Pig uterus anyone?!

Our street is soooo baby friendly

I like my mani/pedis pregnancy free

Someone's living room?

This is what you call alfresco!

Desperate wifecake

Nostalgic for the days when I used to just wander the neighbourhood with no time restraints and no 9kg baby destroying my shoulders, I strapped bambino on and went for an amble this afternoon.

At the bakery, my eye was caught by something called a "wife cake". I had no idea what was in it, and the lady selling it used words that I couldn't understand to explain it, but I bought some anyway, thinking that now that I am a housewife, perhaps I should start enjoying cakes named just for me.

Apparently the name comes from a poor couple living in imperial China; when a mysterious disease spread in their village and the husband's father fell ill, the couple spent all of their money to treat him, the wife even selling herself as a slave to buy medicine. The husband, full of grief and admiration, decided that the best course of action was to bake a cake out of winter melon, almond paste, sesame and five spice. As you do. But this cake became so popular that he was able to earn enough money to buy his wife back.

Nice story.

The cake, on the other hand, is DIS.GUST.ING.

War games

My military uncle once told me that in times of war, prisoners are sometimes locked in a room into which is pumped the sound of a crying baby for hours on end.

Well, Oscar, whatever you need to know, you can stop crying - I can't take it anymore, I am ready to talk!

And another one...

Yeah, because this is what new mums look like. Or is that pram for her cat?!

Precious

My radar is back on full alert for controversial and ridiculous signs at the moment, and Hong Kong seems to be on top form!

Today's magic: the Precious Blood Kindergarden.

Really? That's where I should send my kid?!

Screwing magic!

I was going to let the picture speak for itself, but the resolution might make you miss the marketing genius of this flyer that came through our door. Behold the beauty of:

"Screwing Magic - mix and match your ring endlessly... Masterpiece by king fook"

Priceless.

La tomatina

Super Typhoon Megi was billed in Hong Kong as the storm of the century. The newspapers were comparing its predicted strength to Hurricane Katrina, and officials were debating whether to evacuate the seafront or not. As for the rest of Hong Kong, we crossed our fingers for Megi to continue on her path, as it would probably mean at least a Typhoon signal no 8, which would mean that people could stay at home instead of going to the office.

Typhoon watching is a national sport for office workers in Hong Kong. As soon as the slightest whiff of a storm in felt, everyone's logged on to the Observatory's website, tracking the progress of what could be their "stay-at-home free" card. We all turn in to armchair meteorologists, with a "no, it's too late in the season for a typhoon" here and a "it's rather sunny for a typhoon signal 3, must mean that it's going to hit hard" there. In the case of Megi, we were all fooled. But no-one could say that Krusty and I were not ready...

Krusty, ever since I met him, has had a weird need to have a stash of provisions in the house, "just in case of catastrophe" - if the world is to come to an end, Krusty wants to make sure we have enough cans of soup and packets of hula hoops to see us through the dark times.

So of course, when we heard that Hong Kong was about to be attacked by the biggest typhoon it had seen in 20 years, Krusty asked me to stock up. I obliged, marvelling at how easy online shopping had made my life with bub. I could fill the shelter's shelves without lifting much more than a few fingers.

But then the shopping arrived. Krusty was excitedly unpacking, anxious to see what I had ordered.

From the first box, he extracted three boxes of dishwasher tablets. Even in times of crisis, I am not washing those dishes myself. He dipped his hand in again, coming out this time with three boxes of washing powder, and some washing up liquid. "Were you scared that dirt would be our biggest problem?" he asked. Hey, you can't neglect hygiene just because civilisation has come to an end.

He opened the second box, excited to hear the clanking of conserves. He pulled out three cans of diced tomatoes and three cans of tomato soup. "We're going to be OK for tomatoes then!" he joked, laughing as he found another tin of tomato paste to go with the shopping so far.

And in the third box, he discovered why online shopping is only efficient if you are not trying to entertain a small child while you do it - in there Krusty found, for some reason, 18 bell peppers and... SIX packets of tomatoes.

And that was it. That was the entirety of my crisis shelter shop.

I'll concentrate next time. Although the chilli-tomato jam that has come of this typhoon weekend has been more than a little successful. In fact I've finished the tomatoes. Maybe I need to order some more...

Medical meltdown no 3

Today's lunch gave us another huge dose of pre-requisite Intense Parental Emotion, but it will unfortunately be filed in the "bad mother" category forever...

We had taken Krusty's colleague out for lunch at Peking Garden, so that he could get a taste of yummy Chinese food. All was going well, for some reason the super typhoon we had been promised for the weekend had brought beautiful sunshine instead, and we happily chatted about said colleagues own children as Oscar sat quietly on my lap, chewing away on my necklace and proving why he is the world's cutest baby. I was on my best wifey behaviour, trying desperately to show that Krusty had good judgment and good taste, since he had chosen me. This fragile house of cards that I was building was soon to come tumbling down.

Mr colleague explained why, as he has a four-year-old and a fifteen-month old child, he has to be extra vigilant about which toys the youngest picks up. I went on to pretentiously boast about my own vigilance with Oscar while the food arrived, until karma had had enough of hearing me extolling my own virtues and decided to bite back. It went something like this:

Colleague - "Wow, this soup is really hot"
Me - "Yeah, sharp corners, bla bla bla, hand gel, bla bla bla"
Oscar - "Shrrriiiieeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkk"

In the millisecond that I had turned to pick up Oscar's toy from where he had thrown it, he had stuck his hand straight into the steaming hot chicken and sweetcorn soup, flipping the bowl over and spraying his face at the same time.

Nothing could calm him down. I was covered from shoulder to knee in scalding soup as I rushed my screaming baby through the restaurant with a hundred pairs of eyes on me, and soon I was running cool water all over his hand and patting his forehead.
Of course, one stranger in the bathroom couldn't help but give me the exact same helpful advice that everyone seems to want to give me these days: "Can't you see? He's hungry!"

Anyway, once the restaurant staff had run down to the pharmacy to get some burn cream, Oscar was covered in a fluorescent yellow paste, cooing and giggling again, while I panted and shivered and thanked karma for just giving me a tiny lesson and not the full disfigurement that this could have been.

I am almost positive that Krusty is waiting for the appropriate time to have passed before he plays the "at least I didn't burn our son" card...

My hovercraft is full of eels

Although often frustrating (not to mention embarrassing), there is something quite pleasant about living in a country where the native language isn't your own.

I am appalled to say that after years of living in Hong Kong, I can still only speak taxi Cantonese, but that means that I can often get away with saying things without people understanding me – in French usually, since to say that English is widespoken here would be like saying that foie gras is only slightly calorific.

However, there is the odd occasion where the inverse happens – a Cantonese person will spot my linguistic shortcomings and take full advantage of them. I probably miss 99% of these "tests", but occasionally I'll hear a familiar word, usually slang, and notice that I am being taken for a ride.

This limited knowledge of Cantonese insults led to me slapping a man across the face in a cinema once – after asking him to be quiet when his phone rang loudly during the film and he proceeded to answer it in an even louder voice, he turned around and muttered something under his breath. I of course showed my displeasure, and he then told me with scorn to do things to my mother which can not be repeated here. Thankfully I had learned how to say them... My hand just reacted for me...

Anyway, this morning, another such incident occurred. As a man delivered our shopping to our home, he said something that sounded like it contained the word "beautiful" to me. Flattered that he liked our home – but why was he looking at my cleavage so much? – I thanked him and he left.

After a quick search online, turns out he was telling me, repeatedly "nice tits, lady".

Cantonese 101 starts now.

Hokey Pokey

Krusty and I are addicted to honeycomb, and as we have found it impossible to buy in Hong Kong, we set out to make our own, based on a recipe provided by Krusty's Dad.

Our first attempt was too gloopy, our second made our teeth feel like they had been cemented together, but the third batch was just right. Well just right but taste of burnt.

The fourth attempt was sticky again. On the fifth try, I did my best to keep the spirit up. "I'm feeling good about this one," I ventured. Krusty, shaving the excess off a spoon of white power (bi-carbonate) added, "I just feel like a junky to be honest."

And the result, a hot, humid mess that would have anyone concerned with dental hygiene reeling...

We will crack this. Hong Kong's humidity will not have the best of our need for crunchy goodness!

The infant paradox

I spend most of Oscar's waking hours hoping he'll go to sleep soon so that I can get things done, and then once he is, I find myself hoping he'll wake up soon so that we can play and hug and giggle together again...

Collon cream anyone?

A local snack, imported from Japan. Appetising, no?!

Krusty the clown strikes again

I cooked dinner tonight while Krusty made some strange noises in the background. As I turned around, I found THIS on the table...



Is there no end to his talents?! I had a go myself by the way...

Huggy bear

Today Oscar lay his head on my shoulder, put his arm around my neck and nuzzled his face there while cooing.

His first hug... Five months is officially the best age so far.

Homegrown

As you know from my whining about how lovely the markets in France are, one of my main complaints about living in Hong Kong is the lack of quality, saliva-producing produce, and in fact the omnipresence of lacklustre, tasteless fruit and vegetables.

And so, in an effort to give my home a second chance, I am foregoing the supermarket for a while (where the tomatoes are hard, orange and taste of water) and am getting my veg delivered to my home.

Homegrown Hong Kong is, as the name suggests, a service that grows fruit, veg and herbs organically somewhere in the farmland near the border (yes, there is farmland in Hong Kong) and then delivers it straight to the door of lazy urbanites like myself.

My first box arrived yesterday, and already I'm loving it. The box, lined with a giant banana leaf, was full of intriguing ingredients such as yams and dragonfruit, and lots of green leaves that I have no clue what to do with. So not only will I eat fresh, but I'll be forced to cook different dishes, too.

I don't care that the home that this food is growing in is overcrowded and polluted, it's still home. And receiving a box full of amaranth (?!) makes it feel that much cosier.

Stats

OK, I have just found a section of my blog admin that tracks page views, traffic and so on.

Apparently, one of the most popular keyword searches that have led readers to me is: "my rat escaped and wound up in my bed."

Er... What?!

Breaking the baby

Today I tried the "cry-to-sleep" method for the first time.

So far Oscar has been a star baby, doing everything we have asked him to and more. Buuuuttt he can't fall asleep on his own. Cut to us rocking him around the bedroom every night, all night since we got back from Europe.

And as if on cue, after a particularly bad night last night, this morning I got a helpful parenting newsletter explaining how to install a sleep routine, including leaving your baby to cry for longer and longer intervals until he learns to soothe himself to sleep.

Soothing had NOTHING to do with what I went through, though.

It took Oscar a whole TWO HOURS to finally settle, and in between I had to witness him squeal, scream, sweat and generally DEMAND to know why this was being inflicted on him. Every time I went in to reassure him that all would be well, he was drenched in sweat and tears and looked at me with such grief in his eyes, it was all I could do not to pick him up and kiss him better.

And then, like a tap turning off, on the second hour almost exactly he went from super squeal one second to fast asleep the next. As if nothing had happened. I ran in, thinking he had choked on his own tears, but no, there he was, snoring away like the cherub that he is.

So I survived, and hopefully he survived, and he won't be scarred for life. They say that it's harder on the parents and that he won't remember any of this anyway. But what if he is grumpy tomorrow, and forever after that? What if I have broken my lovely, smiley, happy baby?!

What Krusty found

Fine, it's not exactly a vision of Jesus weeping on a rock, but look what appeared on Krusty's plate at lunchtime...

Honesty

If Oscar was popular in Europe, then in Hong Kong, where there aren't that many babies that look like him, he is a total superstar.

Hong Kong locals don't have their tongues in their pockets, and they have a habit of telling you exactly what they think without holding back. That's how, when in a shoe shop, a saleswoman literally laughed when she saw how big my foot is. That's why, when going through prenatal care, I became an obese alcoholic rather than a plump girl who enjoys a glass of wine...

But finally, thanks to my baby, I can enjoy the positive side of this honesty. I have not yet been outside without at least three people stopping to tell me how beautiful he is. One woman even passed me by and then ran back to take a second look.

Although yesterday I got a strange exchange when one shopkeeper asked me if he was a boy or a girl. I answered, "boy", to which she shook her head and said, "no, girl". I repeated boy, telling her I was pretty sure that I knew if my son was a son and not a daughter. To which she said, "no, he has girl eyes".

Hmmmmm...

For future reference

The authorities on baby jet lag all agree - the best thing to do, as with adult jet lag, is to get as much exposure to midday sunlight as possible.

Now, do any of these experts have some advice for a mother trapped in typhoon season Hong Kong, with only rain, mist and grey skies to deal with at midday?

The jet lag dance

Last night it took me no less than TWELVE attempts to get Oscar to sleep by Hong Kong bedtime, by which time we were back to French time anyway.

The first five attempts went as usual, with me walking around the flat wondering how long it would take my shattered arms to let go of the 7kg baby blowing raspberries in them.

By the sixth attempt, it was 2am and I was so desperate I broke my own rule and tried putting him in front of the TV (anyone who knows me will know what a huge compromise this was for me). Turns out I had no addiction to be worried of - Bambino was not interested one bit in the TV, and if anything, the flashing lights woke him up more than turning him into a square-eyed zombie.

On the seventh attempt, at 3am, I broke out the big guns - the musical mobile that had never yet been used as it was being saved for just such a desperate occasion.

As I wound it up over Oscar's head, he gave me his best look of incredulity, as if to ask me if I was stupid enough to really think this was going to work. Indeed it didn't, but then again the music had run out by the time he was quiet enough to hear it, so I went in for a quick rewind interlude while the baby stamped his feet, covering his ears with his hands and wailing something I could swear sounded like "Shut that bloody bazooki up!"

I sat next door as I listened to him trying new tactics, attempting to reason with it by blowing raspberries. To no avail.

On the second wind up he was trying to roll over, as if wanting to escape while letting out a slow sigh. He looked at the mobile as if to say "look old chap, you're wasting you're breath" and by the third wind he was blowing the raspberries at me, trying to tell me "that was rubbish".

By the fourth wind up I gave in, picked him up and used my tried and tested method of walking around again. Finally he drifted off, and so did I, seconds after crawling into bed.

And...? You guessed it, one hour later I was up pacing the room again, singing the 250 verses of "mon papa ne veut pas" until my tongue was like a shrivelled old flannel.

And just when I thought my ordeal was over, typhoon Fanapi went and knocked over a load of furniture on the roof, waking us both up with a start.

My Mamie Jacqueline says that sleep nourishes the mind the way that food nourishes the body. Well, if Bambino doesn't start accepting to go to sleep when he needs to, we might soon have a little Oscar Gump on our hands. And considering how much he loves being on his feet nowadays, I wouldn't be surprised if he just got up tomorrow and started to run around the world talking about how life is like a box of chocolates...

And that's why you shouldn't travel long distance with small babies

With the cot bed debacle and mile high tantrums behind me, I thought the hardest part of our trip back from Europe was over, but hooooooo no.

In fact bambino was quite well behaved on the plane, chatting away with 7-month-old Octave, who was sitting next to us, and smiling at everyone who passed the cot, including my elderly neighbour who thought I needed her advice about everything. In fact she literally grabbed him from me when she saw me sitting him up, telling me that I was doing permanent damage to his spine. Needless to say, I didn't close my eyes for the duration of the flight, just in case she decided to sneak him some orange juice while I slept or something.

Once in dried seafood street (nothing like dehydrated abalone to remind you that you're back in Hong Kong) I even managed to get the suitcase up the stairs alone (well, actually, someone else carried it for me, but you know), and when I closed the door behind me, I was quite pleased to be home.

But then I sat down. And the tiredness kicked in, my eyelids suddenly feeling like they had been cast in the heaviest iron. And for the next 12 hours, I fought to keep them open while Oscar laughed and squealed and demanded to be picked up.

Around bedtime I tried to put him to sleep, to no avail, until he started whinging pretty loudly, probably wondering why I had shut him in a dark room when it was only 3pm back in Frrance. This continued throughout the night, with me just falling asleep for five minutes until he woke me up with a cry. Carrying a 7kg packet around at 3am when it's all you can do to just stand up demands a level of effort I hadn't even imagined until now.

It's one (very difficult) thing dealing with jet lag, it's an entirely different thing dealing with my baby's while dealing with my own.

Hopefully it'll all be back in order soon (some websites reckon it takes babies up to two weeks to adjust; please, no...) and I can enjoy Hong Kong again. Once I get used to the noise and the people jumping queues and the stifling heat of typhoon season, that is...

I am a soppy mummy

Things that I love watching my son do: when he wakes up, he invariably arches his back like a cat to stretch out, arms in the air and legs straight as arrows; halfway through a feed, he'll catch my eye, push his head back and beam at me with his toothless gums before heading back in for his second course; when he's had enough to eat, he purses his lips in a really French little pout; when he pushes on his legs to stand up (supported), he pants and dribbles with a giant grin, as if proud of this, the most effort he has ever made; when he falls asleep in my arms and I put him down, he looks up at me with a contented smile before drifting off again; when he is trying to understand something, he gives an imperceptible flash of the eyebrow that makes me know he is Krusty's son...

These and every other tiny detail of Oscar's life of smiles make me feel an overwhelming tsunami of love.

Nostalgie FM

I have been feeling rather old this week. Or perhaps not old, more nostalgic.

It all started when we went to visit my grandmother, Mamie Jacqueline. She lives in a house in Surgeres, around 30 minutes' drive from the Ile de Re, where she has lived, to my knowledge, ever since my own mother was a little girl. Her house has seen most of my Christmases, a lot of my summers, and it's always a pleasure to go and reminisce there when I visit.

But this time, everywhere I looked, all I could see was the past - the dried up grass where my late Papi's tomatoes and strawberries used to grow; the dishevelled tool shed which used to be forbidden to me as a child; the rusting laundry line to which post my brother and cousin once tied me for a whole afternoon... Instead of feeling warm at the thought of all the memories I have, as I usually do, I felt sad and, well, nostalgic is the best word for it, I suppose.

And the feeling has stayed with me ever since. Walking on the harbour front in St Martin, all I can see is the ghost of my 18-year-old self, hanging out with my cousins on the terrasses, feeling very adult. Everywhere I go, I feel the shadow of my past self lurking just over my shoulders.

I don't know whether this has something to do with having a child myself now, or whether it's because my 30th birthday is just around the corner, but it's quite frustrating to have the feeling that I used to mock in my own parents.

When we used to watch the videos of me as a little girl, my parents always used to be depressed. And I used to think they were silly, and that they should be happy to have recorded such great memories. But now I feel the same as they did. In fact, we watched those same videos on this trip, and all I could think was "where did the time go? how did my life go by so fast?!"

My life isn't over, I know. But now it feels like I need to leave the floor to my baby, and it's Oscar's time to make memories. Thankfully his memories will make up a big chunk of my own. It's just a new chapter about to start, even though I'm finding it hard to let go of the page I have to turn for it to begin.

Waiting for Krusty

It's day six of my bittersweet trip to France.

Bitter because it's hard to be away from my husband (who I realise I haven't been separated from for almost a year). And sweet because, well, where do I start?

First there's the pleasure of watching Oscar interact with my mother, now known as Lady Gaga for the noises she makes when she sees him, and my father, who Oscar seems to find hilarious. I watch them play and fuss over him and I imagine being a baby myself. This is how they must have been with me. It's mindblowing in a way.

There's also sweetness in my bambino, of course, as usual. Since we have arrived, he has really found his voice, adding brief, sharp squeals to his repertoire of coos and gurgles. He has also realised that those two things on the end of his arms are actually his hands, and his to control, and he keeps delicately grabbing his own fingers like one of those claws that grab teddys in arcade machines, and smiling proudly. It's a far cry from that day I had to remove his hands from his face because he couldn't understand that he was in control of whether they were there or not.

And, it goes without saying, the sweet, sweet pleasure of finding French food again. Oh my. There are peaches that taste of raspberries, bread that tastes good from the moment you buy it and even for a few more days after that (if it survives that long without being eaten). There are tomatoes that have the colour, texture and TASTE of tomatoes, there are my mother's desserts, cooked from my grandmother's recipes. And there are mussels. And melons. And and and. Oh how much we are missing...

To hell and back

Once I had finally sorted out the plane ticket (they wouldn't give me a cot bed seat until Krusty called every hour to insist, long story...) I was actually quite excited about taking Bambino to Europe, not least because the cold plane would mean I could finally dress my baby in shoes and a cardigan.

I admit that it was quite difficult to say goodbye to Krusty not knowing when we would see him next, but I felt confident that everything would go well. Night flight? Check. Warm, comfy clothes? Check. Soft cover used at naptime to induce sleep? Check.

But I should have known better. In fact, as soon as the wheels of the pushchair got trapped in the door of the Airport Express train, inducing panic in all those around me, I should have seen the signs of a nightmare trip ahead.

It's safe to say, in retrospect, that Oscar does NOT like flying. As soon as we sat down in the plane, he cried for three hours then again every two. The incredibly manicured man next to me (my gaydar was on full alert) started huffing as soon as he sat down, giving Oscar the evils while he edited back copies of the Portugese version of Hello magazine.

In fact the airline had put me in a window seat, so I kept having to step over him to get out (he wouldn't swap with me because he had "specifically ordered a corridor seat"), so after a while, he just draped his cover over his head, periodically huffing from underneath it like some modern, bitchy Egyptian mummy. He paid for his huffinness in the end when the cot bed fell in his lap, breaking both of our tvs...

Many more hellish things happened on the flight, not to mention the endless train journeys from Paris to La Rochelle, with crying all the way, but this trip was a little like childbirth - I remember that it was painful, but I can't remember the pain, because the end result is so pleasurable (oh the baguette, oh the clean, fresh air, oh the proud feeling of seeing my son smile at my parents) that the ordeal has disappeared in my mind.

Name calling

There's the Rat, Krusty, and I am the Monkey, or Snou, so naturally we have been trying to find a nickname for the little Tiger.

I had been calling him "grenouille", which means frog in French, but it sounded a little feminine, so it became "crapaud", or toad. But then as I was saying it while changing him, Krusty asked me why I was calling his son "crapo" and whether it had something to do with what I found in his nappy...

My father then tried to start a trend of calling him "spanky", from the Little Rascals (not to mention the fact that Oscar feeds much better when I am patting his bottom for some reason), but that doesn't seem right either.

For now he'll just have to stay Bambino. Or Bambi?

Gone with the wind

Yesterday night we experienced intense parental emotion number three - worry. With full force.

After changing bambino, I picked him up and the noise he made made my heart feel like it was being torn apart by a hundred rabid pitbulls. I had heard the pain cry before (during his vaccinations) but this was in a league of its own. It started with a high pitched wail and then continued with him not being able to breathe from the screaming.

What had happened? Everything had been the same as usual on the changing mat... Then again, perhaps I had seen him bash his leg on the wooden side? Or had I? Was his leg broken? I did a quick check... Was that a bone clicking?!

As I entered deeper and deeper hysterics listening to my son's impression of Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, Krusty proved why he is the man I always want with me in times of trouble. Staying calm and collected while I broke down into tears and somehow managed to bite every single one of my nails in under ten seconds, he did a systematic check of each limb, managing somehow to soothe bambino down in the process.

And then, as Krusty slowly lifted our baby's legs for a final test, Oscar released a slow and steady stream of gas, sighed with relief, and proceeded to coo and gurgle for the next 20 minutes.

How am I ever going to survive it if bambino has a real problem?!

Relax, it's the weekend

When I grow up, I want to be a Chinese lady doing Tai Chi in the park

Compliments of the Krusty

Yesterday Krusty pointed someone out in front of us in the street and said "you have a very similar build to that woman."

"That woman" then turned around - "she" was, in fact, a man...

I'm so worried about...

Coming in at a very close second to the overwhelming joy that parenthood brings is the feeling of perpetual guilt that has assailed me for the last two months. Am I doing this right? Could I be doing this better? Should I be stimulating him more? Should I be stimulating him less? The list goes on.

And the most recent source of self-inflicted doubt - what did I do to my son that resulted in the big blue ball on his, well, his balls?!

But apparently I have nothing to feel guilty about. Oscar has simply developed a hernia in his groin, and apparently this is very common (why did no-one ever tell me about it then?!).

Once we noticed it and determined that poking it didn't seem to have any effect on bambino's happiness (in fact he spent the afternoon mostly smiling and laughing), Krusty researched it on the internet for good measure. Of course it goes without saying that you should NEVER research medical conditions on the internet, unless you want to go from "Oh I am sure that can wait until our scheduled Dr's appointment tomorrow morning" to "Oh my god we have to rush him to the emergency room immediately on a Sunday night". Those forums are scary places...

Anyway I'm glad we went in, because apart from the wait between a convict in chains and a man who I am sure was already dead, we got some peace of mind from the doctor, who explained that the hernia was "reducable", which means that it could disappear anytime before his second birthday.

Basically, when babies are born the muscles in their abdomen are not yet closed up, and so the intestine can sometimes poke through and make an appearance in the groin area. As long as it doesn't become twisted, or "strangulated", it is no source of concern.

Of course I am still concerned.

But on the plus side, Krusty was worried about the fact that our baby was the least well endowed among all the babies in our group of friends - now, with three balls, at least he has the advantage on the scrotum front!

Two months of bambino

What do you do when you have hundreds of photos of your baby ?

Mr Sandman

Oscar laughed for the first time a few days ago, and he has done it again several times since. Unfortunately each time it has been in his sleep, so I have no idea what he thinks is so funny. And after reading dozens of websites with varying degrees of professional medical opinion, it seems I can't even be sure that he is dreaming of anything at all.

Most doctors agree that because babies go through phases of REM sleep, then they must in consequence dream. They also agree that these dreams must be a silent succession of images that reflect their experiences in life so far.

I can only conclude, then, that Oscar finds my breasts, his bear or his bedroom hilarious. Or perhaps it's his father's extremely expressive eyebrows that crack him up...

Baby blues

My latest washload seems to indicate that I need to stop buying bambino blue clothes...

Call of the wild

OK, so not exactly the wild (unless wild means extremely organised and manicured) but I have finally found it– the baby-friendly place where no-one insists you buy a drink, where you can enjoy the water and the sunset and the grass without someone telling you that you are not allowed to sit down and where, at least until now, there are no mosquitoes...! It's called the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park, and it happens to be located at the foot of our building.

We've been watching this park being built for what seems like years now, and as I watched the lawn being rolled out and carefully watered, never did I imagine that we would actually be able to walk and sit on it.

Hong Kong - at least in my experience - has a habit of keeping people off the grass, when there is actually grass to be kept off. Whether it's an effort to keep the homeless away, a discriminatory action against the Filipina maids who like to hang out together on Sundays, or just a way to keep Hong Kong clean (a likely story), it's just very difficult to find a place that isn't a bar where you can just sit down and enjoy being outdoors.

But this park has it all - a big lawn, as mentioned, a playground for when bambino grows up a bit, and soon there will be a swimming pool, too. There is also "Four Desperados Corner" (not sure what that is), a "Reflection Pool" (actually just a fountain) and... a breastfeeding room! Not that I checked it out - despite my years of being prude as a teenager, nowadays nothing can stop me from whipping out the mobile milk fridges so that I can feed my son without missing a minute of the action. I don't want to sit in a tiny room on a stool for half an hour while everyone else enjoys life without me!

Now I just have to wait for the stifling Hong Kong summer to fade away, and then the park will be our hq until the winter...

Scorchio

Continuing with my categorisation of unfriendly baby places, the latest culprit on the list is: the ENTIRE city of HONG KONG (at least in the summer).

The last two weeks (more or less) have seen me stay at home because of the torrential monsoon rain, and the last two days have been scorchio. Of course I couldn't resist leaving the flat at the first glimpse of blue skies, but the unbearable heat – coupled with Hong Kong's uneven, steep streets and endless staircases that make life with a pushchair impossible – saw me crumple into a pile of sweaty milk-stained clothes on Wednesday, leaving me just a shell of my normally composed and rock solid self.

In fact I got so desperate and panicky (and guilty that my child was drenched in sweat) that I did the unthinkable and... called Krusty to come and rescue me. Ever the knight in dull grey suit, he swiftly arrived in his red Toyota chariot to save me from myself, and soon I was under the air-conditioning, swearing that I'd never set foot outside again.

Of course today we couldn't resist repeating the whole affair, taking advantage of the handover holiday to visit Hong Kong park's Aviary, an entertaining landmark that would have been on the baby-friendly list had the sun piercing through the giant netting not created a burn hazard at every turn for poor bambino.

And so my quest for the perfect baby location in Hong Kong continues. And I don't mean one of those playgroups where everything is bright plastics and crinkly cubes. I want both of us to be able to enjoy this city together...

Eaten alive

Yesterday Oscar and I met Krusty near his office for lunch (my new favourite hobby) and we decided to sit outside as it was not as hot as usual. But within 1 minute of putting my legs under the table, I was attacked by about 300 mosquitoes, resulting in what I think is the highest bite score in history for me.

This has prompted me to want to start a list of places that are baby friendly or not. L16 in Hong Kong Park: NOT.

Oscar's noises

Evil chuckle with lip smacking – I'm hungry
High-pitched squeal – I am enjoying this milk
Pout with raspberry blowing (and usually a violent shove of the breast) – I've had enough, thank you
Wistful sigh – Playing is fun
Rumbling explosion from below – Time for a change
Nga ger geeeerrr ga – I'm bored
Coooo – That's rather pretty (Oscar's very discerning)

Pride and joy

At Oscar's first postnatal check-up, he did everything he could to make me look like a good mother. First he wouldn't wake up for his tests, so I had to do the usual undressing him and shaking him around. Then, as I removed his nappy for him to weighed, he proceeded to do an explosive poo accompanied by a garden hose pee all over the changing mat, the floor, my shoes and my already sweat and breastmilk-stained shirt. The nurse was not impressed.

He had already done this to me a few days earlier – after feeling confident that we had the bathtime routine down pat, we skyped Krusty's parents to let them watch from afar. Of course, the first thing Oscar did as we lowered him into the water, with a giant smile on his face: do a giant poo, so that we had to draw the bath all over again.

And each time he has done this (I still occasionally get peed on, as if he is aiming), he has done it with a giant smile. I think he's going to be a comedian.

Should should should

The advice from strangers I had been warned would roll in started early, with two Chinese ladies who didn't speak English trying to tell me to put some socks on my son. I tried to get the guy they had grabbed off the street to translate for them to explain that it was 30 degrees outside and that both Oscar and I were boiling hot, but they wouldn't give up.

I have also been told, still by complete strangers in the street, that he is too big for his age, too small for his age, and that he should have a dummy.

And most recently, someone stopped me from getting in the lift to tell me that my son had incredibly pretty ears... Well at least that was a compliment!

Pillow talk

Hopefully Krusty is getting enough sleep for work now that we are settling into a routine – in the beginning he must have been sleeping lightly, as he cradled a pillow in his sleep, passing it to me every time the baby cried...

One night he woke three times: first he asked me what the baby was made of to be so soft; then he said "but the baby can't be there, I have him here!"; and on his final attempt to pass me the pillow, he said, with a sigh, "there's not much point in me cradling this baby, is there, since it's a pillow..."

I was relieved when he stopped – I was starting to worry that he was turning into one of those crazy ladies who play with dolls as if they were real... Not sure that his new colleagues would have understood him taking a pillow to work in the baby bjorn...

To do list

I am looking forward to NOT buying these shoes...

Family tree

We have of course not been able to escape the traditional game of "who does the baby look like", and initially Krusty was not too impressed with the results – he couldn't recognise himself at all in Oscar. I could see it, but he got to a point where he asked me if he was actually the father. I assured him that he definitely had his father's ears (although apparently our Columbian friends told us that in their language, that was code for "he's not yours").

Then, as we were changing him the other day, Krusty exclaimed "he's got your father's bottom!" Surely a statement only half as weird as the fact that Krusty knows what his father in law's bottom looks like...

Lemon drop

This morning, at our latest check-up, a lady asked me if Oscar's father was Chinese. I guess he still has jaundice then...

It started at the five-day check-up, when we found out that Oscar's skin was above the normal levels of neonatal yellow. Basically, babies are born with more red cells than they need, and often their livers aren't producing enough bilurubin to metabolise them. I just thought our boy was golden, turns out he was ill.

When the nurse told me, I was non-plussed as I knew that it was a condition that affects about 40 per cent of babies born in Hong Kong, but then she abandoned the usual hospital robot talk for a second and said "I'm sorry, I know this must be hard for you..."

I hadn't even considered it until then, but in that moment I realised that I was about to be separated from my child for the first time in nine months.

Then I experienced a minor version of the baby blues. All of the emotion of the past few days (and months) came pouring out of my body, and I cried for three days in a row, while Oscar got a tan in his incubator. I felt guilty crying so much in a hospital unit full of babies with tubes coming out of their noses, mouths and hands while all my baby was doing was getting a sun tan, but I couldn't control myself.

Those nights, I had a recurring dream about sprinklers bursting with urine, worried as I was about Oscar's peeing – frequent urination was the only way we could be sure he was evacuating the bilurubin from his system.

In fact I became obsessed with urine and faeces. Or to use the more medically accurate terms employed by the hospital – peepee and poopoo (it is so hard to keep a straight face when a doctor is asking you how many poopoos there have been...).

And because the incubator was so hot, every time I fed the baby I had to get him naked to cool him down and wake him up, much to the disarray of the nurses, who are advocates of layering and swaddling babies, not understanding my need to expose Oscar every time I came in. He brought the habit home for a while, too, making me look like a crazy woman every time I fed him. But if he didn't wake up, he didn't eat, and if he didn't eat he didn't pee, and if he didn't pee, he had jaundice.

I do worry that his stay on the tanning bed and his need to be naked have turned him into a nudist sunbather for the rest of his life, though...

He's pushing my leg

I don't believe in the tradition of the "pushing present," but it would have been nice to get a memento of the day my son was born, one that I could keep on me forever. Krusty disagreed, especially once I had had a C-section – he says the doctor should get a "pulling present" instead.

Then again, I do have a scar to stay with me forever. In fact, is it just a coincidence that we chose a name with the word "scar" in it?

My name is lagitane, and I am a sissypants

Upon leaving the hospital, the same nurse who had exclaimed "Wah! Big nipples! Your blests too big for baby's mouth lah!" came to give me a stash of pain killers, explaining that they were very effective and that I would need them because although "Chinese people could just take paracetamol, people with white culture do not have high pain tolerance."

Fine by me!

The aftermath

If contractions are impossible to define in words, then the sensation of hot, newborn skin against your breast as you feed a tiny new life for the first time can't even be fathomed.

Unfortunately I couldn't exactly concentrate on this new art I was being introduced to in the recovery room, because my face was so itchy (apparently a side effect of the epidural) and I had to keep asking the nurse to scratch my nose. Not that I was going to be prudish - I was still asleep from the waist down, naked for the most part and hooked up to a catheter... In fact that was the hardest part for me about the whole experience - nothing makes you feel sexier and stronger than a middle aged Chinese woman changing your nappy because you can't get up to change your baby's nappy, let alone your own...

The other challenge was the ward I was on - not in terms of staff (the nurses were lovely), but in terms of my fellow "in-mates". I could have been luckier - one woman wept uncontrollably all day, gazing like a zombie at her daughter, who meanwhile screamed for hours right next to my bed, and another spent all day complaining that she was being discriminated against because I was given the call button. Not that I couldn't walk or anything...

Meanwhile, I was simply content, getting told off by the nurses for not sleeping, because all I wanted to do was stare at the pink bundle next to me (Queen Mary babies start life in a uniform of white dresses and pink blankets - stylish!).

Sleep was difficult anyway, interrupted as it was by nurses taking my temperature, Oscar asking for food and, most impressively, bath time - that's when all of the babies get lined up as if at the car wash. Each time the door opens to gather another batch for bathing, a shrill orchestra of screams comes out, as if someone had opened the hatch to a chicken coop...

Soon, my own, self-administered bath time made me feel human again. The nurses couldn't understand why I wanted to wash so badly - apparently Chinese ladies like to wait a whole month before washing, but I just couldn't stand laying there in the same skin that had been drenched in broken waters not just hours, but DAYS beforehand. I think that's what made me recover the use of my legs so fast. I was ready to go home.

A shower also gave me the chance to see myself in the mirror for the first time since giving birth. The next day, I would feel even more whale-like than before, but for a few minutes I couldn't believe how small my belly was. How empty. I had been surgically removed from my son. Then again, I felt somehow more whole when I looked down at his cheeky eyes...

Oscar is calm, gentle, soft and so full of character. It's a cliché, but it's true: he has changed me forever.

This is it

On the Monday before the operation, I sat down to finish the knitting that I wanted to get done in the four days I had left. Bambino was doing his usual moving around, until I felt one very painful kick, and then, I was in a Hollywood movie. The nurses and books all warned me that the waters breaking was nothing like on film, where the liquid suddenly gushes all over the place. Well, true to my Bridget Jones existence, my waters breaking were very much like they would have been in a film - it felt like someone had emptied three bottles of evian between my legs. It was everywhere and all I could do was laugh hysterically.

I called Krusty in a panic, who told me to sit down while I waited for him to come back from work, and after updating my facebook profile (this was no time to be behind the times!) we left for the hospital. We rushed down to get a taxi, at which point the sky's waters broke too - we both arrived drenched at the hospital.

Unfortunately I had had a piece of toast before the excitement began, so the C section that I was still planned for (although now that it was an emergency operation Krusty would not be able to attend) would have to wait six hours until the food had passed through my system (otherwise I could choke on it in the event of general anaesthesia). And so I lay on the monitoring bed, sans Krusty and hooked up to all sorts of machines, as the nurse told me to relax.

I was quite cosy, until I suddenly felt what a real contraction was. The books don't tell you what kind of pain this represents. Then again, I don't think anyone could ever describe it adequately, or that anyone who hasn't felt it could ever understand. They say that the pain is equivalent to having an ear infection, but as the sufferer of numerous DOUBLE ear infections, I can confidently say that they came nowhere near the pain of labour.

By now I was worried that I would have to have the baby naturally (after months of "too posh to push" jokes, I was now more than ready to go under the knife to escape the pain that was escalating, not to mention the fear of my baby's umbilical necklace tightening to a choker on the way out), and I called the nurse, who immediately changed the plan and rushed me to the operating theatre.

A string of unknown faces appeared above my bed telling me to relax as I watched the neon lights go by on the ceiling. In no time I was in a very bright room full of women who had been summoned to lift me from the stretcher to the table. I burst out laughing as these eight or so tiny, fragile Chinese ladies tried to pull me over - me, the "obese" Westerner... I think they had called the entire staff to help for what would seriously have taken two people back in Europe. I mean, I'm not saying I'm skinny, but this was just hilarious! My attitude obviously did not impress the anaesthesiologist, who asked me what I thought was so funny...

A contraction soon called me back to order.

The same doctor then started to put my legs and abdomen to sleep, telling me to co-operate between contractions, which had by then become about 30 seconds apart. The drugs took quite fast, and suddenly I was blissfully unaware of what was going on behind the curtain that had been placed in front of my chin. I couldn't even feel the tilt in the table anymore (this had scared me at first, as I felt I was going to fall off, but it is apparently designed to prevent the uterus from crushing any arteries. Then again for all I know this might be some veterinarian trick that they used on me because of the fact that my height and weight was off their charts...). All I could do was look up at the giant lights while someone played cheesy lift music in the background, saying "focus on the piano". It was all rather odd.

After a few minutes, I asked why they were giving me electric shocks (they were in fact moving things around to grab the baby, but it felt like I was the conductor for some weird electrical experiment). Someone said "Congratulations" and while I wondered why (had I guessed right about the electricity?) someone shoved a pair of testicles in my face, asking "is it a boy or a girl?" (apparently this is protocol in Hong Kong to make sure parents accept the sex of the child and don't accuse nurses of swapping babies - rather crucial when you're over from China and the one child policy makes you wish for a boy). But then, bambino was turned around, and I got to see for the first time the face that would melt my heart a million times a minute forever (well, until his teenage rebellion at least).

The OK story

Have you ever seen a dog that doesn't want to let go of a rag, growling as it thrashes its head from side to side? That's what my son likes to do with my nipple while he breastfeeds. But perhaps that's not the first thing I should mention in the story of Oscar's first month in the real world...

I should probably proceed in installments and backtrack to the last appointment before the birth, I suppose. I handed over my book (the one that says that I am a "chronic alcoholic" because before the pregnancy I used to drink more than two glasses of alcohol a week – which actually makes almost everyone I know an alcoholic...) and waited for the usual abuse, hoping that to the by now customary "you're obese" the nurse might add "you are a drug addict", just to spice things up. Instead, I found out that the C-section I was dreading was now a sure thing, and before I could even ask if the baby had turned around yet, I was informed that the date for the operation was booked. Bambino was to be born by the knife, six days before his due date.

Fear of the operation aside, after all that waiting I was rather keen to meet the little one, so giving birth a few days early suited me just fine. Although I had spent a few days feeling guilty because all I could think about was how bambino was going to change my life forever, and not necessarily in a good way. In a sense, my life had already changed dramatically, and I had gone from spoiled princess to simply a vessel for a baby who was already stealing away all of my attention. My husband would greet my belly first before saying hello to me, my friends could only talk about whether I was ready or not, and my parents kept reminding me to be careful and to protect their grandchild... But then I spent the day with my friend and her two-week-old baby Kilian, and I realised that it was all worth it. After a day of feeding, changing, bathing, burping and starting all over again, I felt overwhelmed with the love a baby can bring just by blinking.

I was also looking forward not to have to keep answering the same question - "where are you giving birth?" It is a fact universally acknowledged in Hong Kong that a woman in possession of a pregnant belly must be in want of an outrageously priced private clinic. Yet Krusty and I had opted for the public hospital route (where instead of the $100,000 package that then goes on to be charged by the hour overtime, we could pay the $300 bill with our automatic Octopus card), most importantly because Queen Mary Hospital is the best pediatric hospital in Hong Kong (plus it's located immediately behind the building where I lived with my parents the first time around... Full circle indeed).

So it was all planned. I would come in the day before to check in, and on the morning of the 14th May, I would become a mother. And because I had my deadline all set, I then moved on to make the very most of it in the meantime. Parties on rooftops, trips to the south of the island, dinner with friends... I tried to fit it all in...

Hiatus

You might have guessed that the silence means that our son was born... And there I was thinking I could have a baby and still blog as usual... Turns out I can't! So here's informing you that I'm on a break for a while. Will be back with plenty of childbirth stories soon. Or maybe I'll spare you the details and let the photos do the talking...

Scatterbrains

On Saturday Krusty went to the local shop to buy us both an ice cream, and halfway through his selection he started thinking that I might be in labour at home. Hurrying back to my side, just in case, he was quickly brought back to reality by the screaming shopkeeper who had followed him out onto the street to let him know that he had not paid!

Good to know I'm not the only one with a one track mind at the moment!

Drunken secretaries and boum boum crickets

Krusty and I have long been trying to find something that we can use to further his French education, but so far, no luck.

I started with baby books, but Krusty is just not interested in those, and I tend to understand. We tried the news on the French TV channel, but he's just not ready to understand running commentary without pressing pause at every word. We tried reading the sentences of financial newspapers, but I'm just not ready to stay awake for long enough to see him through it.

And so we stumbled on a magazine supplement called "100 choses à savoir sur la fête quand on est un homme", or "100 things to know about partying for men". And it seems to be working.

Perhaps it's the feeling of not letting go of our social life even when we actually have dialled outings right down in preparation for bambino, or perhaps it's just the opportunity to learn slang like "empiffrer" (to stuff one's face) and "guincher" (party), but it seems to be working.

Every night we read a chapter together, and it has the double benefit of giving me an opportunity to keep Krusty's morals in check - we're on the office party section, and last night's chapter was entitled "Tu n'abuseras pas de la secrétaire ivre au pot de fin d'année", or "You won't abuse the drunken secretary at the end of year party". That's right Krusty, there'll be no office romances in this family!

In exchange for my linguistic knowledge, Krusty is trying to teach me the virtues of zen philosophy, and blocking out sounds that could be stressful (ie every sound in Hong Kong, really). And so, when he comes home and I complain that the THREE sets of jackhammers in our neighbourhood have been at it for 10 hours straight, he just replies "How can these noises bother you? I manage to live here and not even hear a single sound." Never mind the fact that this might be because he's not actually at home all day listening to them...

And so, Krusty's exercise for me today is to consider the jackhammers, who seem to be answering each other in intensity as soon as another one starts, as just a bunch of crickets in Provence, gently calling out to each other in relaxing, rolling rhythms.

Far from me to want to contradict Krusty's idea that a jackhammer could be likened to a cricket, so here's a little extract recorded in our lounge this morning at 9am. That's right, all windows closed, just me sitting on the sofa with the recorder. Perhaps I should send this recording to a spa for their massage soundtrack... You decide: relaxing or mind-blowingly unhealthy?!

Les couilles de bambino

Speaking of boys, I went for a quick check up yesterday, as planned.

Unfortunately the news was not good - bambino has managed to turn back the wrong way up. Either that, or he never turned head down in the first place (I never understood how the nurses could tell by just feeling my tummy, surely an ultrasound is the only real way to find out?). In any case, his GIANT head is now nowhere near the exit point, which means two things: I could be experiencing the joys of ECV soon; or I could be having a C-section.

The only way out of the C-section that I reallllly don't want (there are 30 steps leading up to our flat, I don't necessarily want to experience them under the influence of post-operatic shock) is ECV - or External Cephalic Version. That's where they try to turn the bub around manually from the outside. It would be done about two weeks from now. If he can't turn around himself for lack of space at this stage in the game, you can imagine what it will feel like to be forced around by ruthless medical staff when he's gained a few more grams. I already find normal examinations painful...

Not to mention that his head is about one week ahead of the rest of his body in terms of gestational size. And that's not the only thing - during the ultrasound I mentioned to the doctor that I kept dreaming about the delivery, and that bambino came out as a bambina. Not only did she laugh, pointing as his humongous equipment on the screen, but at the end of the appointment, where she would usually hand me a beautiful black and white side portrait of our baby's head, this time she gave me a picture of... his scrotum!

And in case you were wondering just how huge a foetus' scrotum could look, that's his elbow on the left side of the picture, and his giant balls on the right!

One down, three to go

I give you baby Kilian, born on Monday, the first of four to come in our group of friends in Hong Kong - one a month from now on, all boys! Problem is, I'm up next...!

RIP Gordon

Tonight, as I was doing the washing up, I lifted up a tray I was washing, and found the body of our baby gecko in a pool of water underneath.

I lifted him out and on to a tea towel and spent the next few hours pleading with the little guy, encouraging him to pull through, begging him to wiggle his little paws. It might just have been leftover nerves, but I could have sworn I saw his tail move, so I proceeded to give him CPR, gently pressing his lungs and breathing to give him air. I had drowned our baby gecko. I was devastated.

I held him in my hand, sobbing and sobbing, thinking about what a bad mother I was going to be. I softly asked him to please not die, until I realised it was too late, and he had probably been dead already when I lifted him out of that pool of washing up liquid.

And then Krusty came home, and told me I was being silly and threw him in the bin outside.

RIP little friend.

Time to find a new doctor

I miss seeing bambino, and although there is no medical reason to have another scan, I really want to go back one last time. So when I lost a night's sleep from a nasty ear infection, I was almost happy - maybe I could sneak a peek when I went to get some drops from the doc.

But then I called to get an appointment, and the conversation went like this:
"Hello, can I have an appointment please?"
"No"
"No?! Is the doctor away? Is there another day I can come?"
"No"
"I don't understand..."
"Please hold"
Cue 15 minutes of hold music.

Either they have caller id and hate me, or it's time for me to change my doctor...

You were saying...

What was that? "But we were relaxed. And happy. And ready for bambino to finally arrive."

How ironic that a few hours after writing this, I went for what was supposed to be a routine check-up at the hospital, and ended up having to spend the night there.

Turns out I wasn't as relaxed as I thought I was – my blood pressure was apparently higher than usual. Not much higher, but high enough for them to want to test me again 10 minutes later. Of course as soon as they started telling me why they needed to test me again, and with the nurses running around speaking worried Chinese ("guangdongwa guagdongwa high blood pressure guangdongwa high risk"), my blood pressure went up even more. In the space of half an hour, I had gone from 120/80 to 169/95... Not good.

And so I got carted off to the same hospital ward where I will end up having bambino, dressed in the pink pyjamas that would soon be my uniform for three days. But not before I had disobeyed the nurse and gone home - I was not wearing a bra at the time of the check-up and was getting quite flustered by the idea of going to hospital without one. I don't think that's what made me break down into tears when the doctor told me I'd be kept for observation all night, but you never know...

In any case, I was soon sitting on a bed lined up next to all of the new mothers, not daring to move because my plastified pillow crinkled every time I did. I guess it was good practice for the big day and I couldn't be in a better place to be under observation, this being the best hospital in Hong Kong, and one of the best in the world. And, more importantly, I was now wearing a bra.

I spent the few hours before Krusty could visit sending strong mental messages to my son to stay put and not make an early appearance (turns out I was not "ready for bambino to finally arrive" after all). Looking around, I soon noticed that the "shorts" that I had been given were actually full length trousers on every other woman there, and then I realised I was the only Westerner on the ward. That should reduce the chances of accidental baby swapping! It also means that communication was not so easy, especially since almost half of the ladies were from the mainland and therefore spoke absolutely no English whatsoever. Apparently almost 45% of deliveries in Hong Kong are for mainland Chinese ladies who cross the border specifically to give birth. Whether that is because the level of healthcare is better here or whether it is to get around the "one baby per household" rule, I am not sure...

In any case, I didn't need to talk to them – I had Krusty to communicate with. Not by phone (I had to give him mine since he still doesn't have one at his new job), and not in person (the visiting hours are ridiculously few), but by little envelopes he had left me, one to be opened each half hour, containing the sweetest, funniest little messages to keep me entertained. I cannot express how lucky I feel to have such a man to rely on. I complain about him a lot (but then don't I complain about everything a lot) but every time I need him, he's not only there, he completely surpasses all of my expectations.

And just as I was dreamily thinking of Krusty in my bubble of pastel rainbow curtains, a nurse came in saying "congee". As if, at 6am after no sleep because of the baby next to me screaming all night, the thing that was going to make me feel better was a bowl of Chinese porridge. Note to self - pack some nice snacks for delivery day.

By now, despite the lack of sleep and the frustration at having the bed next to the ward's TV (nothing like a little Chinese soap opera at 3am...), my blood pressure had gone down to 100/65, and so I was released with a clean bill of health. I had peed in a pot 5 times, I have a big bruise on my arm where the medical student couldn't find my vein, and I was hungry, tired and dirty.

But I was wearing a bra, and bambino was still in the oven. And I now know that I'm ready to wait at least another month until I learn to live with his crying, no matter how cute he will be...

Last tango in Macau

Since I can't fly now, we decided to spend our Easter weekend in Macau, a Chinese island just an hour's ferry ride away from Hong Kong that used to belong to the Portuguese.

Turns out the rest of China had decided to come along too, so our departure was delayed somewhat by the fact that we hadn't booked tickets because ferries leave every 15 minutes and we were sure we'd catch one without any problems...

But after lunch in the ifc (for a change), we boarded with the Super Class tickets we had been forced to plump for (not that much price difference in fact, and we got priority queuing, lounge access and a food platter, so in the end, we won!) and made our way to what was hopefully going to be a sunny, relaxing holiday by the pool.

We zoomed through immigration (apparently pregnancy is considered a “condition” worthy of the disabled lane...) and arrived at the Westin, where all was “luxe, calme et volupté” – there was a bathtub in which we could actually spread our legs, soft cotton sheets, warm fluffy robes and our own private terrace with an ocean view... OK the view was of muddy brown water and rain, but still, we were content.

That night we dined on Macanese classics in tiny Taipa village at Michelin-rated (but very reasonably-priced) Antonio's. Antonio himself was out all night among the white linen tables and Portuguese azulejos tiles, flambé-ing Crêpes Suzette and telling stories in his strong accent, looking like he hadn't stopped drinking for the last 20 years. On our way out he told us he looked forward to seeing us with a stroller next time... We'll be sure to oblige.

The next morning, in my robe, knitting booties for my child on my ottoman facing the sea, I started reminiscing about my own childhood, and the time, dedication and opportunities I was given. Perhaps it was the rain and fog, but I couldn't help but feeling that having a child is a little like having the attention taken away from you – for the last 30 years it has all been about how well or badly I was fulfilling the potential my daddy told me I had over silly morning games at home, learning how to draw patterns of flowers with a compass, but now that doesn't seem to matter, as if I have reached the apex of my potential, and once that has passed, only the baby's potential will count. It was a bittersweet moment of realisation, but one that I wouldn't swap for the world.

To get my ideas back in order, I decided to get up and affront the beast of a shower in our room and its two heads, but in fact the water pressure was so rubbish that Krusty went down to the spa for his wash (after a massage of course... which they wouldn't give me because, yes, I'm too pregnant...).

Krusty then spent the rest of the day recreating that infamous plastic bag scene from American Beauty, only Krusty's Macanese Beauty involved two hours each of staring at a boat jetty and a rotting bicycle. I see detritus, he sees art. He is practising his photography with panache, you see. But I wouldn't mind if he'd do it somewhere a little nicer...

As the weather was still miserable and the day of staring at a rubbish tip had been quite exhausting, we finished with a long bath in the long bathtub and the ultimate laziness of room service and a bad movie with Keanu Reeves on TV.

The next day, wanting to find somewhere that was interesting for me as well as for photography, we head off to Coloane Village, a sleepy seafront town eaten alive by the weather, where we had encounters with fishermen, churches, temples, students, egg tarts and a few arguments (mainly about where the external flash should go). If only the sun had come with us, we might have enjoyed the scarred walls and peaceful alleyways even more.

Back at the hotel, the Westin had arranged for a few live Easter bunnies to hop around in an enclosure where Krusty could actually climb in and pet them before heading over to the bbq next door. He was a happy man. And yet the weather continued to be bad. We went for the only option we had – a three-hour nap, two-hour swim and more room service before bed.

By then it was our final day, time to leave. We hadn't seen any of the casinos that make Macau the “Las Vegas of Asia”, we hadn't spent much time away from our room at all, and we hadn't spent any time in the outdoor pool that we had actually chosen the hotel for.

But we were relaxed. And happy. And ready for bambino to finally arrive.