30 WEEKS. The Final Countdown.

That’s it. I am going to print and henceforth wear a t-shirt which says the following:

1. 13th February.
2. No we don’t know what it is (human, hopefully).
3. Yes it’s my first.
4. Can we talk about something else?



Here we are now, 10 weeks to go. I am officially a big, ovoid Pregnant Chick who gets in the way of things and sometimes holds her lower back like you see them do in the movies. And bub is only half grown…. Oh lordy.

Push It. So the whole pregnancy thing is, like, totally passé with us now. The novelty has well and truly worn off, fading away (like oh so many things!) into the hazy, monotonous backdrop of humdrum everydayness. Perhaps that’s a teensy bit melodramatic (my mind is seized by inappropriately poetic imagery at odd times recently), but really, it is ALL about the birth these days. And the baby, obv, but mainly it’s about the birth, the B-word, the Big Push. You may recall that I was a touch cynical about my yogic experiences last trimester, what with the knee-rocking and uterus-hurrahing and what have you. Well, you may now be gratified to know that the new style of yoga I’m doing (for 3rd trimester ladies, preparing us for birth) has humbled me to the point of complete, blind devotion to teacher, fellow students and practice alike. During my yoga-bashing phase I made some throwaway quip about wanting practical advice from yoga, such as how to open your pelvis… well today we actually learned that. No shit. We learned how to open our pelvises an extra thirty-five percent. Now we’re talking! On the down side, our teacher, using a model pelvis and too-realistic newborn doll thing, also very usefully demonstrated how ‘bub’ makes a corkscrew action upon exiting ‘mum’. A. Cork. Screw. Action. I’m not sure I want to do this after all.

She’s Not There. I really didn’t think my Preggo Brain could get much worse, but worsen it has, friends, worsen it has. It is nigh on impossible for me to get through a sentence without using the word ‘thingo’, and ever more frequent are sentences in which I use it twice, eg ‘Did you put the thingo back in the thingo? I can’t find it.’ It’s not only nouns like these either. Thingo for me is also interchangeable with adjectives (‘no need to get all thingo about it’), and I don’t mind mixing it up with a few verbs now and then either (‘Oops! I thingoed on the thingo’). So speech is suffering, badly, but so are most other things. My sense of logic, gone. Just gone. Take, for example, the AFL Grand Final episode. Some of you already know about this particular howler but for those of you who don’t, here is a taster of the kind of havoc my condition occasionally wreaks…

(INT LOUNGE ROOM. D AND B SIT ON COUCH, WATCHING AFL GRAND FINAL 2008)

Commentator: (indecipherable rubbish, sporting clichés)… ‘And there’s dew on the ground, dew is ON the ground!’

Me: ‘So what? Why does he keep yelling about the dew on the ground?’

D: ‘Babe. It’s someone’s name.’

Me: ‘His name is Dew-on-the-ground??? COOL.’

D: (Incredulous stare) ‘Babe. His name is Dew. He is on the ground.’

End scene.

Relax, Don’t Do It. My soon-to-be-parental rant this week is aimed at those cretinous folk who last week managed to get a lollipop man sacked because he was a smoker. Garry McNamara was sacked by Essendon’s St. Theresa School in Melbourne because he refused to give up smoking after parents complained. He said: ‘I used to smoke between eight and 15 of a morning, no one within sight. Definitely no children, I wouldn't smoke in front of children.’ He also said he was ‘devastated’ by his sacking; ‘I miss the kids more than anything,’ he said. Now. Garry had been a lollipop man for 15 years, and is an elderly grandfather who has smoked for 50 years. For christ’s sake, let the man smoke already. Who CARES? Who are these people whose lives are so empty and sad they feel moved to complain about an old man who smokes the odd ciggie in the morning? And who could be mean to a man who uses the term ‘of a morning’? It’s downright un-Australian. One reader’s letter in response to this story, by one Roger Mathews-Brown (double-barrelled surname, wouldn’t you know it) read: ‘Guess he likes smoking more than his job.’ Oh my GOD Roger, you sad bastard. Do you look and sound like Alexander Downer? Because that is how I picture your smug, pudgy little face in my mind. Before I punch it.

(Aaaaand, end rant).

Brave New World. So obviously the most exciting thing that has happened, world-wise, since my last entry is that Barack Obama has won the US election. Everyone knows how significant and amazing and uplifting and just ACE that is so I won’t bang on about it… but seriously, isn’t it awesome? I feel so privileged to have been witness to the event, and delighted that I’ll be able to tell The Child one day about the momentous day that occurred when he was in utero. You know, it really does make me feel that bit better about bringing a child into the world. Of course I got on my high horse not 6 hours after Obama’s victory was announced, and felt compelled to write a letter to the Herald, which to my surprise they duly published the next day. Yay me. There is nothing a ranter like myself likes more than public acknowledgment of said ranting.


Going To The Chapel …And the most exciting thing that has happened, Bowen Terrace-wise, since my last entry is that D and I got engaged. Hardly bombshell news, given the 7-month-old bump, but exciting and rather lovely nonetheless. I suppose he thought it was time to make an honest woman of me (pah!) We are thinking a year or so’s time, giving us time to, like, have a child and all that. Then again, I don’t mind the thought of waddling down the aisle for a shotgun wedding. There are some lovely things you can do with wedding frocks and baby bumps these days. I’ve had a look around, and I particularly like the look of the dress below. Elegant. Timeless.








Rightio, I’m off to thingo the thingo now. Take care y’all!