Broken Blog

So, a few weeks ago, there was a catastrophe in rockmama serverland. Although I feel lucky that some of my other on-line endeavors survived at ALL, Prawn Cocktail (Soon to become Seafood Cocktail) has been a bit borked ever since as all of the images were stored on the unfortunately deceased hard drive. So, until I come up with a better design, this rather minimalist approach will have to do.

26 weeks and all seems to be well. I had my swine flu jab without incident; although I determinedly sought the "safe" vaccine from at least 6 different sources, I was rather crossly denied at every turn. "If you're not allergic to eggs, tough toenails," was pretty much the stock response. However, today my sister-in- law (who visits the same doctor at the same surgery, is only 3 weeks ahead of me in pregnancy and isn't allergic to eggs either) informed me that she was offered it without even asking, but PLEASE DON'T GET ME STARTED because lord knows my acid reflux is already about as bad as it can possibly be bar me helping it along with the consumption of fizzy drinks, spicy food and the contents of a car battery.

Squid is wriggly more than not. The Prawn was a fairly lazy womb dweller, often necessitating the deployment of the Prawn Detection Device (my home doppler) to make sure that she was still ticking along nicely in there. The Squid leaves no illusions as to her status with frequent jabs to my already delicate stomach and bladder at all hours of the day and night. Since the Prawn has been anything BUT lazy on the outside, perhaps The Squid will be a more relaxed and chilled out soul once in the world.

The Prawn, of late, has become a rather hellacious toddler, which, I'm lead to believe is what toddlers are meant to do, although when taking a screaming, kicking wildcat into her room for the 4th time in one day, you can't help but feel that maybe you are Doing Something Wrong. She has, however, been quite sweet about the pregnancy. (not quite sweet enough not to act up in public, but still.) She talks to Squid through my belly button.

"Hello baby! Is it comfy in there?"

She also likes to prod her father's belly and inform him that while mummy has a baby in her belly, he merely has biscuits.

I don't have any illusions about the Prawn grasping the concept of what "being a big sister" or "having a baby" actually MEAN at this point. The baby is an abstract, very different from the screaming, wrinkled little person that will be coming to stay FOREVER AND EVER at the end of March, right near her birthday. (It is completely possible that Squid and Prawn could SHARE a birthday, which might cause rumpuses later on in life.) I hope that she will accept the arrival with good grace, although, at the moment, virtually NOTHING she does is with good grace, so I'm not holding my breath. Perhaps more calm will descend the closer to 3 she gets. Or perhaps not.

Our first step toward our big move across the ocean has finally been taken; we have submitted our preliminary paperwork to get Mr. DD a green card. It is slightly dis-spiriting to see the excruciatingly slow "now serving" ticker on the website of the embassy, but knowing that our petition is finally in the system is a relief. We hope the interview process won't be utterly terrifying. I must soon start thinking about making an appointment to get the same process underway for the Prawn (more straightforward, since, as my offspring, she's entitled to US citizenship) so I can have some idea of how long it will take for the Squid.

Further updates as event warrant!