Hello Sissy - 20 weeks

We have a name to go with the girl.

An in-utero name at least...

Sissy.

"Why in the wide wide world of sports would you lumber her with that?" we hear you ask...

Well;
1) We figure it's silly enough that we wont want to keep it when she arrives...
2) Mike will get to know her as his little "sissy", and can keep calling her that post-pop,
3) Shes kinda in inner space (ergo; Sissy Spacek),
4) SIS, in this case given the pictures, is clearly short for Snuggled InSide; parents being meteorologists and all that, an acronym is compulsory for all major projects.

Of course we had to give her a name - or at least the lady doing our 20 week scan insisted - having seen her in all her naked glory (Sissy that is, not the scanning woman) via the wonders of modern tech-o-nology.

There we were looking at the all too familiar fuzzy flat blob, when the decidedly clothed operator said "Oh, that looks nice..." and flick; there on the screen was our little girl in 3D.

A real live little being with nose and lips and eyes and hands and feet and no longer just a 2D cross section.

One discernible person.

Ok, the wonders of modern tech-o-nology only extend so far and her swatting away a pesky umbilical cord was all too jerky and robot-dance like, but there she was.

Snug as a bug.

"Awwww..." went the well dressed lady, "She's a cutey!"

And we reckon she's right.

Not to mention definitely Mike's sis.
Same lips.
Same nose.
Unable to detect the same obsession with the Wiggles just yet but we're sure that'll come with time.

Of course the scan isn't just about making mum and dad and sartorially splendid operator go all "ohhh" and "ahhh" and "isn't tech-o-nology amazing", it's also about checking if theres anything untoward we should be aware of. And after all the stress of weeks 12 to 18, we just wanted to tick all the boxes.

Brain... fully lobed.
Heart... four chambered and pumping well.
Spine... where it should be.
No club foot.
No cleft pallette.
Ten toes and fingers.
One girl fetus in bog standard trim.
Excellent!

Mistress P mentioned that we'd been feeling Sissy moving about a lot and that even dad had been able to have a good feel of a few kicks, to which the good and smart casual lady suggested that was very early indeed to be feeling such things.

"But it is the second kiddie" said dad... "wont things be all a bit stretched out and stuff - and easier to feel?"

To which the well dressed miss gave Mistress P permission to corporally punish dad for his transgression.

"You wont last long making comments like that with girls around you know", she chided.

Oh dear.
Girls.
You have a lot to learn AB.
A lot to learn.

A sausage in the hand is worth two at the beach

Its only a matter of time and Connex will be blaming the late trains on the baby boom.

You think we're joking??

Well think again my friend.

Poor old Mistress P has been feeling a bit low in the blood pressure department - as preggas women tend to do - which combined with the overcrowding on the trains and a lack of a blatantly obvious bulging baby belly (so she can tell young whipper snappers to give her a seat or feel the wrath of a fetus scorned), meant there's been at least one train trip thus far where the earth has started to turn. And not in a good way.

She survived. Just.
But surely many others haven't... watch for the press release.

Having said that the belly isn't all that noticeable; well, errr... actually it is.

Being a second time mum and all that, the muscles and tendons and all the bits that hold things in have had a bit of a stretchy-poo (a.k.a Mike), and hence we're a little bigger a little earlier this time. That said... you do get bonus points.

Such as feeling little Miss {unnamed as yet} having a bit of a roll about in there, even though we're well shy of the 20 weeks. And thats not just for mum; dad too has plonked the hand on the belly and felt the internal shenanigans.

How cool is that?

Speaking of shenanigans, that really should be Master M's middle name. (Only it's Henry.)

Or maybe it should be Sponge.

The amount of information the boy is taking on board is amazing. Ok, you need a PhD in linguistics to understand him (or be his mum or dad) but the lad is coming up with an astounding array of words and sentences.

For instance, dad was somewhat Fraudianly wandering about on their most recent long weekend away down the coast, singing (to himself - or so he thought - for obvious reasons), "Surrender" by Cheap Trick.

On the car drive home a little voice started babbling from the back seat...

"Mummysorrright"

"Whats that Michael?" said dad.

"Daddysorrright" Mike replied with a big grin.

"Errr... they just seem a little...?" posed dad...

"Weeeed!" said Mike.

Jumping Jehosephat... he was almost right (Exhibit A; Cheap Trick - Surrender):

Mummys all right,
Daddys all right,
They just seem a little weird...

This little memory trick wasn't his only one from the weekend away - not by a long shot.

Walking along one of the side streets we wandered past a trailer that had been parked in the exact same position the last time we walked down that street back on Orstraya Day weegend (i.e., nearly 2 months ago.)

"Fan." said Master M.

"What's that Michael?" said mum.

"Fan gone" said the boy, pointing at the trailer.

Crikey.
There was a fan in that trailer two months ago which was now, well, gone. (We do indeed remember, because at the time he was obsessed with fans. No we don't know why - heatwave perhaps - he just was.)

And then there's his love of the surf. Or at least that's what we thought.

A morning stroll along the beach chanced us upon a surfing competition, complete with some windsurfing friends cheering on one of their own, and a friend from work who was also in the comp and carving up a few young'uns on the way. But more to Mikes liking, there was a genuine sizzling-on-the-sand BBQ.

"Sausy?" (a.k.a Sausage) he asked...

"No matey - that's just for the surfing people..."

"Sausy?"

And off he went, making his pleas while bouncing into random shivering rubber people and stepping on the odd board scaring dad witless that he'd snap off a fin and cost him another hundred bucks in repairs.

"Sausy?"

...till eventually he was given one. Complete with white bread and sauce (the food of kings).

A quick fight with the assorted dogs who were slobbering after a sausage brought down to their eye level, and he wolfed it down, had a 2 minute walk on/over the boards once more, then put on his best starving child face and batted the eyelids to yet another total stranger in rubber:

"Sausy?"

And scored a second one.

The next day he seemed remarkably keen to go to the beach.
Being proud parents and beaming at the prospect that the son and heir was following in our surf loving footsteps, we obliged the lad and took him down to the boardwalk, which he galloped down and onto the sand.

Where he stood.
Turned.
Looked left.
Looked right.
Looked at said parents...

"Sausy?"

Mind like a steel trap.

Big Tum II: revenge of the chromosomes

Well it's taken some huffing and puffing, some joy and some tears (and seemingly a never ending set of trips to the doctors) but we're now proud to announce....

Welcome to Big Tum II.

Yup, we're on the preggas bus once more, next stop; kids (plural) city.

And in only 23 weeks time too.

To be honest the past few weeks have been tough.
Real tough.

Like all expectant future mums and dads these days, it was off for the compulsory 12 week blood-test-and- scan.
No wukkas.
Or so we thought.

"They look great" said the scan girl at the horse-piddle, "nuchal skin fold is about 2mm, nice and healthy in the 1-3mm range" she said. Well, more like 'frantically blerted', in between a very worried little Master M bellowing and clinging to mum and saying "sen... sen...", which is his code for "hold my hand and i'll take you somewhere else". (No, we dont know why "sen" means this either; it just does.)

His concern was cute, his cries less so, hence dad took him for a couple of walks through the horse-piddle, including several trips up and down the lift; all two floors of it. There was enough button pressing to get him a job at Grace Bros.

So off to the doc it was a week later for the overall results of the scan and bloods, all excited to get the good news.

Which wasn't so good.

Whereas Mike had come in at the "don't make me laugh" end of the scale (i.e., so little chance of a problem he'd asymptoted at the top and mum was akin to a 15 year old in likelihood of having a problem), these results had gone to the "MMmm.. bugger..." end of the scale (i.e., bottomed out).

"You've got a 1 in 40 chance of a problem; thats high."

Our hearts sank, even though our minds said "hey, thats a 39 in 40 chance everything is fine".

Still all and sundry gave us the scenarios, the gory details and possible problems, and we were bussed off for more tests. Then they tell you the problems with the tests - like 1 in 200 miscarriage etc. Still, a lot boiled down to equations that were weighted by age; something Mistress P is, frankly, not showing.

So mentally it was a tug of war - odds are actually in our favour despite doctors repeating the "high risk" mantra, tests with risks, wondering about the "what ifs" and life changing decisions and then there was the waiting...

Mental torture.

First waiting till we were at 15 weeks so they could do further tests (an amniocentesis) , then a wait for initial "FISH" (it sounds nicer than "Fluorescence in situ hybridisation") gene marker tests (which came in ok, "but its only a screening test"), then finally the big old perve at the genes themselves after a frustratingly long 14 days of cell growing (normally 10-12).

Which of course culminated in being faxed the earlier FISH result again, and having to wait 12 more hours, just to rub it in.
Argh.

Result:
A-OK.

And its a girl; we'll have the set.

So, here we are.
A healthy little bub stretching the belly once more, mum already over the worst of the morning sickness but swearing she doesn't want to do that again (two spews, craving for oranges), well over 17 weeks in and hence a sizable bulge that surely half the population of Melbourne has noticed but has been too afraid to ask (thankfully; well, minus the one lady who rushed up and went for a good old rub much to Mistress P's horror), and a little boy who's none the wiser about his sister to be - we assume he just thinks mums eaten a few too many pies.

The experience wouldnt be complete without the first case of preggas brain. Lets just say that when paying for things online using BPAY, we'll be triple checking the number of zeros on the end from now on. (Anyone want to buy some surplus to requirements x 10 Wesfarmers shares???)

Ahhh pregnancy.
Its natures way of getting you a seat on the bus.
(Wish us luck!)

Postscript:
Forgot to say... due 7/8/9 (i.e., 7 August 2009). Now if that isn't a lucky number, we dont know what is...

Heaven; must be there

Heaven.

For some it's this divine place of light and joy worth donning a habit and crossing the legs for. For others (i.e., dad) its akin to the easter bunny. For the boy, it appears to be 128 Rowans Road Moorabbin on every first Sunday of the month (excludes January and total fire bans; must wear closed shoes - no crocs).

See the boy has been somewhat obsessed with trains of late.
Its all Thomas this and Thomas that.
Usual boy stuff.

So Jackie-his-second-mum (a.k.a his family day care lady) mentioned the illustrious gents of the Steam Locomotive Association of Victoria, just up the road from the Baghdad-end-of-Hampton, and henceforth a trip was planned.

Best laid plans of mice and men and all that...
All was readied for an arvo of articulation, when of course the boy refused to go down for his afternoon snooze until far too late and hence appeared to have missed the bus. Or in this case, tank engine. Then mum rang up.

"Errr... I've just driven past; there's cars everywhere..."

So dad and boy packed and rushed off to the wilds of Moorabbin, arriving just in time to buy the last ticket to ride, literally, and stomped in to look at the miniature locos steaming round the track.

Mike just stood.
And looked.
And gaped.
And looked.
And caught flies in his wide open mouth.

No "Thomas!".
No "Twains!".
No "Percy!".

Speechless.
Literally.
Just a gob for catching flies.

Before he reached the average daily adult intake, the station master summoned them forth and plonked them on a carriage - front row centre; Mike right behind the driver.

"Toot toot" and they were off.
And still no sound from the boy.

A lap of the track and a stand on the overpass and the first words were issued ("...Thomas..."), before they marched down again, where a kind man called them over to sit in the drivers seat on his pride and joy for photos, before a final "toot - toot" and puffing off to the station to put the loco to bed.

Mike just stood.
And gaped.
And finally said "Twains!"

A pig in poo.
Heaven.
Must be there (@ 128 Rowand Rd),

As for mum and dad.
Well heaven is lifting the lid on the toot and seeing the boys very first toilet-laid turd.
Tru dinks.
It happened.

Ah.
Heaven.

To each their own.