give me fever

My poor darling wife is suffering. Having hay fever whilst pregnant is a nightmare.

As K is unable to take any of the usual hay fever medication (cos she's preggers of course) she has been suffering from flu-like symptoms for the last 2 weeks.

This also means that she has been snoring like an outboard motor, waking up to cough and sneeze throughout the night and now junior has taken to kicking her awake at 5 AM every day - far from ideal for K.

This waking up early lark (no pun intended) also indicates that the little bugger has taken on some of my early bird genes.

I see trouble ahead...

can i kick it?

It would seem that the answer is a resounding YES!

Last night I could actually feel the bean kicking/punching from within K simply by laying my hand on her tummy and waiting patiently.

Although you can't see anything from the outside it is surprising just how much force is behind the movement.

exponential growth

It's all change once more in our house dear readers.

We have been busily stripping all of the walls in the two middle floor bedrooms in readiness for the plasterer coming to skim them all today. The front room looks like a cross between a building site and a New York loft apartment. Baby should have a nice newly decorated room by the time s/he arrives and we'll finally be rid of the shocking psychedelic decor that we've somehow been living with for the last few years.

The other news is that K's bump is growing at an alarming rate. Almost overnight she has developed a very well defined baby-bump and has had to fully transition into her new maternity jeans, trousers and tops.

robo-mum

Listening to the radio this morning I heard an interesting discussion on baby minders. But it wasn't about the usual audio baby monitors that allow you hear your child when you are in another room.

No, no, they were discussing the existence of robot baby minders.

It seems these have been been around now for some time in Japan and the development has been lead by NEC and Sony.

Professor Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield has been speaking at Cheltenham Science Festival and says that electronics multinationals were developing domestic robots that are already being heavily tested in 'childcare activities.'

He added: 'These robots are great for monitoring children. Adults can log into the robot from the Internet or from their mobile phones. They can direct the robot and see through its cameras, they can even speak to the children through the robot's voice.'

He went on to say that not only could robots do useful things like play games, they could also monitor children that had been electronically tagged using RFID technology.

Current UK legislation prevents robots from being left in charge of children in a nursery without adult supervision but there is nothing in law to stop parents from leaving robots in control at home it seems...

shift happens

It's official.

K's bump is now sufficiently large that she can no longer wear her ordinary clothes.

Jeans won't do up, tops are getting tight and she is on the brink of entering the world of maternity wear.

The bean is also starting to move around a lot more and although we can't see it from the outside yet s/he is certainly working rather well as an alarm clock (be that for coming home from work or getting up in the morning).

Something that can get K out of bed in the morning without too much of a struggle clearly has powers beyond my reach...