bless him

Babycake said 'prawn' yesterday. This morning, he began the day by creating epaulettes from toast. One step forward...

keeping my end up

All the carping today about the NHS and maternity care has got me more than a little agitated, now I've only got about 15 weeks to go...As you may recall from this very blog I had a rather long labour, but two marvellous midwifes who helped me through the whole thing and kept me out of hospital. Even so, it was scary and difficult and the physical and emotional recovery took me about a year. At the time I consoled myself with the thought that I would never go through it again and here I am, about to go through it all again.

Mr McMuffin seems more relaxed this time, assuming I'll have a home birth and moaning that he can't be doing with the birth pool as he can't be bothered to empty it out. Apparently it was a real pain and took about half an hour to do. I would have helped, only I think I was being stitched at the time. However, I'm probably more anxious (if that's possible) than I was the first time and the bloody news doesn't help!

black mountain

This band are fantastic. Their second album is very melodic and heavy. Great stuff. Here is the first track, Stormy High, on the album to give you a little taste of the joys to be had. By the way, their first album is excellent too.

good news

I went for an internal interview at work today for funding to train as an Approved Social Worker. I just heard that I was successful. I am now looking forward to having six months off work to do the training. Mrs McMuffin is looking forward to it less that I am because the training starts in April and the new baby is born in May, so I will not be around much during the day.

babycake talks to the animals

We took Babycake to a farm a couple of months ago. I hadn't really looked at the photos until a few days ago. I thought this one was lovely.

believe it or not....

Babycake is two today. Happy birthday, darling baby boy. He has just had a big chunk of cake which he clutched to his chest like some sort of prize while wiping the sticky stuff through his hair. Lovely.

love is the sweetest thing

Mr McMuffin and I were both born arguing and unsurprisingly we just love to disagree on practically everything, except how gorgeous Babycake is, of course. We have recently become totally united in our campaign against the stupid residents who put fences and posts all over a common area of lawn to stop people parking on it. It looks such a mess and is such a hazard to people walking on it, that we both take great delight in removing pieces of it. We like to compare notes and giggle about how pissed off they must be when they find the fencing and rebuild and install it, only for us to uproot it again. Ha! A common enemy certainly increases our affection for each other. Is it just us, or are you part of a couple that finds their love enhanced by doing weird things like having romantic dinners, or walks at sunset?

it's that time of year again

Macworld starts today with Steve Jobs' speech about all the Apple goodness that will keep me obsessed for the coming year. I am already beginning to drool at the rumours of a super slim Macbook (0.8" thick) and an updated Apple TV. It all kicks off at about 18:00. I can't wait. Mrs McMuffin thinks that I have joined some kind of cult. It's not true, I just love Apple stuff and I would love it just as much if it had a Dell or Microsoft badge on it. In fact, that is one of the things I like about Apple. No obvious badges!

babycake is lovely, most of the time

Yesterday Babycake ate porridge oats with honey and milk, toasted sour dough bread with a little bit of cheese spread on it, a bit of apple, banana, three corn crisp bread things, three strawberries, two tomatoes, six grapes, a date, a prune, a small bit of Edam cheese, a few mouthfuls of apple juice, a small sandwich filled with curried chicken, a small piece of cucumber, a babychino, a marshmallow, a dried fruit bar, a biscuit, several drinks of water, half a baked potato, a boiled egg mixed with some mayonnaise, a pot of banana yogurt and about a pint of milk. He fell asleep in my arms at about 20:00. At about 21:00, while he was still asleep, he vomited everything he had eaten all over me. It's the little things that make it all worthwhile.

very cool...

Our new Phil & Ted's pushchair arrived today. After a little bit of swearing, Babycake and I managed to put it together. We got a black one and it's very cool looking. The only problem is that Babycake refuses to sit in it. Hopefully he will get over that pretty soon.

no evolution...

How is this possible?

here I am

Just been to see Dan in Real Life, which was excellent, by the way. Very funny and brought a tear to my eye. Now sitting in the John Lewis cafe in Bluewater waiting, oh waiting, for Mrs McMuffin and Babycake to turn up. Anybody care to join me?

sad geek

Tonight we were watching the movie, The Lives of Others, which was great, by the way, when they mentioned that the Berlin Wall started to come down on the 9 November. I went, "oh, the 9th November" thinking that I recognised that as the date of some other momentous occasion. It suddenly dawned on me that the other momentous occasion was in fact the release of the iPhone in the UK. Even I realise that this was a little bit sad.

girls are alright...

Mrs McMuffin's right, for some reason, for a brief few seconds, I was disappointed that we were having a girl. I think I have must have begun to fantasise about having two little rufty tufty boys running around shouting "you" at me all day, which is pretty much what Babycake does at the moment. I guess girls can be rufty tufty too. Although I imagine Mrs McMuffin will try to prevent me from turning the girl into too much of a tomboy. You know, she has already started with the gender stereotyping stuff. She took one look at the scan photo and pronounced that the baby had more delicate features than Babycake did at his age. She'll be wearing pink before you know it.

By the way, Mrs McMuffin got me an internet radio for Christmas. It only arrived today. I love it. Of course, I can already listen to the radio in a hundred different ways, including over the internet, but there is something very cool about having a radio that connects to the internet. I can also stream music from my computer to the radio too. Believe it or not it sounds great. I heartily recommend it. Oh, it's a Logik IR100 and Dixons and Currys are selling them for a bargain price at the moment.

the scan

We went for the anomaly scan yesterday and it looks as if the 'new one' is on track and doing fine. I almost forgot to ask, but remembered right at the end and the lovely sonographer (who has pretty much done all our scans and always slips us some extra pictures) said she'd had a pretty good look and was fairly certain that the new one is a little girl.

I am delighted, but feel a strange sense of loss at not having another boy. Mr McMuffin is feeling this much more strongly, having envisioned another Babycake causing chaos, he was not prepared for the next bringer of uproar to be female. However, he has been practicing saying 'my daughter' and is consoling himself with the wider shopping opportunities afforded to girls, so I have had to put my foot down and ban any trace of pink clothing from the house for now.