First Contact

Michelle and I saw our baby for the first time yesterday and, just as people told me it would, it all just feels so much more real.

We had an app on each of our iPhones which tells you what to expect in each week of the pregnancy. One of the features of the app is to comparatively tell you the size of the baby; "your baby is now the size of a blueberry." "...the size of a plum." "...the size of a lemon." etc. This is great and we look forward each week to find out which of the five-a-day the baby is as big as, but as a result you can't help but think of the baby as this little abstract fruit impersonator.

I don't know if it's nature or nurture which defines a persons personality but I do know that when the nurse prodded Michelle's belly to get the baby to move (to measure the head) my kid was having none of it. Each poke at it's home brought on a flurry of furrious little kicks and punches. "It's being stubourn, a wee fighter" the nurse said. Takes after me already.

With the best will it the world you probably don't really care about all this and that's fine. It's like seeing an excellent film that only you and your partner can appreciate. Not much happens in the film but every second is the most fascinating thing you have ever seen. The best bit? A little black spot on the screen which expands and retracts. The visible heart of your child - truely amazing.

I can't stop staring at our scan picture. It's not something I expected I would do but it is hypnotic to me. I can't really explain what I see or feel when I look at it (I have just written and deleted several attemps to do just that). It's just... amazing, fantastic or astonishing all seem to fall short of what I'm trying to say.

Our next scan is on the 19th of March and I can't wait.

'Till then.

The Last Christmas

Michelle will have our last Christmas as a couple this year; next year will be our first Christmas as a family.

If you don't know already, Michelle is pregnant with our first child. I have no scans to show anyone as yet but, like all parents, as soon as I am able to I will bombard you with any form of picture I can get my hands on. Until then we have Christmas, the last Christmas of our lives as we now know them. True, our baby will only be roughly twenty weeks old this time next year (look forward to the tradition infant with Santa suit/hat photos everyone) and though he or she will be completely unaware of what is going on and will perhaps only be able to move by rolling over I have a small suspicion that he/she will be the centre of our attention.

Being completely honest with you, a small part of has the odd fleeting thought that there's not much point in buying a baby Christmas gifts; the second the would-be gifts are out of sight, to the babys mind, they have ceased to exist due to a complete lack of the concept of object permanence in its tiny brain. The logic of this line of thought will naturally fall by the wayside I'm sure, giving way to a more caring and nurturing me... I'm sure it will... Sure...

We are, Michelle and I, over the moon. Michelle has wanted a family for a long time and it took me ten years with her to realise that I wasn't 17 anymore. I didn't want to give up what I had; a sweet life. A sweet life - Watching TV, playing games, reading comic books - it took me this long to realise that my sweet life was a waste of time. My priorities fell into place somehow; I realised that Sundays in the pub, what's going on in Lost and who will be in the next Batman movie doesn't matter. It was all a road to nowhere, a waste of a life. It took me ten years to figure out that. I used to consider myself fairly bright. For a long time I had felt something missing from my life, an emptiness, and when I saw those two blue lines I didn't feel like that anymore.

This has been a difficult year for my family following the tragic loss of my aunt just a few months ago. The Christmas period will be difficult for us all; you can't help but be aware of the empty seat at the table. I hope that our happy news will help everyone not to dwell on what we have lost but to look forward to better times.

I look forward to what's to come. To baby pictures with antler headbands or little elf suits (it happening!). To stories of magical beings bearing gifts. To new traditions being made. To a new life, both literally and figuratively, and all that entails.

Merry Christmas everyone,

Have a good one.

Goodwill to ALL?

While walking home tonight I encountered two Boys in thier late teens. When I was a few feet past them one of the boys shouted back to me, "We hate you mate! We f***ing hate you!" while laughing the inane laugh of a simpleton. I turned back to them, stupidly I admit, and said "I don't give a f*** about what you think, f*** off!" At that point they just turned and walked away, all the while still giggling like two testosterone filled psychotic school girls.

While very odd, and thankfully uneventful, This little encounter has convinced me that all I really want for Christmas is a brutal mass culling of the kind arseholes that I'm sure we all have to encounter on a far too regular basis.

Too much to ask? Well fine then! Have it your way with you laws and basic human decency.*sigh*

Lazy

“We need tea-bags, some bread and milk. Will you get that?”

That is what Michelle asked me to do yesterday while on the phone from her work. A simple request. I didn't do it. Yesterday, I didn't even get off the couch to make my dinner before work. All week I've been planning to borrow my mum's scanner and I haven't got that either. I've become lazy. How lazy?

This is the distance from my flat to the local shop

This is the distance from my flat to my parent's house.

So, very is the answer. I can safely say, even without giving you a map from my couch to my kitchen, that I have become very lazy.

The problem is that each day has now become a countdown to starting work at 17:00. My reasoning is that is I do things and have an active day then surely, relatively speaking, my countdown will be sped up. I've become like Jack Bauer - on holiday from CTU and living the most boring season of 24 you'd ever see – but still a slave to the clock. Each hour is a new yet familiar cliffhanger: 14:00 – Dammit! I'm out of milk! 15:00 – Dammit! This pasta meal went off yesterday! 16:00 – Dammit! Where's all my socks! (All said with the characteristic Bauer whisper-shout of course.)

Today is Saturday and as such I will quite happily tidy and clean the house from top to bottom. Well "happily" might be too strong a word in this case, but the point is: I'll do it. I'll not be lazy, because today I have no 0 hour baring down on me.

So what's the solution to my laziness? How do I live each day like it's Saturday and find the will to get off my arse? The answer's simple really: I'll give up work! No... Unfortunately I can't really do that. So the real answer to my problem? Get over it. Embrace the countdown. Realise that this is the only life I've got so I'd better start living it. Bugger.

I realise, of course, that going to the shops and visiting my parents house is not exactly living my life to the full, but that's a problem for another day.

'Till then.

The Cost of Magic

When I was just a boy I had a fairly large wart on the middle finger of my left hand. When I met my Aunt Liz, who was visiting home from America, she saw the wart and immediately made me the offer to buy it from me. Her offer was a penny, and since I wasn’t fond of the wart I thought this a fair price and accepted. She took the penny, rubbed it on my wart before placing it in my hand and told that my wart would soon be gone. Even at a young age I was a little dubious about the transaction, but sure enough, over the next few weeks the wart faded and was soon gone. Just like magic.

When I was a child that was Liz: Magic. She sang, danced, did cartwheels and back flips and would say and do things that no one else would dare to. When she was in a room everybody laughed and was happy and she was the centre of attention. She was my crazy aunt Liz and when you’re still small that seems just fine, even fun.

When I got older I would start to notice things. The singing and dancing would stop being as funny when put in context of surroundings and the forthrightness would begin to cause concern. But that was Liz, “that’s just our Liz, she’s mad but that’s just who she is” we would all, including me, say at one time of another; words to mask worry and false reason in the face of uncertainty.

Liz was ill. An illness that most do not fully comprehend and many cannot face. With the all singing and all dancing highs would come suffocating lows, and as time went on the highs and good times would grow shorter and shorter until Liz felt she could not suffer the devastating lows any longer. This is the cost of magic.

I wish there was more that could have been said and done, but nothing said or done could help her. Her mind was her enemy and the enemy was too strong to defeat. There was nothing anyone could have done. Nothing. These words are the absolute truth, logically I know that, but I don’t think any of us are ready to accept that truth just yet.

Goodbye Liz, you were a good and kind person and I love you. Your fight is over. You can rest.


Remember me with smiles not tears, For all the joy through all the years, ..."Don't dwell on thoughts that cause you pain, We'll see each other once again, I am at peace, try to believe, It was my time, I had to leave...
- Unknown