, when I've just had too much sugar, or when loud music is being played. It was especially active during Kill Bill. Notably when that bloody awful pan pipe thing by Zamfir, or whatever the fecker's called, came on the soundtrack. This piece was released in the early eighties, while I was in high school, and was a popular choice for school assemblies as a supposed aid to quiet spiritual reflection (I mostly used to spent the time reflecting on imaginative alternative uses of pan pipes that did not include subjecting me to their insipid strains.) Anyway, sitting there in the cinema watching severed limbs hurtling across the screen, I hoped that the thorough kicking I was getting was at least a sign of protest, an indication that the wee one's nascent taste in music is starting to reflects its mother's.
