Mini-Cat-Phooey

The little one is kicking with real power now. When Cat is at rest, if you put your palm over her belly you usually don't have to wait more than a couple of minutes before you feel the characteristic rumppumpbump of multiple baby movements. At times, it is so strong that you can see the surface of her belly visibly move. I like to imagine her doing karate style air kicks and punches with a few Muay Thai style roundhouse elbows to boot.

There is an advert my Maltesers here in the UK in which a heavily pregnant women places said choccy item on her bellyonly for it to jump several inches into the air due to the baby kicking. I am not sure if that was set up or for real so I will definitely be trying that little experiment soon.

By popular request, I have finally uploaded the 20 week scan for all to see. It is not as clear as the 12 week on since she has obviously grown much bigger and I guess she moves around a lot, contributing to a fuzzy picture. But you can still see the head profile, belly, umbilical cord and internal organs.



Some have mentioned that the profile already looks like me, but I doubt that. People see what they want to see. It is a well known psychological phenomenon - for example seeing faces in clouds or fuzzy noise. The brain automatically interprets recognisable imagery out of chaos. Regardless of this - Cat and I still have fun playing the 'I wonder who she will look like the most' game, that all couples go through before their baby is born.

Well, it is not long now - only three and a bit months to go and the baby name still rages on.
Cat seems to hate all my suggestions so far and I have hers. We're hoping from inspiration from Dad, who returns from China soon, will help. But then again, it may add to the growing list of possibles.

So Do You?

The weather is seriously hot in London now. Not the greatest of weather to contend with when heavily preggers, especially in rush hour. I try my best to help - carrying bags, giving lifts in the car, but it would help if commuters were more alert and offered their seats up on the tube.
To be fair, in most cases, it only takes a few minutes for people to catch on, especially as Cat is now very good at making her presence known. But sometimes, a carriage full of people absorbed in their newspapers and magazines is tough to crack.

Cat's latest obsession is sudoku. A sort of crossword with numbers to guess and fill in the blanks. Devilishly simply by design, evil to finish quickly. I personally saty away from time-wasting activities like this, but Cat is totally obsessed. As you can see...



Maybe she is hoping to transfer some mathematical prowes to the baby by doing more puzzles.

The Day London was Bombed

Yesterday 4 terrorist bombs hit Central London. Cat and I were making our usual commute into town when we were evacuated from the central line at St Paul's. Little did we, or anyone, know of the scale of the horror. We simply put it down to the frequent tube disruptions that we Londoners cope with almost daily.
Cat got on a bus, I tried to walk towards Barbican. This was all around 9.30-9.40 am. Seven minutes later, the Tavistock Square bus exploded and all the buses and tubes were suspended. Cat made it to work and called me to warn me from taking any public transport. I was stuck in Bank and just walked all the way home, where I was shocked to see the events unfold on the TV news.
I have since been sat at home ruminating over the events. Those bombs could have been targetted anywhere. We were ALL targets. Someone I knew could have perished. My heart began to sink at the senselessness.
My Mum called in to report ok, as did Cat and both made it home ok too.

Maybe the events of the day got to me, maybe I do this all the time, but I did something bizarre last night:

In the middle of last night, I apparently broke into full song. I never knew I sleep talked but Cat was awoken by my singing. I was singing, in a loud voice, a made-up tune about hybrids, cloning and doing the washing up. It was so loud she was screaming at me to shut up. I even had a full conversation after the singing with me denying I was singing, apparently. I awoke in the morning totally unaware of all this but with her GLARING at me. It has taken a lot of apologies and pleading of innocence to get her to forgive me - oh and the washing up.

A small moment of humour during a bleak and depressing 24 hours.