At 1 month I can already.....

1. Open my eyes wide open and focus on something

2. Throw a total tantrum to manipulate my dad to pick me up and rock me to sleep on his chest

3. Cry real, heartfelt, watery tears

4. Project poo and pee about 50-100 cm against the wall (said wall has had to be washed twice. Im only  a wee little girl and i'm already defying gender barriers and doing things only boys usually do).

5. Facetime. I facetime a lot. I'm the queen of video calling.

6. Make funny little noises when I sleep. My daddy calls them elephant noises. My mum just stays awake to listen to them in delight and she giggles.

7. I am pretty social. People like holding and cuddling me and i'm totally ok with that.

Whitney Houston was wrong! Dead wrong!

On April 30th my daughter was born.

I'm one of those who believes in preparation. I'm always prepared, or at least I always try to be. I'm a control freak, and I believe careful planning and preparation make life that much easier. And so for nearly 40 weeks I prepared. I prepared for what was coming along, and I projected all sorts of scenarios. Whatever was gonna happen i knew it all -  i had read about it, researched, bought the ticket, got the t-shirt.

But it turns out I was not prepared for what was gonna happen to me on April 30th at 22h14m. When they handed her to me I became an animal. What happen was beyond all rationality - it was The Greatest Love of all. And this is why i think Whitney Houston was full of shit. The Greatest love of all is not the one I found inside of me, but rather the love for my daughter. One can feel many loves in life. Each of these loves can have different intensities and last for different periods. But now I believe that true love, unconditional love for a person, that is one we can only experience for  our children. There is no other tie like this.

Pregnancy = stupidity

Living proof that pregnancy damages your brain:
I arrived home and picked up my blackberry to log on to work remotely.
I lost my blackerry.
I searched for it everywhere. Everywhere. Nearly called IT to cancel it.
I had to send an email from my personal account to my boss with the work which was due.
3 hours later my husband finds a blackberry in the loo.

Sara Blakely you are my hero and you deserve an Oscar!

Sara Blakely really is a life saver.
After saving my wedding day and my wedding dress with SPANX, not to mention countless work meetings, cocktail events and black tie dos. Now she is saving my pregnancy - I discovered the Power Mama. And my life will never be the same. So much so that I had to facetime my mum just to show her the look (and obviously kick my husband out of the room, cos God forbid he sees me not only looking like a whale, but also wearing control underpants!

Nursery

After several months of stalling, i finally started working on the nursery. And am very happy to report that i wont even need to buy anything - just a bit of reshape and revarnish on a few items of furniture. We were very fortunate to be given a full set of nursery furniture from some close friends of ours, just need to get them the right colour now.....

Am thinking somewhere along these greys:

Im so excited!

Things that scare me

I have to confess I am very scared of what's to come. Some of my worries have died off a bit, some have increased. And it's not labour itself, it is more about the child. And the fact that you have no control over what will come out. In case you are wondering, Yes, my name is CK and im a control freak. I dont have a single day in which id not freak about something - it is just in me, I promise. Loss of control makes me very nervous.

Anyhow, i know this list will grow, but for now here are some of the things that frighten me (and i do note how superficial these all are!)

1. What if the child is as difficult as the mother, or even worse, her father?

2. What if this kid is lazy, doesn't work as hard as either of us?

3. What if I don't bond with the kid from the first moment? I mean, my grandmother, who was a saint, and who would not walk in the street with my mum without grabbing her arm (thats how possessive we are in this family), yes that saint of a lady, bless her heart, told me one day, many years ago " your mother, when she was borne, she was sooooo ugly, she had been born with a ventouse so her head was a bit weird" or another pearl " your mother screamed her head off so much, somedays i though shall i through her off the window". Thank God she never did, and thank God for her sense of humour and her long life (she lived to 90). This also came from the lady who advised me to wear neck mosturiser from very early age. She always knew better!

4. What if the kid wants a pink freaking tutu? What if her favourite colour is pink, shall i just shoot my brains?

5. If the kid is hit by another kid in kindergarten , how do you not tell her to hit the hell of the other little bugger? (Bad, bad mother, I know)

6. What if the kid doesnt like photography????

7. (Worst than 6) what if she does like it , but she shoots Nikon rather than Canon? (Can I send her back please?)

8. Oh God please make this kid like cats. Otherwise i may have to send the kid back, which may be a bit of a problem.

This is all very consuming.....

Men

One of the wonderful things that has happened to me since I told people I was pregnant, was the reaction of my male colleagues and clients. Some of my clients know better than me how far along I am ( i mean they know the week!). Some others have put delivery alarms on their smart phones for C's push date.

And then there are those comments:

- "Oh thats wonderful news. One piece of advice, have a planned c-section"

- " Have you decided if you are gonna have natural or a scheduled c-section? My advice - c-section all the way, we were too posh to push"

- " Oh this weekend i tripped on a step and it was horrible, so much pain, pain like I've never experienced before. Pain like you will know in a few months time"

- (this one from my husband, when i feel cramps cos the baby is stepping on some body part of mine which therefore refuses to move - like a hip or something) - "trust me, i know exactly how you feel" (if you were wondering on the answer it involved and F and an Off and it was not Fudge OFF!

And so on and so on....

An in this context i found this pearl on Youtube and I had to share it....