The ThreeGees

It's been so long since I last wrote on here that I momentarily forgot my password.

Anyway, I can now explain that the reason I haven't written for such a long time is because me and Mr G are going to become a family of three!

We've been waiting some time for this to happen so you would expect that it would have taken a bit longer than an hour post-positive test result for me to start moaning about how hideous being pregnant is, but of course that was not the case. Why suffer in silence when you can bring everyone else down with you?

How quickly I forgot how long we've wanted a baby when I was struck down with (what can realistically only be described as an average case of) the dreaded morning sickness.

On one particularly harrowing occasion - which has now become known as The Dominos Disaster - Mr G went out for the evening so I thought I would cheer myself up with some pizza. I ordered £20 worth of scran, threw up before it arrived and then managed to eat precisely 1 slice of pizza, 1 chicken goujon and 1 potato wedge before throwing the rest in the bin as I couldn't bear the sight or smell of it.

On another occasion I thought I was getting my appetite back so cheerfully wolfed down a lovely spaghetti bolognese, only for it to make a reappearance before my knife and fork even came to rest on the empty plate. I actually cried about this. I love bolognese.

People keep telling me it gets better. Let's hope so, eh? Yesterday I got off the bus and  had a little cough tickling the back of my throat which set into motion one of the less glamorous moments of my life...I walked the length of my street at the speed of a slug, doubled over gagging, before finally coming to rest against a lamp post and vomiting in the street.

So, not only have I been regularly saying hello again to meals I had considered finished,  I've also noticed I am growing a beard, and my boobs have become so massive that when I get cold my nipples look like a  Shar Pei (If you don't know what a Shar Pei looks like click here) but something even more distressing than all this has happened to me since I became pregnant:

I've gone off chocolate.

Regular readers will be astounded to hear that not a single Flake has touched my lips since well before Christmas. In a bizarre twist that would surely even shock medical professionals, it turns out that this baby prefers healthier eating. Not only can I no longer enjoy a diet rich in cakes and chocolate washed down by a nice brew (and believe me, I HAVE TRIED), I find myself putting away fresh fruit at a rate my bank balance cannot sustain.

Anyway, of course I am just messing around (Not about the pregnancy, that would be a bit weird?),  I am very grateful to be pregnant and after such a long wait we do realise how lucky we are. I am totally overwhelmed  that there is a new life growing inside me, and aside from the barfing, the beard, the boobies and the chocolate lockdown, there have been lots of amazing moments as well. I don't think I've ever been as proud as I was when we went for our scan last week and saw the baby relaxing with its feet up, legs crossed , in the ultimate lazy recline. It refused to move, apart from to wave its hand once dismissively above its head, as if to say "Errr... Trying to SNOOZE in here!" and the tears rolled down my face as I thought "Now that's my child!"

Insert Bionic Components: Here.

I'm back home now from my overnighter chez Derriford were I had my elbow rebuilt.

I'm in total agony and it feels like someone has been hacking at my arm with a rusty, scalding hot, junior hacksaw but I believe all went according to plan.

Pre-operation I told Lorenzo, my anaesthetist, about my anxiety over losing control and worrying that I would be lairy when I came round from the operation as I'm a terrible drunk. To reassure me, he told me that most people show their true colours as the drugs wear off because they behave the way they would without the influence of intellectual and cultural factors. "Brilliant" I thought. "That's all I need. Me showing my true colours..."

I went to sleep saluting my Commander  surgeon and laughing into the oxygen mask as I protested against a suggestion that I imagine I was relaxing on a beach; "NO! I MUST DREAM ABOUT DICK VAN DYKE RIDING A DOLPHIN!". I woke up smiling and chatting to Lorenzo in his mother tongue, German. Much to the amusement of the other staff who said they wished all their patients came round so cheerily. Especially when, for a fleeting moment, I had them fooled that I'd never spoken a word of German before in my life. So there we have it, my true colours, a happy, bilingual, practical joker. Who knew?!

Back on the ward, I tried to rest but was unable to because a) I was in so much pain, and b) it's SO BLOODY NOISY IN HOSPITAL. 

During the night, the girl next to me spent the entire time alternating between vomiting and apologising for waking me up, the woman across from me was snoring, another woman needed her bed pan changing frequently, requiring the noisy assistance of three people each time and setting off various alarms every 5 minutes, another lady in our bay kept sneaking into the toilets to have a fag, resulting in us all getting a collective bollocking at 2am (and the prime suspect being ME!), and the final lady was moved to another ward in the early hours, which of course caused much clattering and bashing around and one of the porters to jokily chirp at me "Get to sleep, you!". Shortly afterwards, he found himself in the morgue with my saline drip feed tightly wound round his neck.

The following day, I was still in agony so I was given the choice of staying another night so I could continue to take Oramorph, or coming home. The morphine was just making me sick and I was getting irritated by all the noise so I decided to get discharged into the very able care of Mr G who has been a wonderful nurse and basically done everything for me, including giving me a bath and washing my hair today. In a moment of delirium I looked up at him dreamily and asked "Am I really alive? Did I make it Mr G?" to which he replied "Yes love, this is nobody's idea of heaven" and he flanneled down my stubbly arm pit. Yep, he's definitely a keeper.

Thanks to all the people who have helped us out over the past few days, including the amazing staff at Derriford, and for all the well wishes. And to God, etc etc.

Mr G Rages Against The Machine

I'm just sat up here on my little landing doing a bit of work, when all of a sudden I hear such a massive commotion and significant effing and jeffing coming from the front room that I assume an intruder has crept in through our living room window or something.

Panic over... Mr G is just playing some crap on the XBox.

Aquarium Blues

My nephew eventually turned up for our my much-anticipated trip to the National Marine Aquarium.

Squiffy has always seemed to me to be a very intelligent child. Before he was two you could have proper conversations with him, and he could count to ten in French before he could in English. As a three year old, he has an incredible vocabulary and sense of humour. However, because of this he gets bored easily and has started to understand the benefits to him of a well-timed tantrum. Having no children myself, this obviously makes me very well qualified to lecture my sister (who is equally as strong willed as her child) about the role she plays in dealing with these tantrums. Easy.

It was all going so well...
We walked down to the Barbican from town, stopping to take random photos (A Ford Escort, a stone...) on his V-Tech Camera and chattering away about how utterly excited we were to be going to the aquarium (amateurish attempt by me and Mr G to distract him from the fact he had a massive wobbler last time he went).

Inside, we were having loads of fun looking in rock pools, learning why some starfish only had four arms (legs?), and I even managed to nip in the bud the beginnings of a tantrum over a jigsaw, so started to feel quite smug at the obvious natural parenting gift me and Mr G seemed to have.

That was until Squiffy stopped dead in his tracks at the start of a dark gangway, clung to my legs and went
"I don't want to go down there!"

"What's the matter, poppet?" I asked

"I'm frightened! I don't want to go down there!" He whimpered.

This went on for a few minutes whilst several other, presumably sedated, children strolled past us. I could feel myself starting to get flustered as I realised we were probably about to encounter the giant shark hanging from the ceiling that had freaked him out a few weeks ago. This wasn't supposed to happen!

"Right, come on! We'll run through and Uncle G will go first to make sure it's safe" I sang enthusiastically.
"Come on Uncle G! Off we go!" And with that, I scooped up Squiffy and confidently trotted along towards the next exhibit.

The beginnings of a warble started to ring out around the auditorium as we stood at the top looking towards the giant tank and Squiffy spotted above us what had previously scared him. A giant model of a whale suspended from the ceiling, along with a killer whale. I tightened my grip around him in anticipation. And then:
"Oh. It's just a whale!" He said dismissively.

"YES! YES IT'S JUST A WHALE! HA HA HA THAT'S RIGHT! YES JUST A WHALE! HAHAHA" Me and Mr G laughed manically, simultaneously breathing massive sighs of relief whilst giving each other a knowing look - "Oh my God, we're going to be amazing parents!"

With a heartfelt reminder that if we all behaved we would be getting a special ice cream afterwards, I suggested that we go down and have a closer look at the fish. Everyone seemed to be in agreement so off we went. Suddenly, Squiffy spotted the model of the baby killer whale and stiffened.
And then the screaming started.
I looked at Mr G nervously. "What the...?"
Various attempts at distraction/ understanding/ ignoring/ laughing all failed miserably and by this point, we were standing in a high ceilinged auditorium with a three year old shouting between hysterical sobs, "I don't want to go to the aquarium ever again!".

When I realised nothing was working, we decided to move on to the next section, something of a tunnel, through which his cries of "The whale is scaring me!" could be heard echoing at either end.

Pretty soon I took the executive decision that we were leaving, and without saying anything to the screaming three year old, frantically tried to find the way out. I walked into a class room type thing where lots of Stepford families were sat peacefully cutting out fish shapes and gluing glitter to them, that was until my nephew hollered "I hate the aquarium!" and they all stopped what they were doing to look at me disapprovingly. Realising this was not, in fact the way out, I chortled loudly as if I was totally in control of the whole situation and not at all bothered, and finally found what I thought was the way out.

After a bit more foot stamping, wailing and rolling around on the floor (all of which I had to pretend to ignore), I realised this was not in fact, the way out, and I was now trapped in a garden with an agitated child, needing a wee, and the only way out was back through the bloody whale room. What the hell was I supposed to do now? This was not in the "Tantrums" book I'd read in preparation the night before.

Mr G finally caught us up after staying behind to find the sharks, and like a military operation we whisked him through practically the entire aquarium and back to the outside world. As our luck would have it, the bridge over to the Barbican was closed for a boat to go through so we were able to stand amongst the crowds of waiting people (aka a massive audience) as my nephew declared to everyone that he was not catching the bus home, but was going to walk the two miles instead.

"Alright love?!" I laughed to a stressed out Mr G.
"Just so you know, I'm still having an ice cream!" He informed me.

And so we sat there, feeling evil as we hastily woofed back our ice creams, giving ourselves brain freeze in front of a totally unbothered toddler, to teach him a very valuable lesson.

The lesson I learned from that entire episode was that as many people have long suspected,  I have absolutely no idea how to look after a child and am now seriously reconsidering my own plans to start a family.

As quickly as it started, the tantrum was over. We then had fun on the bus home and the rest of the afternoon passed by without any further incident.

Later that evening after Fiver had been to pick up Squiffy, my friend came to pick me up for an evening out at around 5:30 and I was sound asleep. Presumably dreaming about all the stuff I missed at the Aquarium...

3 Year Old Oversleeps

You might ask what I'm doing up this early on a Saturday morning. Indeed, I asked myself a similar question when my alarm went off.

I got up at 8am to prepare for the arrival of my nephew, Squiffy, as me and Mr G are taking him out for the day... We're going to the Aquarium. I'm really looking forward to it because I've been once but it was years ago, so it should be fun.

Around half 8, when I had got myself ready and started my attempts to "toddler-proof" the house (last time he was here, he poured nail varnish all over my living room), my sister text me as planned to let me know they were on their way. I read the text. They were not on their way. My nephew was still asleep!

Something's not right here. How can I be more excited than a three year old?!

Actually, he went to the aquarium with his pre-school a couple of weeks ago and by all accounts he had a massive wobbler over a big shark display right near the entrance and his Dad had to take him home shortly after arriving...

Fingers crossed there won't be a repeat performance today! Rest assured, there'll be a story out of it later.

Don't Stop Believing... I'll Try...

If, like me, you're a fan of X Factor, you're looking forward to that new music show with Dizzee Rascal on the judging panel, and you secretly enjoyed Sky 1's "Got To Dance" (let's admit, mainly for Ashley Banjo's contribution) you might have seen this advert on Channel 5 recently and thought "oooh that looks good!".

You would have been wrong. Very wrong.

On Sunday, my sister Hazel, Brother In Law and baby JEdwards came over for tea.
Mr G and the Brother In Law firmly plonked themselves down on the settee in front of the golf (something of a running theme last weekend) whilst me and my sister sat tutting, shaking our heads and making the odd sarcastic comment about how much we hate sport - which naturally fell on deaf ears.

As you will by now know, this does annoy me somewhat. I do pay for half of this house and all its facilities, including a massive TV package for Sky Sports 1, Sky Sports 2, Sky Sports 3, Sky Sports News, Sky Sports Ad Infinitum, and right now I am sat in my boiling hot kitchen writing my blog whilst the tea is in the oven and Mr G watches Top bloody Gear. I don't recall Carrie Bradshaw having to suffer for her art in this indignant manner. Oh no, she got to look out over a bustling New York street scene when she wrote. I'm looking at a Tesco Bag for Life and realising I've forgotten to put the steamer on.

So, after about two hours, me and Hazel had collectively fed the baby, changed the baby, put the baby down for a nap, read a couple of magazines, played with the baby, taken some photos of the baby, cooked the tea, served the tea. Mr G and my brother in law had not moved.

Call me modern, but this annoys me.

So, I came up with a cunning plan...

"Right, it's 7 o'clock. That programme I REALLY wanted to watch is on now so you're going to have to turn over."

"Which programme?"

"You know! Emma Bunton! The singers! That advert!"

"What channel is it on then?" asked the Alpha Males.

"Sky One" I snapped back, confidently.

They switched over to Sky One where something along the lines of Battlestar Galactica was showing, and laughed. Dammit.

After realising it was on Channel 5 we switched over and I sat there smugly, happy in the knowledge we were about to be mesmerised by talent.

Well... Mesmerised is one word for it.

With seemingly no explanation as to what on Earth it was all about, up popped Emma Bunton to introduce "The expert panel of judges" Anastasia, Duncan From Blue, Tamsin Outhwaite and some choreographer who I think was called Chuckie and who I know worked with Michael Jackson. I know because he kept telling everyone.

Let's not forget, this show was dubbed "The all-singing, all-dancing event of the summer" and "nothing like the X factor".

The judges walked out on stage to some bellowing classical music and stood there soaking it all up before heading over to their seats. Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't we seen that somewhere before?

Anyway, before you knew it there were about 200 am-drams on stage wearing the products of a ram-raid at GAP, doing a (very bad) group rendition of "I gotta feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas. Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't we seen that somewhere before? Oh yes. On X Factor. And probably at sixth form talent shows the length and breadth of the country.

We all sat there in stunned silence.

"You enjoying this love?" piped up Mr G.

"What the hell's going on?!" I choked as the first group, "Dice", appeared out of nowhere to murder a Basement Jaxx classic seamlessly pasted together with Voulez Vous by ABBA, before switching back to Basement Jaxx again.

Who were they? Where had they come from? How were they selected to take part? What's the prize?

"This is awful!" I whispered "Shall we turn over?!"

"Ohhhh nooooooo no no no no!" laughed Mr G. "We're going to be watching this every week now love!"

The rest of the show continued for an hour and a half in much the same vein, i.e like I was hallucinating.
Not a clue what was going on, all a bit random, lots of bright colours..... and just when we thought it was all over, lovely Emma announced it was "Time to meet the Don't Stop Believing Supergroup!".
What?

No explanation as to why they were there. It sort of implied there was some kind of competitive element to the band but it wasn't really clear. I think new people get voted in to join them each week but I could have imagined that. They, also, were pretty rubbish.

Mr G has promised that I can watch it every week! Please let it clash with Top Gear.