A letter to Nelson: month four July 20, 2008

Dear Nelson,

Unbelievably, you are now four months old, and what a month the past one has been.

There have been a couple of major achievements this month, which make your father and me justifiably proud.

1. The sleeping through the night thing.

The other morning I woke up wondering why the birds were singing at 3am. In reality it was 6am, and you’d been asleep since about 9pm the previous evening. It felt surreal. It felt like an unexpected Christmas present, sleeping for hours at a time while it was dark outside. And since then – with a couple of minor blips – you’ve continued to sleep in one major block of time over night. These days you’ll get tired about 7ish, we’ll put you to bed 8ish, and you’ll sleep through until 4-5ish. I think sticky-taping tin foil over your windows has really helped with this, especially now with summer coming and sunlight peeping through at about 4am. Now you have a feed at about 5am and then snooze until about 8ish, partly because you think it’s still dark. HAH! Just you wait until I lie and tell you that the pile of cabbage you won’t eat is really just boiled lettuce. The tinfoil is just the start of it all.

2. The eating of food that’s not milk.

I’m quite sure that committing this to writing will incur the wrath of my bureaucratic and overly stringent health visitor, but we have started feeding you food from a spoon. Food that’s not milk. First it was just baby rice mixed with a bit of formula, then it was a bit of apple purée mixed with baby rice, and then we moved onwards and outwards to try banana, apple and banana, apple, carrot and parsnip and carrot and potato.

The first few mouthfuls you weren’t really sure what to make of it all, and to be honest I didn’t care much for the taste of baby rice either, but once you got the hang of rolling the mush around in your mouth and then actually swallowing it, you were away. Now you virtually bite my hand off to get whatever I’ve mixed up into your mouth. Some days you’re not into it, and that’s fine: we have a bit of fun and then you drink your milk and all is dandy.

This Thursday I am determined to take you down to the baby clinic and get you weighed. I want to know just how much this grown up food is affecting your weight. You are such a solid, lovely boy, with a cute little belly and teeny tiny rolls on your thighs.

Love, mum.

A letter to Nelson: month three May 11, 2008

Dear Schmoo,

I am struggling to believe that next week you will be three months old. Something strange happens in adult brains, I think, when it comes to time and babies. The hours when you scream your displeasure at how tired you are seem to drag on forever. And yet it feels to me like only yesterday I was lying in bed, in the quiet of the early morning hours, feeling your little heels kick against the top of my uterus, and here today you are upstairs in your own big bed, cooing to yourself as you fall to sleep.

Son, this month as with the past two you have challenged me, tested my patience, broken my heart and mended it over and over again. I am speaking specifically of your ability to go for days without any great periods of sleep.

This last week your Special Aunty SimonaMinx came to visit me while your father was away on business in Europe. For three days, you slept in 20 minute power naps, and came out of each one fully pumped for whatever life could throw at you, and you seemed perfectly OK with the fact that babies such as yourself only needed four hours sleep MAXIMUM in the dark. I really thought we had the sleeping thing down with you: in the past it only took a dream feed at 11pm to keep you going through til 6am, but apparently you like to keep me on my toes and not get too comfortable. Who needs all that sleep anyway? It’s for the weak.

Then, of course, the first night your dad was home you selpt from 11pm through til 5am. Perhaps it is the peaceful vibe eminating from his aura that has calmed you. Whatever, on the one hand I’m happy it’s working, on the other hand, WHY WON’T YOU SLEEP LIKE THAT FOR ME (YOU LITTLE BUGGER!)?

Yesterday your dad and I started the process of getting you to sleep in your own room. This basically involves sticky-taping tin foil over the windows and skylights, so that your room is as dark as possible, and the purchasing of a baby monitor, so we can leave you in the room to go to sleep but still spy on you. Fingers crossed that the end result is you sleeping and napping for longer.

You loved your aunty, and you spent many hours grinning and chatting and giggling with her. She loved you back and you showed her just what to expect from a pooey nappy when she pops out her own wee bairn in a few weeks time. I think she was a bit shocked at just how much work you can be. I think even *I* was a bit surprised at how much work you can be when there isn’t a daddy around to help out (purely on a selfish note, though, it did mean I got all your love and cuddles to myself).

This made me think of two things: one, how amazing your Aussie Grandma is, because she brought me up by herself, with no daddy around to help. It’s only since I’ve had you that I’ve really been able to appreciate what she has done for me. And two, how grateful I am to have your dad around, because working as a team to bring you up really spreads the workload.

Last week I toddled down to the baby clinic to have you weighed – 14 pounds 6 ounces. That’s a stone. You are a big boy, no two ways about it: you dwarf many of the babies at group who are months older than you. I have given up carrying you around in your harness because you are just too heavy for me. Every day you seem to unfurl a little more, grow a little bit more into the wonderful person your dad and I know you to be.

This month you have started to drool and shove your fists in your mouth with gay abandon. Nothing is quite so entertaining as the feeling of your cute little fingers in your gummy mouth.

You love to kick in your basket and play with your squeaky pirate, to gurgle and ‘talk’ to me and your dad. You adore it when your father whistles you a tune, any tune, doesn’t matter what, you think it’s the funniest thing on the planet, and we are just eating that up at the moment because we know that in about 15 years time you will think we are the most embarrassing humans that ever existed.

You are also becoming a lot more physical with each new day. No longer are you content to lie on your back in your basket and let the world pass you by. You want to roll over, lift your head up, reach for things – and you let us know how unhappy you are when your body doesn’t do what you want it to.

No longer are you content to lie snuggled in my arms. You want to stand up and look around or at the very least, sit up and look around, so I grasp you firmly under the arms and stand you up and bounce you on your very long legs. I’m sure, given how time seems to pass now I’m a parent, that I’ll turn around and you’ll be running off to school or jumping puddles.

Love,

Mum.

A letter to Nelson: month two April 25, 2008

Dear son,

A-ga-ga. A-goo-goo.

Last week you turned two months old and overnight became a new baby. One day you were a squished up little red thing, and the next you had discernible facial features and a newfound ability to talk back to your parents, a fact that continues to delight all three of us.

In the past four weeks you have learned how to sleep for at least 5-7 hours once the sun goes down, which has utterly saved my sanity, and by default, your father’s as well. The first time you slept through the night I awoke at about 6 in the morning wondering who the hell was making it light at 3.30am. I couldn’t have been more proud of you than I was that morning, except I was twice as proud the next morning because you proved you were no flash in the pan when it came to sleeping in big chunks once the sky went dark, oh no, because you slept for seven hours straight again.

This last month has been hard for me as my depression has returned, but thanks to a marvellous little white tablet I get to take every morning, I can see hope now where before I could only see a dark, dim forest with no relief in sight.

You and I are continuing to take our wee town of Royston Vasey by storm as we attend mother and baby groups each Monday and Thursday. Ignoring the Stepford Wives, you and I charm the normal mothers, one of whom is actually our neighbour. You and her daughter get along very well, as well as you can when you are 2 and 3 months old and can’t roll over.

Each week you get bigger, and longer and stronger, and with each day you seem to unfurl and grow even more. You are starting to develop likes and dislikes, and you get better at expressing those as well. You particularly like your squeaky pirate, a gift from Aunty Mella, and the faces your dad pulls at you first thing in the morning. You also are quite soft on the faces of unfamiliar women, who in turn seem to think you are utterly gorgeous. Works both ways.

This week you received your first round of immunisations, a fact which pleases you less and less as the days pass. When the nurse jabbed your thigh the first time you looked at her as if to say, hey, I thought you were a bit of all right but clearly I was mistaken. By the second jab you were even less impressed about the whole deal and made your displeasure known to the entire surgery waiting room and most of the folks on the high street as we walked home.

You are still feeding for England, and possibly for Australia as well, and are growing out of your clothes faster than your father and I can be bothered going shopping to buy more.

I can’t really think of anything else to write at the moment, my snufflebug. But this is month two of your life, and as far as Dad and I are concerned, it’s the start of a great big wonderful adventure with you, and I want to make sure that we keep a record of things.

Love,

Mum.

A letter to Nelson: month 1 March 16, 2008

Dear son,

This Wednesday you turn a month old, a fact that amazes me given that I’ve read *this* many manuals about parenting, but I am still hopeless inept at the job. I am getting much better as the days pass, however, at blaming my farts on you.

In the past month we have weathered many storms already, mostly involving your not sleeping, and not fully appreciating that when you arch your back a certain way you are not performing a complicated yoga pose but in fact have wind, but sometimes it means you are showing off how strong your neck and back muscles are, and sometimes it means wind AND showing off, and then you go and do something cute and a switch gets triggered in our brains and somehow we think your weeing all over your father is cute.

One of your favourite things to do at the moment is to lie on your back on the bathroom floor, and stare at god only knows what, and listen to the water pump in the cupboard bringing the blessed relief of hot water to your poor mother’s bosoms. And then throw in a wee vomit on the carpet for good measure.

Another of your favourite things to do is not sleep, which makes me wonder where those experts who say babies sleep 16 hours a day get their babies from. Because they sure didn’t take you into account. A little while ago you spent two nights sleeping in 45 minute chunks, and then taking your naps during the day like a damn angel. After the first night I assumed that you would tire yourself out by the second, but no, you were impatient to set the world record for minimum number of minutes spent fooling parents into thinking you were asleep, and by gee by jingo did you surpass that record. GUINNESS HAS BEEN CALLING.

I now understand why sleep deprivation is used as a method of torture because you have proven that you are way, way better than George Bush in this respect. In fact, I wouldn’t even vote for you in case you made it part of the constitution. The thing about you is that once you wake up and realise that there’s no bosom in your mouth, which means you’re not eating, you are determined to let the world know about it so someone will come along and fix it for you. Because hey, the squeaky wheel gets the oil, right?

Your father and I have discovered a method that slides you towards sleep without you actually thinking that you’re sliding towards sleep, because according to you, if you’re sleeping you’re not eating, and that’s a really tragic state of affairs, one that everyone needs to know about, even the neighbours we haven’t met yet in the next street.

You like to lie on your dad’s chest because that’s male bonding time and you like to lie on my chest because there’s bosoms involved, and if there’s bosoms involved then there is even a slight chance more food will pass your lips. The other night as I tried to convince you that 3am wasn’t the ideal time to be staring at my face or discussing life and the universe, you dropped your head between my bosoms and began to do that cute, ‘I’m really comfortable, so comfortable I might be heading towards that S word’ snuffle, and I began to pat your back. And I thought to myself, take advantage of this, kid, because the next time you’re face down between some female’s tits and she’s rubbing your back you’re probably going to have to pay for it and you might just get arrested.

But it’s hard to convey that to a 4-week-old baby, so I’ll just write about it here and you can read it later.

This month you and I have been to our first mother and baby group. You are the biggest kid there, and that takes some doing, given one of the kids is nearly eight months old. We turned up a little early, me nearly crying for the effort of getting out of the house, dressed in a puke-covered hoodie and you in a harness on my chest with a muslin square over your head to protect you from the rain. The other mothers showed up immaculately dressed, with make-up on (MAKE UP! HOW DO THEY *DO* THAT?) with their kids in new prams with rain covers.

As we all sat there pretending not to eye up each other’s children, and comparing everyone else’s kid to our own, one of the mothers began to change her kid’s nappy. I glanced over and I’m proud to say this, son, you have WAY bigger balls than that 4-month-old Charlie. WAY bigger.

In the past week your constant desire for food has taken its toll on my bosoms, so much so that we are now in the process of making you a formula-fed baby, something that, weirdly, bothers you much less than when you were breastfed, but has the breastfeeding police up-in-arms because I haven’t tried hard enough to keep you latched to my bosoms for 27 hours a day. In your first two weeks of life it felt like you were constantly at my chest looking to suck my bosoms dry. You are some optimist because you also tried suckling your father’s nose, arm and chest, as well as your hands and – let’s face it – virtually anything that passed within ten millimetres of your mouth. And while the current size of my bazoombas pleases both you and your father for different reasons my current thinking is that no one is allowed near them for the next 25 years.

You have been weighed three times now since you were born at 9lbs 12oz. A week later you were 10lbs 2oz, then five days after that you were 10lbs 9oz, and the other day at the baby clinic the weirdo nursery nurse weighed you in at 100kgs. Not really, it was actually 11lbs 2oz, but it means that you are putting on weight faster than average (one ounce per day), which in my book makes you ADVANCED. And heavier than that 6-month-old Archie from group. GET IN.

Although you are officially putting on weight, we are at a loss as to where you put it. Because you are definitely not fat – you’re long limbed and dare I say it, BIG BONED.

You have my big man hands and ballerina feet, just like I thought you would, and your dad’s cute nose and cheeks and face, and we’re not sure who to blame the flat arse on just yet. But probably me, because kids like to blame their mothers for all kinds of stuff, right, so why not start now?

Before you were born other parents warned us that kids grow up really fast and suddenly we’ll turn around and we’ll be embarrassing you at your 21st birthday with nudie pictures of you taking your first bath. It is really only in the past week that I have come to appreciate these words of advice. Each day I marvel at how your face changes shape, how you are able to recognise sounds more easily and how you are coming to smile when your dad or I come into a room. And at your incredible capacity to do a giant shit in a nappy I’ve *just* changed.

You may not yet be able to talk, my chubby cheeked, adorable son, but already I have learned so much from you, mostly about how difficult it is to put someone else first, all the time, after a lifetime of tending only to numero uno and enjoying the luxury of eight or nine hours uninterrupted sleep every night. I have your dad to thank for showing me the way, and you to thank for rewarding me with a completely new level of love that I never really knew existed or wanted to know about until now. You somehow have used a key to open up my heart even further than your father did when I met him all those years ago, and bring me peace.

One of the cute things you like to do is sit up and stare at me, something that on occasion alarms me because all manner of expressions cross your face as you’re staring. The other morning as you stared and I wondered how I could manage to turn the staring competition into a nap, or at least try and get some sleep sitting up with my eyes open, you raised one eyebrow quizzically at me and viewed me with suspicion, as if to say, ‘Hey … you were here yesterday. Are you my mother?’

Yes son, I am.

Love,

Mum.

Week 40 and a bit: where are you? February 8, 2008

Dear pikelet,

We were just wondering, your parents, why you have decided to be late. given that your parents are consistent over-estimators when it comes to working out how long it takes to get anywhere, and have been late for a sum total of about ooh, three things in their whole lives, our question to you is this: WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?

I, your mother, cannot talk on the phone any more, which is like your father voluntarily electing to never again use computers (but the day that happens is the day the world will end or men will suddenly develop the ability to bear a child, so no fear there), because I know every fucking time that phone rings it’ll be yet another well meaning friend or relative agog with excitement about your ALLEGEDLY impending arrival, screaming ANY NEWS YET? ARE YOU A MUMMY YET? To which my response has been thus far, no, and no, but if you want news cop this: I’ve watched five episodes in a row of Jamie Oliver’s home cooking/gardening show, which is more TV than I’ve watched in one hit for over two years. Take that. Pow, ANY NEWS IN YOUR FACE.

I, your beloved mother, who has thus far in your short, short life sacrificed her career, wardrobe, healthy eating regime, and any appearance of being even vaguely interested in housework in order to being you life, limbs and eyelashes, believes that YOU OWE ME TO SHOW UP. I would really like that, today, if at all possible, and even if it means going through many many hours of pain in the downstairs area or several gigantic needles in my spine combined with a lovely bit of gut splicing. Or even both. I am that desperate to rejoin the human race, the race that stands about and walks at normal paces and doesn’t get winded by the mere thought of walking up a flight of stairs. I would like my bladder back; I would like to be able to sleep in more than one position, in fact, I’d dearly love to just get some damn sleep.

We think you are a bit of a joker, and we’re cool with that, except for all the Braxton Hicks contractions you keep tricking me with. I get two in a row and I’m heading to the phone to ring your father, to say, this is IT, come home now and lavish (even more) attention (than usual) upon me and ease my discomfort, and then you in your wisdom will think it’s a tiny bit cruel to lead an excitable woman on in such a way, and settle down to a good hour of hiccupping and then a bit of a kick and a long nap.

I have already worked out that this is my first lesson of parenting: I may very much want you to do something, but if you don’t want to do it when I want you to, you won’t. You’ll do it in your own sweet time, and all I can really do is guide you and cross my fingers.

So hurry up already.

Week 39: we’re ready as we’ll ever be February 1, 2008

Dear sproglet,

Aside from the remake of the Saturday Night Fever album cover position, and the head-banging to Nirvana position, neither of which bother your father or me particularly, even while in the womb, did you have to take up the posterior position as your preference, just before birth?

At least we can count our blessings: you’re not bum first, you’re not sideways, but you are … tricky. Doing things your own way, just like your parents, I figure. And we’re cool with that. But don’t let it remain unsaid that we won’t try and guide you into a position – like, say, ANTERIOR AND EASY THROUGH THE BIRTH CANAL, BUSTER – on your way out. Or is it the way in?

And unfortunately pretty much the only way I can guide you into a better position for birth is by crawling around on my hands and knees for as much of the day as possible and reading the paper on all fours. Let me say it now: THE THINGS I DO FOR YOU, CHILD. One website I read even suggested going up and down the stairs sideways and trying to sleep on my belly. That website was clearly written by someone who has never been pregnant before.

Anyway, whichever, but consider this your official eviction notice. Your new room is ready, resplendent with decorations home made by your parents and Aunty-Lady-Jane, we’ve packed the labour bag, and we are pretty much just hanging around out here while you hang around in there. Why not come out and join us?

After spending so long in denial about what it’s going to take to get you into this world (either many hours of pain in the downstairs area, including the infamous ring of fire; OR a fucken big needle or six in my spine and my guts cut open to find you) I have finally reached a point of just being completely tired of being the pregnant lady who can’t move further than from the couch to the fridge.

I have watched as much Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, 24 (Series 1) and re-runs of the Sopranos as I can handle. I’ve played way, way too many hours of MarioKart. I grew heartily tired months ago of those conversations with strangers wherein they inquire how long I have to go, then deign to impart to me their opinion about my weight, appearance and whether I’m still carrying to high to give birth. I have even stopped caring whether I punch those people in the face any more.

I’ve stopped answering the phone, partly because I cannot have any more Have you had it yet? NO! conversations, and partly because the phone is usually at the other end of the house to my grossly large beached whaleness. Very inconsiderate for a cordless phone.

I’ve even grown tired of the fucking computer. How am I even writing this? M i n d p o w e r. Get used to it, kid. By the time you understand what that means I’ll have eyes in the back of my head, too.

My pretend contractions are increasing with each passing day. This morning I had three strong ones in a row, the first of which woke me from my futile attempt at dozing while carrying a small elephant inside my female parts. Then your father made me coffee, I remembered there was the internet and bills to pay and then it was 2pm and I was still in my jimmy-jammies waiting for labour to start for real. Not unlike right now.

I was going to write a big long post about promises I want to make to you, and ones your father will smile and nod to, because he knows who the boss is of this family, the real boss, not the one who goes out to work Monday to Friday. In the outside world. With other people. Where they drink on Friday afternoons. And stand around. Bastards.

So these promises. I had a great post about it all lined up in my head at about 3am yesterday, and then forgot it, because my brain is still all mushy from the carrying a small elephant around in my girl parts for the past nine months thing, and then I thought about writing it again and realised that I just couldn’t be bothered.

And yet, here I am, so here goes, but first with the things I won’t be able to promise, and you’re just going to have to deal with that (send us the therapist’s bill):

1. I can’t promise that I’ll never spit on a tissue and then wipe crusty bits of food from your face right before you get out of the car to go to school. Sorry.

2. I can’t ever promise for definite that I won’t ever say: “You don’t have to like it, you just have to it eat it” or “I don’t say no for fun, you know” or “This hurts me more than it hurts you”. Again, sorry.

What I CAN promise, however:

1. Never to negate your feelings. What you feel is what you feel, and that goes for me and your pa as well. We will deal with our feelings and emotions about issues, events, problems, whatever – together, as a family. No drama (unless you really want some).

2. To take responsibility for my own feelings, and to separate them from your behaviour as best I can when you decide the loungeroom wall looks much better covered in glitter and non-removable crayon.

2. Never to put you down for what you are wearing, even if it means gritting my teeth from saying anything. Listen, the second you can dress yourself (which will be when, you’re three? four? help me out here), you’re doing your parents a big favour by removing a chore from their never-ending list. What are your thoughts on dusting, by the way?

3. Never to bust into your room without knocking. If your door’s closed, you cute little sulky teenager you, I’ll knock. I’m sure you’ll put me back in my place if I don’t.

4. To admit my mistakes, as a human, who is continuing to learn about life.

5. To accept when I am wrong.

6. To take you to Glastonbury one day. If you’ll have me.

Week 30: the nest December 1, 2007

Dear mini-me,

I am busting a gut to get ready for your imminent arrival. Well, when I say ‘imminent’, what I actually mean is ‘arrival in ten weeks or thereabouts’.

Your father and I have found a proper, growed up house for us to live in, complete with a back garden and a bathtub the size of a large park pond. I fully intend to spend whatever time I’m not napping or nesting in that bath, even once you arrive.

Your movements are becoming more pronounced and it’s hard for me not to think that you’re conspiring against me, because every time I stop still, even if it’s just in a supermarket queue, you ark up in there and give me an elbow in the liver or a head butt against the bladder just to let me know that hey, you might only be 1.25kgs, but you got the power, yunno? When’s a kid gonna stand up for its right to sleep if not starting in the womb?

Yeah. I know.

So as my third and final trimester trickles towards its inevitable end (and result), your presence down there is becoming more keenly felt than ever before. I can tell which bit of you is a foot, and where your head is. And watching you ripple the surface of my great white expansive belly is akin to watching a homemade version of The Exorcist. But in a nice way.

Clothes and gifts continue to pour in from relatives and friends. Tomorrow I get to visit The Great Swede By The Motorway and pick out a few things like feeding chairs and bathmats and £1 bargains I doubt I’ll need but will buy anyway.

Time for a nap.

Love, mum.

Weeks 22-24: disco dancing October 11, 2007

My little disco dancer,

Your disco dancing is verrry cute. In the past few days your father has been able to feel you dancing away in there when he puts his hand on my belly.

We had our scan the other day, only two weeks or so after we were meant to, only because your mother currently boasts a butter brain, and got the days confused. Regardless, the scan went well, you have ten fingers, ten toes, a kind of freaky looking but totally normal spine but whether you have a willy or girl bits? That’s something we’re going to have to wait to find out. We chose to look away, although your father confessed later that he nearly peeked.

Your grandmother is here from Australia, and she brought with her about half the nation’s fitted nappy supplies, at least five sheep’s worth of knitted garments, some of which I’m sure will only fit you for about a week, some badly needed Bonds boyleg undies for your mother and – !praises be! – Australian chocolate.

We also toured France for about two weeks, so we can officially say that you’ve technically swum in the Mediterranean.

While I’ve been enjoying your wee dancing shenanigans, I’ve definitely not been enjoying the EXTREMELY FUCKING AGONISING leg cramps that have woken me up over the past few nights. I used to suffer from foot cramps when I swam a lot as a young kipper, but those cramps were nothing like these.

Nothing much else to report at the moment. My tiredness comes and goes, as does my energy; I think I am in the nice middle period of not being too uncomfortable physically and getting excited about meeting you and beginning my parenting life.

Weeks 17-18: the quickening September 18, 2007

Dear sprog,

I GET IT. YOU’RE IN THERE.

Love, me.

Week 16: cartwheel express August 25, 2007

Dear bubbarooni,

I do believe this is the week in which I have first felt thy movements within. All the women I know who’ve been pregnant have told me to look out for a weird sort of fluttering in my lower stomach area, which is kind of what you (occasionally) feel like at the moment.

But to tell the absolute truth, I think you kindasorta probably jabbed me with your foot, or your elbow that one time. Because it wasn’t really butterflies in there. It was a fairly solid poke on the insides.

I am assuming from that poke that you are beginning your warm-up exercises for your moshpit dance-fest which will come in later months. At the moment I am finding this kinda cute. I expect it will be less so when it’s 2am and I want you to turn the music down in there so I can get some sleep.

Since that one jab to my insides I have become convinced that every single internal movement in my lower torso must be you moving about. Since that one jab there’s been a bout or two of indigestion, a spot of trapped wind and some possible womb expansion, but further jabs and pokes haven’t really announced their presence just yet. There have been some butterflies, though.

That doesn’t mean you’re just loafing around in there treating the place like a hotel, of course. In fact, we’ve been working closely on getting you some eyelashes and fingernails organised, and trying not to worry about the fact that you can already suck your thumb (IMAGINE THE ORTHODONTICS BILL! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME ALREADY?). I don’t know about you, but this process is proving rather exhausting seeing as it’s running alongside my other major project, yunno, working a full time job.

According to most of the pregnancy calendars, this is about the time that my stomach is supposed to pop out slightly and I actually look Proper Preggers. Due to my hormonally based cravings for lemon drizzle cake, steak pasties and fish and chips, I’ve managed to look four months pregnant since about week eight, a week characterised not only by my capacity to cry at the sight of another baby but by Certain Other People tutting about how I was letting myself go (as I tucked into another pastie).

So now I look as fat as I did in week eight, but now it’s just a slightly more structured fat. But I can clutch at my ever-expanding belly anxiously as I board trains and know that I will get a seat close to the door facing the way the train is moving. Swings and roundabouts.

I have started doing some research into what exactly we’re going to stick your bum into once you’re born. I have a pathological dislike of disposable nappies, for any number of reasons, not least of all the fact that they are causing further strain on our already overburdened-by-modern-industrial-technology planet.

Then there is the false economy aspect. Lemme tell ya, there’s nothing like having a Scot for a mother when it comes to sniffing out the bargains and the rip offs. Disposables are total rip offs. Let’s do some sums, eh?

1 x pack of disposable nappies: £10

1 X pack per week (conservative non-parent estimate) X 52 weeks: £520

Add another year or so until you learn to walk on your own two feet and use the toilet at your OWN office instead of smelling up ours: £520

Total: £1040.

A thousand bloody pounds. Your father and I could go on two holidays for that.

Case for reusables (not factoring in washing costs):

1 X pack with 15 expandable-into-toddlerhood nappies, waterproof covers, liners and bag: £155.

That’s it. Case closed!

In other less boring growed up economic news, I have started swimming again, which has been excellent. I swam a lot when I was younger, and it’s like riding a bike – you don’t ever really forget how to swim, even when it’s been about a decade between pool visits. I lasted about 40 minutes of close to non-stop easy laps, which is excellent for someone who gets completely puffed going up the one flight of stairs to our apartment. I’ve even bought pregnancy bathers, so I can continue this exercisey trend right up until you and I meet for the first time in the birthing pool. The bathers are utterly ginormous, the biggest bathers I’ve ever worn, and they even come with this special rouched (sp?) bit around my tummy to incorporate your growing in there.

Yep, you’re really in there. Wow.