Monday 10 February 2014

"But what would happen, Miss, if the baby had a small head and huge shoulders, and it got stuck?"

I think I can now confirm (sort of.  Almost.  I mean, I think this is what I'm feeling) that the Wee One is moving around in there.  Like, officially.  In fact, I'm pretty sure s/he just punched me three times in the last few seconds.  It is SO WEIRD!

And now the cat is out of the bag.  For a start, my mother has now given my more conservative relatives the happy news (thankfully, they were so excited about the prospect of knitting tiny clothes for the Wee One that they have so far overlooked the whole sperm donor scenario).  And secondly, some of the more observant of my students have started to notice my enormous bloated midsection, leading one to claim today that she had "heard from someone" that I was pregnant.

I was a aghast that one of the twenty-odd people at work to whom I had entrusted my confidence would blurt it out to a sixteen year old, but it turned out that this was in fact a ruse on the part of said sixteen year old to get me to admit the truth, which she had suspected upon observation of my "rounded" figure.

Ladies and gentlemen, not only have I been conned into admitting the truth by a wily Year 11, but I am also now officially "round."  As in, that is my actual shape.

I have to admit I'm kind of enjoying looking like a heifer (or to use the Daily Mail term, "flaunting my pregnancy curves") and at least the fact that everyone now knows means I no longer have to hide under a huge cardigan, or have people think I'm a work-shy glutton when I run off to the canteen for the fourth time that morning.

Anyway, the questions the Year 11s asked were enlightening, if nothing else.  I had been terrified they would start quizzing me about whether I was married, but instead they were more interested in what the baby's birthday would be, with one young 'un musing "Miss, your baby will be really lucky!"  I beamed with pride, naturally thinking this was because it had the wondrous me as a mother, and then the boy piped up "Its birthday will be in July.  That is SO the best time for a birthday!"

I agreed wholeheartedly, adding that my birthday was in July too, then a girl came out with "But Miss, what would you do if the baby was born on YOUR BIRTHDAY????"

Puzzled, I answered probably nothing, before realising that sharing my birthday with a mewling tot would mean that I would never again have an opportunity to have a quiet drink with friends in a restaurant of my own choosing, and would instead have to put up with children's parties full of squawking brats demanding party bags every year on MY OWN BIRTHDAY.  The only day when everyone joins in celebration, homage and general worship of me.  Perhaps the Year 11s were right to point out this glaring example of poor timing on my part.

Then one of the boys decided to lower the tone by asking "what would happen if the baby had a really small head and huge shoulders, and it got stuck."  At that point I decided it was definitely time to change the subject.

Sunday 2 February 2014

First Foray into Topshop Maternity Ends in Disaster at Shocking Realisation that Big Clothes are Boring

Urgghhh.

I have quite possibly the World's Worst Cold.

Literally, it is so bad that on Friday I even had to take a day off work.  With a cold.  It's the sort of cold that one normally only gets on holiday, at some point towards the end, after ten whole days and nights of drinking and carousing and no sleep.  Only this time, there has been no carousing and certainly no drinking.  Even the lychee juice in the fridge is eyeing me threateningly with its questionable morals (fruit juice is the enemy now, did you hear?  One glass contains as much sugar as twelve Krispy Kremes.  Or something).

Anyway, the deadly cold shows no signs of abating, and all I can do is slather on the Vicks and hope for the best.

Yesterday I decided to brave Topshop Maternity, as I am looking a bit fat now, at least in the afternoons (for some reason, I look thin in the mornings, but by four O clock I look about six months gone) and I don't want insolent children at work asking me if I'm pregnant.  I therefore decided it was time I purchased something slightly looser than the usual obligatory pencil skirt to wear to work, lest I am papped by the Daily Mail and accused of "flaunting my pregnancy curves."  The great thing about Topshop Maternity is that as the average age of the whippersnappers in Toppers is about fifteen, the Maternity section was completely empty.  The not-so-good thing is that unlike the rest of Toppers, it does not appear to sell crop tops, jumpers made out of clingfilm or pieces of pink fluff, all of which I had hoped to see reinvented for the maternity market in an ingenious bump-disguising style.  In the end, after discovering that it consisted entirely of loose-fitting but boring dresses and pencil skirts with a slightly enlarged bump-accomodating section at the front, I moved on to the "normal" sections, where I purchased a huge candy-pink tent-like creation to wear to work.  Nobody will suspect anything when I turn up in that.  Except that I might possibly have gone mental.

That is, if I am well enough to return to work tomorrow.