Week 13, Day 4 (half way to survival)

My first thought upon waking up this morning was the realisation that tadpole is exactly half way to the magic number of 27 weeks. According to the experts, from week 27 on, a premmie has a better than even chance of survival (and getting better by the day, at the rate that medical knowledge & equipment progresses).

That's reassuring! Especially as the books and experts reasonably predict that the next 13 and a half weeks are supposed to be much easier than the first set.

Had a beaut day today - one of the perks of being a landscaper's wife is you occasionally get to play hooky and spend the day in plant nurseries spending other people's money. I really should have spent the day at home working on my desk of pending horrors, but hey, it's not going anywhere and will still be there tomorrow.

I'm presently reading a book that I bought for Wayne, called "So you're going to be a dad" by Peter Downey. Awesome book - perfect companion to Kaz Cooke's book, and both are refreshingly honest and genuinely funny, yet somehow manage to get really useful information in there that the other books seem to neglect. Make me laugh and you'll keep my attention long enough for the message to sink in; what a shame most 'serious' authors forget this principle.

At this rate I should have the book finished by tomorrow night, then it's intended recipient can be allowed to get his grubby little hands on it. I have this annoying habit, see, I read while doing almost anything that isn't working, driving or sleeping. If it's a great night on TV, I'm usually reading as well. If it's dinner time, I'm definitely reading. If I'm chatting to mates on the phone, I'm also probably reading. (Now my friends & family reading this will be saying "Ahhhh... that makes sense, now we know why the wench laughs in the wrong places!")

I get bored doing just one thing at once, and if I get bored, the attention wanders, then everything becomes a waste of time. This makes serious occasions such as formal interviews, funerals, seminars and 'visits' an exercise in torture. I don't know if it's my dyspraxia, or my natural impatience, but it means that if you're a friend of mine, you have amazing tolerance skills and a forgiving nature.

Btw there's a point to this self-indulgent waffle (grins unrepentently). Just in case Taddy turns out like Mum, and also because I have seen what the standard of NZ education turns out and I'm frankly appalled, we've decided to homeschool. At every one of my 52 different schools during my educational years, I was bored shitless. Either I'd missed the beginnings of what the other kids were now proficient in, or it was the third time in as many months as I'd had to learn it, and the result was always the same... Karl drawing pictures of horses, and staring out windows day dreaming.

The only reason I came out the other end as skilled as I did was 100% due to my mother's intervention and home-schooling. This she did without any formal training or aids - she got a list of the texts, purchased them, then filled in the gaps (can we say "phonetics!") with her own brand of brilliant common sense. I was not an easy kid to teach (fiery little fidget), but she somehow managed with only occasionally resorting to tying me down and threatening to report my behaviour to my father!

(Nah seriously, she never did... but we both knew she could have. That was enough.)

So Taddy is going to completely skip the delights of being bullied by other kids, exposure to drugs & bad attitudes, having to wear ghastly school uniforms, and being made to conform to the norm (whatever that is.. every 'normal' person is usually a closet weirdo).

Not that the child will be removed from contact with other kids, far from it. There's all sorts of wonderful sporting & recreational activities children can explore where they can develop good play and interaction skills. Although, again, if she's like her mother, she'll suck at ball sports, shun other kids in preference to hanging with animals, and generally be so 'out there' that that the local schools will probably write to me on a weekly basis, thanking me for home schooling her.

Or she could be like her father and be good at any damn thing she chooses, be adored by everyone she meets, and should be awarded a prize for 'making the planet better just by being alive".

Whatever her personality, I reckon she'll be a pretty cool individual to know. But I'm in no rush little one, stay there for another 20 or so weeks and get all your growing done. Your arrival will come soon enough.