Oh of course I was always going to find a way to keep blogging, if only sporadically. My kind friend F has given me the keys to her house so I can come over and avail myself of her computer while they are at work. So I'm madly availing today.
It's been a strange week. Maternity leave is odd when you don't have the baby on the outside yet. Limbo and all that. And yes, there has been frenzied cleaning which is pretty close to useless in a big old house that collects dust like others collect stamps. The other day I scoured the oven, (using only soap and steel wool to make the task even more difficult), and today I tackled the crusty regions of the fridge that I've never even seen before let alone contemplated cleaning. This is partly baby-driven and partly driven by the knowledge that Thieu's mother is arriving this evening to stay with us for a few days and I want everything to be Nice.
But I have been relacing too. It took me a while to get the hang of sleeping in but rest assured, I've got it now. And I've been lunching a lot. My sister and I lunched last week and she said 'People keep asking me if I've been helping you get stuff ready. But you don't seem to be doing much getting-ready stuff.' I said 'Ask them what they think we should be doing. Because I really don't know.'
Because we are renters there is no painting of the nursery (thank goodness) but to make up for it I have spent quite a bit of time drawing a freize of birds to pin up around the room to make it look a little less drab. I've also been crotcheting the alphabet rug in the evenings although I made the mistake of doing this while watching the television. Last week I discovered I'd crotched N U P Q R S. The discovery was followed by a panicked ten minutes in which I tried to work out a way to turn the U into an O but, although this sounds like an easy enough alteration, I was ultimately unable to carry out the crotchet forgery. So I had to unravel a couple of days work because I decided I couldn't take the risk that poor Bump would enter school with a muddled idea of how alphabetical order, especially not with two librarians as grandparents. And I didn't really mind too much unpulling it because I've found the crotchet very theraputic. Last week a friend of Thieu's came over and we sat on the sofa watching a video called 'Punk and its Aftershocks.' The friends sipped a peppermint tea and I crotcheted, which I admit paints a fairly sad picture of declining youth. But we were fine with it, completely fine.
Then last Saturday Thieu's 94 year old gran died. We had um-ed and ah-ed about whether he should risk a visit last weekend (she lived interstate) but decided that he should go, at least over night, because the last time he'd seen her the visit had been very distressing (with her begging him not to leave her and calling out constantly for help). So he was actually there for her last day which seemed somehow fortuitous. The funeral is this Saturday and Thieu is going to go just for the day and I have promised not to give birth while he's away, tempting as it is. It has been commented by a number of people who have heard the news just how often a birth and a death follow on from each other. I'm sad that she didn't make it until Bump was born but I think she'd had enough of waiting around. When you're 94 you get to make these decisions. The other sad thing is that I won't be able to attend the funeral and hold Thieu's hand. I suggested it to the Ob and he gave me a stern look and strongly advised against it. He then threw in a few horror stories for good measure about women who'd travelled in the final weeks (emergency caesers in remote hospitals, having to stay for a month etc) and did a good job of convincing me that it wasn't the go.
I keep dreaming about giving birth to tiny babies that fit into the palm of my hand which isn't helped by strangers stopping me on the street and saying 'Are you about 6 months now?' I mentioned this at the Ob's yesterday. 'I've only put on ten kilos and I know that this is at the bottom of the range of expected weight gain.' He said 'Well thank God someone is at the bottom of the range. You don't have to put on forty kilos, you know.' So I shut up about it. When he measured me he added 'This isn't going to be a small baby, you know. It's 7 pounds at least.' He even wrote it down in his notes: 7 + pounds. 'Oh, 7 pounds would be just fine,' I said hastily. The + sign made me a little nervous. '7 pounds is great.'
Ten days to go, although I am absolutely sure it won't be early. I was fifteen days late being born and Thieu has never been early to anything in his life. My money is on October the 28th.
