Friends without children

It all starts that day you look to the stick you just peed on and it says... pregnant 2-3 weeks....
then you know your life will change... forever...
what you might not know is that it will change in ways you did not even consider... ( ahem like you never heard this one before)
yes yes there is going to be diapers,
there is going to be poop talk,
there is going to be emotional upheaval,
you are going to turn into your parents slowly,
you are going to gain weight,
what you might not have ever imagined is that , if you live in a city, a strange phenomenon will take place....

I call it

DESERTIFICATION OF THE FRIENDS' ZONE

what I mean is that with that positive pregnancy test here should be a warning
"YOU WILL LOSE 90% OF WHO YOU THEN CALLED YOUR FRIENDS"

"No,I hear you say, I have had a baby and I still have all of my friends next to me"          Really???            Really???

Think about it and count how many of the people you used to see on a very regular basis you are still seeing now; if you have everyone still next to you count yourself lucky and smart as you chose the right people to be friends with to begin with; what happened to me however was very different.

It all started that day that me and Richard were at the hospital for our first screening, up to that we had told only 2 people about the pregnancy (and they were super happy, but hey they were pregnant and lived abroad... so nothing could be lost there) but after the scan when we got confirmed everything was ok we thought it was time to tell people.. and so it began

"hey I have to tell you some news"
"what, tell me"
"... We are expecting a baby ..." (follows an uncomfortable pause)
" Does this mean you won't be coming to my wedding???? OMG the wedding will be a disaster all of these people that can't make it"
follows more uncomfortable silence

 "hey I have to tell you some news"
"what, tell me"
"... We are expecting a baby ..."
" Oh that's fantastic, amazing, I will be there for you guys all the time, I will be like the fun aunt/uncle".
...
Be prepared for the big vanishing act, these are the people that are never to be found when you actually need them but always there when you don't to swear by their reliability.

You go through 9 months of pregnancy and everything seems fine... you don't see people too often, but hey you expected this after all you can't drink, you can't eat the same things (sushi anyone?) and let's face it you are a bit of a beached whale;
all this time holding on for when the baby comes and some normality will be acquired and slowly but surely everything will settle back into normality

....

WRONG

...

People will come see you and wonder at the baby ... some will coo and some will be terrified of even seeing the inside of a nappy, some will plainly be not interested, but seriously consider that as a goodbye as after that "POOF" they will mostly be gone

 

It is not through fault of their own, mostly it will be yours.

Unless your friends get pregnant quickly the divide between you and them will grow quickly.

They will still carry on with their carefree life clubbing, restauranting, drinking, theatreing and in general staying out of the house as much as possible.

On the other side there is you, your husband and your baby and for a very long time you will have a very varied list of conversational topics:

• Poop
• Nappies ( reusable? nappy genie? characters on them?)
• Sleeping ( and lack of it)
• Poop
• Poop
• vaccination ( and OMFG you will lose friends, acquaintances and you will rage war on this subject) 
• Poop
• and then some more poop (yes it will happen, we all said no i will never be that parent and suddenly you find yourself at the dinner table discussing consistency and colour of the above mentioned like if it were the most natural thing in the world)

You will be running home as fast as you can because you will want to spend time with your baby.
You will resent your "friends" as they still get to live the life you used to.
You suddenly will think that spending 8 hours on a Sunday in a dingy smelly pub drinking yourself silly is NOT quality time.
You will want to go out but then change your mind at the last minute as baby seems a bit down.

And you will feel all of this at the same time, a lot of the times.

And your friend slowly but surely will be pushed aside  by your parenthood... they won't like you and you won't like them
you will pretend to like each other still for a bit but by the time your baby is 3 you will have lost almost anyone ...except 2 or 3 of your old friends... the best ones?
not sure;
I probably would say the one that were interested in you more than in the activities you used to do together; or the ones that actually cared enough to stick with you while you were "that parent"

unfair? Maybe

But don't worry good chances are that you have been "that friend" before and that you will be again, you will abandon several friends through your life
It's all part of growing up
the important is to remember that it's not them it's you
don't blame them, don't resent them, just move on

Peace Out

Baby Girl Names - Gli ottavi di finale

Well earlier this week we had our first look at names and reduced the boy names to the quarter final,

let's see if we can do the same with the Girl names...

When choosing the girl's name we were adamant we would not have a pinky pinky Disney Princess kind of name (may the gods forbid that our daughter will live a life of pink and think her primary purpose is reproduction and cleaning),what we are looking for a strong confident woman who does not need to flutter her eyelids to get what she wants type of name... So here we go with the selection, where we were last week and where we ended up at the end of the ottavo di finale:

Unfortunately (or fortunately) these names have not made the cut:

 Lucrezia - the only thing i could think of the first time Richard proposed the names the cat of a friend ...mmm not bad i thought and then BHAM ... Lucrezia Borgia came up to my mind... Medieval whore, no thank you...

Hermione - so so so cute but tooo Harry Potter  possibly overused, and she is a bit annoying...(as my daughert she will be VERY annoying)
  
Valentina  - could not see the Valentina Chiesa thing happening... and then Richard reminded me of this Valentina  ... another soft porn heroine???? NOOOOOOOOOO

Edwige - immediately my mind goes to Edwige Fenech and although she did star in many of my favourite movies she is just another big titted sex object ...so another NOOO

(man choosing female name is so much harder that choosing male names)

Ermengarda - only one word came out of Richard's mouth ...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Sakura - A name form my childhood, where all of my favourite manga and cartoons had a Sakura, usually a quite funny and rock'n' roll characters... but Richard went with the same arguments of the Akira situation... so my little baby girl will never be in Naruto ,  nor in Lamu' , or in any other cartoon :(:(

What we are left is as follows:

Next week we go to the quarter finals......

Baby Names

A - "Stop asking"
A - "We are not going to tell you"
A - "Yes we do have the names..."
Q - "but if you do not know the sex how can you have a name???? AH HA.... you know the sex but you do not want to tell..."
for the millionth time
A - "NO WE DO NOT KNOW THE SEX, NOR WE WANT TO KNOW IT. WE WOULD NOT LOVE THE BABY BETTER OR MORE DEPENDING ON ITS SEX"
Q - "So the names??? do you have 2 names??"

I lost count of how many times we have this conversation, and every time i am so so excited that people are actually interested in what we have chosen, on the fact that so many people want to be part of this amazing experience we are going through...

We do have the names, we like our names and we would love to shout them... but .... have you ever notice how whenever a friend or someone you know chooses a name for a baby you immediately think about how not nice It is and how can it be changed by mini bullies at school???

So we have decided not to tell you, not to tell anyone, not even the baby knows as we have made our decision long before it could start hearing what is going on outside his domain (season of the tummy).

However we would like you all to be part (even if just as a spectator) of the process that we followed to make this terribly important choice....
we started off with something like this:

And then i remember one of my favourite movies, Aprile by Nanni Moretti where he and his wife are expecting a baby and they need to decide on a name so they go through a process of elimination very similar to a sport's tournament ...

So we begun by writing down all of the names we wanted 

Names for boys included :
Edward, Edgar, Edmund, Henry, Harry, William, Charles, Andrew, Philip, Alexander, Arthur, Francis, Frederick, Laurence, Lucas, Tarquin, Humphrey, Percy, Cecil, Quentin, Tristan, Victor, Godfrey, Winston, Pierce, Maximilian, Duncan, Theodore, Bartholomew, Julius, Clarence , Quentin
Names for girls included:
Beatrice, Francesca, Camilla, Elizabeth, Victoria, Cordelia, Miranda, Eleonora, Georgiana, Madeleine, Alessandra , Helena, Penelope,Diana, Amelia, Harriet, Clarissa, Audrey

ETC ETC  - believe you me we had a lot, A LOT of names

and by the power of VETO we brought it down to 16 boy names and 16 girl names and from there we just did the "Ottavi di finale", the "Quarti di finale" the "semifinale" and the "FINALE"

so i thought every week i will just post the results of our Name Matches....
this week I SEDICESIMI DI FINALE
(i have chosen to represent me and Richard with characters from Hello Spank, I am Micia and Richard is Torakiki)

so with no further ADO

And

See you next week to see who went trough to the "OTTAVI DI FINALE"