Tag: The Peanut

What’s new and exciting in the world of Richard and Katy

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It’s been a while since I last posted something more meaningful than an article lamenting the decline of the US (still, there’s lots to lament). I have actual, honest-to-goodness content to post today, so I might as well get started.

Katy’s started coming on campus to have lunch with me a few times a week. It gets her out of her PJs and gives her the occasion to see Stephane and Sheila once in a while.

We went to the NCT nearly new sale two Sundays ago and got the last bits of baby clothing we wanted (mostly some sleep suits and something suitable for what passes for winter in this country). After the chaos that was the sale (imagine a few hundred mommies vying to get the best bargains in enclosed spaces – I’m surprised there wasn’t any bloodshed!), we went to Saffron Walden for a late lunch. We tried Dish, a place we’d walked by countless times before but finally decided to go in. We were happily surprised. The decor tries a bit too hard to be jazzy and stylish, but the food is fresh, tasty and they even catered to my various allergies without batting an eye.

We saw a hedgehog on the neighbour’s doorstep one evening last week. It was cute and spiky and wanted to be left alone, so we did.

Katy spent another long Tuesday at Addenbrookes, getting poked, prodded and smeared in ultrasound jelly. The good news is that her blood pressure seems to be stabilizing, as are her liver enzymes. The less good news is that her blood sugars are still all over the place and aren’t even considering playing nice. It seems that the more insulin they put her on, the worse off her sugar levels get. It makes no sense… We’re going to have a long, hard chat with the diabetic clinic midwives tomorrow to figure out what options we have. Katy’s almost taking more insulin than her mom, which is wrong on so many levels it defies description. On the upside though, Ben is still dancing the rumba on a daily basis so he seems to be doing fine.

We got the all-clear from Addenbrookes to go see Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall last Thursday evening. I’d taken Thursday and Friday off so we could take our time getting there and back. Turns out that Phil, a work colleague, was able to give us a lift to London in the afternoon because he and his missus also had tickets to go see the show.

It had taken me the better part of a day to get the tickets when they first went on sale (and the website melted down!) but it was so, so worth it! We were 6 rows from the stage! Most excellent :) The show was great and we’ll be buying it as soon as it comes out on DVD.

We had an al fresco picnic in the courtyard of the RAH before the show – chicken drumsticks, sausages, bread, cheese, olives and home-made coleslaw. All very yummy, but the experience would have been more pleasant if not the fact that we were freezing our butts off :)

We had a show pootle back to the hotel after the show. 20 Nevern Square is, by far, our favouritest hotel in London. The rooms are great (especially given the fact that they upgraded us to a suite both times we’ve been there) and the breakfast is kick-ass. We’d planned to go to the British Museum and the V&A on Friday but Katy was feeling less than stellar, so we headed back to Cambs on the train.

As you can see, Katy was tired and I was despairing at my ever-advancing hair loss.

We were expecting Lennart, Leen and their son Reuben for Sunday lunch, so we spent most of Saturday cleaning house and prepping culinary delights. I made a ham and roasted a chicken. I haven’t been impressed with the quality of the chickens Tesco is selling these days, so the menu changed from roast chicken to chicken, mushroom & bacon pie. It was very well received :) We spent a very nice afternoon talking about babies and cats.

Speaking of cats, our two are becoming increasingly clingy these days. Surprisingly so!

No, I don’t have a night-vision camera (but I do have Photoshop).

They had their first baby experience last night when Reuben was in a bouncy chair on the kitchen floor. Tolstoy was curious enough to try and sniff the strange creature, but his natural courage quickly reasserted itself and he scampered underneath the kitchen table.

This week sees us at Addenbrookes again on Tuesday, and then we continue our Christmas shopping. We’re getting it done early for several reasons, most notably because Katy is still on full pay at the moment and we want to get it done before Ben shows up :) We’re doing the bulk of it online – yay, internet shopping! We’re going to go to Scottsdale garden centre on the weekend to see their xmas display though. That’s always fun.

Oh, and I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – can I be a spoiled rotten cat in my next life, please?

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Post-partum in the male of the species?

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Rob Sandler comforted his infant son as he lifted him out of the crib, cooing in his ear while he walked to the living room. “Something didn’t feel right,” says Rob Sandler, who developed a male version of postpartum depression.

If his baby had needed to be soothed three months ago, Sandler, 36, of Houston, Texas, might have handed the baby off to his wife and then found an excuse to leave the house. “Honestly, it felt like when I was at home, the walls became very, very close in. I wouldn’t say claustrophobic, but very cabin feverish,” Sandler said. It turned out that Sandler, a medical device salesman, had more than cabin fever. He recently got an official diagnosis: He has a male version of postpartum depression.

“This comes as quite a shock to men who are expecting this wonderful time of baby bliss with the new baby and a time of bonding,” said Will Courtenay, a San Francisco, California-based psychotherapist and founder of Saddaddy.com, who is a leading expert in the United States on paternal postnatal depression.

“Each day in the U.S., 1,000 new dads become depressed, and according to some studies that number is as high as 3,000. That’s as many as one in four news dads who become depressed.”

“We hear this from a lot of men,” Courtenay said. “They can’t stand to be around their baby…they can’t stand the smell or the sound of their child screaming.” Video Health Minute: Watch more on dads and postpartum depression »

Courtenay said a number of factors may cause the depressed feelings. “It’s likely that sleep deprivation plays a major role,” he said. “Hormones may also play a role.” According to Courtenay, “It’s a double whammy. Not only do our testosterone levels go down, but our estrogen levels go up and these female hormones coursing through our body can really wreak havoc on a man’s functioning.” Although experts aren’t exactly sure, they theorize that these fluctuations may be similar to “sympathy pains” that individuals feel when someone they’re close to is hurting.

Male postpartum depression is different from the “daddy blues,” he said. The signs of full-blown depression are usually more severe and last longer. Some of the symptoms of postpartum depression are the same as those for generalized depression, such as sadness, a sense of worthlessness and a loss of interest in sex or hobbies. A rocky relationship with a spouse, a sick or colicky baby, anxiety about becoming a father and a history of depression can also contribute to the condition.

Courtenay mentioned one of the best predictors of whether a man will become depressed is if his spouse is depressed. “Half of all men whose partner has postpartum depression are depressed themselves,” Courtenay said. Men are also more likely to hide their depression from loved ones, he added.

Sandler’s symptoms began not long after his son Asher’s birth in June. “Something didn’t feel right,” he remembered. “I felt like a lot of loss of control of my life…a feeling of trappedness came over me and it would not lighten up. It kept getting worse and worse as the days went on.”

Sandler said he would make excuses to get out of the house. “Simple errands to the store that would maybe last 30 minutes were now lasting an hour,” he recalled. Sandler’s wife Traci, 38, who was recovering from a Caesarean section at the time, recognized something was wrong almost immediately. “At first I wanted to slap him across the face,” she said. “But he said ‘this is not normal’ and he realized he needed help.”

When his baby was about 3 weeks old, Rob Sandler went to see a psychologist and then a psychiatrist. Sandler credited twice-weekly counseling sessions and a daily dose of an antidepressant with helping him turn the corner.

Left untreated, mood disorders often worsen, Courtenay said. “If a man doesn’t get effective treatment for his depression, it could have damaging, long-term consequences for himself, his marriage, his career and his child.”

He suggested there are several ways for new fathers to try to prevent postpartum depression. Courtenay recommended that men with a history of depression see a mental health professional before the birth of a child to work through any issues that are causing stress and anxiety. Similarly, he told couples to seek marital counseling ahead of time if they’re having trouble communicating. Financial responsibilities also can fuel pressure in new dads. Courtenay said couples should evaluate monetary resources before a new baby arrives.

Rob Sandler revealed he felt similar worries as the sole breadwinner of the family.

He admitted he still gets overwhelmed at times, but now that he’s received treatment he’s feeling much better and described the emotional difference as “night and day.”

“Now I see myself wanting to come home earlier and spend time with [the baby],” Sandler said. “Whereas before I was running from it, now I kind of want to go back and be part of it.”

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What’s been happening in the last little while

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A lot of stuff happened since the last time I wrote. Let’s see…

Katy and I went to the Pub to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Since it was a special occasion, we went he rules a bit and Katy indulged in her first naughty pudding in ages.

The Sky engineer came on Friday morning to install our shiny new Sky+HD box. This means that we can now timeshift our favourite shows, pause live tv and watch the HD channels on our shiny new tv :) The whole thing started when we wanted to get a regular Sky+ box to record shows but were unable to order one because the website melted down. We could order an HD box, but then we realized that our old tv didn’t have the right connectors to take advantage of the full HD experience. It provided us with the perfect opportunity to get rid of our old tv and get a new one with a much happier disposition. What’s impressive is that the new one is bigger, better and cost almost a third less than our original one. Yay, progress.

We went to Leicester this past weekend to go see Katy’s folks and meet up with Pam. It was a fun morning and she gave us a ton of baby clothes. We should be set for the next little while :) Mel was in full grumpy old man mode. We think that the whole heart bypass experience wasn’t what he expected. He’s getting better, but is still limited in what he can do and it’s starting to piss him off. He cant stand doing nothing and is bored, and therefore grumpy. Katy took the opportunity to get most of her mane chopped off and restyled. She’s happy with the result and so am I. It means that her hair won’t try and smother me in my sleep anymore.

We were finally able to take Tolstoy to the vets last night. He was due for his annual checkup and booster shots weeks ago, but between all of Katy’s trips to the hospital, we were never able to get it done. Of course the charming animal took that day to come in covered in sticky seed pods. As in, he was a giant hair tangle from head to tail tip. The vet was impressed at his phlegmatic response to being held and partially shaved. Normally, cats need to be fully sedated under a general anesthetic when they’re dematted and shaved. Our boy did it sober and didn’t even raise a fuss. We expected him to bugger off and disappear and sulk for a day or so. We did not expect him to turn into a man-whore that night!

Tolstoy, at best, tolerates our presence and treats us with generalized disdain. He’ll deign to be in the same room as us but doesn’t like to be held or fussed on. Last night? He jumped on the bed(!), sprawled on my chest (!!) and spent most of the night sleeping on the bed (!!!). This is unheard-of behaviour. I mean, having Reenie jump all over us and sleep with us is not a biggie these days. But Tolstoy? wow!

Katy and I didn’t sleep well though. We both went to bed with a case of man flu. It came on in the early evening and just got a bit unpleasant. Sore throat and stuffy-and-runny noses. Made for some cracking snoring from Katy. It’s better today though. We’re making sure to keep well hydrated, and advil/tylenol keeps the aches at bay.

We went to Addenbrookes today for Katy’s scans and various clinics. Ben has been very active in the last few days. This is a good thing, because it’s the best sign that all is generally well, but it has the less pleasant side-effect of making it hard for Katy to get a full night’s sleep. The scan shows that Ben has gotten bigger. He’s now at the top-range of normal and is 2.2 kg. The diabetic clinic nurses have told Katy to increase her insulin levels because he’s putting on a bit too much weight so it’s going to be important to keep an even closer watch to her sugar levels. A bit of good news: her liver levels seem to be settling. They were lower today than at the last reading last week.

We had a bit of a scare with her blood pressure, which was at 160/113 but when we went to the MFAU to get serial blood pressure checks, we got 5 readings at or around 120/75. Katy’s blood pressure has always been nothing if not erratic, but we even asked the midwife to take a manual reading to confirm the good news and it was 120/80. Go fiigure… The good news is that she didn’t need to get admitted today :)

Hopefully, things will continue in this trend and we won’t have any issues to go see Bill Bailey in London next week!!

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Feeling much better now

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I did something really stupid today. I knew it was a bad idea, but that apparently didn’t stop me from doing it. I went online and read up about the possible complications of liver failure in pregnancy and all the possible physical, developmental and psychological problems that can be associated with being born a preemie. The liver pathologies are not nice. One can actually involve your liver, how to say it, exploding internally. Messy. The general consensus about those worst-case scenarios is that they are not very nice. When I left the office to go to Addenbrookes, I was a bit of a mess. Katy had one look at me and got one of the midwives to yell at me (figuratively speaking). I have just enough medical knowledge to be dangerous :)

Turns out that the worst-case scenarios are also rare, and are the result of what happens when you catch them at the last possible moment (or don’t catch them at all). I re-read my previous blog entries and they do sound a bit melodramatic. Katy is not at death’s door. As a matter of fact, she’s doing ok. Ben is still a very active baby and Katy isn’t feeling out of sorts at all (unless you factor in being bored). The worst thing she currently has is high blood pressure. It spiked up earlier today and gave her blurry vision for 10-15 minutes but then everything went back to normal by itself and her BP was normal-ish while I was there. The midwife thinks that her high pressure might be putting some stress on her liver, which might explain the elevated enzyme readings, but it doesn’t seem to be anything nastier than that at the moment. Her bile acids results came in tonight and are normal, which means that it’s not one of the more common potential liver nasties. They’re keeping in her for another 48 hours at least to do more bloods and more BP checks.

Like the midwife said, it’s a watch and wait game. If her liver functions remain high-ish but don’t get worse and her blood pressure stabilizes, there is a good chance of Ben going to full term. She’s going to be well monitored and, at the first sign of trouble, they’ll deal appropriately. She said that there have been cases where one blood test after dozens of normal ones kicks-starts the whole process into high gear. Watch and wait.

For now, all is well. Nothing bad has happened and lots of good people are working hard to keep it that way. I have also been banned from reading medical websites on the Internet, but Katy says that I can browse for porn instead. Have I mentioned that I love my wife recently?

Cause I do.

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Update on Katy

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I’ve just gotten a phone call from Katy. Her liver function test came back and it was worse off than yesterday so that means it’s not the meds causing it. We’re now down to two options, one bad and one worse.

Poo, I say.

They’re going to keep her for observation and more tests until they have a better idea what’s the cause and what’s the best course of action.

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I will need to have words with my son.

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Katy was readmitted to Addenbrookes today.

Her blood pressure had started creeping back up when she had her ante-natal clinic appointment on Tuesday, so they told her to increase her meds from 3 times a day to 4 times a day. They also took some blood samples to run a few tests. She was to come back today for the results. They were less than pleasing. It would appear that her liver function is being impaired. This can be one of three things.

The best case scenario is that this is simply the appearance of a known potential side-effect of her blood pressure meds. They have switched her onto new meds to see if this makes the problem go away. The medium case scenario is that this is a known potential complication of pregnancy and they’re doing some more specific blood tests to check on this. This can be treated fairly easily and is not a problem. We should have the results in about a week. The worst-case scenario is that the liver problems are a symptom of pre-eclampsia. That would be very bad. That would mean that they’d monitor her on a daily basis and at the first sign of distress to her or Ben, she’d be induced or have a c-section. Her due date is at the end of November and it seems highly unlikely that she’ll make it full term.

*sigh*

We’re mostly keeping a positive attitude about the whole thing, or at least we’re trying to. Nothing bad has happened yet and people are working very hard to keep it that way. Still, it’s not the easiest thing to do to keep from fretting. I don’t know what I’d do without Katy. I know it sounds a bit dramatic saying that, but … I’ll admit being scared about the whole thing and not be able to do a damn thing about it. Sometimes, tea just can’t fix it.

The one thing that does comfort me is that she’s exactly where she needs to be to get the best care possible. Addenbrookes is a very good hospital and she’s in the system. She’s being monitored very closely and they seem on top of things to catch things early enough to be able to deal with them gently rather than at a stage where aggressive treatments would be required. That does help a lot in easing the anxiety.

And there is still tea. And kittens. Those help too.

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Free at last

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Katy was discharged from the hospital Thursday evening and we spent Friday doing mostly fuck all, though I did manage to get some house work done. The docs are happy that her blood pressure meds seem to be working adequately, though we had to go to Addenbrookes again this morning before heading to Leicester. Her blood pressure is happily stable. She’s going to need to have it checked weekly for now, though the midwifes have warned her that they will most probably need to fiddle with the dosages in the future because her blood pressure is most likely going to increase again, which will mean she’ll need to be re-admitted for more observation when that happens.

On the diet-side, we’re still figuring out what we can and can’t eat. Shreddies and salads good, jacket potatoes ok, bread bad. Anything with too much flour – even whole wheat – will increase her blood glucose to annoyingly elevated levels. Our diet is good. We’re eating all the things we should be. We’ll wait and see what the diabetes nurses have to say.

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Week in review – things did not go according to plan

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It’s been a busy couple of days, it has. We were in Leicester last weekend to meet up with Anna and Rho, who had come from Manchester to catch up with Katy. That was a fun morning – those two are always good for a laugh. Rhona always seems to be complaining about something in a very loud and emphatic sort of way. Always makes me giggle.

The cot bed we wanted was finally back in stock at Ikea so Mel and Stu did a run up to Nottingham on Friday to avoid the madness that is Ikea on a sunny Saturday. We might have made a convert of Stu, who seems to have seen a table he likes in there. Yay, Ikea :)

This means that we now have all the big furniture pieces that we wanted for the nursery and we now simply need to build stuff and put everything in its final place.

We had a lazy Sunday morning. Katy had a lay-in and then proceeded to get pissy with the impossible puzzle we’d gotten for Mel’s last-last birthday. He’s been working at it for over a year (and has just informed us that he’s wimped out, admitted defeat and broken it down). I was, to be honest, bored senseless for most of the day.

While the world was shitting its collective pair of pants on Meltdown Monday, I was experiencing Migraine Monday, so I didn’t go into work and spent the morning in bed. I was feeling better by the afternoon so I started building furniture. I must admit that Mothercare flat-pack furniture is not up to Ikea standards. There is one bolt that doesn’t want to screw in and it’s pissing me off.  It is offensive in my sight  because the whole crib seems rickety because of it. I’m going to go to B&Q to get another bolt and see if that helps. If not, I’ll just use nice, large wood screws. Esthetics be damned, I want the thing secure :)

Katy had an appointment at the antenatal diabetic clinic on Tuesday. Her blood tests the previous weeks had indicated that she had gestational diabetes. Given that she’s a big girl, is Asian and has a family history of diabetes, this wasn’t unexpected. The good news is that the dietician said that our diet was already very much on the good track (complex carbs, lean proteins, lots of fruit & veg). The bad news is that she has now cut Katy off from any processed or refined sugar until Ben is born. This is, for those who know Katy, very bad news indeed. At least it’s only for a few months, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition though, and Katy’s blood pressure really threw a spanner in the works. It’s been borderline for weeks now and never seemed to make up its mind if it was high or normal. The doctors finally decided that enough was enough and told Katy that she was going to be admitted for observation and possibly put on medication. The timing of this was, in our opinion, possibly the worst time possible. We hadn’t planned for this, so Katy only had the clothes on her back and nothing else. I also had to get the car out of the Park & Ride parking and back home to avoid from getting it clamped – an interesting feat given that I can’t drive. In the end, I called some lads from work, who picked the car and myself up from the Park & Ride and drove us both home. Michael, the pinch-driver, had a bit of fun getting used to a right-hand drive car, but got us home safely. It’s interesting to note that we might be seeing him on Thursday when his partner is being admitted to the same ward as Katy to get her twins induced.

I had time to pack an overnight bag for Katy while I waited for Tesco to deliver our groceries. I managed to get a lift back to the hospital in the evening and spent time with my very bored wife and her new friend, Felix the serial blood pressure machine. She named it because she figured that shed probably get to be really well acquainted with it.

I stopped by the office to talk with the powers that be and, in the process, pick up the two parcels that my mom had shipped to us from Canada. It seems that everybody had been commenting about the 62$ worth of stamps affixed on the parcels :) I need to bring them back into work for somebody’s collection next week.

The plan now is to take regular blood pressure readings to establish a baseline and see if the meds they’ve prescribed lower it enough to get to a stable level they’re happy with, but not too low. I’ve loaded her up with grapes and strawberries, oat biscuits she’s allowed to eat and enough trashy magazines to rot her brain multiple times over. My boss has given me carte blanche to spend time with her at the hospital so I won’t be getting much work done this week. Having said that, if I were at the office, I doubt I’d be getting anything done, really.

Most of today was spent trying to find ways to kill time. I went out and got myself fish & chips for dinner – something that I’m still regretting hours later because it’s sitting like a lead balloon in my gut and giving me all sorts of unholy gas.

The good news is that the meds seem to be wanting to work in the right direction. The bad news is that they need to tweak the dosage and/or timing of the doses – which means that Katy will probably need to spend another day in observation. This does not make her happy. She’s getting to the point where she just wants to come home and relax in familiar surroundings, with the cats (who are being right little attention whores at the moment – Reenie is sleeping on the couch with her head on my foot as i type this).

We both know that this is the right thing to do and the right time for it. Spending a few uncomfortable days now could potentially save lots of hassle later on if we did nothing and things went pear-shaped and required more aggressive treatment in the future. It still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pain in the ass and it would have been even better to have been able to avoid the issue altogether.

Like the song says thouggh, you can’t always get what you want.

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A nice way to spend the day

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Katy and I went to Bury St-Edmunds yesterday to have the car serviced and MOT’ed. It cost us roughly double what we were quoted, but what can you do. At least we now have a new set of front brakes and a new pollen filter for the AC and the hand brake actually feels connected to something.

While the car was being worked on, we went walkies in the city center. Bury has a nice outdoor market that I could very easily see myself use and abuse if we lived there. We also bought yet more stuff for the nursery, though it was mostly decorations and cuddly toys this time. We’re horrible ;) We bought a bunch of short sleeved & long sleeved jumpsuits, a bath mitten (that Katy has waaay too much fun with in the store), a plush rabbit that just jumped in our hands and we couldn’t put back on the shelf (honest!)

We had lunch at Brasserie Chez Gerard and then picked up the car and drove back home. We had sloppy joe submarines for dinner and then spent the evening clearing out unused stuff from out kitchen and reorganizing everything. The house is starting to get to a point where it’s almost junk free (we’re giving away a ton of schmutz to charity shops). All we need to do now is to build the last bits of furniture and then we can start putting the final touches on the nursery :)

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Do you think we have enough stuff?

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This past weekend was a busy one for Katy and I.

I’d taken Friday off so that we could be in Leicester early in the morning. Mel had rented a van so that we could go to Ikea and buy some nursery-related stuff and a new bed to keep in Leicester. The futon we were using in Leics is now too low to the ground and Katy can’t get in and out of it easily these days, so we decided to get a proper bed. The plan was to go to do a Leics – Ikea run to get the stuff, dump the bed out in Leicester, load the futon and some other things that needed selling, bring them down to Cambridge to dump them at our house, then drive back to Leicester and go build the bed. It was a looooooooong day :) I’d already sold the futon and Katy’s old television to people at work, so that’ll help cover some of the costs. We also got an insurance refund for the vet fees from last month, which will also help.

It’ll still be an expensive month though, cause we spent £400 at Ikea, and another £450 at Mothercare. This past weekend was when we really kitted out the nursery. We bought the crib that we’ll be using for the first few months in the bedroom, as well as a mattress, some sheets and two sleeping bags. We also bought a bottle kit with sterilizer, bottles, brushes, teats and a bottle warmer. That’s going to live in the kitchen. We bought some bath and bathroom stuff and some towels. We got a travel cot for when we come to see Katy’s folks. The only thing that we wanted to get but didn’t was the car seat. We’d originally wanted to get one that would be big enough to last for the first 4 years and, though the website said that it should have fit in the Corolla, it didn’t. The seatbelts were just a bit too short to secure it properly. This is a known thing with the car model because there are so many variants of it and they’re all just slightly different from one another. Blergh. We ended up just buying a 0-9month car seat that will double as a carrier. We can get the bigger one later. It should fit correctly when it’s forward-facing.

All in all though, I’m happy with our purchases. We’ve made judicious use of our coupons and we’re actually under budget for what we wanted to get. It really hits home though that we have absolutely no idea what we’re doing. We spent about 30 minutes in the bedding section looking things over and wondering what we should get, and how much of it. How many blankets does a baby need? I don’t know!!!!! (5 exclamation marks, a sure sign of a sick mind!)

Seriously, it’s starting to get a bit overwhelming. Katy stops work in just over 6 weeks and the Peanut is due in less than 3 months and we are so, so clueless as to what will happen and how we’ll do it. We keep saying to ourselves that as long as we’re together, everything is going to be ok. Usually, when one starts to freak out, the other steps in with the mantra. Hopefully, we never need to find out what happens when/if we both freak out together :)

I’m rather annoyed with Katy’s parents at the minute. It would seem that they think our house is a tip at the moment. Katy’s dad said that to her mom after dropping the stuff off on Friday. I resent him saying that. We aren’t in the position they are. He’s retired and spends an inordinate amount of time and energy keeping the house to a stupidly high level of cleanliness that I not only wouldn’t want to maintain but actually find oppressing at times. These are people who rinse out every pot, pan, plate and cutlery item before it goes in the dishwasher. We’ve actually seen them wipe down the inside of the dishwasher – BEFORE they put it on. So yes. I’ll grant that our house is cluttered, it needs a good vacuuming to get rid of the cat hair on the carpets and there are dishes in the sink. So what? There’s nothing suspicious growing in dark corners slowly evolving towards sentience. There’s dust, but there’s no dinge or dirt. It’s nothing that a good day’s cleaning won’t sort out. But you know what? Between the pregnancy and all the associated stress, all the stuff we need to do and our desire to spend time together, keeping house is relegated to the bottom of the todo list and I don’t want people nagging us and passing judgement about it.

On a brighter note, I got my picture taken for my new passport on Saturday and I’m happy to report that I actually look good on it! For once, if all goes well, I will have a photo ID where I don’t look like I’m a serial killer recently escaped from a mental institute!

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