We're BROOKING NO ARGUMENT for easy and blooming pregnancies and pain free sneeze births (part 9)

[scarletfingernail]

Here we go again.......

Thanks everyone! Yes scream I found it bizarre that the GP didn't run a pg test and the MW took my word for it?!

Your camera sounds ace, I'm well-jel as they say on daytime TV Just in time for the nice outdoorsy weather, too.

A few weeks before I knew I was pg, Too, there was this item on BBC News about how 2012 was the Chinese Year of The Dragon, and dragon children are apparently super lucky - to the point where China currently has a pg boom and is expecting to not be able to fit all the birthing women into maternity units so DH calls ours DragonBaby and DragonFruit (coz I've been telling him what size fruit the baby is each week :o )

Oooo Too good work detecting the bf lady! I's great that you've got an "in" with the local Mummies now! Yay for finding the post office as well, it sounds a lot like the post office near my parents' house - equally hidden and secretive!

Hooray also for Maia giving you a chance to sleep! Excellent No Brooker baby consideration there!

Thanks for the comments about the car as well! DH wasn't overly impressed when my preference for a specific colour for our new (2nd hand) car ended up adding a few hundred to the price tag... I maintain that we will recoup the money in reduced cleaning fees, because the cheaper car was darker and dirt shows up much faster on darker cars... ahem.

DSLR I think stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex camera, but I just think of them as being the "proper" cameras! You know, the difference between the tiny slim compact cameras that tourists have, and the great big chunky cameras with big tubes on the front that photographers have! My new camera is a halfway house between the two. It has the chunky tube on the front (which I'm reliably informed is the lens ) but the body of the camera is as slim and shiny as a normal compact camera. I'm now waiting impatiently for the battery to charge so I can have a play!

Ooooo Popcorn I'd heard the Dragon thing as well! I think it's great we all have Dragon babies. Unfortunately I was born in the year of the Pig! So I'm glad my baby gets a cooler year!

Too so glad you got a good night's sleep - very pleased to see Maia is getting in to the Brooking spirit!. And also how good to have met the BF lady - sounds ideal as well that you'll have some things to get you out and about when DH goes back to work! Super work all round!

Scream I think I understand about the inviting people round thing - and I think I'd probably be the same. Still, I'd totally be holding out for an invite to the million pound house .

Camera wise we have a Canon 550D which I love. To be honest I haven't really got my head round all the shutter seeds and light settings and stuff but even without knowing all that stuff it beats our other camera (which is a fairly decent Canon compact) hands down. I would love to have the time to really learn how to do it all properly and I think this will be one of my projects when I'm not constantly feeding a newborn!

However, things I love about it that don't even require me to be camera savvy are:

1. It takes loads better photos with no flash (especially good with a new wee baby) - in fact its photos without the flash are better and more natural looking that most photos with a flash so that's really handy.

1. It can take lots of photos very quickly (in that sort of paparazzi way). This is really good for DS1 who won't stand still long enough to have a photo taken and isn't very good at smiling for them, so I can take a load of shots of him doing something natural, like laughing with DH or something, and then you're more likely to get a few good'uns.

1. The interchangeable lenses (I suspect this could become expensive). At the moment we have one 'normal' zoom lens and then one lens that does really clever shots where the main subject is in focus and the rest is blurred? I'm not explaining it well, but they look awesome.

The Canon 550D is an excellent camera!!! I was going for the one slightly below that, the Canon 1100D, but then I fell for Nikon in general... then found the red and shiny Nikon 1 and the rest is history!

I love the partly focused with blurry background look! That's the main reason why I wanted to learn to use a camera with a real lens! I know a couple of people with DSLR cameras and their photos of their kids just look amazing! I would love to have a record like that of our family growing up :)

p.s. I am most definitely dropping hints to get invited to the £3mil house! It's the inevitable next stage of my property porn addiction!

Hi all, I managed to get out of work early as I was meant to be studying today but had to cover sickness. The numbers were down after lunch so I could come home. Just before I left a child threw a plastic traffic cone and it hit me on the side of my stomach. It still feels abit sore but baby is moving so I don't need to worry, do I? I need to get some work done as it is all piling up and I am stressing:( If staff member is sick tomorrow I will also have to miss an antenatal appointment.
Sorry, me me me. Anyway, glad to hear sleeping, dual parenting etc is going well. Sorry scream that you are missing out, but it will be better when you can hop, skip and jump to all sorts of meet ups with a lovely newborn!

If it helps to put your mind at rest Wants you could phone the midwife and just let them know? When I had my fall I called them and they said that as long as I am feeling movement then it is fine but call them back if anything changes. Sometimes it helps just to have someone tell you that you can stop worrying

Blimey wants what a lovely child If in doubt phone the MW?

Loving all the camera porn

I'm a rat, scream - bleuch!

I'm a rooster and DH is an ox which are supposed to be compatible if you believe that crap

Excellent news Pop I just knew it would be ok, your a brooker! Did the sonographer refer to it as a boy or girl? Mine kept calling it him, not sure if that is her default name though. I do have a feeling it might be a boy, i'm not sure I know what to do with lads as much as girls, even though as long as its healthy I don't care. Also it would be first boy born into family for nearly 40 years! (All males since have married in)

How much does dragon baby measure? Mine was 5.71cm at exactly 12wks :o

Hope everybody is ok!

I didn't think to ask for a measurement cakes! I'm showing 3 days ahead though, so it must be a teensy bit big for its "age"? Sonographer didn't refer to it as a he or she, she just said we'd find out more at the 20 week scan which I forgot to book :)

Btw, first boy for 40 years?! That will be quite a feat! :)

Yay for Wants escaping early (and fingers crossed you won't need to go in tomorrow.) How annoying about the kid with the cone though! If it makes you feel any better, ages ago (I can't remember which week but it was past 12 weeks) I was walking down Oxford St (crowded as usual) and a little 2 or 3 yr old kid just randomly punched me in the stomach as he walked past me. No apparent reason. Just a short sharp punch into my stomach as he strolled past with his Mum. It was so bizarre! Everything was fine though, and your LO is perfectly fine as well despite all the depraved kids wandering around out there!

Yay for the first potential boy-cake in 40 years of Cake family history! Very exciting!!

D'oh! After an afternoon of playing I've realised I bought the wrong bloomin' lens for my pretty camera! I now have to sweet talk Jessops into swapping my current version for the correct one, even though they have a policy of no returns once opened... Wish me luck!

Feeling fine now, no pain and still lots of movement so am not worried ATM. Staff member is in tomorrow so I can go to my antenatal appointment in the morning and just have the afternoon at work. The throwing child is not in again this week so I should be safe for now:)
Hoping to have a nice evening with DH before he leaves for china at 7 tomorrow morning.

Pop Did the scan people write anything in your notes? I have a green paper booklet and they wrote the crown rump length in there.

I have 2 cousins and between them they have 3 girls. My one cousin is the last boy born.
I will point out this is all on the maternal side of my family as I have nothing to do with my paternal side.
I have an amazing picture from my wedding with 7 cake family females plus my male cousins gf(who of course is def part of family and hadn't yet had 3rd girl) 4 generations in a photo :o

I have just had to eat ds's Mr whippy icecream. And then remembered why I shouldn't. Please stop me panicking, nothing will happen will it?

God I feel old

Isn't Hannah Montana a kids tv thing? I'm just having a coffee as I'm too early to get ds1 without interrupting his tea and they're playing a Hannah Montana album and the two girls that work in the shop are singing all the words. Surely if you like kids tv you're too young to be working in a coffee shop?

Ah don't panic Ninja - is it the listeriosis thing with My Whippy? If it is it's like a minimal risk that you'd actually get ill from it isn't it?

I am intrigued though as to why you had to eat his ice cream? Had he been very naughty?

Oh no scream that's terrible! What did his mother say?
If Jessop's won't take it back, you could try the old "I've lost my receipt but I'd be happy with vouchers/an exchange" at Curry's etc? Or failing that, fleabay?

That sounds like a lovely photo cakes! I have an orange book, and there's a form about scans on there which was been filled in, but nothing so informative as that unfortunately!

Talking of 4 generation photographs, Cake, my granddad took one last week with Maia, me, Mum and Grandma. Grandma then emailed Mum the photo and she had AIRBRUSHED it with Photoshop! I don't even know how to airbrush things! She'd taken out all her wrinkles, softened the lines of her and Mum's faces and removed my post-baby double chin (thanks ). She's left in her own wrinkly neck, though . She will be 70 in June and is totally obsessed with weight/appearance even now - wears sequinned leggings etc. Yes Grandma, those are too young for you.

I actually have 5 generations living on my Dad's side now that Bean has come along - my great-granny is 100. However, she has Alzheimer's and doesn't remember any of us any more . She loves babies, though, so I must try to take Bean up to visit at some point.

Ninja, I'm sure one Mr Whippy ice cream won't do anything! It is a tiny, tiny risk. Anyway, listeriosis germs won't dare come anywhere near a Brooker.

Scream, oh no re the lens! Have you called Jessops yet? I am also Year of the Pig - lovely.

Wants, what a horrible child! Still, if LO is still moving happily then no harm done, I expect. Have a lovely last evening with DH.

Congrats Popcorn on being scan endorsed. Are you coming out to family and friends now?

wants I hope you have a lovely evening with DH. When is he back?

Ninja everything will be fine. You are too far on now for any teeny tiny risk to affect the bean I'm sure. You could probably eat 999 Mr Whippys before getting ill and even then you probably still wouldn't.

at Too's mum with the photoshop. How funny! I have some hideous post birth photos of me with DS.

Good luck with Jessops Scream

I am having a fantasy celebratory tonight. The building work is finally finished! The house is a bombsite and will take an age to get straight, I still can't prepare my baby stuff...BUT what a relief to not have to be showered and dressed by 8am every single morning and be on tea making duty all day.

Been on my ball A LOT today. The baby still has not moved

biscuits I told ds he would prefer a lolly but he insisted on Mr whippy. 3 licks later and it was 'mummy I don't like it, can I have yours instead' so I had to give up my lovely refreshing fruit pastel lolly and have his. Only remembered about listerior afterwards. I don't actually know what it does, just that it can be dangerous.
wants glad you're feeling ok. Enjoy your evening with dh.

Your camera sounds lovely scream hope you can get the lens sorted and scarlet yay for the builders going.