How have you all 'bean'?

If there is a god then over Christmas and New Year he emptied several enormous cannisters of frozen tiny pollestirine balls all over the North East, leaving us to battle with our nerves continously on a daily basis. Highly unprepared for this amount of snow, large parts of Blighty ground to a halt. Of course the NHS couldn't, it is a 24hr service, so we were all guilt tripped and even harrassed into making sure we turned in for work. I fought my way out of town at 5.30am one morning, with the help of three guys who were waiting for a bus, that would likely never arrive - who pushed me out from my parking space - thanks guys! The adrenaline that coarses through your body (and not in a good way) when driving around in this kind of weather is unreal, until you are almost physically shaking. And worrying about whether you are going to make it too and from work safely, every day, is unbelievably emotionally draining. Ali was in her element though. She was off school, and now thinks sledging and making snowmen is the best thing since sliced bread. We were, however, all tickled by the enormous icicle that was hanging by our front door. Now April and you would alsmost think it was the summer? We actually ate our tea outside tonight, the sun belting down on our backs and sunshades on. It was lovely without being baking hot! I am getting excited all over again about growing my tomatoes, and have some new greenhouses, curtousy of my dad, to plough ahead with them once again - minus the worry about all those horrible flys in the conservatory!

I am 26 now - another year older. Now pushing 30 I am not as excited about my birthdays anymore, although I do plan to celebrate my 30th in a big way, as I was pregnant when 21! Of course the snow prevented most of the celebrations we planned. It was a Chinese takeaway at home. Bloody snow. Of course the big news, and I suppose my main birthday present, I received two days before my birthday. We are pregnant again! So I am donning maternity bra's and fending off nausea as best I can. Deja vu? It is still quite early, but I cannot stop myself from getting excited. I love Ali to bits, but her arrival was surrounded by trepadation and anxiety, so it is lovely to be able to relax and enjoy everything this time. Although I thought I would be much happier when I got my stomach back - no such luck! I am destined to hate being pregnant - luckily I don't have to do it again! It is a good job too, not even half way and I feel like a beached whale already.

Ali is so excited. We are calling the baby 'Little Bean' at present as when I had an early scan (to ensure there was just one!), the baby was 1.2cm big (about the size of a baked bean) and I saw its little heart going. Now it is bigger but the name has just kind of 'stuck'. I have cheated and had a colleague at work take a sneaky peak to try and determine the sex. She thinks it has a willy! A boy! One of each! We are trying not to get too excited though as they can be wrong, but I have my anomaly scan with the sister on 19th April so we can ask then too. If the big boss says it has a willy as well - I reckon we can go with it!

D has a inguinal hernia, so it is like 'the adventures of hernia man and pregnant woman' in our house! We could write a comedy sketch, what with both of us gasping and crying out in pain when coughing and sneezing, and unable to get comfortable in bed! And trying to have sex - well, bloody hilarious. Well, funny with hindsight, not at the time. What with my uncertainty over which side of the line between pleasure and pain D was on, being that he was affected by his hernia, and me trying to encourage him away from lying on my bump. Not exactly a passionate love scene, as in the movies!

So the next few months are about surviving the ever expanding belly, trying to come up with a decent boys name, (and they just aren't as good as girls names), and planning my now big girls birthday party, which of course means having to come up with another fabulous cake to top last year's creation! Tinkerbell theme this time!