Issy at 1.5 years old - Enormobaby

Tomorrow Issy will be eighteen months old. She weighs 12.6kg and is 82cm tall. She is chatty and can make her needs and opinions reasonably clearly known.

She likes dancing and sometimes sings herself little songs. We do get instead tantrums but they don't last more than a few seconds and she doesn't hold a grudge.

Yesterday we tried a weeride bike seat for the first time, and despite the fact it is alleged to be for an age range that should comfortably accommodate our girl she appears to be too large for it!

This week Issy went to the toddlers group in Wickham Market with my mum, she also went swimming for the first time. At both groups folk commented that Issy was considerably taller than the other children of her age. We've raised an Enormobaby.

The Issy chair - the first 14 months of Issy!

The last fourteen months have been remarkable, and the speed at which Issy is growing up is starting to get a little alarming, but in quite an exciting way.  Issy now repeats most of what she hears, which means we're starting to have to watch our language; we don't want our girl to swear like a docker until she is at least ten years old.

Every few months I take a photo of our girl sitting on the same chair to try and get an idea of how much she has grown.  In the early days this was a useful indicator, but these days we know exactly how tall our daughter is because we know to what height objects we don't want her to get hold of have to be raised above.

Here's a condensed version of the Issy chair photo series (click for a larger photo):

Quick update on parenting progress

The NCT classes were pretty good but they don't prepare you for running around after a naked one year old pleading with her to put a nappy on because you KNOW she's in need of a wee and is favouring your cream coloured carpets as a testing ground for trying to walk while farting, and you just know that each fart reduces the time margin till one of those odd tricolore poos falls out, and then you'll have to be damn quick or she'll pick it up, or post it through the catflap, where it will land in your slipper that was posted through just a few minutes ago, swiftly followed by the TV remote / wallet / panicking elderly cat.

Dear lord why the hell do we have so many light coloured furnishings, we've had cats for fifteen years! Same cats too, my god they're old, nice though. I've gone a bit off point here, but that's because I haven't slept much FOR A YEAR!

On the whole though yes, those little magnum ice creams are probably better than fab lollies.

*falls of chair, falls asleep*

Weaning day 1 - oh the humanity!

This isn't weaning strictly speaking, the wee one is still a breast milk fan, but for a long time now Issy has been fascinated by whatever it is we happen to be shovelling down our gob-holes at each meal so we decided to start introducing her to food.

I was going to write a paragraph about how cautious we're being here, but I think it's quite evident that we know how to look after our daughter's well-being so rest assured all is well.

One of the main guidelines for this exercise (according to the book my wife read) is to make the whole exercise seem quite normal, and a big part of this is NOT laughing at the youngling while she's tearing her food to shreds and running her own personal experiments into the viscosity and spreadability of various foodstuffs.  Not tittering while Issy smears food anywhere she can is hard enough, but it's almost impossible to keep from belly-laughing when Issy's face betrays her opinion of the taste any of any morsels that actually manage to make it to her mouth.

Have a look at these photos from Issy's first proper food adventure and I'm sure you'll understand why we're struggling to keep straight faces at meal times.

A photo a day, and Issy's first pub lunch.

Issy at her first pub lunch,
that's Uncle Graham in the background

For a few weeks now I've been taking at least one photo of Issy a day and sending it to the aunties, uncles and grandparents. I realised that back when we were babies (in the 1970s - ha!) taking and sharing photos was an expensive and slow process, but now with smartphones and the interwebs taking a photo and emailing it takes a matter of seconds, so for as long as I can I'm going to take a photo of Issy every day.  I only wish I'd thought of it sooner; it would have been brilliant to have a photo of our baby from every day since birth.

And here's the other reason to take a photo a day
Every day Issy seems to change totally - she'll notice so much more, interact with more consideration and continues to become exponentially more fascinated with the world around her.  It's quite alarming to think that our tiny baby is nearly half a year old, I'm making a concerted effort to absorb every moment of her growing up, but there's just to much to take note of that it all becomes a bit of a blur.  When Issy was born both sets of grandparents admitted that they could barely remember any of the day to day detail of living with a newborn, and at first I couldn't believe that anyone could forget any of this wonderment, but now I understand it totally!

All is well!

Issy snap by Issy's Uncle Mark

I know, I'm sorry, I haven't posted for a very long time, but oh boy have we been busy!  Now that Issy is coming up for six months old we feel like we're really getting to know her as the proper little person that she is.

The first few months were a bit crazy but apparently that's totally normal for new parents, and if I've learnt anything over the last few months it's that there appears to be nothing new under the sun when it comes to parenting; no matter how well or badly you think you're coping there's always someone somewhere who has done the same or felt the same way.

Now that we're getting into the swing of this parenting lark I've got say that I'm loving it - my wife and I both agree that our lives very much seemed to start 'properly' when Issy was born, and all experiences can be split into 'PI' and 'AB' (pre-Issy and after-birth).

I could quite cheerfully fill this blog post with gushing loving sentiment about my little girl but it has all been said before by folk far more eloquent than I.


In summary baby = yay!

Seven weeks old!

I borrowed a camera and took a nice photo of Issy, I know that all dads think their daughters are beautiful, but seriously, look at that face!

Dads - keep your cool during birth!

Several of the health professionals we spent time with that crazy day our baby was born commented on how calm Emma and I were, and how much staying calm can help the birth.

I’d like to think that a lot of this calm comes from how Emma and I are as a couple, but kudos also needs to be given to the wonderful National Childbirh Trust (NCT) classes we attended.

Guys - if you don’t want to be that panicky fella in the labour ward telling anyone who’ll listen that you feel so helpless and have no idea what’s going on then do yourself (and your girl!) a favour and get clued up; it’ll make a huge positive difference not only to how confident you feel during the experience, but also how you’ll feel about the birth when you look back on it.

Introducing Isabelle

Our daughter Isabelle Iris was born at 1.45am Sunday 4th September 2011 in Ipswich Hospital, weighing 7lb 13oz and measuring 52cm long.

The name ‘Isabelle’ was plucked out of thin air by baby’s mum, and is the most perfect name for such a pretty little girl.  The name ‘Iris’ came about partly because we wanted something horticultural in baby’s name, and also because it means rainbow, which is just kinda pretty!

In reality our youngling will be called ‘Issy’ by those who love her.

If you want the full gory details read THIS POST...

P.S I didn’t get around to posting this ‘notice’ until today because we’ve been a bit busy looking after Issy to post to this blog!

P.P.S Issy's 'punk name' is Izzy Isis Culture

She’s here! (Our birth story).

Actually 'she' arrived two weeks ago today, but things have been a little crazy so I haven’t been able to grab a moment to update this blog.

Between June (the last post to this blog) and the day our girl was born there wasn’t much of blog-level interest to report - Emma got more rotund and the baby moved about a lot more, and apart from a slight dip in Emma’s iron levels (which was swiftly fixed with spinach, dark chocolate and Mackesons stout) all concerned were in tip top health.  Anyhew, folk seem to like knowing the gory details of each baby’s birth, so here goes:

NOTE - if you are reading this post while expecting your own first-born I don’t want you to be alarmed at all; as scary as anything you’re about to read may seem I want you to remember that when you’re there in the moment (and surrounded by wonderful healthcare professionals) you will really have very little to worry about as you’ll be in the best hands there are!

How it all started.
For about ten days before the ‘big day’ Em started getting really powerful practice contractions, so powerful in fact that the Tuesday before the birth we rang the maternity ward to let them know we thought things were underway, they thought differently so we stayed at home.  So when at 8am on Saturday 3rd September 2011 Em’s contractions started getting so powerful she couldn’t stand (and when they were about five minutes apart) we were a little hesitant to call the hospital just in case this was another false alarm.  Fortunately Emma did call, and a few minutes later a very calm sounding midwife told us that she was on her way over to our house.

Because the pregnancy went so well we decided to try for a home birth, or as the health professionals called it a ‘planned home birth’.  By the time the midwife examined Emma (at about 2pm) she was already 7cm dilated, and so some sums were quickly done and it was declared that baby would be joining us in time for afternoon high-tea.

By teatime there was no sign of baby and my poor wife had endured an entire day of grunting, squatting and making the kind of guttural noises that any hard working Norwegian Black Metal vocalist would be proud of.

At 7pm the waters broke spectacularly, and credit needs to be given to Emma who despite being at the rough end of a long day managed to aim said torrent neatly onto a waiting absorbent sheet in front of the fireplace in our lounge.  Whilst it was great news that the waters had broken what the midwives (for we had two on hand by then) saw changed the game totally.  There was evidence of meconium (baby poo) in the waters, meaning that there was a chance baby was getting distressed.

Poo at this stage (unless it comes from the mother, and yes, that does happen) is quite common so isn’t something to get in a panic over, but it is a warning sign that things might not be progressing quite as planned.

After another few hours we found out that Emma had only dilated another centimetre, and more concerning was the fact that the poor lass was utterly exhausted and was struggling to push at all.  Another inspection revealed that baby was stuck ‘OP’, meaning Emma was experiencing a particularly painful labour.

The midwives (in their own uniquely calm and reassuring way) were getting concerned and the decision was taken to transfer to the consultant led unit at Ipswich hospital.  The midwife called for an ambulance and by the time I had grabbed Emma’s hospital bag (about thirty seconds later) the ambulance was already outside our house.  Emma took herself out to the ambulance and pausing only to collect my sister and honorary brother (Graham) from a couple of doors away I followed the ambulance to hospital.  At this stage you might be expected a high-stress tale of flashing lights and daring high-speed driving, but I’m going to have to disappoint you - the ambulance drove very slowly indeed.

I was determined to be waiting by the doors of the ambulance when they opened -  so that Emma could see I was there - and I made it without much more than a gentle jog across the car park.


A few big changes in a surprisingly short period of time.
Once safely installed in the biggest single-bed room I’ve ever seen in a hospital we met a very nice doctor who told us that Emma needed to be drip fed a hormone to assist her contractions.

Because the contractions were about to get crazy Emma was offered pain relief, and for the first time all day she accepted.  Emma was worried about feeling dopey during the birth so she opted for an epidural over pethidine, and when that wonder drug kicked in everything changed, and the relief was enormous, for Emma, me, and of course the baby.

After about an hour and a half the hormone that was supposed to be helping baby out started to distress her, and a quick inspection of the relevant area revealed that Emma’s cervix was swelling.

The Registrar came and spoke to us, and when he asked me to sit down I knew the news wasn’t going to be great.  Because baby had been stuck just a few centimetres from crowning (popping out) there was a very real chance that she might be getting starved of oxygen, and therefore a decision needed to be made very soon indeed.  The Registrar took some blood from the top of baby’s head and told us that her oxygen levels were fine for now, but potentially wouldn’t be for much longer.  The decision was made that we needed an emergency cesarean (c-section), and as scary as that moment was it was also something of a relief.

Within just a few minutes we had gone to theatre, I had changed into surgical scrubs and we were in a room full of people poised and ready to do baby a favour.  I was sat on a stool at Emma’s head and a fabric screen was hung across Emma’s chest so that neither of us could see what was about to happen.  Having the view obscured was a huge relief to me, until I noticed that the operating theatre windows were incredibly reflective - I don’t think I’m terribly squeamish but I concentrated on staring at Emma just to be on the safe side.

Emma was cool and calm as she lay on the operating table, and didn’t flinch once as the surgical team did their thing.  After just three or four minutes we heard a noise like a tiny (and very brief) gas escape and the anaesthetist grinned and told us baby was sneezing!  There was an almighty squelching noise (to which Emma sighed and declared a huge relief) and a few seconds later we both heard a noise that will forever bind us at the very core of our souls - we heard our baby cry.  The time was about 1.45am on Sunday 4th September 2011.

That first cry was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard - in an instant it healed every second of fear and frustration we’d been through that day.  Emma and I looked more deeply at each other than we have ever before, we’d made it, we really did have a baby.

After she had been checked and cleaned up the midwife who had stuck to us like glue since arriving at hospital placed her on Emma’s pillow and introduced us to our beautiful baby girl.  Now that came as a surprise; for no particular reason at all we had both been sure we were expecting a boy!

Emma lost about a litre and a half of blood and was quite poorly for a couple of days after the operation, but the care we all received was unbelievably consistent and gentle, and Emma has said the memory of the pain and worry is slipping away from her more each time she looks at our gorgeous baby girl.

If you are expecting your own child I sincerely hope you take the positives from our experience; it didn’t go quite to plan, but the support and care (I nearly typed ‘love’ because that’s how it felt) we received from the NHS was beyond reproach.  However you decide to have your child you can be sure that you’ll be very well looked after indeed.

Hiccups, kicks and every lottery on earth

So far in this pregnancy I’ve confirmed more cliches than I’ve debunked, and this post will be no different...

For the last few weeks I’ve been (not very) patiently waiting to feel the first bit of movement from the baby; Em has been feeling jiggles and wiggles for weeks, and often stops what she’s doing to look into the middle distance before quietly announcing that ‘baby is awake now’.  But due to the placenta being at the front (apparently) there hasn’t been much movement for me to get excited about.

A couple of nights ago I was laying my fat head on Em’s (now sizable) ‘pummy’ (and trying to figure out if the noises I was hearing were the result of the baby moving or whether I was listening to Em’s supper taking its natural course through her increasingly space-restricted innards) and ‘pummy’ jumped.  I looked up at my cutey-wife and gave her sympathy for what I assumed was her hiccups, and that’s when my life changed a little more, and that tiny little twitch made my life even richer than it already is.  So what am I getting at? Well it turned out Em didn’t have hiccups, but the baby did!

I’m struggling to find the words I need to describe how giddy feeling those hiccups made me feel, so I’ll force a  bizarre analogy on you instead - when I felt baby hiccup it felt like I’d won the lottery.  So this morning when I was laying hands on pummy (I’m getting a bit obsessed, poor Em!) and I felt TWO very definite kicks it felt like I’d won everyone lottery on earth and been declared supreme overlord of the entire galaxy, but in spite of all the lottery money and ruler-ship NONE of it mattered at all, all that matters is that tiny little double kick...

A brilliantly average scan.

During the scan we saw so much of the baby that it was
the next best thing to actually holding him/ her, but
as soon as it was time to take a photo
he/ she got stage fright again.

Today we had our twenty week scan, and after sitting around listening to the local tin pot radio station in the waiting we were ushered into the special darkened room for another gawp at our youngling.

The baby is HUGE!  I think I saw it from almost every angle as the scanner-lady (I would learn her job title but this is probably our last scan so it's already too late) probed my lovely wife's bump.  The biggest (and therefore campest) gasp from my end of the bed was when I saw the baby's face: after a few fleeting glimpses when it looked like the eye of Sauron I saw a perfectly clear view of the front of a face, and it was the most pure thing I've ever seen.  It may sound daft calling an unborn child pure but that's how it looked; totally disconnected from the pressures of the real world, and yet by its very presence is massively simplifying and hugely enriching my existence on this lump of rock as it hurtles through space.

Measurements were taken by the scanner-lady and reported in a neutral tone to an assistant with a pen, the tone was in fact so neutral that I didn't relax until the whole experience was over and we had both been assured that all is well, in fact our baby is better than 'well'; it's 'average'.

I've spent my whole life rejecting the average and seeking out the unconventional in everything I do, being anything other than average is at the very core of my being, and yet today while I was looking at baby's chart (and wondering what it all meant) knowing that our child was average was the best news I've ever had.



P.S we still don't know if it's a boy or girl, the scanner lady offered to tell us but we said no.

P.P.S although I think I've got a fair idea...

Surprising privacy.

This blog was intended to be a way that Em and I could share our feelings, hopes and anxieties during our pregnancy, but I've the further we get into this adventure the more private a lot of it feels, and I guess that's part of the reason that I haven't been posting quite as often as I thought I might.

Another reason that I haven't been terribly verbose is that I think a lot of the little things I'm noticing only mean such a great deal to me because I've been with Em for fifteen years - I can spot the subtle changes in her daily behaviour that are making me fall in love with her more than ever.  I'll give you a brief example - I noticed a couple of days ago that Em walks around the house with one hand gently laying on her (still quite small) bump.  It means the world to me, but does it really have 'mass appeal?'.

We're not having this baby as an audience participation event, and I will share some of the more significant events with you, but for (possibly the first time in my entire life) I feel the need to keep some things private.  This is by no means a negative thing, in fact it's quite the opposite; it's confirmation that this baby is now the most important thing in my universe, and not something that belongs to the public arena.

I hope you understand, and knowing myself I'm sure I'll get over-excited again soon and want to share something like the exact shape of Em's belly button, but for now I'm going to enjoy the subtlety of pregnancy, and keep it to myself.

All’s quiet on the baby front.

When people ask me how the pregnancy is going I don’t have a lot to tell them, and when they look disappointed with the lack of news I remind them that a dull pregnancy is a good pregnancy. 

A couple of days ago we had another lightening fast visit to the midwife’s office, and as lovely as our midwife is (seriously, where do they find these amazing women?) I was incredibly grateful for the brevity of our visit - I’m sure all expectant parents are the same, but I feel like I’m some sort of information hungry worry-beast, any indicator of any news at all connected to this baby seems to quell one fear and spawn a handful of others.  If our midwife didn’t keep our visits so gloriously brief I’d be tempted to ask her any one of the hundreds of daft questions I have spinning round my head.  It’s not like I think she wouldn’t give me answers, in fact I’m sure she’d take pretty much any interrogation with good natured geniality.

So there you have it; all is well, Em’s blood pressure is great (which for some reason I’m dead proud of) and the next big step will be the twenty week scan, and by this time (the midwife has assured us) the baby will be too big to hide from us!

Instant calmer.

Please forgive that rubbish play on 'Instant Karma'...

This may be the shortest post I make here, but it's about one of the biggest impacts fatherhood is having on my life at the moment.  I'm talking about the instant calm that putting a hand on Em's tiny little bump instils in me.  It doesn't matter how stressed I am with work, how distracted my mind is with anything at all, a few moments of my hand on that tummy and perspective wraps around me like a giant hug rug.  The baby is too small to be felt from 'outdoors' yet, but every time Em and I make that connection we get a little closer to each other.  Apart from when my hand is cold...

Funky baby beats!

Photo of me by Martin Rondell

So there we were sitting with the midwife (a different one to last time) explaining (and feeling like apologising) that we didn’t get what were supposed to from yesterday’s scan, when she took us both by surprise by saying ‘so, let’s see if we can hear this baby’s heartbeat’.  Just like that, no warning, no warm up; nothing!

I had no idea it was even possible to hear the baby’s heartbeat yet, and I studied pre-natal development for three years when I was on track to be a nurse!  Em dropped her kecks for the fourth person in two days (not including me) and out came a little karaoke microphone (from a box the midwife had, not from Em’s kecks, although she does carry a lot of weird stuff, and always inexplicably has a box of matches about her person) and after a bit of rummaging around there it was, and very loud and clear it was too!

Em had been quite focused for today’s meeting with the midwife - there had been some confusion in her notes (over just how pregnant she really is, which was weird because I thought you either were or you weren’t), but once she heard that heartbeat she totally relaxed.  It’s a cliché to say someone ‘melts’, but I can’t think of any other way of describing how my lovely wife reacted to the sound of our unborn child’s heartbeat.

After a few strong perfectly rhythmic heartbeats the baby moved, causing a noise that sounded exactly like a Fender Jazz bass down-tuned to B being struck with a medium thickness Tortex plectrum, fed through a Electro-Harmonix Big Muff fuzz pedal.  But Emma disagreed for some reason.

Would you mind shoving that thing somewhere else?

Photo is unrelated
Taken (by me) in Christiana in Denmark

We’ve just got back from our twelve week scan, and you were probably expecting to see a photo of the scan, and to tell the truth so were we!

The baby was perfectly healthy, very active but just wouldn’t pose to have the back of its neck measured (a routine test for downs syndrome), and certainly wasn’t interested in having its photo taken.

Baby started off by mooning us from an upside down position, I ‘think’ it might also have flipped us the bird.  Em was asked to drink another half litre of water to see if we could get the baby to lay in the right position, but that didn’t help, so Em emptied her bladder, and still the baby wouldn’t comply.  The final attempt at pre-natal compliance involved Em lifting her bum off the couch and jiggling her hips about, and all that did was rock the baby into a sort of ‘Andy Capp’ asleep on a settee position.

So no photo I’m afraid, but the good news is that the baby appears to be nice and healthy, and is certainly active.  We’re already booked in for the twenty week scan, and because the back of the baby’s neck couldn’t be measured Em needs to have her blood screened to check there are no abnormalities.

Oh, and the baby is now 72mm long, meaning it is three times bigger than it was just three weeks ago!

The phoney war, and poo on the patio.

I know I haven’t written for a while, but that’s because not a lot has happened, and I know that’s not the most gripping start to a blog post, but bear with me...

The last couple of weeks have been taken up with us trying to come to terms with our pregnancy, whilst not really seeing any signs of it.  Em has been getting odd sensations in her belly (well, womb I guess) but nothing terribly dramatic has been happening at all.

I’ve realised that the way I look after Em has stepped up a gear; I’ve always looked out for her but since I’ve found out she’s pregnant my level of concern has gone into overdrive. Last week we were staying in a holiday cottage in Dorset, and on the third night we were there (Valentines night no less) the bathroom flooded.  It didn’t seem like a big deal at first and Em waded in with towels to soak up the water, but then I noticed that the small patio out the back of the cottage was littered with foul water and toilet roll.  So my mild annoyance quickly turned into well managed panic as I ran through the cottage yelling ‘GET OUT, GET OUT’ at my confused wife. 

The extremely lovely agents who manage the cottage we were in put us up in their own house for the night, and then moved us to a new cottage.  It turns out the entire row of cottages shares a single waste pipe, and later that night I drove past the cottage and the entire row (and a nearby pub) was busy with water-board trucks and plumbers vans, so it looks like we got out in the nick of time!

We both managed the situation with a clear-headed logical (and reasonable) urgency, with no anxious panic or muddled thinking, hopefully this state of mind will continue throughout our pregnancy, but I somehow doubt it, we’re only human after all.

A plea for my plums

“Ha ha, you’re going to get kicked in the nuts!” ejaculated my darling wife, totally out of the blue.

This alarming claim didn’t shock me quite as much as you might think it would, you see my testicles have been on my mind quite a bit of late. I know that might not be news to anyone who has ever been a man, been in a relationship with a man, or even seen a photo of a man, but there have recently been ominous omens pointing to the he fact that genital discourtesy’s may be a routine part of fatherhood.

Like most men I learnt at an early age to do whatever it takes to avoid any harm coming to my plums, and if memory serves me (and believe me, getting hit in the cags for first time isn’t the sort of thing one forgets) I was was running along holding a long stick in front of me and horribly misjudged the flatness of the path in front of me...

Over the years I have also learned the hard way how easily harm can come to my cobblers, and I’ve learned things like not jump onto my bicycle seat too fast, to make sure my feet don’t slip off the pedals when cycling down steep hills and to avoid the biggest threat to childhood genitalia (for those of us growing up in the 1970s and 80s) the gear lever on the crossbar of a Raleigh Chopper. But not all threats to my ahem, ‘productivity’ have been bike related; I learned at a very early stage in our relationship never to ask Em to throw me anything. Ever. Being a bassist also has its risks, but I won’t trouble you with them now, I don’t want you to think I’m obsessed by my testicles or anything...

So you’re getting the idea here - I’ve spent thirty four years trying to protect two friends who are very dear to me, and I thought I was getting a pretty good handle on the threats there are out there (and there are many), I hadn’t ever considered that my own flesh and blood might be the cause of plum pulverisation. But two of the parenting books I’ve read in preparation for this baby (‘Parenting made difficult’ by Phil Hogan, and ‘Punk Rock Dad’ by Pennywise frontman Jim Lindberg) both warn against parenting related gonad pouch punishment. I was particularly alarmed by the mention of getting a kick in the nuts in the Punk Rock Dad book because I’m only a few pages in so far. I assume the urgency in which Mr.Lindberg mentions his kids accidentally striking his stuff means it’s a very real and serious threat!

So a pedant might argue that now Em is pregnant my plums have played their part, but until a doctor takes them in hand and gives me the snip I’d really rather avoid the need to have them exposed in a medical environment thank you very much!

Kyuss, meet your future.

This weekend we had my dear mum staying with us (dad was off chasing steam trains in Poland), and after an afternoon wandering around looking at snowdrops at Anglesea Abbey (the flowers not, the frozen water type of snowdrops) we settled down for a Saturday evening of doing nothing much at all.  While I was reading a National Trust information board at Anglesea Abbey I learned that the former owner had the rather marvelous christian name  ‘Huttleston’, which Em immediately vetoed as a possible name for our baby.  But she’s not an unreasonable lass, and you’re about to find out...

My mum is tee-total (remarkable given the stress of raising me) and Em can’t drink (because she’s full of baby), but both insisted that I enjoy a tipple or two.  I cracked open a bottle and showed great restraint, even although I’m now drinking for two.

Long story short (you’ll be relieved to know) we got to talking about baby names, and then looking them up in a baby names book that a single male friend of ours had for some reason.  It’s important to check that ones progeny’s name doesn’t mean anything too bizarre, because giving your younguns a silly name that will get them picked on at school because it rhymes with something like ‘poo’ is one thing, but bestowing a name that officially means something like ‘eats poo’ is pushing your luck.  We were most amused to learn that ‘Cameron’ means ‘crooked nose’, who knew!

I like the idea of using a name from the Old Testament, but Meshack, Shadrack and Abednego were vetoed, as wereMethuselah, Boaz and Abimelch, although Eli and Caleb got some nods from Em and my mum.

I was starting to think of sensible names like ‘Orwell’ and ‘Lloyd’ when Em threw a total curveball into the mix,
“How about ‘Kyuss’ as a boy’s name?”
Well yes, that’s amazing, especially because ‘Kyuss’ is the name of one of the best bands ever to have existed!  But she got scared, and I saw reason and agreed we’d drop Kyuss as a suggestion.

The night ended with me drinking some stale port that I found in the back of the cupboard, and everyone agreeing that we’d leave the names debate for another time.  But if our baby is reading this in the future you should probably know that you were nearly called Kyuss, and whatever we end up calling you might be pleased to know that Kyuss was one of the more sensible suggestions!