Imminent Arrival

OK so we're 44 days to go and the house is being prepared in earnest. When I say earnest that it what I really mean! It has kinda stopped being a joyful occasion in my mind to an almost feeling of dread of the responsibility and how we'll cope with it all!

Last night's trip to Mothercare World was as eventful as previous trips. This time the pram car seat (for our bizarrely discontinued, then not discontinued 'travel system') wasn't working properly. We can tighten for a smaller baby but not loosen...this leaves a small problem in that our baby is probably going to be bigger than a barbie doll! (which is the only thing that will now fit in it as I played with the tighten function before realising the untighten function didn't work!) Fingers crossed we don't have the baby prior to 4th Feb when they come back into stock! We seemed to pick up a large selection of nappies and a huge playmat that caught our eye (stuff buying clothes and cotton wool, let's get the toys in!)

There's still a list of things to get and we seem to be relying on a vast truck of baby clothes as gifts as we are kind of short in that area...I suppose when we know what sex it is will help in that area. Other than that everything seems to be taken care of. K finishes work in a few days and I think it can't come soon enough to be honest. The tiredness has started to hit her a bit and most days she comes home looking a bit wan!

Work have also been great for me as well. My home working is all approved and I'm just waiting for for them to install my business line on Friday and for my new office chair and IT equipment to arrive. I've also been very prepared and put together a Paternity Leave plan making sure that the 'very important work that I does' will get done (they'll probably only need a chimp and a spreadsheet and they'll be sorted). I also get a quite generous 2 weeks paid leave to cover it off...I might be screaming to get back to work after a couple of days!

I suppose its all got a bit more 'real' as we visited the Pen's at the weekend to meet their new arrival (4 months old now). They seemed to know exactly what to do at all times and seemed very much more organised and grown up than I remember them being prior to A's arrival. They seemed unfazed by crying, poo and the fact he was on J's breast more than he was off it! (maybe that's just my hazy recollection!) I imagine that after a few months we'll probably look competent as well.

I was looking through some old pics and realised that I haven't been tracking teh bump very well. Here's a couple of pics to show the current progress.

This one was taken 7 weeks ago...



And this one 4 weeks ago (Christmas Day! And aren't I mean forcing my pregnant wife to do the washing up on Christmas Day?!?! To be fair I did remove the customary chains for the photo!)



Rest assured she is even bigger now and is set to enlarge before the month is out!