But it has taken us a while to name this third bump.  A name hadn’t really come up in conversation or, indeed, in sleep.  Whenever we have discussed a possible name, our children have slightly misunderstood what we were talking about and suggested things such as Tom, John, Simon or Peter to name but four.  My suggestions have for the most part been met with ridicule and/or derision – nothing new there then.  However we now have a name at which we arrived not by desire or intent but simply because, in the words of my wife, we couldn’t think of anything better to call it and we had to call it something soon.

So in tribute to Mike Batt’s musical version of The Hunting of the Snark which is the current album of choice for the children, the bump is being called Boojum.  In the epic nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll, the Baker lives in dread of finding out that the Snark is a Boojum for he will “softly and suddenly vanish away and never been seen of again.”  There is a parallel here – once Boojum is born, the name will vanish away as we will then call the new child whatever name is appropriate depending on its sex – Daisy Rae is the girl’s choice (and has been since 2003) and for boy’s we have put “Frederick Clifford” or “Frederick John” into the goldfish bowl to see it either blows bubbles.

Once we went public on Twitter about Boojum, I was contacted by @henweb who asked me to contribute a piece to his blog about what it was like waiting for child number three.  He is expecting number two so I was happy to offer my view which you can read here assuming I have got the hyperlink right.  In it I said that this time round it was less about Boojum and more about our other two children.  But they seem to be proving me wrong as they are so much more involved with this whole “waiting for our new brother/sister” thing that I imagined.

For example, our five year old loves reading the Argos catalogue and choosing what toys we won’t let him buy with his pocket money.  A week ago having had enough of explaining why a Lego set costing £50 was a little out of his financial league, I suggested he had a look at the baby section.  He then spent a blissful half hour deciding whether we needed  pink or a blue Moses basket and choosing the pram, highchair and even potty.  He was suitably unimpressed with playpens – “That’s a prison!” was his reaction.  Our seven year old is more worried about practical arrangements such as where Boojum will sleep and totally understands why Mummy needs a lot of sleep and help.  My wife is now wearing maternity jeans and they both collapsed into uncontrollable giggles when they saw the special elastic extended front panel.  Clearly Boojum already is an important and exciting part of their lives.

And if the above were not proof enough, after kissing his mum goodnight this evening, my five year old reached down to her rapidly expanding tummy, planted a soggy kiss on her shirt and said, “That’s a kiss for Boojum.”

We have been sitting on this secret news for a while only telling very close friends and a couple of my colleagues who needed to know for professional reasons but now we can come out and share our good news.  My wife said she always wanted three or four children – I said no to four because you suddenly have to start buying really big cars like Renault Espaces and that was too expensive.  My mum said she always wanted nine grandchildren and my sisters provided three each so the weight of maternal expectation was on us.  Our two children were thrilled when we told them – both have voted for a baby sister – although the five year old said he was sad as it would make his mum ill at which point the seven year old, having carefully studied his mother’s tummy, decided that she was actually a bit bigger already.

I kept baby diaries for both of them and last week dug out the archive to read them again.  There was a definite sense of excitement but also of slight distance: I never really bonded with the “bump” and often said to my wife that being an expectant dad is a bit like being the pit crew in an F1 race: there’s really nothing much to do except hang around and wait until something turns up.  The overwhelming emotion at the moment for me is pretty much neutral: of course I am excited but for me there’s a long wait until the end of August before I meet my new son/daughter.

And before I really rediscover the true meaning of tiredness…

Well I haven’t.  Although there was someone who changed my life and without whom I would not to married to my wife and have two children: my wife’s brother.  But why have I never met him?  It’s tragically simple: he died before I did.

It was twenty three years ago that he was cycling on his newspaper round.  The car didn’t see him; he didn’t see the car; his family made the heart-wrenching decision to turn off his life support machine a few days later and they lost their 16 year old son leaving behind his younger brother and sister.

And it was his sister who happened to play double bass in the orchestra in which I happened to play trombone.  It was about six weeks after the accident that I saw this miserable looking girl sitting on the stage during the break in the rehearsal.  Something inside said that I couldn’t ignore her like most of the other people seemed to be doing.  So i went up to her and said, “You look sad.”

“I miss my brother,” she said.

“Oh – is he on holiday?” I said.

“No – he’s dead,” she said with devastating simplicity.  I drank several pints later that night as I retold the tale to some friends trying to get my head around what had happened.

But for some reason we made a connection and a fortnight later at the next rehearsal, we talked some more.  And ten years later we were listening to her father talking about members of his family who could not join him to listen to his speech as father of the bride.

It’s one of those late-at-night, red wine, trying to make sense of the world things punctuated regularly by the pointless but still irresistible “What if…?” questions that I suspect we all have in some way or another.  For me it’s a totally contradictory and horrible thing but I can’t help wondering if he hadn’t died, would I have not met the girl who became my wife?  Maybe, maybe not – who knows – put it down to fate, karma or whatever keeps you going in the dark teatime of your soul.

But today as I watched her beautiful eyes fill again with tears at the memories of her brother who died 23 years ago and her father who died thirteen years later, I wonder where the justice is and how I can reconcile myself to being the beneficiary of such tragedy.

This term I decided to revisit some really old songs such as the Jonah-Man Jazz but then we got the chance to take part in a Sing Out event at a local theatre with six other local schools.  The songs were themed around the city and were commissioned by the local music service for the event.  For various reasons, we only had about a month to learn them but luckily I was able to find time in the diary and the children responded really well.

Our last rehearsal was Wednesday afternoon when we were joined by the conductor for the event, Lin Marsh.  I thought I knew a bit about conducting children but watching her was a joy and a revelation.  However I had to concentrate of other issues as I had offered to play keyboard for the show so was working with the pianist on what to play.  The following day I got a call saying that the bass player couldn’t make it and would I be prepared to play bass on the keyboard – which I was happy to do.

So this morning I turned up to the theatre for the final runthrough with the band which had now expanded to include a drummer.  The seven schools duly arrived (mine with other members of staff who did a brilliant job of taking care of them so I didn’t have to!) and Lin did her marvellous stuff raising the level of the performance far above what I thought was possible.  I somehow ended up being the health and safety contact for the backstage staff so briefed teachers on what to do if the decision was made to “stop show” – the stage manager was amazed when he read “headteacher” on my ID badge which made me smile.  Various other teachers also asked me about various other things which brought a wry smile to my face as I was thinking, “I’m only here to play keyboard!”  However during the rehearsal it was obvious that there were going to be a number of pauses in the show when schools had to move to the front to do a short performance of their own.  At this point the organiser (a good friend of mine for some time) asked if I could compere the show to fill these gaps and the film crew from the local university asked me for an interview….suddenly the prospect of just playing keyboard seemed like a distant memory.

Now to be honest being a compere at things like this doesn’t bother me and I quite enjoy it.  I never prepare – just go out and make sure the children have a good time.  But after the first song I did notice rather a commotion on the stage when a teacher appeared to be throwing sand about.  It transpired that during the first song, a child was cosmically sick.  A child in the middle of their row.  A child in the middle of their row which was in the middle of the stage.  At that point a note was placed in my hand by the organiser:  “We need you to fill in whilst the stage is cleaned “

Walking out onto the stage I read the note out to the audience who laughed before realising that there was genuinely going to be a pause in the show whilst the mess was cleared up.  I suddenly felt every single pair of eyes on me and the question on everyone’s lips seemed to be, “What next?”

What was next turned out to be….me teaching the 250 children on stage the words to a song I wrote years and years ago about….being sea sick.  “Pass me the bucket / Pass my the mop /  I’m feeling queezy /  Don’t think I’ll stop / Til my feet are on solid ground / I’m feeling sick lend me a hand.”  Fortunately by this time the stage was clean and the show went on.  At the end of the show, the organiser came up to me backstage and gave me a big hug.  At that point, a very important local councillor also arrived and said, “Well I’ve heard of a song for all occasions but that takes the biscuit!”

So much for being just the keyboard player, eh?

I had the feeling something was amiss

I didn’t really have time for this

This wasn’t something to dismiss

Felt like I’d been stabbed with a kris

Infected epididymis

My ego punctured with a hiss

Would take more than a magic kiss

To ignore this would be quite remiss

In ancient words I needed “liss”

Infected epididymis

The pain meanwhile it did persist

A body blow to my normal vis

A team of medics I’d enlist

An appointment I’d be glad to miss

Infected epididymis

The doctor – called either Bob or Chris

His crest on show complete with lis

He said the bug might pre-exist

A new entry for my ill-health list

Infected epididymis

Twice I went – in music “dis”

Was it twisted or just a cyst?

My condition many would like to diss

At least it didn’t hurt to piss

Infected epididymis

Medicines were to assist

Of antibiotics did they consist

As Shakespeare’d said, “In this I wis”

Plus sympathy from my mum and sis

Infected epididymis

To rest the doctor did insist

His orders I tried to resist

But wife told me at once desist

Of days of health I reminisce

Infected epididymis

But now I’m in a state of bliss

As peaceful as those folk called Swiss

Not in a dark and dread abyss

With searing pains as cold as Riss

Healthy epididymis!

I got home last night and spoke very briefly to my good lady wife who was going out for some kind of girly-pampering-facial thing. I finished making tea and gave it to the boys and nipped upstairs when an excruciating pain made me double up in, er, pain and start shivering despite sitting against a radiator. I called my doctor to see what time their walk-in clinic finished but got a recorded message saying they were shut for training but try either the out of hours doctor or NHS Direct. I didn’t fancy out of hours so NHS Direct it was. Their advice was to go to my local A&E and to get there quickly.

At this point practical arrangements reared their ugly heads. I called my wife who didn’t answer her mobile the first time round saying to her girly-pampering-facial lady that if I was something urgent, I would call straight back. Which I did whereupon I promptly burst into tears on her and she said she’d be straight home. We put the boys in bed and texted our usual babysitter to see if she could do some short notice work – luckily she lives next door and was happy to do so – so off we went.

Pausing only to get angry at poorly signposted car parks, broken pay and display meters and a distinct lack of “A&E this way” signs, we got to A&E where after about 15 minutes I was seen. Once my symptons were noted, the clerk gave us directions to another part of the hospital where we needed to go – the out of hours doctors’ surgery.

Pausing only to get angry at NHS Direct saying go to A&E only to hear A&E tell me to go somewhere else and having a brief sentimental rant at more poor signposting, we got to the surgery whereupon asking what the average waiting time was, the receptionist waved a hand at the people gathered in that place and said, “This many!”

“This many” turned out to be around half an hour and I was called in to see a doctor. This time I got a physical examination and at one point did nearly lash out at the doctor which I think showed him the levels of pain I was describing were entirely real. He decided that I needed painkillers (surprise surprise) and antibiotics and an appointment with my regular GP the following day in case I needed a scan on the infected area.

So home we went where I went to bed and spend a miserable half hour shivering until my mobile phone rang. It was the doctor at the hospital – he obviously had second thoughts about his diagnosis and wanted me to have a scan that night so please could we go back to the hospital.

Having already sent our regular babysitter home, I called one of my colleagues who lives around the corner and whose daughter was our original regular babysitter before the demands of college took over her social life. When hearing it was me, she innocently asked if everything was okay….

So back to the hospital we went and, pausing only to reminisce about the good old days when we had no idea where to park or where to go to find the entrance, ended up in the emergency ward whilst my named was shouted out about ten times before everything went very quiet. Half an hour later and a young doctor arrived who conducted an extremely thorough examination of me including in depth conversations about all my previous ailments both physical and mental. It was therefore a huge relief when he decided the first doctor had been right on all counts and clearly the medicines I had already started taking were working as I didn’t even scream let alone hit him when he did the physical bit.

The worst bit of all though was the recommendation nay order to stay away from work for two days and only go in on Monday if I was sure I was okay. Even sitting in an emergency ward I found myself saying there was no way I could not go in for this meeting and that meeting and the….at this point my wife was looking scimitars at me rather than daggers.

So today I have stayed in my pyjamas and dressing gown, watched eight episodes from the Boston Legal box set I got given last week and although I have checked my emails, I haven’t answered any. I am probably more frustrated to have four “free” days none of which I can spent on the allotment.

And you will have noticed that I have been very non-specific about exactly what and where this infection is – far too embarrassing. Let me put it this way – cycling is out of the question for a few days…

This morning when I woke up, two shy children decided they couldn’t cope with singing me Happy Birthday but were quite happy to hand me a bunch of cards and presents – tiddlywink golf from then and the complete Boston Legal box set from my wife who also wrote in my card, “let’s hope you finally get your allotment this year!”

Nothing much happened at work because for various reasons I don’t really tell people about my birthday but when I got home I noticed a formal looking letter on the doormat – believe it or not it was a letter offering me…an allotment! Plus on the sideboard was a fantastic looking birthday cake especially made for me by my good lady wife (she asked me what sort of character I wanted but when I suggested a Tesco Busty Booby cake I got one of “those” looks….)

I decided to cook our tea tonight to make it a bit different from a take away – Ramsay’s quick steak and ciabatta sandwich – and then sat down to sort out the CDs.  At that point my wife’s phone started bleeping as various people sent her birthday wishes to me – presumably she put something on another social networking site about the cake.

But then I was checking emails when I found one from my office staff linking to an electronic card….and then another linking to a £30 Amazon voucher….and then a text from my deputy….

So it’s been a rather lovely day – and one with no language difficulties unlike last year!!

We had actually talked about making such items that morning – my eldest sister asked if she could visit and seeing as she bought us a cake stand, we thought we’d better show it off.  But as my good lady wife was feeling a little off colour, she didn’t do it during the day so I thought it would make an amusing distraction for me in the evening.

Now I reckon myself to be a pretty reasonable cook.  I can produce a variety of quite acceptable dishes and am never afraid of trying something new.  The problem – if problem is the right word – is that my personality comes through quite strongly in the way I cook.  In other words, creative, slightly chaotic, and a bit all over the place.  For example when measuring out the butter, I needed a knife to cut it up.  Then I needed a knife to scrape the butter off the spatula.  But I had no idea where the first knife was so I got another knife out of the drawer.  Then I needed to scrape the icing sugar off the side of the bowl but couldn’t find the first spatula so got a second out of the drawer….you get the idea.

Apparently this trait started early – I can remember deciding I wanted a cooked breakfast when I was at sixth form college so I got a frying pan for the bacon, another one for the eggs, another one for the fried bread, another one for the sausages and at this point ran out of frying pans and room on the hob so asked mum for help.  (The fact that she said something despairing then promptly made me a breakfast using just one frying pan is irrelevant to this story and I’m slightly embarrassed you chose to bring it up.)

Anyway my method of cooking causes a mixture of emotions in my wife: she really enjoys eating a meal that she didn’t have to cook and the fact that most of my meals do taste nice is a double bonus but the state that the kitchen is left in afterwards often brings her out in a cold sweat.  Even when I do clear up apparently I only clear 60-70% of the mess up – I didn’t know that icing sugar has an effective radius of 4m when sieved from a great height and I think it’s unfair to move things like knife blocks forward and point out the flour that’s hiding behind it.

My sister duly arrived today with her partner just as I was playing with a piping bag and butter icing.  At the precise moment I was looking for a spoon to put the icing into the bag but had lost the first one I used so was grabbing another one.  My wife turned to my sister and said something along the lines of this blog but her partner commented that it seemed perfectly understandable to him.

Liked that bloke from the first minute I met him…

Last year my resolutions were all about other people – making sure I spend some quality time every week with my children (managed just about), speaking to my sisters and parents every week (almost managed just about) and doing something for my wife every week (some weeks better than others).  This year I have reverted back to me.

Write something every week  I don’t know whether it will be a blog entry (technically this is one of three blogs I have) or a letter or an article for a newspaper or a bit of music but I really like writing – it’s a good destressing tool for me and having taught the children a nativity I wrote 18 years ago at Christmas, I realised how much I missed that sort of creative process.

Learn something new every week – for my 5 year old’s party I learned six magic tricks and two new balloon models.  It was a really nice simple challenge and I really enjoyed it so I might carry on learning those.  Plus I realised that if I fancy somethign different for tea, it’s really easy to find a new recipe on the internet or in one of the many cookbooks my wife has so it may be learning how to cook a new meal.  Of course there’s always the unicycle which I haven’t been able to master yet.  Or the full piano score of Rhapsody in Blue…

Stay healthy – I blogged about my state of mind and body recently and so far so good this year.  I stopped cycling before Christmas as I was getting home too quickly to leave stuff behind at work but as I bought a new bike, I thought this was a bit of a waste of money.  So I’m now cycling a long scenic route home that takes six times as long as the direct route to try and get some exercise.  Plus I need to eat fewer crisps, more fruit and my big jar of jelly beans IS going to last until July.  Putting them in my gumball machine in the office really worked as I never have any spare change…

Happy New Year!