That only works if you’re pregnant, though.
Me: Ha! Hahaha! Haha! Yes! Haha!
Jacki: But at least Zoe and your friend Heidi have someone to care for, and to care for them, Kiki. They’re very lucky, and they should remember that.
Me: Would you like another drink?
Jacki: Ooooh, yes please. Isn’t it my round?
But I had to go and order the drinks so she wouldn’t realise that I was having Virgin Mules and Shirley Temples. Poor Jacki. As if she needs to hear from me how I’m happily breeding with my loving husband when she’s so lonely and hurt from that conniving horror Leon. I made a useless resolution that if anyone else I know ever seems to be marrying someone who appears to be a feckless greedy gobshite, I will definitely tell them. For now, I will continue to support Jacki in any way I can (or until I start showing).
December’s Classic Baby
‘You may, perhaps, be prepared to hear that Mrs Micawber is in a state of health which renders it not wholly improbable that an addition may be ultimately made to those pledges of affection which – in short, to the infantine group. Mrs Micawber’s family have been so good as to express their dissatisfaction at this state of things. I have merely to observe, that I am not aware that it is any business of theirs, and that I repel that exhibition of feeling with scorn, and with defiance!’
Mr Micawber then shook hands with me again, and left me.
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens
December 1st
Oh, advent calendar joy! When we were very little, Susie and I had a fabric advent calendar each which Mum had made, and which she and Dad would then fill with all sorts of gifts. When Dad had to travel with work, the calendar would include little German Christmas decorations, American sweets or even just miniature hotel jars of jam, while Mum would provide pound coins, lip glosses, single chocolates and hair clips. Despite the fact that we are far too old to indulge in such things, Mum still delivers the bags of twenty-five gifts each November 30th, with each tiny parcel numbered, so Susie and I don’t spoil one another’s surprises, although now the calendars are obviously filled with gifts for Thom, Pete, the Twins and Frida too.
Thom and I had spent last night diligently filling each pocket with the numbered parcels, and I was allowed to string the fairy lights around the bookshelves (but not turn them on). This morning, I leapt out of bed to open the first one.
Me: A hair clip!
Thom: [grumpily] Yours.
Me: Ahh, is someone feeling left out of the widdel advent caw-endar?
Thom: I hope you’re not going to talk to my child like that.
I always hug myself when he says something like that. If all goes well – a phrase I think to myself a hundred times a day – we’ll be celebrating next Christmas with three of us here. Three! Our baby! Wait. I got too excited too quickly. Won’t it just pull down the tree? Eat all the presents? Mmmm. Still not ready for this.
December 2nd
So I’ve finished A Womb of One’s Own. Wow.
Wow.
What a mixture of preachy, hippie garbage and self-congratulatory smugness. Here are some of my favourite bits:
On discovering the news:
It was a moment I shall never forget. As Bill and I looked at the doctor’s report telling us that our great blessing had arrived, we held hands. ‘Our souls are fused together forever,’ Bill’s eyes seemed to say. ‘This is a child of love,’ mine replied. Bill started to cry, then I joined in, and even the doctor wiped his eyes. ‘I’ve been doing this job for thirty years, and I’ve never been so moved when I told a couple the good news,’ he exclaimed. ‘Thank you. Thank you for reminding me of the magic of this job.’
On going into labour:
It was a swelling wave, a jungle noise that I rode, crested, becoming stronger and more powerful than I ever could have considered possible. I reached inside my soul, and found myself as a small girl, a teenage beauty, a handsome woman, a wise old crone. We stood in a circle holding hands, and they guided me to the place I needed to be, delivering me strength and love. I knew my child was being born, and that it was a journey only I could go on. I could hear my doctor: ‘One more push, Ms Martel,’ and my selves nodded at me, smiling. With one final effort, I could feel myself doubled, grown, as the love Bill and I created became a person, a name, a life. It was Creation.
On feeding the baby:
I had watched others around me struggle with breastfeeding, discovering pain and bleeding. Others had simply given up, and turned to a plastic bottle for their newborn wonder. Blessed as we were with our child, so was I blessed with his feeding. He took to it like a natural – as that’s what it was, the most natural thing in the world. We stared into each other’s eyes, and I could feel the love flow between us. I knew that no pain could ever touch me, as I was giving him the greatest gift in the world – mother’s milk, which would be with him for the rest of his life, bettering him and lifting him among his peers, wherever he went.
On the baby’s toys and clothes:
Bill and I agreed from the start that we wanted only beauty for our child. We had no plastics in the nursery, which our own interior decorator had redone completely for us, in shades of dove grey with a yellow accent. The cot was made from an old altar from Brazil, with wood which was hundreds of years old. The changing unit was fashioned from a table Bill’s family had kept for generations, while the baby’s wardrobe was an heirloom from my grandmother, shipped from France in the eighteenth century. We carpeted the room in the softest New Zealand wool, with a feature rug from Morocco. The toys were handmade – an artisan in upstate New York made a whole family of wooden animals, and an Italian craftsman designed an original light fitting in a giraffe shape. All the bed linen and blankets came from handcrafters across the country when I’d sourced throughout my pregnancy. We even had a film prop-maker fashion us the baby’s name in lights, to go on the wall – Bill and I both knew how important it was for this baby to feel at home the second we brought him in.
I cannot wait to meet this woman. Orrrr … not meet. One or the other. Probably the latter.
TO DO:
Find out if Thom will repaint our living room in dove grey and accent yellow. That actually sounds lovely.
December 3rd
My final treat from Thom’s diary of treats: a trip to the local garden centre, choosing and buying a Christmas tree, plus as many Christmas decorations as I could carry. We both got slightly giddy, sniffing the needles and displaying the baubles to one another in very, very mature ways, but eventually we left with a tree that was, of course, slightly too big for our living room, and an enormous box of extra fairy lights, baubles, bells, bead ropes, robins, ribbons and a golden, glittering star tree topper.
We blew the rest of the afternoon getting the tree positioned and decorated (Thom: ‘I think we need to soak the base first.’ Me: ‘Do it later! Let’s get it up first!’), with me tying bows everywhere while Thom kept us supplied with tea and mince pies.
Thom: Do you ever worry you might peak too soon?
Me: Nonsense. Carpe diem. And the diem I carpe is Christmas Day.
Thom: I didn’t know one could pick.
Me: One can and one does. If Scrooge resolved to keep Christmas every day, I think starting at the beginning of December is the very least we can do. It’s not like I’m making us eat turkey and all the trimmings every day for the next month.
Thom: