The green dinosaurs

Our friends, James and Claire, stayed over at our house last night.  They went to a wedding celebration in the afternoon then came to ours in the evening.  James was parking up when Claire came in.  She gave Erin a huge hug, then it was my turn, but she rubbed my belly too saying 'this is what we should do isn't it?' I was confused, and slightly self conscious - actually, very self conscious and know that pregnant women must feel ten times worse.  Then James came in with his own usual fanfare and the hugs were given with the following belly rub; once could have been a mistake, twice was an obvious ploy.  

I looked at them both and they said: 'We know the rules. We shouldn't rub Erin's belly, we know, we've been reading the blog on the way down here. So we thought we'd treat you.'  

Thanks guys.

James had printed the whole thing out and read it to Claire in the car.  Poor Claire.  And throughout the evening I heard my words quoted back to me about Angry Pregnant, conditions, and of course, belly rubbing.

The conversation stayed with babies for a while as the celebration they had come from was, apparently, teaming with little tykes.  James had been playing with a few of the toddlers and ended halfway up a chimney 'in the search for dinosaurs'.  So did he see any? 'No, I can't, silly, we adults can't see them but the kids tell me they are green.'  

Wow.

They've just recently had the arrival of their niece, Maia.  We were shown the photos from their Facebook page and on James' phone.  She was gorgeous.  I don't know what has happened to me since finding out about our pregnancy.  (I used to think they all looked like a very tired, beaten up, Winston Churchill, but now they seem to be adorable.  I'm obviously losing it.)  James gave us an insight into the first two weeks of a baby's life: 'They don't react to you, no smiles, they are just crying and shitting machines.'

As the weekend progressed I'd love to say the conversation did too. But aside from a little Olympics, Russia/Georgia issue and general catch up, with them living very near to their god daughters, we had lots of lively debates about how to bring up children.  It was great, but it's these conversations I'm only just getting used to joining in with. It was unchartered territory until only a few months ago.