It's art imitating life

Well, advertising anyway. Which should actually mean the ad agency have done their homework, but I digress. Now's not the time to start analysing advertising strategy.

So, so sooner should our pram turn up than a friend sent me this link to a new ad for Lloyds TSB featuring a pregnant couple trying out different prams.

He asked me if it resonated with me.

Resonate?! You must be kidding.

Where are the arguments over different brands, the trips to endless shops, the returning home to compare prices online, then arguing again...?! It's totally unrealistic. Harrumph.

I jest. But what really did make me chuckle was the hilarious stream of comments complaining that the ad was promoting formula over breast-feeding, simply because the pram the couple end up buying has a feeding bottle on it. One of them even says he's going to change bank as a result. Brilliant.

Childcare

Yes, I know we haven't had the baby yet (due 6 weeks last Friday, so we're a little ahead of ourselves on this albeit important point).

But I've found that this is one of the things that friends with babies approaching toddlerdom somehow manage to get you thinking about way before time. I think Kate was only 4 months when it first became a discussion point.

Waiting lists for local nurseries (long), child minders until the age of 3 when they can start going to the waiting-listed nursery (expensive) etc. - all seemed to get us geared up. Like we haven't got enough to contend with at the moment.

My bedtime reading of late seems to consist largely of Ofsted reports. Fun.

How do we settle on a name?

"I know," says Kate. "You relent."

7 and a half months

Apparently, there's now a WHOLE baby in there.

Is pregnancy a competition?

It involves almost continuous testing of stuff such as blood pressure, weight, glucose levels, iron levels, heart rate, size of uterus, general anxiety, position of baby etc etc. And whilst I'm not entirely sure whether there's a 'right' answer or a 'top score' for any of these things deep down I still think that it's definitely a competition that I can win...

Spot the difference

Before:

After:

The baby clutter begins. What will become of our beautiful home?

The pram arrives

After what feels like weeks of buggy-browsing, endless debates about whether or not we should get a Bugaboo or an iCandy, and then a nail-biting wait once we'd actually ordered a Brio Go, our '3-in-1 travel system' is finally with us, all the way from Sweden (or Thailand, by the looks of the stickers on the seemingly endless number of boxes):

Almost 2 hours later, tah-dah:

Actually all I had to do was put the wheels on, which was just as well as there were no instructions in the boxes. Brio have made so many "cockings" recently, accordingly to the delightfully Swedish and very apologetic shop assistant at Kidsen who I spoke to.

And I know what you're thinking: no, we have NOT chosen a pram to match the colour scheme of our house. It just happened that way.

Stav the Chav

I came home last night to find that Kate bought arrr Stav a baby velour outfit:

We don't know if we're having a boy or a girl yet, but one things for sure: we're now having a chav.

Pregnant and poorly

Having been felled last week by the flu bug, I spent three days in bed digging down into depths of self-pity that I never knew existed. And which no amount of sympathy could assuage. Particularly when I developed an ear ache on top of the flu because I'd been laying on one, heavily laden side for too long...

Catching some zzzzs

Or not, as the case may be.

There has been a distinct lack of sleep going on in our house since we got back from Thailand - from all two and a half of us. Initially, I thought it might have been jet-lag but this is getting ridiculous.

The 'beep beep beep' is quite cute, but not at 2.30am. Every morning.

I thought this constant knackeredness wasn't supposed to start until AFTER the baby's born. And to make matters worse, the general response from people (okay, guys at work) has been 'Get used to it'.

I have considered moving into the back bedroom, but would like our child to be born in wedlock.