August 31, 2004

music to your embryonic ears

The books say, pumpkin, that you're an embryo. Apparently you don't get to be a foetus until you're 12 weeks, so that's what we'll work on.

Today, by my reckoning, is the two week anniversary of when you were conceived, which, for some bizarre reason, makes your mother five weeks pregnant. This means, according to the books, that you're smaller than a coffee bean, but you're already making a pumpkin sized impact on our lives.

Your mum's food requirements have jumped. She's constantly both hungry and very tired. When we got home from work yesterday, we spent some time making enough food to keep her going through the day, and then we both collapsed.

We still haven't told your grandparents that you're coming, but I don't think we'll be able to hold out for long. They live all over the world, as you well know, and we want to tell them in time that they can change their flights and come out to see you when you pop into the world.

I've spent some time thinking about what sort of music you will like. You're probably not into early 90s Seattle grunge just yet, but I'm going to start playing you Jimi Hendrix pretty soon. I'm going to try to work fairly chronologically, so when we get home tonight I'm going to put on Are You Experienced. It's his first studio album, and in some ways Hendrix treated it just like I treat you. He didn't really have much of an idea about what he was doing, but he poured every ounce of love and creativity he had into its creation.


August 30, 2004

mountains out of molehills

Well, pumpkin, the man from the finance company rang me up, and he said that because i'd been very silly with a credit card about three years ago, that we couldn't get a loan. Of course I immediately got very grumpy, and refused to talk about it. Your mother, who is obviously made of sterner stuff than I, got straight back on the phone to the man, and is trying to sort something out as we speak.

It's important to me that we bring you into this world in our own house. For some reason, now, I feel the sting of the temporary nature of renting a house. Being that your arrival is going to make a permanent change in the way we live our lives, it strikes me as a good idea to make sure that we have a place for the three of us to call our own.

We'll do what we can, pumpkin, and I'll keep you posted.

At worst, we're going to stay where we are, and try to save as much as we can so that we can move when you're very young. The blemish on my credit report will dissapear in 2006, and then we should be able to proceed.

So Pumpkin, this is your father talking, always pay your bills on time. If you don't, it will come back to haunt you. That's my first bit of fatherly advice, and it feels good.

August 29, 2004

The first days.......

Pumpkin,

We've been waiting for this day for so long. So many words are leaping into my brain as I write this first letter to you that it's like a dam bursting, a flash flood of things I want to tell you, things you've missed, things that I'm already planning to show you.

I promised myself that by the time you were born i would speak French, that I would have a decent job, that we would own a house for you to live in, and that, somehow, I'd be a 'grownup', whatever that means.

I think that the primary purpose of this extended, longwinded letter to you is that I want you to know that I'm as unprepared for this as you are. I'm planning on doing my damndest to be the best possible parent that I can be, but I'm warning you now that I'm going to make mistakes. All I ask is that you try to bear with me while I figure out how this is done.

We have a house in mind that we're thinking about buying for us all to live in, but we're not sure if we're going to be able to get a loan for it. If we can, I think you'll like it. It's on the side of a hill, and in many ways it reminds me of the house in which I grew up in Eltham. That was a good place to be a kid, and I have a feeling that this place will be too.

Your mother is a wonderful woman, and I love her with all my heart. I'm certain that you will have the very most love that any child could possibly have, and that you will grow up smart, strong and beautiful. There's a whole legion of family waiting here for you, and we can't wait til you get here.

I'm going to try to write to you every day, and I'll see you on around the 7th of May 2005 for the first time.

I love you pumpkin

Your Dad.