Thoughts on the new baby

(pre-empted apology - I wrote this two weeks ago, and forgot to actually post it.  The World Cup has had a bit of a monopoly on our computer of late. So I'm posting it now, though the most astute among you might notice that I'm actually 22 weeks along now.  Not that it really matters, but I thought I would point it out :) )


As I've now reached 20 weeks (halfway!), I thought it was about time for an update on the work in progress....

I'm sitting here with a flashing cursor on the page and haven't a clue what to write.  It's obviously a massive massive thing on which I have so much to say, but when I sit down to do it, it becomes too simple to say anything.  On one hand, I'm pregnant, it's going well, there will be a baby at the end of it, the journey starts there, the end.
But on the other hand this is a time of conflicting emotions, dealing with expectations, helping Finn to understand etc etc.
So I'm stuck for what to say.
I suppose the solution is to just start writing and see what happens. Apologies if that makes for a disjointed and rambling post....

First things first, and the most obvious I suppose is my big belly.  It got bigger a lot quicker this time and I was very obviously pregnant very early. Here's what I look like now (on the right) next to me with Finn at 20 weeks.

It seems like all of my muscles and otherwise just gave up when I became pregnant and BOOM, there was the belly.  The downside to this was that although I had a big pregnant looking bump, it wasn't quite filled in with actual baby yet, so it was a bit soft and squishy and jiggly and I was a bit embarrassed by it.  Especially around those people that just jump straight in and touch it.  It was the right shape and all but wasn't quite a bump and that's something you want to keep to yourself. On the plus side, it IS a proper hard big bump now and I haven't had to go through any of the stretching and cramping pains that I had with Finn. I might do now that my 'bump' has caught up with my 'belly' but I remember this time previously being really uncomfortable and there has been absolutely none of that.
Which is one of the odd things about this pregnancy - after the sickness finally went away and before I could really feel movement, it was actually very very easy to forget I was pregnant. I even had a few moments where I would wake up and nearly do a double take when I saw my belly.  This is completely different to the first time round when it was on my mind constantly.  The idea that I could forget about it even temporarily would be shocking.  I was ALWAYS thinking about it. It was a major thing. This time, not so much. I have plenty of other things to think about, the physical side of it is taking care of itself, the worry side of the unknown doesn't worry me as much and it feels very... uneventful.  Of course there have been times where it's very on my mind but there have also been many times when it's absolutely not.  Which was unheard of the first time around.
Or was. It's slightly changing now as I'm slowly heading out of that sweet spot and into the beginnings of discomfort.  But even that is taking its time so I will ignore it for the time being.
Speaking of movement, that's another thing that is different.  Very swiftly after I first felt Finn move, he started proper kicking and thumping. He would find a place, hunker down and then just kick and kick and kick. This one is different. I felt it very early on (around about 12 weeks) but then would go a couple days before I would feel it again.  And it was never very strong. Even now that the baby is clearly much bigger it still doesn't often properly kick. It moves around a lot but it's more like a churning then a kicking - and it was noticeable in the scan as well.  Lots of flipping and shifting and turning and moving but very smooth and not twitchy or kicky at all.  Funny how something you assume is universal is actually specific.  Like it's actually an individual personality in there and not just a generic 'baby' ! :)

All of this relax-ed-ness does make me feel a bit guilty though. Like we somehow wanted Finn more, or cared about him more straight away. Like I'm already not giving this baby the attention he deserves. Like Finn will be forever our first and best and this is just 'the other one.'  I, of course, logically know this is not the case (and as a second child myself desperately hope this is not the case!!) but can't help but feel that way now. The amount of love we feel for Finn feels so overwhelming that it is hard to imagine there is any left to share with another child... or if there is some that it won't compare.  I mean look at this pregnancy - every now and then I forget he even exists, much less spend time dreaming about the person he will become - how does that bode for the future?!  And I catch myself thinking about how it will impact Finn, and what he will be like as a brother, and how we can ease the transition for him and forgetting to think about this new person that will be.  Hopefully this is normal... hopefully I'm not actually dooming this poor child to second best... surely there is enough love to go around.  But the guilt is still there. And not just guilt towards the new one. I feel guilty towards Finn as well.  That he might feel like he's not enough for us, that we're somehow taking something away from him to give to another child, that we're being selfish.
Again, I am a logically minded person. I know this can't possibly be the case. Love is not a pie. There is enough to go around. I am eternally grateful for my own siblings and know that Finn will gain so much from having one. I'm only less focused on this pregnancy because I'm so much busier then I was last time... etc.etc.etc.  I have the logic, I know the logic. But that doesn't stop the thoughts in my head or the sadness that Finn might somehow be hurt or the worry that I won't like the new one the same way as I like Finn... And the guilt. It's there.
But there's another part to that rationalisation.  Something that I understand now that I didn't understand then. When I was pregnant with Finn, I thought about him all the time. What he would look like, how he would be, the things we would do as parents, what we certainly wouldn't do, the type of child he would become. I had so much of the future in my mind.  And it was entirely meaningless.  Finn arrived and he was 100% himself.  Finn is Finn. Nothing I was imagining had any impact on that at all. There was no point. You are not having your dream child that looks or acts or does anything because that's how you thought it would be - you are having an individual person that you are lucky enough to get to know as they become more of who they are.  So unlike the first time, when we tried for so long to get pregnant, and then were so happy to be pregnant and so interested and focused and involved in all things pregnant, and I could tell you at any time how big the baby was and what it was doing and how far along I was.... this time the pregnancy is nowhere near as important. It's a means to an end. It's the ticket, not the journey.

That's not to say that I don't think about the future - I do. But it's with more curiosity then certainty. I can't wait to meet this new person. I want it to start now. I want to get this game on the road.  Sometimes. I also want to spend as much time soaking in the glory of giving undivided attention to Finn. To sit there and let him tell one of his long rambling stories that go in a thousand different directions because I don't have anything else that I need to be doing instead or anyone else that needs me more.

And now I'm crying.  There's that good old guilt again. And sadness. I like our life, I don't really want it to change. But we are changing it. On purpose. That's harder then I expected it to be.

I'm going to take a minute.

And move on.
Finn.  Finn gets it, I think. He knows there is a baby in my tummy, he knows when it's time for it to come that it's going to stay with us. He knows his friends at nursery have baby brothers too. But he seems far too unfazed by it all to actually 'get it.'  Either that or he is just really really laid back about it all!
On the other hand, he says there is a baby in his tummy as well, and that the baby in my tummy is yellow.
So who knows what is actually going on in his head!
I do think he gets it a bit though. We look at his book a lot from when he was a baby and talk about what the new baby will do when it comes to stay. We play at babies with his stuffed toys and he actually corrected me once when I was patting it - he told me that I shouldn't do that because "you have to be gentle with babies like this" and started stroking its tummy ... I melted a little bit, I have to say! He talks about the toys he will share and the things he will do with his new brother. So I think he understands in his own way.  But this is the kid who is so incredibly particular that he will only eat off his one 'caterpillar plate,' will only lay down on his changing mat if it is facing a certain direction, refuses any towel but the purple towel, and gets very concerned that you are using the wrong wipes if you dare to buy a different brand than normal.  He tells you very clearly if something is 'not right' and knows exactly what IS right.  So I'm having a hard time believing that he is prepared for the upheaval that is to come.  Of course he's also the kid that doesn't rely on a particular schedule and takes the day in an easy going manner, that understands that sometimes plans change from what you thought, that can be quite silly and spontaneous - so who knows, really!?  He might end up being the one who completely takes it in stride while James and I are freaking out.  I guess we just have to wait and see and trust in his good nature.  One thing we all do know for certain though, as Finn constantly reminds us: this baby is going to be yellow.

Other thoughts...
I guess I didn't really announce it, but it's probably clear by now that we're having another boy.  I have been fairly certain from the start that it was a boy so during the scan when the were down in that area and I didn't see anything (it was SO obvious with Finn) I was shocked and disappointed to discover it was a girl.  We didn't find out then though, same as with Finn we had them write it down so that we could find out later in our own time in our own way.  And later, when we opened the paper, it said boy - and I was amazed to discover that I was disappointed again!
So instead of insisting that "it doesn't matter, I would be happy either way" it turns out I was disappointed either way!  Which was very odd for me, and hard to figure out what was going on. I think it's because we know we're not having any more. So when it was unknown there were still these two possibilities out there, both of which were excellent.  But as soon as you know, one of those doors is shut forever. And it's always sad to shut something like that down.  You remember those 'choose your own adventure' books? I used to love those books. But I never read them properly. I couldn't ever just make a choice and turn to the right page. I would stick my fingers in both of the options so that I could always back up and find out what the other choice would have given me. I distinctly remember the panic of coming to a choice and realising I had run out of fingers and having to choose which of the previous choices I was going to need to let go of and commit to... sometimes I still wouldn't do it, I would get a piece of paper and note down what the choice was and bookmark it so I could still explore the other option if I wanted to (which was rather difficult when all of your fingers are stuck in pages!). In other words - I don't deal well with finality. If there are two options, I want to fully explore them both. I had considered how great it would be to have a little boy, and I had considered how great it would be to have a little girl. I could think about it happily switching back and forth. But then we found out and I wasn't allowed to keep my finger on the page. There was no more 'what if' or 'but maybe.' And that whole potential for greatness was gone. And I was sad to lose it. But I would have been sad to lose it either way.
So yes, I am sad to not have a girl. I'm sad to miss out on relating to the shared experiences of growing up. I'm sad to not experience the same sort of relationship that I have with my mother but with my daughter, I'm sad to lose the whole new set of challenges that come with raising a girl. I see parents in the park with their little girls and sigh a bit that our family will never have that. I hear people on the bus out on a mother/daughter lunch date and I regret that that won't be me... But I'm ok with the fact that I'm sad! Obviously there's a little bit of guilt as well (there's always a bit of guilt going around!) that being sad to not have a girl somehow means I don't really want a boy.  But I know that's not really the case - and in actuality I probably would have felt just as sad to lose the possibility of having two boys if it had turned out to be a girl. So when I do get a bit sad about it, I let myself think about it, feel sad if I need to and move on.  It's the only thing you really can do - especially when you've learned that lesson that I mentioned before. The 'girlness' and 'boyness' futures that I have in my head, that I'm sad to lose or excited to have are complete fiction. I have no way of knowing who this child will be until they are.  I could have had a girl that grew up with interests so far from mine that we had no way to relate to one another or I could have a boy that will love to lunch and gossip with me about his life and loves. The things I'm sad to lose I might discover I still have and the things I assume will happen might never come about.  That's the adventure.

That being said, I AM thrilled to be having another boy. I really enjoy the boyness of Finn and I love the idea of having two of them.  I love the potential for a close friendship between them and I love the idea that they will one day be able to share things with each other that they can't share with me. I love having sisters to confide in and compare notes to and I'm glad these two will have each other.
(and I can't help but think that if this had been a girl I would be writing about how close I am to my brother and how important it is to me to have that other perspective and that I'm a better person for having him in my life and I'm glad that my kids will have that same opportunity :) I guess that just means I'm the luckiest of lucky people and Finn and Yellow will just have to live with second best!).

But regardless of the sadness and shutting-of-doors and all that, I'm still glad we found out.  It's the same as with Finn. I love being able to say 'he' and talk to Finn about his 'brother.' It makes it more real.
If only we could find a name...
Which we can't.
We went through 100s of names the first time around (1000s actually, if I'm honest... I remember pouring through the list of the top 1000 names in the UK and circling any that were remotely ok) and only ever agreed on one. Just one. And even that was a bit of a fight between Finn and Fintan.
I don't think there even was a second option because there were NO other names we agreed on. None.
So we're stuck.
Or we might just try an African tradition of writing a bunch of names out and seeing which one the baby touches first. Though knowing James and I'll, we'll gleefully fill the hat with ridiculousness just to annoy each other and the poor child will end up being stuck with Nietzsche or something...

But anyway, I'm rambling now. It's late and I've very tired. This has turned into quite an exhausting and very personal diary-entry into my life... after a beginning that started with "I don't really know what to say!" But such is life, and such is me.

Until next time, here are some pictures of our halfway-grown baby boy.

32 Months Old

May's highlight came early in the month - Granny coming to stay!

But first, let's have the monthly side-by-sides...

31 months old

32 months old

So, Granny came to stay for a couple of days, on her way from the Isle of Man off to hike about the Dolomites in Northern Italy. Finn was delighted to have her here, right from the moment of seeing her: we went out to meet her on the street, to make sure that she found us ok, and we hid behind a wall to surprise her but Finn was too excited to do anything but do his happy dance and run around in excitement!

He couldn't get enough of having her around, and it was a real delight for Cori and I to have her here also - not least because it meant that Finn didn't care at all about us and instead only wanted to hang out with Granny. This mostly meant exhausting her completely by having her read lots of stories, but it also meant his being happy just to hang out and play near her in the same room, which was great. It was all very relaxed and lovely.

Hanging out with Granny was also a good opportunity to master the remote control for the camera, seemingly...

And, seemingly, it was also a good time to begin your directorial career...

It's a good job he had some great acting talent to work with!

Granny being here also meant that we did something that we'd never have dreamt of doing otherwise and Finn got treated to a trip to the zoo!
London Zoo is an amazing zoo, and we got perfect weather for it. We spent far too long there (according to Finn's very loose schedule), but we were all having lots of fun and Finn barely showed any sign at all of being three hours beyond his normal nap time (beside manic excitement over giraffes, gorillas, flamingos, lions, tigers, fish, penguins, meerkats etc.), but he did sleep very soundly on the bus home!

We were surprised that his most intense period of concentration and attention was in the aquarium section, where we had to hold Finn up to each tank for five or so minutes, and there are a lot of tanks! In the end we had to distract him and sneak him out past the tanks we'd not seen!
It was really great to see the animals from his books in the flesh; the first ones we saw were the giraffes and it certainly seemed like he was amazed to see these things in reality. It was lovely to witness.
But certainly the most influential, for some reason, were the meerkats, who Finn wanted to see as soon as he saw them on the map. They weren't that spectacular, and we didn't stay looking at them for especially long, but for weeks after that Finn went through a period of really really liking meerkats and even doing impressions of them. We didn't understand what he was doing at first, but once he told us it made sense, sort of...

It all seemed a bit odd to us, but then we looked up a picture of a meerkat and it transpired that he was actually depicting them quite well!

We were sorry to see Granny go, and Finn was even more sorry to wake up from his nap on the Monday and not have her there at all. He ran into the lounge shouting for Granny and then started crying when she was gone!

Besides a Granny-visit, Finn continued to be silly this month, unsurprisingly (and, if you're can't make out what he's saying here as he sees the display of the camera, it's something like "Ah, my eye!... Ah, Finn!... Look, there's Mama!... A little Mama!... Ah, couch!... Ah, Finn!" - oh to be as easily entertained as Finn!):

His silliness (for us) is also often complete earnestness (for him), such as his demanding to wear his dragon costume when he reads the book about a dragon (which is now thankfully back in the library!):

The wearing of the dragon costume was set off by a silly idea I had when I was left looking after Finn as Cori was cooking one evening. I normally get driven mad by Finn in very short periods of time and I end up doing silly things with him, often ones that I regret setting him off on, such as having everyone dress up in his costumes and march around the lounge with our guitars (little and large) singing made-up songs. It's all very fun the first time round, but then it's very tiring when he won't let you stop doing it! It looked a bit like this:

It was evidently enough of a success that Finn then wanted to spend the rest of the day being a dragon, as you do...

The only problem came when teeth had been brushed and stories had been read (as a dragon), and he had to take off the costume before getting into bed!

In the last picture, of a very British dinner, please don't be fooled to think that he eats his veggies - he doesn't, at all. Even a substantial lump of tomato-like blob in the bolognese sauce has to be pulled out for him! Even bits of veggie that are inside ravioli have to be got out!
But, at least it means that we're forced to be inventive with our cooking, although following the How To Cook Healthy Food Which Hides Veggies From Your Toddler book is a lot more effort!
We have also had to fall back on a number of typical tactics. One that has developed since the start of this month, in tandem with Cori's pregnancy giving her an excuse to keep a store of chocolate in the house, is rewarding Finn with a "Brown Chocolate!" after he's eaten at least one bite of whatever veggie we give him... Although, to be honest, the bite is often very small!
Another thing we do to help the smooth-running of meal times is, miserably, give into Finn's whims, such as wanting to eat as a dragon, or wanting to have all his cars near, or to have his cars do a "Round and round the garden" around his plate (it was him who gave the sun-ray like formation that name, we've no idea why!). It's all very nice and cute etc., but it is rather exhausting, and woe betide you should you knock one of the cars out of place!

Finn is, as this picture makes clear, still very much into cars. Note how the train box is now entirely devoted to cars etc. (This is distinct to his train box, which is separate entirely!)... It is probably worth noting the level of the cars here, since it's likely to be much higher the next time you see it in a picture, inevitably!
Finn's love of cars was the inspiration behind this rubbish truck that I'm rather proud of having made him out of cereal packets:

It took as long as you'd think it would take (which is a long time!), and I allowed Finn to help as much as you'd expect (which is not a lot once I got into it!), but he did enjoy watching it emerge and he did get very excited when it was finished. Although, having said that, he was rather miffed when he went to push it around and it didn't at all roll!
It was traced from a rubbish truck that he has, and it has an open back, just like a rubbish truck, but still Finn insisted on having the back windows (which it pained me to draw, after all my efforts for realism and accuracy!). He wanted them in because I'd drawn in, at his request, himself and Lily driving, and then he wanted to have more people in the rubbish truck. "Who do you want here?" I asked, when the windows were done, to which he said, without a pause, "Andro and Yu-Chen" (Lily's parents). "Really? Don't you want Mama and Dee-Dah?", "No; Andro and Yu-Chen!" I then drew them (highly accurately, I might add, as you will have seen), and I suggested that I draw some windows on the other side, but Finn said "no", considering the thing complete and took it from me to play with. So much for us!
But Finn's lack of appreciation of his dad went further an hour or so later, when I finally got him to allow me to draw in the windows on the other side (the lack of symmetry was really irritating me!). In the first one he requested Cori, and I drew her. In the second one he didn't know who to say so I suggested myself, "yeah!", so I drew myself, but just as I was finishing my oh-so-life-like self-portrait Finn changed his mind. "Conrad! Conrad! No, Dee-Dah - Conrad!" (Conrad is Finn's good friend from nursery). He then tried to rub out my picture with his arm and started to cry when it didn't work! Later he came back to it with Cori and asked her to rub me out, and he cried again when she explained that it couldn't be done!
(However, it should perhaps be pointed out that Finn does love me really, honestly he does!)

We had actually been round to Conrad's only the day or so before, for Conrad's 3^rd birthday. It was a lovely afternoon, as Conrad has a three-week old brother, so his parents were very relaxed about just having a few of Conrad's friends round to play as the parents chatted. It was all our favourite kids from nursery, who we never get to actually hang out with, other than in the one or two minutes at drop-off or pick-up, when there's normally someone sulking and hugging our legs! The only real problem for the morning's playing and hanging out was that as soon as Finn arrived Conrad's older sister, knowing Finn's weak spot, went and got out the box of cars. That was, of course, nice and lovely and very thoughtful, and absolutely wonderful for Finn (so many new cars!), but it did mean that Finn then didn't play with anyone for the rest of the time we were there - he was pretty much just lain out driving the cars across the "roads" in the patterns of the rugs! It was a bit awkward, but at least it gave us a chance to relax and chat to the other parents (for Cori), or to ruckus about with the other kids (me).

There is not picture of the party, but instead you can imagine it off the back of this silly picture of Finn and Lily, outside the Museum of London, where we also went recently together for a great day out.

Something else that I enjoyed in May was a thing that I hope will happen a lot more in the future - Finn correcting Cori on her pronunciation. I can't remember what it was (it wasn't "yoe-ghurt" or "tomayto", which currently have been introduced into Finn's pronunciation probably just to torture me), but it pleased me immensely to hear Finn very sternly frown at her saying of the word before saying "No!" and giving the correct pronunciation!

Another thing worth a mention is Finn's endless story-reading. We mentioned this for last month, but it is still the main thing in Finn's life at the moment. Although cars are what he'll play with outside of the house, or what he'll choose to get from a second-hand shop with Cori etc., in the house he will demand that we read with him. It is only when we say no, or distract him, that he changes to his secondary demand, which is to play with toys (meaning cars, or trains, or something random that he's decided is fun that afternoon!).
I find myself trying to avoid the books at Dad's Club now, since the session is only two hours long, and we could easily lose an hour there just reading books, which would be such a waste when there is so much to do there and so many other kids to play with etc.
But books do come in handy at the nursery drop-offs. He has now taken up the routine of running into the reception area very excitedly, then clambering on the couch for me to take his coat off, after which he crawls backwards across it and off the end, then he runs down the corridor shouting happily, then he peers through the glass door and gets excited at seeing his friends, then we go inside and... he grabs onto my legs in a sulk one yard inside the door. "Want to go home," he says in a sulky voice and he won't be distracted by anyone or anything else. That is, except by a book. The nursery workers now know this trick and they will offer to read to him, at which point he trundles off after them. He still wears his sulky face, but in another instant he is stood over the book box flicking through them  with complete concentration ("Errrm... Not that one... Errrm... Not that one..."). He tends not to give any acknowledgement of me when I then kiss him and then wave goodbye from the door. (More often than not I end up waving to someone else's child, who will smile and wave instead!).
Anyway, Finn likes books and reads a lot - you get the picture...
He's known his alphabet for a long time now. He now doesn't really engage when we test him on it - he sulkily says the letters in a bored and funny voice for a bit before demanding that we "Toto" (which still means "read" in Finn language). So instead we've begun asking him to recognise keys words in his books. So, 'Train' in train book, or 'Cat' in a cat book etc. But it was clear that he just learnt to answer the one word whenever we asked him the question, without even looking at the page. So we starting doing two in a book. He started doing this really well, to such an extent that I began to suspect that he could read some words.
Cori bought him a new book, ahead of his coming sibling, which he'd not seen before and so had never read. When it came out of the wrapper (and Finn had immediately shouted "Toto! Toto!") I asked him what one of the words meant. "Baby," he said, absolutely correctly, "Toto! Toto!"
We were amazed and immensely impressed, to say the least. So we tried to test it again just this morning. I wrote out some cards with words on, and drew the pictures of the things on the back.
I have to say that I was disappointed when it transpired that we don't have a Genius Reading Child, but only a Sneaky Cheat Reading Child, albeit, a very clever one! It transpired that he was guessing the words from their first letter, from the set of the sorts of words that we'd been "teaching" him through his books. So, the results were something like this:

He hasn't grasped the spelling-out of words at all though and seemingly has no idea what we're going on about when we try to spell out C-A-T or whatever it is. But it is still very impressive that he's doing so well at this Guessing-Reading of words in this way... but we'd expect nothing less, the amount of reading he demands we do with him!

... And... that's about it, I think. So I'll just leave you with two last pictures, of Finn enjoying a good game of Hungry Hippos (in his new Thomas pyjamas, which inspired him to go and get his Thomas cardigan!), and also looking kind of cute (shame about that weirdo in the background!):