Love... And Sleepless Nights MAY 2012 (10 page)

I can tell when Laura is irate with me, her insults get very creative.

‘Perhaps we should think about the name another time,’ I suggest.

‘Agreed,’ she replies acidly.

I give it just the right amount of silence before saying: ‘Bulimia’s a nice name as well, you know,’ in a cheery voice.

It’s a miracle I make it home in one piece.

Yawn
.

I guess at some point I should try to crash out on the couch.

Whether I’ll be able to sleep or not is debatable, though. I can’t get girl’s names and images of tattooed teenage boys with their arms around my equally teenage daughter out of my head.

Going back to bed is certainly out of the question. Sleeping next to Laura is almost impossible at the moment. The baby has reached that stage in her development where she’s able to move around properly, and has started making her presence felt in no uncertain terms.

…her
.

I just described my baby as a
her
.

What an exquisitely strange and wonderful feeling. Typing that three letter word has cemented my unborn daughter’s existence once and for all in my head. She’s no longer a collection of cells, or a foetus to be referred to as ‘it’. She’s a person now. A ‘her’.

My baby Bulimia is a real person!

…ahem.

The first time the baby kicked Laura was while we were watching The Walking Dead.

It seems my daughter is as big a fan of zombies as I am.

It was in a particularly tense moment of the episode, so you can imagine my reaction when Laura shouts ‘
Fuck me!
’ and grabs the swell of her belly.

‘Jesus Christ!’ I wail, sending the contents of my wine glass on a crash course with the already semen stained couch. ‘What?! What’s the matter?!’

‘The baby!’ Laura squeals. ‘I felt it kick!’ Her eyes go wide. ‘There it goes again!’ Her face contorts. ‘Oww! You little sod, give it a rest!’

‘That’s fantastic!’ I crow.

I’d read that some babies start kicking from pretty early in the pregnancy, and we’re a few months into ours by now, so I was starting to get worried that Laura might be carrying a right lazy bastard. This wasn’t a good sign for my far reaching plans for the front garden.

All is well though it appears, and the baby is making up for lost time.

Laura makes a face again. ‘Fantastic for you, pal. You’re not the one who’s got somebody practising kung fu in your uterus.’

That was over two weeks ago now and the baby has fallen into the habit of smacking her mother around like a nightclub bouncer every evening - and sometimes through a large portion of the night as well.

Thankfully for Laura, she’s a deep sleeper. Even baby Newman’s high kicking exploits can’t keep her awake.

The same can’t be said for her father, who has always been a light sleeper.

While Laura is asleep, any sudden movement the baby makes translates its way into my wife’s sleeping form. When the baby jerks about, so does Laura - sometimes violently so.

I’ve been slapped awake on more than one occasion recently. Similarly, my testicles have made friends with Laura’s knee three times, and my shoulder blades now know what it’s like to have a pointy female elbow smacked into them at three in the morning.

I’ve taken to sleeping on the couch when these episodes occur.

It’s either that, or have everyone think I’m suffering severe spousal abuse.

I’m going to curl up on the couch now and try to get some sleep.

I don’t know whether I’ll be successful, but at least I can be one hundred percent sure I won’t wake up with a bruised scrotum.

Laura’s Diary

Saturday, August 17th

Dear Mum,

I still have the fashion sense of a demented chimpanzee. Only now I’m a
fat
demented chimpanzee.

The girls suggested we all go on a night out, which is great, only now I have to come up with something to wear that will accommodate the rapidly increasing size of my belly.

I’m starting to resemble the world’s skinniest Buddha.

Until now I would have happily described my belly as being pot-like. Now it’s more like a tureen – and it’s not going to get smaller any time soon.

Nothing I have in my wardrobe fits anymore.

Useless
are my tight little black dresses.

I tried to squeeze one over the baby to see if I could get away with it, but just ended up looking like a black snake that had swallowed a football.

Jeans are right out for obvious reasons - and as a duvet cover won’t cut much of a glamorous figure on the dance floor, I’m going to have to bite the bullet and wear maternity clothing.

Melina, knowing this day would come, handed over some of her more stylish maternity clothes from when she was pregnant with Hayley. ‘I kept them because Travis and I want another one in the next couple of years. But your need is more immediate than mine!’

I thanked her for the bag of clothes, put them in the cupboard and tried very hard to forget about them.

…successfully, until tonight.

Now the bag is open, the clothes are laid out on the bed and my heart has sunk to the depths.

Don’t get me wrong, the maternity clothing companies try hard.

Every effort has been made to accommodate the distended belly into the cut and line of their products. They try their best to make you still feel feminine and sexy.

They fail
utterly
of course, but we should give them marks for making an effort.

I can’t escape the mental image of a squeezed sausage as I yank on a pink and black number that’s gathered below the breasts, before flaring out over little Miss Newman in a cascade of material.

Without the additional cloth it would be a lovely little dress, but as it is, I just feel like a big fat cow trying to fit into an outfit that would be far too small for her were it not for the additional yard or so of cotton.

Still, it fits.

…which is more than can be said for my LBDs. I may never wear them again - curse Jamie and his overactive penis!

The crying fit only lasts five minutes this time.

I’m very pleased they’re getting shorter now. My hormones must be settling down at last.

With the dress on I sit down to put on some make-up.

I look like a haggard witch at the moment, so it’s going to be a difficult and time-consuming operation to bring me up to muster.

Thanks to my unborn child I haven’t been sleeping well at all. I don’t have eye bags, I have eye hammocks.

Still, that’s what concealer was invented for.

…and foundation.

Lots and
lots
of foundation.

It’ll make me look like a cheap Eastern European prostitute, but that’s still better than Princess Panda Face in my book.

So there we have it.

Bump on display to the world and covered in slap, I’m ready for my first night out on the town in months!

It’s
seven thirty
, I’m knackered already and won’t even be able to drink my cares away - thanks to my body’s stupid inability to consume alcohol and give birth to a healthy child at the same time.

A sober fat git I shall remain all evening.

Woo hoo.

I can barely contain my excitement.

***

At least I could contain the contents of my stomach, which is more than can be said for Rachel, Melina’s ditzy friend from work.

I have never been on a night out with the girls and not been falling down drunk by the end of it, therefore this evening has been a real eye-opener for me.

It comes as a great shock to discover that people, when they have consumed a large amount of alcohol, turn into what can only be described as utter twats.

Not drinking meant I became the taxi service for the evening. I picked up Melina and Rachel at Mel’s house, then went over to grab Shelley from work.

Shelley shares the manager’s position at
Thorntons
with me and we’ve become firm friends in the past few weeks. A mutual hatred of
Thorntons
has been the cornerstone of our relationship.

She’s worked for them for eight years, while I was forced into the job share thanks to Jamie’s lack of penis control.

I had hoped Hotel Chocolat might see past my vomitous exploits at the interview and offer me a job, but so far –
de nada.

‘Bleed the bastards for every penny,’ Shelley said to me a while back, when I confided in her that I was pregnant and would need to tell our bosses sooner or later. ‘I’d get myself knocked up too if I wasn’t thirty eight and a chain smoker.’

Back to tonight. Shelley puts out her cigarette before getting into the car and we’re off towards town for what will be a night I’d happily consign to the dustbin of my memory if I could.

Things start off okay…

They always tend to, as nobody is shit-faced at
eight thirty
- unless you’re in
Ireland
, of course.

We start proceedings at The Bog and Trellis in the high street.

I have no idea why anyone would wilfully give a pub a name like that, but it’s one of the national chains, so there’s every chance a computer somewhere is spitting out random words that get combined with one another, before being slapped up on the front of what used to be a bank.

I look forward to one day visiting The Fetlock and Nazi, or The Vomit and Biggins.

The pub is packed and I have to manoeuvre my bump through the throng awkwardly.

I’m not all that comfortable carrying it around in front of me yet. Even though the baby’s still got a lot of growing to do, she’s already started to put my centre of gravity off.