Back In The Saddle Again ... And 3 Names You Should Never Choose As A Parent ...

It's been quite a while now since I last wrote in this blog - two months, in fact. Thing is, I don't even know where the time has gone! Back at the end of May I extrapolated about there being less than 200 days before I was to become a dad ... now it's only 100 days! And that - by my calculation - means that I have 14.28 weeks left before my son is born.

That's right, I said son, as we're expecting a boy!! We went for the second ultrasound scan back on August 6th at th'ospickle in Lichfield, and thankfully all was okay with the baby. The nurse doing the ultrasound (what is their job title?!) was checking the heart for ages - got me worried - but she said it's procedure and all was fine.

Then she asked if we wanted to know what it was - well I did, but Becky didn't. Trouble is, she'd be able to tell immediately from my reaction what it was. So we agreed and the nurse said "I'm 98% sure it's a boy". 98%?! What's all that about? Why the 2%? We were later told it's because there are many mistakes made with declaring - one woman was told 3 times that she was having a boy, then out popped a girl. So I'm happy, but not out of the woods yet!

The nurse asked if we'd chosen a name yet - well if it's a boy (note I'm still saying "if") it's going to be called Harry after my paternal grandfather, who died of tuberculosis at 32 years old, a week before my dad's 1st birthday. There's no other name we want. My mother-in-law's not keen on the name ... but she keeps referring to him as "Hal" or "Arry Boy" (when she first said this last one, I thought she'd said Haribo after the German confectioner!!). I like Hal, as he's one of my fave Shakespeare characters from Henry IV:Part One. The nurse also told us about other names that she has been told be prospective (chav) parents, who already have kids - these are REAL names for kids in the same families ...

• Girls
• Chanelle,
• Chantelle, and
  
• Charelle.

• Boys
• Wayne,
• Dwayne, and
  
• Shane.

• And I remember two Pakistani brothers I was at school with were called ...
• Wajid (aka. Waj), and
• Sajid (aka. Saj).
  

So now we're into the final stretch of the pregnancy, and we have no more time off work before the big day arrives (earmarked for December 16th). I'm getting very excited now - the nursery's all but done, we've been out and bought all the necessary bits and pieces, we've filled out all of the maternity and paternity forms, etc. All we really need to do now is wait for Haribo to put in an appearance - preferrably on the date specified!