Yellow

So, anyone who follows me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram will know that our yellow bump turned pink yesterday when we welcomed our second daughter into the world. 

And while our story in photographs will appear once I'm out of hospital and settled at home, this week's theme was the perfect opportunity to reflect on a whole pregnancy of yellow, in comparison to my first pregnancy, who was declared "probably pink" at 21 weeks gestation and confirmed at 34 weeks before she arrived a little over due.

Team Yellow. Have I loved it? Yes. Would I do it again? In a heart beat. Were there benefits to knowing the gender before they arrived though? Completely.

When we found out E was a girl, baby preparations became a military option. Her freshly painted mint green nursery was accessorised with pinks and purples and everything we bought was girlie. We found choosing name options easier as we didn't have to worry about the blue ones. I felt able to bond with my bump imagining my pink bundle out in her pram in her spotty foot muff, and dreamed of girlie nights painting our nails and putting on face masks.

With L being a planned section, we've known that it... She would arrive on March 3rd since 18 weeks gestation. We also had a better idea of what our baby would look like this time so we still wanted there to be an element of surprise. And surprise it was when the consultant held my baby above me yesterday and asked me to tell her what it was, as in the last days of pregnancy I had convinced myself I was having a boy and low and behold the spitting image of E, be it a smaller version, hung above me, ready to be the little sister.

But Team Yellow has caused some denial and some laziness at Thursday's Child HQ. If you've read any of my pregnancy posts you'll know that the last 39 weeks have drifted past in a haze and I've been very last minute in my preparations. Poor L has a very limited neutral wardrobe ready to be worn, no bed set up at home yet, and arguments over boys names which were completely unnecessary. She only just got her car seat out of the loft a few days ago.

I would say I kept my cool about Team Yellow until 36 weeks. And then frustration kicked in. But frustration for a few weeks was worth all of it for the huge surprise. And she looks lovely in greys and yellows, and she even rocks blue stars. And I won the girls name row.

So I raise a glass to Team Yellow... To the impatient woman and to my beautiful new daughter.

Cake

My plans to bake this week did not come to fruition. So instead, I found this. It's totally me (except the bit about being a boy. I am not a boy.)

What a great piece of cake inspired prose. 

Chocolate Cake - Michael Rosen

I love chocolate cake.
And when I was a boy
I loved it even more.

Sometimes we used to have it for tea
and Mum used to say,
'If there's any left over
you can have it to take to school
tomorrow to have at playtime.'
And the next day I would take it to school
wrapped up in tin foil
open it up at playtime
and sit in the corner of the playground
eating it,
you know how the icing on top
is all shiny and it cracks as you
bite into it,
and there's that other kind of icing in
the middle
and it sticks to your hands and you
can lick your fingers
and lick your lips
oh it's lovely.
yeah.

Anyway,
once we had this chocolate cake for tea
and later I went to bed
but while I was in bed
I found myself waking up
licking my lips
and smiling.
I woke up proper.
'The chocolate cake.'
It was the first thing
I thought of.

I could almost see it
so I thought,
what if I go downstairs
and have a little nibble, yeah?

It was all dark
everyone was in bed
so it must have been really late
but I got out of bed,
crept out of the door

there's always a creaky floorboard, isn't there?

Past Mum and Dad's room,
careful not to tread on bits of broken toys
or bits of Lego
you know what it's like treading on Lego
with your bare feet,

yowwww
shhhhhhh

downstairs
into the kitchen
open the cupboard
and there it is
all shining.

So I take it out of the cupboard
put it on the table
and I see that
there's a few crumbs lying about on the plate,
so I lick my finger and run my finger all over the crumbs
scooping them up
and put them into my mouth.

oooooooommmmmmmmm

nice.
Then
I look again
and on one side where it's been cut,
it's all crumbly.

So I take a knife
I think I'll just tidy that up a bit,
cut off the crumbly bits
scoop them all up
and into the mouth

oooooommm mmmm
nice.

Look at the cake again.

That looks a bit funny now,
one side doesn't match the other
I'll just even it up a bit, eh?

Take the knife
and slice.
This time the knife makes a little cracky noise
as it goes through that hard icing on top.

A whole slice this time,

into the mouth.

Oh the icing on top
and the icing in the middle
ohhhhhh oooo mmmmmm.

But now
I can't stop myself
Knife -
1 just take any old slice at it
and I've got this great big chunk
and I'm cramming it in
what a greedy pig
but it's so nice,

and there's another
and another and I'm squealing and I'm smacking my lips
and I'm stuffing myself with it
and
before I know
I've eaten the lot.
The whole lot.

I look at the plate.
It's all gone.

Oh no
they're bound to notice, aren't they,
a whole chocolate cake doesn't just disappear
does it?

What shall I do?

I know. I'll wash the plate up,
and the knife

and put them away and maybe no one
will notice, eh?

So I do that
and creep creep creep
back to bed
into bed
doze off
licking my lips
with a lovely feeling in my belly.
Mmmmrnmmmmm.

In the morning I get up,
downstairs,
have breakfast,
Mum's saying,
'Have you got your dinner money?'
and I say,
'Yes.'
'And don't forget to take some chocolate cake with you.'
I stopped breathing.

'What's the matter,' she says,
'you normally jump at chocolate cake?'

I'm still not breathing,
and she's looking at me very closely now.

She's looking at me just below my mouth.
'What's that?' she says.
'What's what?' I say.

'What's that there?'
'Where?'
'There,' she says, pointing at my chin.
'I don't know,' I say.
'It looks like chocolate,' she says.
'It's not chocolate is it?'
No answer.
'Is it?'
'I don't know.'
She goes to the cupboard
looks in, up, top, middle, bottom,
turns back to me.
'It's gone.
It's gone.
You haven't eaten it, have you?'
'I don't know.'
'You don't know. You don't know if you've eaten a whole
chocolate cake or not?
When? When did you eat it?'

So I told her,

and she said
well what could she say?
'That's the last time I give you any cake to take
to school.
Now go. Get out
no wait
not before you've washed your dirty sticky face.'
I went upstairs
looked in the mirror
and there it was,
just below my mouth,
a chocolate smudge.
The give-away.
Maybe she'll forget about it by next week.

Glass

At the age of almost 27, my father has little opportunity to get cross with me these days. But occasionally I still catch him rolling his eyes at me... It's mostly when I get the camera out. He thinks I spend too much time taking photographs  of E rather than enjoying just being in the midst of it and enjoying her.

I agree, I spend a lot of my life observing through glass, through the lens of my camera. But I suppose dad doesn't see the day to day stuff we do, where the camera isn't out and we are just enjoying being. When we see dad, I want to photograph it all as we don't see him all that often and E is too little to remember our visits just yet.

I certainly photograph more of our lives than a lot of my friends do of theirs. There's two reasons. 1) I just love taking photographs, the challenge, the exploration, the creativity. 2) I want my children's lives to be as well documented as they can be. I want them to be able to look back, perhaps when I am gone, when they have their own children, you get my drift, and to not have to wonder about stuff, to have answers.

Actually, there's a 3rd reason: I don't want to forget it. It's all happening so quickly, being a mum, being pregnant, and I'm terrified that already I can't remember when stuff happened without looking in her baby book. The thousands of photographs keep it safe when my brain can't and needs a reminder. 

Sometimes I find that looking at life through glass helps me see more, not less. 

Sorry dad, you won't win this one.

White

White is not as lovely as it first seems,

Hairs that are white show on black trousers, 

I always spill my coffee down white tops, and

The snow causes mass chaos and inconvenience,

Evidently I cannot write poetry.