Chasing the Morbes

A few handy cheer-up tips for if you’re ever feeling a little down (and even better, do them as a matter of course):

- Blow bubbles face down in the bath
- Blow bubbles with a straw into a glass of water
- Fart in the bath
- Find a child and blow a rasberry onto their tummy
- When you lie down pretend you’re a really full lion and flop down, letting out all your breath as you do so (from a sitting position – oh I can’t explain it but its FUN!)
- Go for a ride in the bush on a motorbike
- Drink a coke and let the fizz go up your nose
- Do the aeroplane thing. Where someone lies on the floor with their feet up and you lie on their feet with your tummy and put your arms out
- Jump on a trampoline
- Pull faces at yourself in the mirror
- Listen to the bird calls and make up stupid things that they’re saying
- Play in the mud
- Smash bottles
- Scream into the wind

What are your tricks for dispelling the blues?

(Oh and by the way, I do not have the blues. Au Contraire. Just saying)

Picture is an imprint of a pigeon that flew into the window!

Chrysalis to Butterfly

The zoo and a baby

I –

Wha -

Ha –

My goodness I don’t know how to begin.

I am speechless

Lying on my chest right now is my baby daughter.

4 days old.

In little clothes that looked impossibly small when she was still in my tummy but are now swimming around her.

I could start at the beginning I guess. Not the BEGINNING beginning, we all know how babies are made…

It all started at the zoo. Actually I’m not sure that’s entirely true but it seems like a good place to start. My 14 year old cousin is visiting from school –on her half term – and we decided to go to the zoo. I like the Joburg zoo. A few things make me sad – the lonely gorilla (his famous companion Max died a few years ago after making history by being shot by a robber who was chased into the gorilla enclosure) and the pacing honeybadger, but there are lots of other animals there who seem fairly content. Who knows. Anyway, we were at the zoo and did a LOT of walking. We saw lions, polar bears, lemurs, seals and snakes. Crocodiles, red pandas, servals and chimps. It’s a big zoo, there’s a lot to see. So off we went, the four of us (one of us in utero) marvelling at the tigers, chuckling at the baby chimp, laughing at the sign on one of the fences that says “Beware, these birds stab through the fence” No I didn’t go into labour at the zoo, (nor did I get stabbed by a bird). But the next night I had a bloody show. The bloke and I are in a restaurant, having the first of what we think will be ten days of hanging out just the two of us, romantic dinners when we feel like it etc. So I go to the loo and come back wide eyed saying, “I just lost my mucous plug” (gross I know!) “of fuck’ Suddenly I am absolutely terrified! Its fine of course, I’m hardly going to go into labour then and there like in the movies, but we get the checque swiftly anyway, I don’t feel like being crammed in with all these people anymore, all smoking and talking loudly. The fake cheery waiter “what no deserts?” The bloke. Firm. “No. Just. The bill” I phone the midwife. She says not to worry it doesn’t mean its coming NOW but go home, get some sleep, within three days it should happen.

That night I have a few cramps, nothing major. Slept fitfully but enough. The next day we went about our business as usual. 7 in the evening I start getting contractions. Just like period pains, not impossibly sore but enough to keep me awake most of the night. We text the midwife and tell her but say we’ll stay at home and keep her posted. 3 in the morning we decide to d to the birthing centre. The midwife meets us there confirms that yes I’m in labour, but haven’t started dilating yet. Go home, come back later. We go home. Contract all through the morning, at midday we go back to the birthing centre. I’m only 1cm dilated. Bollocks! I shan’t go into details save to say that yes it was bloody sore. It was …well…laborious. But, 32 hours of labour later gave birth to the sweetest gorgeousest girl in the world. 3 in the morning on 4th July. I know most newborns are supposed to look like the last tomato in the fridge and parents will never recognise this about their own child but she really is gorgeous and not the last tomato AT ALL!

So there you have it. We have chosen a good name, I think, and none from the last post!

I would hate to be a new mother bore but I’m sure I will be. And I don’t care.

That’s it for now. More cooing and tweeting soon.

The name thing

Names. Its hard. To choose for someone else. Something so darn permanent. And important. And I, if you didn't know, am a very very indecisive person. So. What NOT to name our child has been easy. We are avoiding:
Candida
Borat
Paki
Aeschylus
Helmut
Egbert
Ginger
Terminus
Uranus
Gwendolina
Bartholomew
Baby
Junior

(yes these were all in the book)

….and many many others. This bit is easy! What we ARE going to name our child remains something of a mystery…

Now this is bound to offend some people who are named or have named their children some of the above and if that’s the case sorry. But. Tough. I mean seriously. Uranus??

We recently found a book of African names which is also really funny. The names themselves are sometimes quite pretty but the meanings….. for example.
Kitwe – a smelly little copper mining town in Zambia (sorry Kitwe residents)
Kesho – tomorrow
Agh, I can’t remember the others, I left the book at my sisters but they are pretty funny. Like some names mean something quite normal in Swahili, but the same name means something very rude or weird in Chinyanja.

Of course there is the first name surname combo that can be so fun. Or mean. Such as the proverbial Mike Hunt that we've all heard about. I know someone whose surname is Came and we thought it would be a good idea to name his son Justin Andy. Geddit? Just in and he came? Okay I probably didn't need to spell it out for you. Then my grandfather always used to tell of a family whose surname was Down. And the dad was called Pop and the children were called Ben Down, Aida Down, Bob Down and Neil Down. I always thought he was making it up but I recently read a book set in Rhodesia that also talks about this family. I was delighted when I read that! I also know someone who named their child Justin Case. And a friend said she went to school with a Berry Dingle (apparently a dingle berry is the bit of poo that hangs off a bear’s bum!)

So we have a long shortlist and hope the name will jump out at us when the baby is born….in a week and a half give or take. Aaaaaaahhhh!

Thanks to Mud and her latest post for the inspiration. Or should I say for the blatant plagiarism. Me plagiarising her, not the other way round!