The fruit analogies drive me nuts. Wow, the raisin-like foetus of week 5 became a kiwi-sized embryo and low and behold, at week 23 it seems I have myself a large mango – baby hybrid. True panic will set in when I read that I’m carrying a water melon and have to plan its exit strategy.
Weekly conundrum: Maternity jeans – to wear or not to wear?
We can man international space stations and build self-driving cars but nobody yet has come up with maternity jeans that don’t look like a cross between a clown suit and an elastic explosion. There’s just no dignity in those things. They either sit under the bump, in which case you spend most of the day hitching your trousers up like a farmer who forgot his twine belt or they end somewhere across the middle of the bump. In that case, an elastic line runs across your belly as though you have hitched your underwear up to meet your chin, á la Frank Spencer. I’m currently in a bit of a Goldilocks dilemma with maternity jeans – they’re too big, too small or just too ugly. Still, my love of leggings is bordering on plain lazy so the hunt for the perfect pair of jeans continues.
Weekly Low
I miss wine! Sure, this rant is likely to appear weekly in my diary but this week I REALLY miss wine. There have been a few things to celebrate and cranberry juice is just not cutting it. First off, I miss the altogether too pleased with myself ritual of pouring a nice cold glass of white wine. I miss the smell, the taste and at this stage, I even miss the flaming red cheeks I get after a second glass. My real whinge though is more about how much of a hermit I’m becoming now that I’m booze free (yes, yes, pledge up-holders and teetotallers I am sorry to offend your beliefs so horribly). I have become the designated driver that loses interest in all external conversation while my husband and friends are enjoying a few beers. That’s because I’m overwhelmed by the internal voices; ‘wow, these people are demented. I hope I never sound like that when I’m three sheets to the wind. Surely I couldn’t? No, no, it’s them. They’re just all mad and obviously can’t hold their booze’. It’s that point where Hormone Henrietta is replaced by Judgmental Jennifer and I reach a state of boredom from where there is no return. Dinner parties, nights out and celebrations have all been substituted with cinema trips, box set binging and a new found interest in cuff-legged pyjamas. If it wasn’t for the annual reappearance of Crème Eggs I think I would have a nightly cry. On the plus side, my husband’s liver is also enjoying a period of rejuvenation. Solidarity (and the threat of solo sleeping) has seen to that.
Weekly High
The fact that my seven year-old has finally shown some interest in ‘that baby’ has been a major win this week. Up to this point, all conversations involving ‘your little brother or sister’ have involved questions like ‘will all my toys have to be put up high when that baby comes?’ or ‘am I going to have to be really quite when that baby is sleeping?’. To be fair, the accusatory tone and half-quivering lip is only something that a seven year-old could pull off so well. The fact that he is getting excited about the impending arrival is great, his insistence that it’s a boy….not so great. We’ve gone to great lengths to explain the 2:1 odds but apparently, wishing for a brother will make it so. I tend to spend hours in bookshops and lately I find myself hovering around the child development shelves. I feel that actually buying a book on sibling rivalry will make it happen so it seems my son didn’t lick his sense of logic off the ground.
Remember to come back and check for next weeks pregnancy diary!
