Baby!

Phew!

Alrighty then.

My friend has had her baby!

I didn't get to witness the (terrifying) miracle of birth as, despite being two weeks overdue and the doctors giving some medical encouragement, baby had not descended (ie, headed towards the main gates) and due to his apparent size the doctors recommended a Caesarean.

I did however get to witness part of the miracle of labour and yeah, it looks kind of uncomfortable.

Back to the baby!

As predicted by every single ultrasound they've had, it's a boy!

He weighed in at 10 lb 4 oz*!

Don't ask me why but babies is one thing where our metric measuring country uses pounds and ounces to give weights. Maybe because it makes it easier for people of earlier generations** to go 'woooh, that's a big lad!' without having to reach for the calculator.

Mum and bub are both doing well, even if Mum is a bit sore in the midsection from being opened up .

Given he's so brawny you're not as worried about accidentally breaking him as you*** are with the really itty bitty bubs and I've got to have a few holds.

It is still really REALLY weird to think of my friend as being a mother, a sentiment she whole-heartedly shares, but she and her fella are doing so well with him already. It's all adoring stares and goo-goo eyes and kisses over there.

She'll be in the hospital a few days more whilst they make sure she's recovering from surgery OK and that she is managing to insert Tab A into Slot B successfully****.

We're off to buy the happy family some little gifts and do some sneaky housework for them whilst we're at their house under the camouflage of the legitimate purpose of feeding their pets.

It's weird to think that everything is going to change now, exciting too.



*4.66 kg!

**Yes, Australia used to use the Imperial system. We swapped over somewhere between the start of the 1970s and the end of the 1980s.

***Well, me...

****Tab A is her nipple! Slot B is the baby's mouth!

Speed Bumps

I haven't thought of it as a case of 'better the devil you know' because I've always understood that to be referring to being in a cruddy situation but being afraid that leaving it might land you in something worse.
Complacency may have the same effect though.
Things are OK so change isn't at the top of the list of things to do.

There's stuff I want to learn, goals I want to achieve, and whilst I've been moving towards them, I never feel that I've made as much progress as I'd like in the time since I set those goals.

For instance, I've been a bit bored at work for a while now but my searching for a new job has been sporadic because:

1. I'm not quite sure what I want to do next,
2. getting a new job will probably involve the added complication of moving because I don't live anywhere particularly central, and
3. even though I'm a bit bored, my life isn't bad.

I'm making enough money, my place is OK, I see a decent amount of my friends and family, I've been able to travel etc etc etc.

The thing is, even though I'm having a decent enough time, you've only got so many years in your life and I've been in my current job for five years. That's a few more years than you want to devote to 'things are going OK' unless you've achieved a few more things.

I want that 'what if I cock up!?' nervous excitement of starting a new job.
I want to meet new people.
I want to live in different places.
I want to try new things.

I can visualise all this happening easily enough but when I do it's always 'in the future' and after five years of the present, I'm having to put a boot up my own bum to remind myself that the future doesn't just happen by itself.

I'm not planning to quit my job and just run out into the world, hoping that something will fall into my lap but I am going to make more of a concentrated effort to start things moving.

I'll start with what I'm good at - making lists - and then move onto what I'm determined to be better at - making decisions.

I don't want another five years to pass and to still be sitting here going 'but things are OK'.

This Akimbo comic nails the feeling pretty well (click for bigness). 

Disclaimer: I know the argument in this comic really only applies to people who are lucky enough to have certain opportunities and circumstances and can't be smugly held up to people who are living in poverty and struggling to survive and feed their families.

Akimbo Comics

Due Date

Hey baby, where are you?

You were supposed to have exited the womb in a calm and orderly fashion by now.

Today was your due date and we were all kind of expecting you to keep the appointment.

To be frank it's quite rude of you to keep us waiting, especially your poor mother!

I've read all the information sheets from the Royal Women's Hospital and watched all the episodes of One Born Every Minute and I've had my Awesome Supportive Birth Partner kit by the door for the last month.

Everyone out here is ready for you, soooo....

Yep, today was my friend's due date and her baby has inconsiderately failed to materialise.

Considering how big her tum has been for the last month we've been expecting him to pop out at any minute for the last three weeks but it seems he is in no hurry to oblige.

She's at the stage where she's a bit over it.

She can't move around easily, she's up every half hour or hour during the night to go to the bathroom, she aches all over, she can't get comfortable, she can't get much done, she hasn't laid on her stomach for about 5 months, she hasn't had a drink in 9 months...

She is READY for this baby to be ejected from the pod!

I was always one of those people who thought 'What's the rush? Just let the baby come out when it's ready' but all the years I was thinking this it didn't occur to me - and it was only pointed out to me recently - that the rush is that the baby keeps growing.
So not only is it getting cramped, it is going to be a lot bigger when it tries to make its way through the emergency exit!
That and it would probably have sucked the placenta dry by then, like the tiny vampire it is.

She's going to keep doing all the lovely labour-bringing-on-ish things that have been advised to her but if he goes too far past this following week he'll be getting an eviction notice from the medical professionals at the hospital who won't take no for an answer.

Fingers crossed he gets the idea soon!


Edit (4th July 2012): My friend has had a check up with the doctor who says everything is fine and the baby is doing well, he just doesn't feel like coming out yet.
He's been given until the 12th of July to get this show on the road on his own, if he doesn't she'll be induced.
On Friday the 13th.
Such an auspicious day! :-D

Better Now Than Later

Ow!

OK, I've started doing some preparation for my trip to Nepal in December.

Ow.

It involved going on a brisk walk - make that a very brisk walk - with one of the other women who is coming with us.

Ow.

She is at least a foot taller than myself.

Ow.

And very fit.

Ow.

It had some hilly bits and some broken ground.

Ow.

Every now and then I had to do a little jog to catch up with her.

Ow.

My legs are killing me.

Ow.

It isn't just that I had to work to keep up with her.
Short people also tend to get hell of shin splints and they take a while to settle down when you first start pushing yourself beyond your normal levels of activity.

Ow.

There's still a lot of preparation to do:

• more walking;
• I'll probably do some bike riding;
• definitely going to mix in some stair climbing;
• my Dad, brother and I are probably going to go camping and hiking a few times over the next few months once it warms up a little; and
• extra walking.

But we're off to a good start!

Ow!

I am so glad I am doing this now rather than just assuming that I'd be OK because I walk a lot.

Ow.

Things I'd Like To Have In My House But Possibly Never Will Because I'm Mental

Folding Screens

There could be monsters behind there.

YES, I KNOW I'M AN ADULT!

OK, fine, axe murderers. There could be an axe murderer hiding behind it.



Coat Racks

It looks good, right?

Functional, a bit classy if you buy the right one.

But if I walk through a darkened room that contains a coat rack, just about every time my brain will go 'shadowy spindly shape in the corner = intruder/alien' and completely flip out.

Sure the panic will last for a split second until my memory kicks in with 'durr, it's your coat rack' but a split second of terror every night for the rest of my life?

That has to have ramifications for you health.


Basements

Ahhhhhhh! OK, to be fair it would probably look more like this...

But basements are where they keep you until the neighbours stop asking where you've gone.

We all know this.


Anything Really Antique

It looks lovely until the vengeful spirit of its original owner leaves you torn to shreds and draped around your own house like bunting at a macabre jubilee!


Shower Curtains*

Not only do they suddenly try to cling all over you like a teenage boy at a school dance if you get too close to them during a hot shower on a cold day, we also know that shower curtains are only good for two thing...

1. Giving psychopaths a place to hide
2. Being stabbed through.

Ahem.

I know I'm not really going to be torn apart by vengeful spirits or eaten by monsters or murdered by a shadowy figure with an axe** but I have a truly overactive imagination and a 'you never know' attitude towards superstitions and the unexplained***.

I probably will get a coat rack and a folding screen one day, dunno about antiques, and I probably won't even have to think about a basement.
I know basements are handy for storage and for hiding during Cold Wars but in Australia we've never really gone in for basements in a big way, they're not that common.



*This addition care of Erin Palette who reminded me of the existence of these menaces!

**Fingers crossed!

***And the rock-solid belief that if you say something won't happen to you and are all smug about it that you're just about daring the universe to make it happen.

A Strange Failing

There are plenty of reasons to envy other people.

Wealth.

Experiences they've had.

The fact they're tall enough to take things down off shelves without needing a stepladder.

But the one that has me in its grips at the moment is a deep, abiding envy of people who are able to give names easily.

As in give names to other human beings (you know, babies) or to pets and then stick with them!

I've had these cats for over a year now, since October of 2010 officially and about April of 2010 unofficially and I've only managed to name one of them.

The other one...

I keep coming up with names but then discounting them, or doubting them, or looking at him and thinking 'Does he really look like a [blah blah]?'.

When we got my cat Pickles 14 odd years ago it took me 6 months to name him and I thought that was a long time.

I thought I'd get better with age.

I did not.

I mean, it's just a name for [insert the name of your deity or scientific constant here]'s sake!

It isn't like it has to capture his essence and resonate with the universal truth of the cosmos!

I avoided giving the cats proper names during the 4-6 month period when I was pretending I wasn't going to adopt them and was trying not to get attached, during which time I just referred to them as 'Little Mama' and 'Little Boy'.

Now Little Mama has her real name but Little Boy... I can't call him Little Boy his whole life, I might as well name him Cat!

Also it's incorrect. He's huge! He weighs a good 6 kg* at least!

Some people just seem able to get a pet or spawn a child and say 'I name thee [whatever]' and then stick with it.

And it doesn't even occur to them not to stick with it.

That is the pet/child/whatever's name and that's all there is to know.

Envy.

So much envy.

I'm getting to the point where I think I'll just have to pick one of the ones I like the most, say 'that's the one' and then to hell with Future-Me when she starts um-ing and ahi-ng about it.

I will name you soon, darling, I swear I will.



*That's about 13 lb for the imperial crowd.

Fiiiiiiiiiiiinally!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I have my laptop back again!

It had been with my friendly neighbourhood IT guys for an entire week after it went completely mental.

Around the 17th of May my antivirus software calmly announced that it hadn't received its scheduled update.

'Bloody thing,' I thought and clicked on the manual 'Update' button.

The update failed.

I tried again.

Fail.

I tried a bunch more times.

Fail fail fail.

I ran the antivirus software scan.

It found a couple of things.

I deleted them.

I tried to update again.

Fail.

OK, let's click the button that gives you more information on why the update is failing.

Oh good, now it's failing to open the Microsoft Help Website, that's not weird at all.

Let's see what happens when I try to validate my genuine copy of Windows.

Ah. It won't do that either.

That's not suspicious at all.

I asked a friend what else I could do.

She suggested a couple of websites that offer open source antivirus tools.

I tried to visit them.

I couldn't.

Yep.

Perfect.

Oh and look at that, my computer has failed a scheduled validation of my genuine windows software and if I don't rectify this - which I can't - my antivirus software will lapse altogether.

That's. Just. Excellent.

It was at that point that I disconnected from the internet and handed it over to the tender ministrations of the IT clan.

The virus took some eradicating, then they tidied up the files and deleted any extra unnecessary faff, ran a few checks, found some corrupted segments of drive, saved all my files elsewhere, reformatted my computer, updated everything, put my files back onto it and delivered it back into my loving arms.

I've survived alright without it seeing as I had my swish new phone to check in on emails and social media and even websites if I didn't mind them being tiny but my laptop has all my music, all my photos, all my files...

I already had copies of everything on a terabyte drive for safety but it's not the same as having them on a laptop that you can just open and access anywhere rather than having to wait until you're at work and plug your drive into your work computer.

Welcome back, little laptop, I missed you.