lnr | Last week at work!

The most obvious thing this week is that it's been my last week at work. Very little actual work remained that still needed doing - though Caroline had me having a go at the written test and programming test they've devised for the interview candidates for my maternity cover, to get an idea as to whether they were aimed at around the right level and would take the right sort of time. It was surprisingly fun. She also found me another useful little bit of perl script to write for her too so I spent rather more time writing code than usual - nice easy stuff :) My maternity cover job has now finally been advertised too - closing date 18th February if anyone might be interested. The week finished on Friday with my lovely colleagues surprising me with a big tray of pink and blue cupcakes and a lovely card and box of chocs. Obviously not knowing which colour bun was the right one I had to have one of each :) I shall miss them over the next year definitely, it's going to be very strange not getting up for work tomorrow morning!

Yesterday, despite it being the weekend, we were up fairly bright and early to pack up some lunch before heading into town (into a mildly fierce headwind) for the first session of our NCT ante-natal classes. It was quite a long day really 10 til 4 without only half an hour (by agreement) for lunch - but we packed a lot in. It was lovely to meet 7 other couples all of whom are also expecting their first babies in March. It looks like we're all hoping to give birth at the midwife led birthing centre at the Rosie hospital too. Lots of information to take in, but Sian, the class leader, has promised to email us all lots of info. We've got a breastfeeding session to come on Wednesday, and then another long day next Saturday too. With it being a class right in the middle of town there's quite a spread of locations around Cambridge for people to have come from - but it's nice to know that there'll be at least one mum in Shelford that I'll know in advance :) Have promised to let her know the details of the bumps and babies class that apparently runs in the village once I manage to get hold of them myself.

After our class we had a bit of a wander over to the retail park not far from Mill Road to take a look at pushchairs/buggies. Steph and Dave did offer us their Silver Cross pram, but we've decided it's a little big to be practical for us, and Mike really quite fancies spoiling us with a new one anyway. We're a bit torn between going for a simple buggy, which works out the lightest and most compact option - not to mention the cheapest, or going for something which can do front and rear facing positions and has nice big wheels for off road use. The Quinny Buzz 3 is quite tempting. We also need to think about whether we need to get a car seat even though we don't have a car - possibly just so we can get baby home from the hospital in a taxi! Though one of the couples yesterday did very kindly offer us the long-term loan of one which their brother-in-law had given them, as it was spare. Sending me home in a taxi and letting Mike walk with a pushchair would be one solution, but a bit weird :) Does anyone know if there are local taxi firms who can provide car seats themselves? Though if so would we trust them?

Bump is now 35 weeks old, and reportedly around 46cm long and 2.4kg in weight - about the same as a honeydew melon. Of course by this point the weights are all going to be very much averages - as all babies come out a bit different. I still seem to have a pretty compact bump for this stage of pregnancy really, but am measuring the right size for my stage, and everything else was well at my last midwife appointment on Monday too. They're coming thick and fast now with only just over a week until my next one - and I'm waiting to hear back from the GP practice nurse as to when I can have my whooping cough jab too.

Not much more exciting has been happening this week. We saw very few birds in the garden for the birdwatch - probably because the weather had got so much nicer they didn't need our food supplies so desperately any more. The bedside tables have gone, leaving us with more space in the living room, and we enjoyed our haggis :) We bought a new shower curtain too - so exciting :) Mike and I have been mostly chilling out, watching DVDs and reading (him) and knitting (me). I finally finished my giant fuchsia pink mohair shawl which has been going since 2005! And I've just started crocheting a pram cover for baby Snape too. I expect I shall spend much of next week crocheting and reading and playing computer games - though I'm going to try and make it to the gym for a swim a couple of times too if I can. Got some union stuff on Wednesday too which I will still go to since for now I'm only on annual leave not maternity.

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On the pushchair front, we have one expensive pushchair and a £20 lightweight pushchair (though the latter isn't suitable for newborns). There is a big difference between how nice they are to push and I can e.g. go to the woods with the former whereas I wouldn't consider it with the latter. On the otherhand, if you are going to be using public transport regularly, then having something light and that can be folded is very useful. It's also useful to have cheap enough pushchair that I'm not worried about being stolen on occasions. Being able to have them forwards or rear facing is a nice extra but not worth paying lots for in my opinion. The big advantage I'd say of the travel system style pushchairs is if you have a car as you can put a car seat (and sleeping baby) them in, which isn't relevant for you. There are some pushchairs that are somewhere in between the two extremes however - the Maclaren ones are certainly worth a look though don't have personal experience. Make sure you take into account extra costs like a rain cover and foot muff if they aren't included as you'll need both (though the latter not for a while - you'll want some sort of sunshade thing too but not one of those parasols that you see). Also, you may find like us, that you have a baby who screams its head off whenever you put it in a pram/pushchair anyway!

I bought a Maclaren Volo* and absolutely loved it. 6+ years after I stopped using it it is still going strong having been used by two nieces and now a nephew. I really recommend Maclarens for portability and ease of use, although they may not be good for the 'offroad' kind of walks (but it was fine on a beach).

* Not one of the suitable-from-birth ones, but in retrospect I really wish I had got one of those (Quest, Techno XT, etc).

+1 on the Maclaren Volo. We got one of the from-6-months ones as being lighter (and I think cheaper) than the from-birth type, though it was fine for our largish child at 4/5 months when we flew to Portugal (the immediate impetus for buying it.) As well as holidays it proved absolutely invaluable to me as a public transport user, v. easy to fold with one hand plus foot, v. lightweight, had a handy carry strap for slinging over shoulder. Stood up to much use by both mine, now passed on to niece.

Our other pushchair was a Graco travel-system, which was handy for the car-seat aspect (we have a car, my husband drives, I don't (eyesight)), not relevant to lnr. But I did like the baby-facing-me aspect to it as well, and the decently sized basket, again both very useful to me as a non-car-user therefore doing quite a lot of walking/shopping with just the pushchair. I also quite liked having the 'mummy section' by the handle, with drink-holder and keys/small things compartment: not essential, but did come in handy at times :-) In lnr's position I wouldn't get this pushchair, but would look out for similar features in the ones she's considering.

Oh, hello. (We have met IRL - Aylesbury - but I didn't know you knew

lnr, for some reason.)

I also had a Graco travel system and second what you say about the useful bits of it for more or less the same reasons. Not being able to put Major Amounts of Stuff in the bottom of a pushchair renders it utterly useless, from my POV. :)

Oh of course, the sci-fi meetup! *waves* I'm afraid I didn't properly look at who was posting the comment I was replying to, how rude of me :-( I mainly know lnr online, not met up in person since well before the boys were born! Met via

beckyc who was at college with me. Actually the sci-fi meetup also had a good helping of small-world syndrome - I was told of it by

teawith whom I knew via Tolkien fandom, then at the first meeting I went to saw Killala who I also knew from university and had thought was in the US, and Wimble who had roleplayed with Skordh, again at uni!

It's a very small world. :)

We've picked up the bigger shopping basket to go with the Out n About - will see how we get on. I'm not very much of a carrier of lots of stuff - but of course this may change when I need to carry things for baby!

Ta for the tips. And the fun small-world-syndrome moment :)

Ta for the suggestions - the car definitely does make a difference I think. But hey, at least it means we can just use the car seat from mum and dad when we do rarely need one and not care that it doesn't fit on the pushchair :) We might well pick something very little and lightweight and folding as an addition later, but it's probably not worth it for now.

We got our second pushchair when Owen was about 7 or 8 months I think, mostly for trips into London (though turned out to be useful too for us a pushchair to keep in the car so don't have to keep moving the big one in and out!). Definitely worth waiting as you'll have stronger opinions on what you need/don't need later. You definitely don't need to get everything before the baby is born. We're certainly waiting to see if we think a double buggy will actually be useful or not rather than getting one in advance. Hoping we don't need to!

Last week at work!

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