Category: Blog

As I write this blog Thirty weeks have now passed. I keep asking myself where did that time go? I obviously know where that time has gone, it is in the past, but that logical statement still doesn’t stop me from asking, where did that time go?

My wife and I are finding the whole process a little too quick.  9 months, that’s a long time right? It certainly doesn’t feel like enough time to get your head around becoming a parent, arranging the house so that it’s baby friendly, work out the finances and decide which type of breast pump to buy, electric or manual? All these things swirl around my head on a daily basis, apart from the breast pump issue, we sorted that out last week and if anyone is interested, we plumped for the manual option. If you have any further advice on breasts pumps, please email me, all thoughts will be greatly received.

With 2 and half months left, we’ve decided to start the nesting process. When I say nesting, I don’t mean I’ve packed the house full of twigs and any other detritus I could lay my hands on, although that would be a darn sight cheaper and probably do an adequate job, however I’m sure that if I did do that it wouldn’t be long before I attracted the interest of social services and they would probably have something to say about it.

Instead I’ve decided to use the tried and tested methods of painting and wallpapering to spruce up the future nursery. Not knowing the sex of the baby has made the colour scheme an easier decision, there are only so many shades of yellow and beige on the market. In the new year, I will don my overalls and do my best impression of DIY SOS’ Nick Knowles. If I had thought about it in advance, I could have pulled a few wires out of the walls, put a hammer through the existing plaster and wrenched up a few floorboards and pretend to sleep in the bath because the rest of the house is inhabitable. A little letter to Mr Knowles and his merry band of tradesman would have ensured that he would bring his buddies down to sort it out, especially if I told them we were expecting. That would mean I could put my feet up at the weekends and make the most of the quiet bliss that I have left over the next two months. But that hardly seems to be a relevant reason and is probably not the kind of sob story the BBC is after when they’re producing early-evening feel-good television.

So it will be up to me instead.  The hardest thing about decorating a spare room is finding space for the all the assorted knick-knacks we have acquired over time and you soon come to the conclusion that some items just have to be disposed of. What shall I do with my novelty wig collection for instance? I may be invited to a fancy dress party in the very near future and I’m anxious that I will be wig-less if I pack them up in a black bag. I can think of many items of great importance, such as my collection of old football magazines, I fear getting rid of them just in case I need to find out what was going on in the Barclays First Division in 1989 for instance. I’ll definitely need to keep hold of my 1987 football league Panini album. The sacrifices I am going to have to make do not bare thinking about. Spare a thought for me in the new year, knee deep in discarded wallpaper, covered in paint and shedding a small tear as I dispose of my precious treasures.

++BUMP NEWS++           ++BUMP NEWS++           ++BUMP NEWS++

Between week 29 and 30, our little monster must have been working out as it seems stronger than ever, or it could be the performance enhancing drugs my wife had been taking, either way, we have a wriggler that likes us to know they are about. We have also learnt what type of music they’re into. We’ve played Baby Carlton a selection of songs. It doesn’t seem to be keen on much just yet, but I haven’t had the deep and frank discussion about the music industry yet. Maybe once I’ve done that it may be more receptive to the Foo Fighters and Kings of Leon. However it has shown signs that it especially fond of Christmas songs at the moment, and to be honest what kid isn’t. Bump particularly likes ‘Dominic the Donkey’, by Lou Monte. It does its very own jiggedy-jig when the song is played through my wife’s ever-stretching belly button.

We felt it was a good idea to introduce our future son or daughter to the arts early on in life. Other than popular music, I have also taken the time to bring them up to date with the literary world. Many child birth books I’ve read advise that reading to your child whilst it is still in the womb can be stimulating in the same way a poke or a prod to the tummy can cause them to kick out as a basic level of communication.

I looked at the reading material I had to hand which included my latest bank statement, which wouldn’t be good reading for baby or father, the village directory, which again wasn’t the riveting thought provoking read I was looking for. I had a copy of the Christmas Radio Times, which I thought had no relevance. By the time bump is old enough to want to look at television listings, they would probably have some fancy gadget that told them what was on the telly-box rather than thumbing through pages and pages of listings and not finding what you wanted. All I ever find in the Radio Times are adverts for a vintage record players or matching his and her robes that can be bought in 12 monthly instalments.

I thought back to my childhood and what I enjoyed reading. I was always a big fan of Roald Dahl. This was perfect. My wife and I could reminisce as well as entertaining and educating our little bundle of joy. As I write this they are currently waiting for me to put the laptop down and read them the next chapter of ‘The Twits’. I can’t wait either.

Last weekend passed like any other, apart from one tiny revelation.

In the last few weeks our bump has become pretty sizable and my wife now looks like a bona fide pregnant women. Two weeks ago she complained that she didn’t look pregnant at all, now she is told by work colleagues and family that she is blooming, I’ve learnt that there is a fine line between pregnant and very pregnant.

So now the bump is a constant reminder of the fruits of our labour, so to speak.  Seeing your wife or partner expand before your very eyes is a fascinating process, but when that expansion starts to move and come to life, it is both exciting and disconcerting.

Before I get to last weekend’s events, let me take you back two weeks. I was minding my own business on a Saturday afternoon, watching my football team take a pummelling by our dear London rivals when my wife called me from the bath room. I thought it was probably a good time to leave my seat in front of the television before I put whatever object was to hand through the screen. As I ran upstairs expecting the worse, I heard her giggling. She was in the bath looking at her stomach. The baby was wriggling about and it’s tiny movements could be seen on the surface of her skin. Well, I guessed it was the baby, unless she had just perfected her latest body-popping move by controlling her stomach muscles.

It rippled from side to side for a few seconds to my amazement. She asked me to put my hand on her bump on the off chance that I might be able to feel it move, the theory being if I can see it, I could surely feel it.  It must have known I was waiting to meet junior Carlton for the first time, because it decided to scuttle back into hiding. My wife continued to have the flutters regularly throughout her time in the bath, but every attempt I made to shake the little fellas hand and introduce myself, ‘Hello, I’m your father,’ it disappeared back into the comfort of its watery world. I obviously had some bridges to build with my little baby friend. I figured out what it was trying to do, it was laying down a marker, a sign of dominance; it was going to be on their terms or not at all. Over the next few days I reached out to bump, talked to it through my wife’s belly button, discussed current affairs and told them who had been voted off The X Factor this week, but all my efforts were rebuffed. What had I done? Did it know it was ginger already and blamed me solely for passing on the red-headed scourge?

Fast forward to last Friday evening and as per our regular timetabled Friday night festivities, we had a spot of dinner, I had a few cold beers from the fridge and we watched television to numb the mind for a few hours. My wife and I curled up on the sofa and she hugged her now considerable bump.

Since the bump has become highly visible I have been working on a theory. It is almost impossible not to touch a pregnant woman’s bump. Obviously, there are times when that is wholly inappropriate, I don’t want you all getting the wrong idea, I don’t just grab any pregnant women I see. But I am convinced that the womb is constructed with little, tiny magnets which draw the hand towards it. Without fail, the hand is attracted to the bump and you must touch it. I can’t help myself. I can be sitting on the sofa minding my own business, suddenly my hands starts to tremble, shaking uncontrollably. My arm starts to wander towards said bump. My wife squirms as it approaches and all of sudden my hand is thrust forward and has latched around the little bundle of joy.

That evening I was drawn towards the bump as normal and to my surprise my endeavour was rewarded with a swift kick to my palm. Junior was kicking its way out. My first thought was that my initial contact with my child was a kick, which made me think what was it capable of when it eventually enters this world ? I had visions of it armed with nunchuks and a samurai sword, my arse would certainly be grass. They ‘ll have the upper hand even before the umbilical cord had been cut, in fact it will probably strangle me with it.

My surprise was really down to the fact that I didn’t expect to feel anything. For over two weeks I’d been hoping for a tangible experience with junior, now we had met for the first time and it was great experience. Even this morning before I wrote this I was treated to a powerful kick to the palm and every time it happens it makes me smile, I’m sure that my wife won’t always smile as it gets bigger and her innards are being pummelled by a long-legged baby, but for now it’s a moment that we can both share with a chuckle and a smile.

I’m glad junior and I have patched up our differences, maybe the weekly X Factor update is the key to father/child bonding?

 

This blog will be taking a short break, but it will be back at the beginning of December.

After the inevitable build up to our twenty-week scan, this week’s theme is about the sobering realism of having a baby.

The final scan showed him or her being pretty damn lazy if you ask me. It really didn’t want to play ball with the sonographer this time around. It was quite content to rest its chin on its chest and count the ZZZZ’s.

That was until we were told it needed to be woken up so that vital measurements could be taken. My wife was told that she had to take a heady mix of caffeine-based drinks and to get her nose in a bag of sweets. She was quick to take the sonographer up on the offer; she didn’t need a second invitation. We were also advised to take a tour of hospital and walk to try and kick start some movement and wake junior Carlton from its slumber.

I can only imagine that the caffeine and sweets felt like the 5^th November inside junior’s liquidy home, that’s if they knew the significance of bonfire night, which at this early stage is probably unlikely.  The remedy worked though, it must have felt like the lights had been turned on and the party was about to start. Bump was more amenable this time round and we were able to get some good scan pictures.

Once the sonographer was happy with the measurements she sent us on our way, the next time we would see our little child would be at the beginning of spring. Before we left, we were told all measurements were fine apart from the legs, which were above average in length for this stage of the pregnancy. The sonographer’s parting words were, ‘..but I don’t see that being a problem, I think I know where they come from,’ as she looked at my sprawled out 6 foot 2 inch frame on the school-style chair beside the scanning bed.

So with what could be the last scan completed, it was time to face reality. We had to seriously think about nest building for our long-legged friend. Maybe we should get some quotes for taller doorways? Would it be a good idea to skip the moses basket in favour of a kings size bed perhaps? Shall I hold on to these 34” jeans just in case they can slip straight into them?

I left my wife to her own devices this week. She went shopping, which is dangerous at the best of times; however she is now laden with an ever-growing baby and is plagued by the dreaded baby brain, which instantly renders her incapable of processing thoughts into a meaningful sentence. (She told me about a conversation she had with a work colleague who read The Hungry Caterpillar when they were a child. My wife started her sentence off by saying, ‘When I was a caterpillar….’)

She has now gone into full nesting mode and bought our first packs of nappies. I’ve come to the conclusion that nappies in our household look weird. It’s a little like when you get a new haircut. For the first week or so, it doesn’t look right, it doesn’t look like you, but over time you grow into your new set of coiffed locks. I’m hoping nappies and haircuts are similar.

Most things I buy, give me joy. If I buy a book, I normally enjoy reading it, if I buy food it satisfies my hunger and if I buy alcohol it gets me drunk. Buying nappies just means preparation for baby fallout on the grossest scale.

However, I was enlightened this week.  I now know there is a positive experience to come in the near future. Thanks to knowledge from friends already enjoying the full-on baby experience, I’ve been informed that the day your child squeezes out a proper human shaped excretion, instead of the inconsistent mess that occurs through the early stages of development, is actually one of the proudest moments in a parent’s life. I can’t wait! (When I say human shaped, I don’t mean looking like us with arms and legs, although that would be just amazing. What I meant was, just a plain ol’ regular stool)

My wife’s shopping spree didn’t end with buying tiny little crappy catchers. She also bought its first toy as well. With the whole long-leg issue in mind, I did feel that buying it a toy giraffe was slightly mocking our offspring it before it had even had chance greet the little fella or gal.

Buying toys and nappies have made me more aware that the next few months will literally pass me by in a flash and once we see the backside of Christmas, we will be on the final straight to the finish line. Seeing my wife’s bump grow massively on a daily basis is also sobering, because I know that the bump can only get so big before it comes out screaming. If the legs are really above average in length, then I don’t think junior will be the only one screaming.

Any bad language he or she picks up at an early age can then be fully attributed to Mummy!

On another matter, I can confirm that my wife has never, and will never be a caterpillar.