Photo Day

So our baby had its first picture taken the other day, by ultrasound. I was surprised to see how much detail there actually was – I was fully expecting to see some sort of grainy blob wherein the ultrasound operator would point out various features and I’d nod along pretending to have seen it, but secretly not being able to tell which end was which. But no, there was a clearly visible head, and two arms and legs, and some finger movement was visible, and you could even see a rather well formed spinal column and all. The best bit, though, was the little heartbeat which I thought exceptionally cool.

The good news is that everything seems to be in order, and we are not having twins or triplets.

I did try to work out if it is a boy or a girl. Let me just say that I saw no evidence to suggest that we are having a boy. Apparently, though, my efforts to work it out were pointless as it all looks pretty much the same at this early stage. We aren’t planning to find out before their actual birth, but I thought, hey, if I can figure it out from here then good for me, and I’ll keep my findings to myself.

Stubborn, though, just like Mum and Dad. They had found a comfortable position, and they were sticking with it. Nothing at all would convince them to move around so they could have their picture taken from the other side. A household with two stubborn parents and a stubborn child, what could possibly go wrong?

I was thinking, though, that when they are born I will be turning 27 myself, and realistically, when they are older, they will have no memory of me that has me at anything younger than about 30 to 32. And it’s really odd to think that they will have no idea what I was like as a kid, what I was like as a teenager, what Mum and Dad did before they were born, or anything like that. In fact, those things hadn’t occurred to me about my own parents until recently – you just sort of assume that your parents were always the way they are now, and not that they might have been different before you were born, and have different views to the ones they hold now, and do different things on a weekend and so on.

But no, your parents were probably people just like you once. Does that mean you’ll turn into them?

I once read somewhere that you’ve turned into your Dad when you set aside a stick specifically for stirring paint with.

I have several of those already. Does that mean I’m now even more like my Dad than my Dad is?