Back to school

This week was ‘partner week’ at ET’s pregnancy course.

I was ready to ‘hoo-hoo-hoo’ and ‘hee-hee-hee’ with the best of them, but my self motivation was proven to be wasted when we walked through the door of the terraced house that is home to the course.

‘Tea?, or coffee?’

‘Er, no thanks.’

We hung up our coats and headed into the classroom, which was home to one of the more surreal visions I've had the pleasure to experience.

In the middle of the converted sitting room was a hospital trolley bed, on top of which was a spread of biscuits and cookies, tea and coffee.

It seems partner evening was to mostly consist of the ladies proving they that they had one, and that the gigantic swelling under their shirts wasn’t as a result of an unhinged decision to shove a rolled up cardigan up there, or from using a unisex cubicle at work.

Niceties out of the way, the instructor (who I can only assume was qualified to give the course due to being born in the not too distant past herself) began her class.

With pictures of innards, and talk of growing foetuses, she eventually worked her way up to repeated mentions of runaway turds and vaginas being snipped.

That was the moment I couldn’t decide whether I was happier that didn’t have a vagina or that I hadn’t had one of the jam biscuits on offer.

I was sorely tempted to ask how would I be able to tell which was the turd and which was the baby if they both arrived at the same time, but I held my uninspired tongue.

When she was rounding up she handed out a sheet which she claimed would be vital to us men when the time came. Despite a distinct absence of ‘hoos’ and ‘hees’ in the class, I was delighted that I might actually learn something, so I snatched my copy and began to translate.

It seems that the Dutch have a very longwinded multi-bullet-pointed way of saying ‘Don’t freak the fuck out’.

That handout won't be going on the fridge door.

Minutes later, it was goodbye turd talk, goodbye bizarrely placed and utilised hospital trolley, and goodbye an hour of my life never to be seen again.

I left with one more question than I had arrived with, what DO you Americans do for the months on end you spend at Lamaze classes?

Bungee

Call the cops, we’ve been burgled.

The lowest of life forms have been creeping into our house, maybe when we’ve been out, maybe while we were asleep. They’ve been sneaking into our kitchen, our bedroom, any room where they can sniff out what they want.

They find them, they take them, and they leave.

Somewhere here in South Holland they stash their loot, somewhere there is a hidey hole or concealed shoebox containing the spoils of their thievery, their ill gotten treasure, the torn out pages of our calendars.

Ordinarily the loss of a month or two wouldn’t concern me much, but now that the pixies and elves of time long stolen are up to their games, we are left with only 12 weeks until D day.

Out of nowhere, we are in week 28, and the weeks that pass are only gathering pace. It seems like only yesterday that ET was flat on her back, vagwinking at strangers at a rate of knots.

How can we only have 12 weeks left?

In two weeks we will be back home, a couple of weeks after that is Christmas, surprisingly followed by New Year. When that passes it will leave us 6 weeks from playing ‘amniotic attack’ with various soft furnishings.

To compound the realisation that we are closing in on end game, it’s come to our attention that ET is one abrupt elevator stop from having the kid’s head dangling out for all the world to see.

The midwife today confirmed that the kid is head down, in the bungee position, ready to leap from the pelvic bridge, through carnal canyon, and out into the world below.

I hope its not expecting too much when it gets here.

No pain, no name

It’s been a big few days in the world of a very little person.

On the beautifully apt Friday the 13th last, ET received the H1N1 vaccination.

A sore arm and plenty of normal movement activity later and everything is hunky dory. There have been no convulsions, no legs have fallen off, no hair has fallen out, and no-one has fallen into a coma, so I am delighted to announce that I don’t think the vaccination is a collective governmental syndicate plan to annihilate several generations of the human race.

So, unless kiddo turns up with three ears or knuckles for knees, everyone can just shut up.

The belly dweller has a completed room to call their own. Aside from the fact the crib won’t turn up until next year, the room is ready, bar the inevitable shouting and assault with leftover IKEA pieces.

Everyone loves a child who can perform on cue, and after a little training, the prenatal parasite learned a new trick on Sunday. Little Fitz now knows how to cause its mother no insignificant amount of physical pain, and scare the living shit out of its father.

Aww, cute.

For added effect it has perfected doing this in the dead of night, just to keep us on our toes. Luckily, the midwife is less bothered by the whole event, and we carry on as normal.

Perhaps the most significant development of the last few days is that possibly, perhaps, maybe, the kid has a name. Four baby name books containing a combined total of over forty five thousand names have proven utterly worthless, yet somehow one name has wafted under our noses and we’re not at each other’s throats over it. The signs are good.

Until we see the scrunched up face resembling a melted plastic bag make its appearance we just don’t know for sure, so therefore I openly invite all boy & girl name suggestions.

I do, of course, reserve the right to mock. Severly.