Summer fun

So I decided this summer we’d do some creative activities. We actually only ended up doing 2, but they lasted a couple of days each and we had a family holiday to fit in as well. First, Ethan and I made a Harry Potter wand for him (same as here), as he’s been asking for one for a while now. Due to the amount of glitter glue he decided to use, it took over the night to dry so it rolled into two days.

We didn’t get a picture (and I’ve no idea where it’s gone now!) but the thing was so sparkly it looked like it might actually be glowing. He loved it, of course!

Next we have Babies Breaking Bad!

Kidding! We did tie dye. They thought that rubber gloves were the best things in the world, thank you 49p for 2 pairs at Sainsbury’s, and managed to stay clean. We did tub dyeing rather than in the machine so they could actually do stuff, and we did it outside. 

 Rinsing with the hose was a hit, though they love the hose in any form.

 If you can’t tell, these are their excited faces.

We also did red ones, though they came out sort of pink. I’d definitely recommend it, they thought it was fun because it was a bit messy, and it was also easy peasy, mix dye with water and salt, and chuck in the rubber-banded clothes, leave for an hour, stirring occasionally. Rinsing was a bit of a pain, but no big deal really. It was also pretty cheap, basic t-shirts £3 for 3, and some cheap white baby sleepsuits. The dye was only a few pounds a packet, and we only used half of the blue.

Not bad for a messy day of productive fun!

Four Weeks On

I can’t believe it’s been four weeks!

In all honesty there’s not a huge amount to be said, we’ve not done very much! We had two lovely weeks with Rich at home, which was absolutely brilliant. He did the school runs, and the cooking, and basically all the big boys’ stuff while I fed and fed and fed the mega-Hen. Then he had to go back to work which was not fun, but his team did buy Henry this brilliant vest, and his team manager arranged for him to have an extra 2 days holiday time as he’d done some work while at home, so not too hideous.

 Bazinga!

We then had my lovely mum up for a week who washed and ironed and cleaned all the things and also did morning school runs and most of the afternoons too, cooked our dinners and entertained small boys. Then she too had to leave and I was ALONE. Unless of course you count (and I do!) 2 weeks of meals from lovely church friends – score – and uncle David (Rich’s brother) offering to take Ethan to school in the morning for the rest of the term. They live on the same road as us and still have one son at the same school, so it works out pretty great. I am incredibly grateful to be surrounded by lovely friends and family.

So now I am back to by myself in the daytime, and it’s not bad. I am coping ok, though it is harder to protect things from Sam when I’ve got Henry seemingly permanently attached.

This Thursday I had my lovely friend Harriet come to visit, bringing delicious food, clothes for Henry, and 2 baby wraps. One as a gift for me and one to borrow. Here’s mine:

 And oh my goodness, it’s so comfortable. Henry likes it all squishy and warm, I have my hands free and my back and shoulders pain free. Harriet also brought William, her 9 month old, who is so cute and lovely, and quite frankly, his eyelashes turn me green with envy. It was lovely as we’ve not seen each other for far too long considering we live 30 minutes apart!

Henry is doing pretty well, he wakes 2 or 3 times a night and the last few nights, touch wood, he has gone right back to sleep as well.

And at 2am, this is a really welcome sight.

Henry George Brown

He’s here 🙂 After SO much waiting and what felt like the longest pregnancy in the world, he finally arrived on Saturday 8th June at 14:53, weighing 9lbs 2oz, only one day after his due date. Though he is quite dry and flaky so I think my dates might have been a bit wrong. Plus the fact that he was BIG!

 If you’re not into labour tales, feel free to skip this bit and just look at the gorgeous pictures 😉

I started with contractions at about 8:30 in the morning and they were already 5 minutes apart, so after a couple of hours we went to get checked over, though I wasn’t getting too hopeful after having had 8 hours of contractions on bank holiday Monday resulting in a big fat nothing! At 11 o’clock I got examined (fun.) but was only 2cms along. There was a bit of a pow wow between the midwives as Ethan and Sam came fairly quickly so they were trying to decide whether to send me home or not, which they did with instructions to have a nice bath and ring back if it continued.

Things seemed to be easing off so I went home and hopped in the bath where things calmed down for a bit, then really picked back up again when I got back out! Rich was downstairs watching the women’s tennis and suddenly realised there were similar noises coming from upstairs where I was attempting to get dressed in between lots of heavy breathing and the occasional groan/moo-like sound! We rang back and headed back in at around 1:30 and I asked to get in the pool, so I was examined again, declared 5cms and in we got. Let me tell you, that pool was absolute HEAVEN. It was so comfortable, all warm and floaty. I just hung over the side of it clutching at the gas and air which was hilarious as I lost control of my face and kept giggling my head off.

Not long after I got in I had some meptid (like pethidine but not as strong) but within about 10 minutes I was ready to push and Henry was born under the water, and the midwives didn’t even touch him, I picked him up and brought him out of the water. I even cut his cord in a last minute decision as Rich didn’t want to.

The difference in the births was amazing, it just did not compare at all to being on my back strapped to an epidural. Also I won’t go into detail, but there was less, er, physical trauma, this way. I can’t recommend it enough. You know, as a birth option, not just for funsies. Although that great big tub would be amazing for a bath. As long as you get the super fast taps that they have, because otherwise it would take an age to fill. I digress.

We wanted to get home right away, but Henry was breathing a little fast and so they wanted to keep us in. I really did not want to stay, when I stayed overnight with Sam I was edgy and stressed, and I didn’t want a repeat. Unfortunately we had to, and it was pretty much the same, and it definitely didn’t help when a student midwife came in and woke me at 3am (having only moved onto the ward at just after midnight) and wheeled him off to be measured. Only I’m not sure that’s exactly what she said as I was still coming around from exhausted sleep and then they were gone. She came back with him within 5 or 10 minutes but it made me very antsy for the rest of the night.

Luckily we were given a quick discharge in the morning by a lovely paediatrician and we got out of there.

Next came the meeting of the brothers 🙂

 They absolutely adore him. He gets hugged and kissed a LOT and when he cries they get very worried. Sam runs over saying “oh Henry, it’s ok, please don’t cry” which just melts my heart. Ethan asks if he’s ok with a very concerned face. These boys slay me!

 Sam took a while to get to calling him Henry rather than baby, but now insists that he is Henry Hugglemonster – a tv cartoon character. We don’t mind, we’re happy to huggle him! A week on and he’s slotting in pretty well, the boy aren’t too unsettled by him and he’s just delicious 🙂

37 weeks, more nesting, and potty training.

 These are last weeks pictures, so technically 36 weeks, but let’s not split hairs. Any pictures taken this week would have been in my mismatched pyjamas, so you’re welcome 😉 Also no matter how many times I say there’s no need to have my head in the picture, there’s atleast one chin too many there!

 I added this one too because it makes my legs look longer and a lot less tree-trunky!

Last week we happened upon a free face painting stall in town, and Ethan chose the superman design. I was a little unimpressed by the woman doing it, she seemed a bit grumpy, but she had already been there for 2 and a half hours, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt, seeing as it was free and all.

 This week the facepainter was in town again and Ethan chose spiderman. She seemed a bit less grumpy this time, which was nice 😉 It was extremely helpful too that many of her designs left the mouth clear, as we went off to get lunch after, and it stopped him getting upset at his smudged face.

More nesting has occurred. If this continues post baby (highly doubtful) I’ll have to drop the ‘Un’ from my blog title! This time it was completely illogical too. I’ve been ironing muslins and burp cloths. Things that are actually DESIGNED to be thrown up on. I spent far too long standing at the ironing board and it made my back hurt, but they looked so nice and neat!

It won’t last, they’ll end up shoved in the nappy bag (I’ve got the free Pampers one as a temporary measure as I can’t find one that I like and is not ridiculously priced) wrinkled and not even folded, to be grabbed out for feeding and absorbing of baby sick. ah, the fun bits to look forward to!

I also have some plans to shift a few bits in the bedroom today, including a couple of small dumbbells. Those will be rolled as I have previous experience with them a while ago. Rich left them in the storage box in the living room without my knowledge, and I went to move it so the boys had more room to play. It did not move. My shoulder hurt for a LONG time!

Sam is potty training. It was foolish to start now, but he got a bit of a chance to try on holiday and did really well, so we thought we’d continue. The difficulty is that we don’t really have time to stay in the house for a week and really crack it, as Ethan has to still go to school and stuff! He’s doing ok, and is almost 100%, if he’s bare from the waist down. Add pants, and it drops to maybe 75%. Add trousers and it drops drastically. One day.

Almost no one wants to see pictures of potty training in progress (those of you who actively do, this is not the place for you, sorry. Only I’m not sorry.) so I’ll show you this one of him:

There’s the (clean I assure you) potty, so it’s relevant. The fact that he looks like Gollum with his donut is not.

3 Weeks to go til D-Day. Baby boy is now considered full term, and I am getting nervous. I spent 2 hours awake last night between 2:30 and 4:30 after a particularly horrible dream where Sam fell out of the boys’ bedroom window (he was caught by a friend luckily, and it was you know, a dream). I then worried about all sorts. The biggest worry is that I won’t get to the hospital in time. They get more irrational after that, ending in me being stuck at home in labour while Rich is stuck in traffic trying to get home from work with only Ethan and Sam for company. Ridiculous as I’ve got a vast network of people to take them at the very least, so worst case scenario I’ll be birthing at home alone, but with no little observers at least 😉

In seriousness though I did have a little worry about Rich missing it. Probably because the last thing I read before bed was a comment on facebook by my lovely friend Catherine, who said that her third was 1 hour 45 minutes from first pain to first cuddle. The boys were fairly quick, Ethan was less that 10 hours from first inkling to birth, which I’m told is quick for a first baby. Sam was about 4 and a half hours. If I’m going with that kind of pattern, this one will be a couple of hours. I’m going to put my scientist head on though and say that there isn’t enough data to show any kind of pattern or correlation, so it’ll be fine. I’m also going to put my fingers in my ears and say “lalalala” just for good measure. Yeah, that’ll fix it.

Bank Holiday, and an update on me

Bank holiday Monday was a hit! We used a surprise treat as an incentive for good behaviour for Ethan as he’s been a bit of a snot recently, and it worked! The surprise was a trip to the Royal Armouries in Leeds for Superhero Day. He loved it, and got to meet lots of characters. He also got to shoot a crossbow, a real one this time, and thought that was the best.

With Boba Fett

A star wars Trooper

A Jedi

Ironman!

They also had a craft activity, a musical instrument area, an artist from the Judge Dredd comic book doing a talk and helping kids draw heroes, and a talk about superhero weapons. The downside of the day was that they didn’t put any kind of timetable on the website, so we assumed that the characters (including Ethan’s favourite, Batman) would be in and out most of the day. We went fairly early to avoid crowds, and as a result missed Batman, as he wasn’t coming until 3:30 for a demonstration of how he uses ninja skills. We also missed the talk about superhero weapons, because we spent half an hour wandering around the third floor trying to find the ‘Observation room’ which turned out to be a tiny room tucked away in a corner, that wasn’t very well signposted. We arrived just as they were packing up and rushing off to the next thing, which was a real shame (for me!) as I saw the weapons on the trolley as they pushed it out, and they included the Portal gun 😦 Never mind.

Ethan and Rich spent the afternoon clearing the garden and washing the car in the sunshine. It was lovely to watch Ethan muck in and help Daddy. Sam attempted to help too, with mixed results.

Rich also managed to cut through the power cord with the hedge trimmers…twice. I managed to fix it both times, the benefits of having a dad who taught me handy stuff! 

We had good weather on Tuesday too, and Ethan was very excited to wear shorts to school 🙂

Look at those milky legs! inherited from his mother, unfortunately. He did however also inherit his father’s ability to go brown at the slightest hint of sun, whereas I either burn, or in the case of my legs, just somehow magically stay whiter than paper.

Today is a bit grey and damp, but he insisted on shorts again. Even though he also insisted on taking his coat because it might rain.

I’ve been very productive this morning, demolished 2 side tables and an old tv stand and took them to the dump, hooray for a bit more space! I can now put the crib next to my side of the bed which is you know, helpful. Isn’t the dump cathartic? You get to chuck stuff into massive skips and hear crashes and things breaking and all sorts, and clear your house at the same time!

Less than a month to go til due date, a month yesterday to be precise. I literally cannot wait. I might have overdone it a little at the dump, as I am very very tired right now, and it’s only lunchtime :S

I had a fun pregnancy dream the other night too. I went into labour at home and ran out of time. My sister Becky delivered it (super likely, seeing as she’s only in New Zealand!) and though it was totally painless, the baby had an extra head. It was slightly miniature, but a head it was. Only when I looked again it was a weird hand thing on it’s shoulder. Then when I looked again it was gone, but the baby’s hand (in the regular place) was all webbed. My mum appeared and said “Oh don’t worry, it’s too much cortizone” and wiped his hand with a wipe til the fingers were fine. Then I woke up. Like I said, fun, and not at all creepy :S

Update: I was even more productive this afternoon. I hoovered upstairs, moved the crib, and emptied it of clothes. Then I emptied out and tidied the airing cupboard. The airing cupboard for goodness sake! Then I had two bags of clothes and towels and linens that were spare (we had LOADS in there, it was like a flippin’ TARDIS) to take to the clothing donation bin thingy. I also found in there a bag of handed down clothes for Ethan that we got aaaaages ago but were massive, and now he has plenty of shorts for summer! I am now thoroughly pooped, and Sam is going to have french toast for tea (Ethan is at a friends house) then we’ll start the pick up run (Ethan, and Rich from the train station) showers for the boys as it’ll be late for a bath, bed for them, and a collapse on the couch for me!

I didn’t do nesting with the boys. It’s hit me this time though. It’s oddly unsettling! Still, it can only be a good thing when I actively feel the need to tidy!

35 weeks

Some progress on last week. We have the crib, put together and everything, all ready for baby, kindly brought back oop north for us by my sister Amy. We ordered the bargainous car seat, with almost £70 off! It arrived on Wednesday and I love it, very cute and nice and light. We ordered it from kiddicare on Monday at 4ish and it was here around 8am Wednesday, so really not bad service at all. It was free delivery over £30, so Rich ordered nappies to make it up as with the big discount it was only £22.50!

We also had a practise run putting it in the car (Rich’s idea, in my opinion once you’ve managed to fit one car seat they’re pretty much the same) and it’s now waiting it the boot of the car.

 The box provided much entertainment for the boys who played rockets to the moon with it all day on Wednesday, then on Thursday Daddy tasked them with smushing it for recycling, so naturally they loved that, it now has several holes in it where they took to poking pencils through it when drawing on it became boring.

This morning the new mattress for the crib arrived, another bargain, this time from eBay with a new in package mattress in the right size for only £10. The mattress with the family crib didn’t have holes or anything, but I caught a glimpse of the tag and it is 17 years old, obviously bought new for my oldest nephew! So I had a look online and thought for £10 it was worth getting a new one.

Of course, when it arrived I was in the shower and had literally just foamed up the shampoo when knock knock! Cue panic. I got shampoo in my eye, so while squinting grabbed a towel and rushed to the top of the stairs, where I realised I had grabbed a smallish towel. Ordinarily, that would be awkward but not offensive, but seeing as I now resemble the shape and size of a blimp, it was NOT good. Luckily Ethan came to the rescue and opened the door while I stood out of view but in earshot. The postman seemed a little taken aback (though not nearly as much as if I’d opened the door) and asked him to give it to his Mummy. Hideous viewing of almost nudity averted.

Yesterday, being Thursday, Rich was working at home, and we also had to go to the bank at lunch time, so we nipped into Sainsbury’s for a few essentials and found these:

 So cute! And on offer. Finally, FINALLY, the shops are bringing out  a bit of colour in the baby clothes! I guess because it’s going to be summer they think it’s ok now. I’ll even forgive them for not having front or back poppers and thus meaning they;ll have to be put on like a t-shirt, which is sooo easy with a newborn 😉 I also spotted a cute set in Morrison’s while shopping which had little elephants on, but I didn’t get them because if I bought all the cute things I see we’d be bankrupt by ooh, 5 minutes ago.

35 weeks. My app says that means 35 days to go. Obviously this is tosh, and it’ll probably be more like 42-49 days, as I went over with the boys. Still, at most, 7 weeks to go! Exciting!

Porthmadog, Wales

 We’ve just had a wonderful long weekend in beautiful Wales. It was just lovely, such a wonderful place to take a breath. The car journey wasn’t too bad, The boys both took a small nap and Ethan had this checklist that he asked me to draw for him (pretty great idea, he sat ticking things for about an hour and a half).

 

It also helped spread out the “when will we get there?” questions, which he has now discovered.

When we got to the caravan site we had a note saying we’d been upgraded to a deluxe van, which was nice! We’d already paid a small fee to go up to luxury, so it was a nice surprise. The van was really great, proper kitchen area, three bedrooms (we’d paid for 2) a shower room and an en-suite toilet from our room. The living area was nice too, the sofas had nice covers rather than the coarse ones that look and feel a bit like carpet. There was also a decent tv with freeview which was handy on the Sunday when it rained and the kids were bored and in Sam’s case, covered in chickenpox.

 On Saturday morning Ethan went for a fencing and archery lesson. It was less a lesson and more playing with swords, but he loved it 🙂 They played with foam swords at first and then had the ‘foils’. They were electronic so when you got a good poke in they buzzed.

 The archery also turned out to be crossbow shooting (foam darts thankfully!) but as he was the only one signed up, and a little girl who showed up a bit late and was very shy and left pretty quickly, He got pretty much undivided attention from the guy leading the activity and thought it was brilliant. He was actually not too bad at it either, and LOVED it when the guy said he could lay on the floor to do it.

 

 Saturday was gorgeous. Really warm and beautiful sunshine. We went to the park, and the high street to buy a bucket and spade and beach shoes for the boys, then headed to the beach that is right behind the caravan site. There was a little stream at the top of the beach which was lucky as we’d timed it badly and the tide was completely out! The boys played in the water and built and smashed castles to the sound of Sam’s war cries of “seaside an’ a beach!” He still hasn’t grasped that they are one and the same.

 There may have also been a date and walnut scone with clotted cream and jam on our trip into town. Unfortunately I was so preoccupied with devouring the deliciousness that no pictures were taken. And that is a real shame because I’m telling you, that was heaven. It was in Cadwaladers ice cream parlour. Where I might also have bought ice cream. A couple of times over the weekend. For the boys of course…..and myself…

On Sunday Sam was really bad with the chicken pox so we skipped church. The branch there is VERY small, they meet in the town hall and are mostly quite old with a smattering of small children. One bad case of the pox could take them down for a month! Sam spent most of the morning watching telly curled up with Daddy and no nappy with occasional sobs, poor thing.

Ethan and I went swimming, and it was great! He normally wants his giant rubber ring and armbands, but he decided he didn’t need the ring this time, which was great, til I let go in the water and realised both armbands had a puncture and he sunk a *tiny* amount :S He was quite upset, til we went to the poolside shop and bought new angry birds armbands. Then we worked on swimming – he’s not very confident in the water, so he clung on for a long time, but I eventually convinced him to let go of one hand, and then a bit later the other. He swam! not for long, and for only about 10 feet maybe, but he did it! I am so proud of him, he’s usually very scared and almost completely unwilling to try anything, and this time he was scared but did it anyway! 

I rewarded him with a play in the soft play area, and we went back to a much happier Sam.

Monday came around far too quickly, and after a play in the arcade it was time to come home. It was a brilliant and much needed break, and we really lucked out with the weather. Now it’s back to reality, and school and stuff, but there are so many great things to look forward to, Ethan’s birthday is in a month, then a couple more weeks and it’s baby time! Yay! and EEK! and yay again!

These Boys

These boys. They are so much fun, so much of the time. There are also the days where they end up in the bath at 3pm because I just can’t take the fighting anymore, and they LOVE the bath. Also, as  an aside, why is it that they can be playing brilliantly together, but the second I step in the shower and apply shampoo, the blood curdling screams start?

 This picture was from one of those days. See how they’re totally fine, and not ripping each other to pieces? The magic of the bath, my friend.

So far today is shaping up to not be one of those days, thankfully. Aside from when I was in the shower, that’s pretty much a daily occurance.  They’ve played with batman, they’ve tipped the lego all over the floor. They had jigsaw books out. They asked to watch Cinderella, and gave up on it. They asked to watch Tarzan, which got a little more attention. What can I say, princesses don’t really cut it for them. Of course, this is how they chose to watch it:

 Hey, I never said they were normal. They love each other fiercely though. If one of them gets hurt (and it’s not been caused by the other) then the other one will run over to see that they’re ok. The fighting is accompanied by many hugs and kisses in this house. And oh, the hugs these boys give. full of love, yet also like they’re trying to squeeze the life out of you. And they’re my boys. As frustrating as they can be at times, there is far more than enough good to outweigh that.

I found this while uploading photos, and couldn’t not add it, because it’s cute and makes me laugh.

                                

He did fall properly asleep in the end, with my hand holding his head up. 

I’m trying to let the frustration go as much as I can, because they’re growing so fast. Ethan is almost 5, and getting to be a big boy. And Sam is 2 and a half, and no longer my baby. I want them to remember a mum who was fun, not one who was shouting all the time. One who had time to play and let them make a mess and who didn’t always respond with “in a minute.” Speaking of which, we’re going outside to play. I love these boys.

Mother’s Day

I had a lovely one this year 🙂

Some of my most favourite chocolates, that I keep forgetting exist because they don’t sell them in many places, which Rich remembered I like, without prompting 😉

Two lovely cards from Ethan (left, made at school) and Sam (right, made in nursery at church, with what I suspect to be a fairly large amount of help!)

A certificate from Ethan that he did at school, and did all the writing himself. Ok, so the date doesn’t make a huge amount of sense, but I don’t care! He has only recently discovered a desire to read and write and learn, and I love it.

Some lovely flowers chosen by the boys including this pink gerbera, also one of my favourite things.

The two loveliest parts of the day though were at church. First Ethan got up with the primary children to sing. He was first up, and it didn’t look like it was going to go well at first when another little boy gave him a shove and a kick and he started to cry. So I started to mouth the words at him with a (slightly maniacal) grin to get him smiling. After a while he recovered and made me cry by belting out the words to ‘every star is different’. Then later he and Sam went up together to bring me a flower and held hands very cutely, which is especially lovely when they do it in public 😉

After church I made camp on the couch and was made a delicious dinner and generally spoiled until bedtime!

I am incredibly grateful to the mothers in my life, starting of course with my own. She’s a strong woman with incredible faith and a wonderful sense of fun, and I love her dearly.

I’m also grateful for Richard’s mum, who brought him up to be a wonderful man. He is respectful, hard working, and just generally brilliant.

And then there’s me. I feel the responsibility heavily with these (soon to be 3) boys. I have to bring them up with love and respect, faith and happiness. They deserve the best, as do their future families. We’re trying 🙂

Good days

I’ve had a lovely week 🙂 On Saturday, despite feeling like absolute rubbish still, I went to see Les Mis with Amy and some friends. It was so wonderful. Moving and beautiful. I was shocked at the bits I’d forgotten (nothing major plot-wise) though. I thought all the actors did an incredible job, to my untrained eye 😉 I’m not going to list them all, but Samantha Barks as Eponine was just amazing, A Little Fall of Rain was heart rending. 

As we came out someone behind us quietly said to his companions “I didn’t know it was a musical.” We stifled our giggles.

Sam did this:

And kissed and cuddled the baby for several minutes, which in Sam time must be about a decade.

He also asked that we make a snowman, and insisted he have a carrot nose.

 He was only little so it had to be a carrot-stick nose. He’s checked on him everyday at least once (we put him on the bin so he could be seen from the window) and says hello to him. And his eyes. And his buttons. And his carrot nose.

 I drew a moustache on my face for a friend.

 Never let it be said that I don’t give you anything, my dear (though I suspect near non-existent) readers.

And the pièce de résistance…

 Say hello to my little friend!

I had my 20 week scan today which I had to wait an extra 45 minutes for, with a full bladder. Thanks for that one, hospital. When I went in the sonographer apologised as there were staffing issues and people turning up late/not at all. I was not happy but did the completely British thing of saying “oh no, it’s alright.” Why do we do that?! I was cheesed off! I think I just got so grateful for an apology, and to be laying down, that I just went with it. She then also told me that the baby’s head was plowing right into my bladder, so even though it wasn’t very full (I cheat a bit on the amount of water they tell you to drink and when – thank goodness in this case)  that’s what caused it. Yes madam sonographer, I’m sure the 45 minute wait had nothing to do with it.

So.. we are cooking up a little boy! Ethan is ecstatic, He was rooting for a boy, who he decided would be called Rudolph. Sam is fairly uninterested, but we’re attempting to convey that an actual little brother will be materialising at some point in June. I can imagine it will still be a surprise. Rich had to stay out with the boys until the checks were completed, but as he came in apparently got a nice crotch shot and saw that it was a boy before I had been told 🙂

The little sausage has really begun kicking in earnest now, which is lovely and reassuring, though no fun for my bladder! 

Only 20 weeks to go, hopefully it’ll go as fast as the first 20 have!