a heartbreaking work of staggering tiredness

Mexico

Thu, 4 Oct 2007 15:43:05 +0100

No, I've not disappeared of the face of the earth, I am here in South Mexico with mi esposa y mi hija. We are having a wonderful time and are here til Christmas.

I'm abandoning this blog for a while in favour of a less anonymous one, as the parents etc want to see pics of how it is all going. You're all invited to join us on http://bigmore.blogspot.com/ until Christmas, if you want to see what we're up to, and I will be back here when we return

Hugs

Fishxxx

hello

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 19:12:11 +0100

i cant remember how to make photo bucket work sorry. taking time out from feeding and washing to say hi and yes would be lovely to see people at greenbelt - but I can't get onto the forum (apparently I'm banned? Have I done something terrible?) to say so. If someon reads this can they alert Dave to this fact...he has my mobile number I think.

All going well with us - Daisy still adorable, but I am a little sleep deprived. Looking forward to GB but we are not camping this year, wusses that we are.

Fish

hope this will work

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 11:36:10 +0100

This is us as a new family, including baby fishsoup, whose real name is Daisy Grace. She's beautiful and truly is "fearfully and wonderfully made". She is fast asleep on daddy at the moment and has been behaving wonderfully MOST of the time. We feel very blessed. Thanks for all your good wishes

Fishmum x

small fry

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:49:40 +0100

baby fishsoup- laidback like her daddy, turned up on tuesday after having to be practically begged out by the lovely staff at kings. she is adorable and was seven pounds. we're all home now and trying to get the hang of each other.

maternity leave

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:23:44 +0100

I guess I now have no excuse not to post since I've been at home for weeks and still no baby. Maternity leave is a wonderful thing. I've slept a lot, made a lot of lasagne and had lunch with lots of people. Being able to sleep in the day has given me the energy to go out in the evenings so my social life has also revived temporarily.
All that is about to change. I'm due on Tuesday - eek - but I suspect this little one will hang around for a while.
Meanwhile I have been disturbed by the buying orgy that seems to go with having a baby. I have been relatively strong and tried not to buy things we don't need - but did catch myself hormonally sobbing because we had a second-hand buggy for our lovely baby rather than a bugaboo like all the other people at NCT. The baby will be fine in the buggy, which folds up beautifully small and is in very very good nick - and in the end I bought it a new lambskin to line it with as a compromise, which made me feel much less mean. Everything else is now as ready as it can be before little one arrives I think.
we've had one scare when I was sent to hospital because the midwife was worried about "accelerations" on the baby's heartbeat. After two trips to the Maternal Assessment Unit at Kings (quite a fraught place- two pregnant women nearly came to blows over the last chair at one point), the midwives and doctors concluded that our baby is just "very, very busy and active" - which does not bpde well for the calm sleepy angel I was hoping for!
Now we just wait. I guess... and keep very very busy so we don't get impatient. Anyone want a lasagne?

Counting the days

Thu, 31 May 2007 11:52:13 +0100

I have six more working days before I go on maternity leave, which is daunting and pleasing in equal measure. I've worked solidly for newspapers and magazines (sometimes holding more than one job at a time) since I left uni in 1998 (showing my age). It's terrifying to think I suddenly won't be working. Can't imagine defining myself as a "mum" rather than as a journalist. Guess I should really just be defining myself as a person created by God and be done with it, but it's quite hard to do that.

Being me, of course I've not really managed to sever links with working completely. I shall still have some freelance to do before the baby arrives, and possibly even after. Still, I'm looking forward to spending a bit more time with the sofa, my bed, and all the bags I need to pack, shopping etc before the little one arrives.

Slightly distraught to read in the Times this morning that our child has been feeling all the stress I have since I was four months pregnant. Can I sue the paper if he/she turns out to be a delinquent?

Lazy blogger

Thu, 24 May 2007 11:01:39 +0100

It's been a while, sorry. All is fine with us and the bump - we've been to France with friends which was lovely, and now have (argh) six weeks til the baby is due to turn up.
I'm looking forward to finishing work in just over two weeks!

wish I had something more exciting to report really. Went to the King's College breastfeeding workshop yesterday. It was oddly brilliant, but I had no idea it was all so complicated. Also i am not very good at correctly positioning plastic dolls. Something tells me a real baby is going to be much more difficult as well!

Lots to learn

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 13:15:00 +0100

Spent some time at the weekend sorting out teeny tiny babyclothes people have given us to work out which we need now and which we can lend to other people until ours grows up. Also of course, the small problem that we don't yet know the gender of baby fishsoup (maybe I should call it crouton?) and most of them are very much boys clothes.
So, what are the tiny cotton mittens for? And what is the difference between 0-3 months and newborn? And why do we need both? And won't the baby be terribly hot in babygros AND a vest in July? And why do baby clothes say such weird things on them (one of them says "cows are black and white" all over it - who thought that was a great sentiment for a baby?)
Also spent some time trying out the (very hippy) baby sling we have ordered- which comes with an amusing DVD. So my apologies to anyone who walked past our flat on Saturday and wondered why we were trying to fit a Zippy hot waterbottle cover into a baby sling. We were just practising and the cat wouldn't stay still enough.

just so you know I'm still here. Not convinced by their analysis though

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:11:13 +0100

Read my VisualDNA\™ Get your own VisualDNA\™

Easter

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:32:10 +0100

Happy easter, belatedly. Hope the rest of you managed to celebrate it more excitedly than I did. I discovered on Easter Sunday that yes, I can still throw up with the best of them, even though I'm now into my third trimester. Spent most of the rest of the morning in bed, trying not to curse our little one for somersaulting at inopportune moments.
Back at work now. I've only got two months to go and am now beginning to panic about who they are going to replace me with while I am away. Am slightly hurt that apparently they do not need seven people to do my job, but in fact half a person.
This has made me utterly paranoid, even though I know that British labour laws forbid them from taking my job away from me while I have my baby, and I know also that they are just trying to cut corners..
Must stop worrying about it. Que sera sera.