Is it just me

Or does the baby floating in the box to the right look decidedly asian all of a sudden?

cool stuff i got for being knocked up

so far i've had 2 baby showers - one when I was home in the Eastern Cape in June and one at work last week. I haven't even shown you any of my cute presents yet.
ok so actually "they're not for me". Whatever. Lets be honest here. Cute stuff is for me. The baby will get excited about discovering it's own fingers. I doubt he/she's gonna be too taken by the stuff below at this stage. But I totally am.


Cute little African animals... yep, even a sable. This kid will love Africa!


There's that scene in How I met your mother where Robyn sees the baby socks and she's overs. That's me. Socks are very underrated. Those white ones on the left are minute - about 4cm long.


WHAT? You are using reusable nappies? Are you insane? Bla bla bla. Yes I am. What kind of composting, recycling, carpooling vegetarian would I be if I flooded the landfills with disposables?! Fear not. I also stand to save about R12K by going this route (and that's just on my FIRST child!!)


Awesome sheepskin mocassins. I really wish they fitted me.

Of course there is plenty plenty more, but you are probably all caz's baby'd out by now so I will spare you.

The Band is Hammy

The Band is nesting. Well... i don't know if it's nesting per se, but it's that sort of concept. Maybe a better term would be stockpiling. Or storing up. Or PREPARING. He has gone into Hammy mode.

C'mon guys, you remember Hammy from Over the Hedge? He needs to get all prepared for winter so he stores up stuff? I *think* that was Hammy? Well either way, Hammy was the cute one so I'll stick to it.

Suddenly he is buying all the odds and ends we still need.

"But The Band," I try to tell him; "I can get these cheaper through the antenatal class chick"
"Doesn't matter. Let's just get it so we have it."

Ha... you guys think that is an arb convo to share?? This is coming from a man who in the past would rather buy 3 toothpastes for the price of 2 in a flavour that he hates simply coz of the deal. This is a man who stayed in a cottage WITH NO DRINKING WATER for 2 years coz of the deal. This is a man who had a diet of "budget burgers" (R30 for 30 patties) for months on end* coz of the deal.
Now he is scoffing at a R40 saving!?

Definitely some kind of fathering instinct setting in. Plus today when I got home he has repacked the hospital bag (which we packed the other night amid much hilarity... I was going to take pics of some of the scary ass things that go into a labour bag but thought it may be too traumatic for you guys) and added all kinds of extra stuff. I've decided not to peek.

It really is very cute.

Anyway blogger is giving me hassles so the rest will have to go in a seperate post.

*The end of the pattie era came when he discovered an artery in one one day. I kid you not. I should perhaps mention that to be fair all these budget bargaining horror stories did happen while we were students and despite The Band having been quite the bargain hunter from the start where he himself is concerned, he also happens to be the most generous guy I know.

Happy Birthday Noon

Today would be my gran's 90th birthday. WOW. She made it just past 89.
If she was alive today I guess we'd all be gathered in East London to celebrate such a milestone with her. She LOVED her birthday about as much as me (and that's something!) I guess it was because she had grandchildren from all over the planet phoning her and sending her special gifts.

On her birthday she'd ussually go out for lunch with my folks at Grazias, a fancy East London restaurant overlooking the sea. She'd inevitably order a glass of white - probably Lyric - and sole or prawns and though she looked busy with it, she wouldn't make a very big dent in the meal. She'd end the meal with a cup of coffee.

She would have already walked up to the post office this morning to check for gifts - if any had arrived in advance she may well have snuck a peak. When I was small my regular gift for her was an assortment of jams. She likes to have a different flavour every day. She loved chocolate but due to migraines could only eat white chocolate... or so she claimed. When we sorted out her home after she died we found regular chocolate... sly!

She had special names for people. My dad was "My Richie". My mom was "Barb". My brothers were Marky boo, H.H. (for handsome hunk) and she called me Carrie but would usually say (none too subtly) "You know I love you best in all the world". Perhaps the only real competition for my gran's heart was Phoebe, our border collie. "Oh, I DO love that dog" she'd state emphatically as if anyone would ever question it.

Noon, today is your birthday and I was the one opening all the gifts. My colleagues at work surprised me with a baby shower and people - some of whose names I rarely get right - stunned me with their generosity. Piles and piles of gifts for your great grandchild. I wish I could share this time with you. I wish I had had the opportunity to tell you that if this baby is a girl, she'll be named after you. A better role model I can't imagine.

this weekend

has been a bit depro for me. I've managed to do not all that much. for once there were no birthday things, no 21sts. well we did have people over for saturday brunch and saturday dinner but other than that been chillin. so why am i so blegh?
maybe it's the weather. crap weather. maybe i'm just really really missing my gran today. maybe it's coz when i'm feeling the merest bit depro I put on depro music and indulge in it.

My current depro playlist includes:
Run - snow patrol
100 years - five for fighting
if you're gone - matchbox 20
broken - lifehouse
fix you - coldplay

what are your depro inducing favourites? any suggestions for me to add so i can indulge even more?

Why women's day rocks

because of the rock silly.

4 years ago on women's day i was given my rock.
The Band proposed on that day. I told him at the time that he has set a precedent now and I will forever expect diamonds on women's day but I suspect he thought I was joking.

Freakish dreams

So last night at the prenatal class thingmajig we learnt all about labour. Needless to say I had weird dreams all night and the evening slumber was not helped by the fact that i woke at 3.30 with excrutiating calf cramps. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT? How can i be all "pregnancy is a piece of cake" if all these little annoyances start happening. No man. I am nearly done - it must go smooth to the end thanks. But seriously, it was BLUDDY sore. The Band had to give me a massage and then I couldn't sleep for ages and when I did I dreamt of GIANT (metre long) bottles of Gaviscon.

You know Gav's become a big part of your life when you are dreaming of him.

what's in a name?

Quite a frikken lot actually.

So as you know we don't know if the baby is a he or a she. We're all set for a girl. Have had the girl's name for years. It has even been mentioned on this blog... don't bother, you won't find it :)
But boy names... not so simple.

Here are the criteria for a boy's name:
It must be strong, manly, perhaps short. not sure tho.

Unfortunately I have a negative connotation for just about every boy's name that's thrown my way. I am quite painful in that regard. (Obviously kissed too many boys in my skanky varsity days. joking people!)

Any suggestions for me to tear apart?

random friday thoughts

blegh:
The Band is sick. He got a blood test for malaria this morning. Sure it's going to come back clear as he was in madagascar about 6 weeks ago. But not great to see him feeling so rough.

hmmm:
It will cost me R500 per day to upgrade from a general to a private ward when i pop. Is R1000 worth it? anyone out there had a kid in a SA private hospital and have some advice?

nice:
4 weeks from today is my last day of work. Bring it on. Can't wait. Stuff loads to do between now and then but the end is nigh. fanfrikkentastic.

Winnie

Winnie. It's never been the best of names. I mean you have Winnie the faecal matter, Winnie the killer of Stompie. And now, a new winnie. Winnie the pain in the ass.

Our new house is fanfrikkentastic. It's rather sick really. but accross the street lives winnie. Some form of overgrown maltese cross something. She is mostly a mottled faded black colour and she HONES. No really. There is serious pong in the vicinity of that dog.

But stinkiness I can handle. It's not like I feel the need to cross the road and visit. What I can't handle is the utter regularity, the consistency, the precision timed 20 second apart, high pitched "NYAP NYAP" that goes on all day and all night.

"NYAP NYAP" ...pause (long enough that you think perhaps...but no-) "NYAP NYAP"
"NYAP NYAP" "NYAP NYAP" AT NOTHING! There is noone there. she has a MASSIVE yard. but still she must sit at the gate all the livelong bluddy day "NYAP NYAP"

I am writing this post from home and above, where you see a nyap nyap - that is a true reflection of the ac- "Nyap NyaP" -tual yapping taking place "Nyap nyap".

The not so elusive Gavin

Who is this infamous Gavin, you ask?
Gavin is my constant companion. He's pretty much always by my side. My heart burns for him when he is afar. I can't say I like him, but I do need him.
Sometimes when I can't have him I battle to sleep or even to function properly... but when I have him he disgusts me. He is vile, but he is necessary.

ANY IDEAS WHO HE IS?

Cankles.

ugh.
it has happened.
i feel pregnant.

yes, yes, i do realise that I am, in fact, well and truly knocked up, but after a looooooong hiatus of reportable "symptoms" i am now feeling it a bit.

For one thing I am tired, even though I slept well. I feel groggy. For another thing, I have cankles. CANKLES PEOPLE. My feet have swollen and I am down to one pair of work shoes.

Fortunately, with a mere 7 weeks to go before the popping happens (and less than 5 weeks of work - WOOHOO)I think I will manage.

Bring on mid-september when I can kiss Gavin* goodbye, I can wear nice shoes again, I can have one frikken massive G&T and pig out on sushi like never before.

*more on him later...

SA's own lady gaga

Ok so maybe you JHB types have all heard this already, but the Cape is a bit behind and I heard this for the first time this weekend... (non-South Africans: this is typical South African humour but unfortunately in Afrikaans)

Click here to download. So very worth it!

Is it just me

or does the baby floating round the countdown thingie to the right of this look super squashed?

55 days... 8 weeks.... and a mere 6 weeks til i'm off work. WOOHOO!

So I finally got a 3G card and I am considering blogging or at least twittering a bit through labour. Perhaps that is overly ambitious of me, but you guys need to be kept up to date. Besides, I need to be distracted. And if it's true that some kind of hormone is released after the kid is out to make you forget about the pain, that would mean we never know the truth about labour unless we are witnessing it.

In the words of that wise sage Nacho Libre "ggggyooo theeenk I'm craseeee, dont gggyooo?"

"You're looking swell"

har har har har har heh heh heh heh heh
No really. You crack me up! That's brilliant. Did you eat a clown for breakfast? NO??? You thought that one up on your own!? Really? I can tell. It's SUPER original.

People are stoopid.

sometime this morning

my sister in law who I love becomes my ex sister in law.

my neice officially becomes the child of a broken home.

my brother signs and seals his gravest mistake.

tick tock tick tock

MUERTO.

Our CEO is away at the moment and I wish he'd come back already. If he doesn't, I am quite certain his PA could peg on us. You see, my office is right near hers, so every time she trudges out with a ciggie between her fingers, huffing and puffing along, I see (and hear).

Alice* is a smoker. Not just a social smoker. Not a mere "every now and then" sort. Oh no. When her boss is away it rises to a whole new level. It's practically half hourly. She is early 60s and looks like shes in her mid-70s. She literally huffs as she walks. I thought I struggled with the odd bout of breathlessness. Please I am an AMATEUR - this lady is actually battling to breathe and her panting is punctuated with a hacking smoker's cough. The worst is that quite often she likes to have a post-ciggie chat. She comes into my office and I kid you not - no exagerration at all - the entire room stinks of camel cigarettes. And honestly, the smell lingers for a good 20 minutes after she leaves.

Alice is rather deluded on the issue of smoking... she's not your typical, slightly sheepish, always-intending-to-quit-but-never-getting-round-to-it, always-conscious-of-stinking sorts of smokers. Oh no. She has actually told me that she believes her smoking keeps her from getting colds and flu (well that's great but I'd take flu over emphysema??). She has also said that in fact it's STRESS that's the killer and smoking is therefore good for her health as it relieves her stress. The best was the other day where she went on a rampage about how the anti-smoking lobby is merely a political ploy to gain pats on the back. "It's absolute rubbish. Some studies have shown smoking to reduce alzheimers but you'll never hear about that will you?" (Cough, hack, cough cough). "And what about alcohol. That kills more people but you can drink where you like and drive drunk and noone says anything (really?). Drinking is the evil" (incidentally, yes, she does drink and, no, I don't get the logic either).

If ever there was a reason to not start smoking, it must be the sight of this prematurely aged woman trudging past my office constantly, cigarette dangling between her fingers, panting and coughing, the foul odour of smoke surrounding her, mouth shrivelled from 4 decades of addiction. It truly is a sad sight.

CEO, if you are listening, please come back... else Alice might peg.

* Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent. Alice was chosen as for the very obvious reason that this woman smokes Camels.

2 months and counting

People, in a mere 2 months i am due to pop.

I am super excited to:
• Be able to close my jeans again
• Be able to wear hot bras again
• Be able to stop drinking gaviscon by the litre
• Be able to not be at work (woohoo)
• Be able to climb stairs without starting to pant
• Be able to go for a jog
• Be able to use all the cool and super higher grade baby gadgets that people
have bought us
• Be able to not feel slightly physically insipid and weak the whole time
• Be able to not have to pee constantly
• Be able to get through any social occasion without being asked: "when are
you due? How has it been? Any morning sickness? Do you know what it is? Do
you know what you're in for!? Natural birth or caesar?" (followed by the
inevitable horror stories of both)

Now fear not... I realise that these wont all be instant improvements, but I'm assured that the heartburn and the breathlessness DO disappear instantly and that is good enough for me! The rest I can work on.

I am OF COURSE excited to meet the bambino and finally see if he's a he or she's a she, but that all feels very surreal and hard to imagine at this stage.

Do you guys remember the Earth Hour competition that I pleaded, cajoled, manipulated all into helping me win? I told you I won it right? So anyway, the Band and I will be spending a week here:
all expenses paid and doesn't count as leave. The catch? It's from 29 August - 5 September in Plettenberg Bay. I will be 38 weeks pregnant. You can be dam sure I'm going anyway! No two ways about it. And hey, if i pop in Plett so be it!

Unravelling the mystery

It all started with a big bang. BANG!

And following that musical interlude...
I LOVE YOU GUYS! It's FANTASTIC you are clueless about compactums! I was clueless until about 3 months ago. I mean seriously, the word "compactum" sounds suspiciously similar to constipation in my opinion. And when one thinks about it... well, never mind that. If you are looking for toilet references go visit Ches, but you won't find them here!*

So, my precious little fellow ignorami, what is a compactum, you ask. Well a compactum is pretty much a surface that is high enough to change/bath a baby without breaking your back. It usually has shelves and stuff built in for storage, but that's the gist of it. Now don't ask me why it needs it's whole own poncy name. I find it borderline offensive... it just sounds rude "compactum". ugh. But the world of pregnancy LOVES to gooi all kinds of never-before heard lingo at us poor, deer-in-the-headlights pregnant peeps. As it is we are dealing with pregnancy amnesia (it's a medical truth people - check me!)now we have to learn words like lanugo and vernix and compactum and oh don't get me started on merconium.

*ok fine, so I contradicted myself by mentioning merconium, but 99% of you didn't know that so i figure that one doesn't count. But listen, if I ever turn into one of those "Ooh he made a solid one today" sorts please do something dramatic to me. I'm not sure how dramatic you can really get through cyberspace, but you're a creative lot, you'll think of something.

Nesting up a storm

People please accept my humblest apologies for being such a crappy blogger. Last week I was all like "must prove my worth to this company, must work my ass off", this week I'm all like "must get everything ready for The Bump's imminent arrival immediately". I never claimed to be stable. Anyway, perhaps one day I'll go back to my usual state of "must blog coz it's cheaper than a shrink".

So last week I was up in JHB for work. The mothball (my mom) was here for the weekend and it was great though exhausting. Honestly I don't know where that woman gets her energy. It's both inspirational and scary. On Saturday we got more done in terms of baby stuff than I have done in the past 7 months of pregnancy. No exagerration at all sadly! My parental units spoilt us with a bunch of stuff including a pram, car seat and the frikken rolls royce of baby monitors (if it could just change nappies...)

The Band was busy all weekend building cots and compactums and stuff. He is now Bob the Builder. Very cute.. er.. I mean manly having him all covered in saw dust and using machines I never knew existed.

The Mothball and I painted and varnished and sanded. Ok, not so much with the sanding but that sentence seemed to need a third verb.
Here is the finished compactum (cot is still being finished off):

muchos impressive, no?

Ordered my reusable planet saving (cash saving) nappies today from inkland (ya ya ya I know I know. I don't have the energy to defend my choice so I'll just let you know how it goes in reality ok?) so we have gone from having a couple of vests and stuff last week to being just about well and truly sorted this week. Don't know why after being little miss laid back the whole time so far I have now manifested into someone who NEEDS TO HAVE EVERYTHING READY NOW.

Baby: You are not invited to pop any time soon. Stick it out another 2 months please - else my maternity leave will be up mid December which will be completely inconvenient.

Speaking of The Unborn One - went for a scan last week and apparently the baby is weighing in at a solid 1.6kg. That's big in my opinion. It's UBER weird seeing my stomach move and being able to feel a foot. Weird, but quite cool.