Of cravings and confiscated perfumes

I totally had no idea of what to expect of a pregnant woman. I had heard a thing or two about morning sickness but totally had no clue about what it was. Betty's was rather and all day sickness every day of the first trimester.

Throwing up after every meal or for no reason at all...suddenly she did not like the smell of my perfume or my Nivea lotion which she is the same person who bought me. At first I had to dress up in the guest room so that she could not smell the perfume or the lotion, then I had to shower immediately I got home from work. That meant that I could kiss her goodbye in the morning before I finished dressing up because once I applied the perfume, I could not go back to our bedroom.

So we all know how impossible that is and so one day after taking my shower at 4 am (I am usually in the office by 5 am) I could neither find my perfume nor body lotion. The only thing I am allowed to use in this house to date is Vaseline Petroleum jelly. At times I think she is just punishing me.

I hear women have cravings when they are paged....again I had no clue about what to expect. A friend of mine had a thing for potato crisps and she would leave the house at funny hours just to get crisps from a popular joint in Kisumu's Milimani estate not to mention that she lives several miles away. Her cravings were later on in her pregnancy though....

My Betty has the most weird of cravings not to mention that hers started on the very first day she told me she was pregnant. Her conversations immediately became plural...she craved chicken, fish, pizza, beef burgers and everything else that she only ate weekly or rarely. Meat was banned from our menu instantly.

If I complained her reply always was, "si ni mtoto wako ndo anataka."

Then the cravings started changing...I get that is when the real cravings started checking in. The bad thing was that they kept changing everyday.

I usually buy beef sausages but for some reasons the baby told Betty that all she could eat was pork sausages and not wanting to get into the baby's bad books this early I obliged, buying two 500g packs. She ate them once and the next time I was in the supermarket which was two days later she called and asked me to buy chicken sausages - needless to say I have no right to ask questions, the baby wants and the baby gets. I once again bought two 500g packs and only a few of the sausages were eaten.

So here I was with about 1.5kg of sausages to myself....that should be a good thing but for someone who leaves the house before 5 am and whose idea of breakfast is Ugali with Nyama at 10 am this was going to be tough few days. If you add the frequent power blackouts in my neighborhood which means I could not guarantee that the fridge will keep them fresh then I had big problems to deal with. Needless to say, that month I ate so much sausages I don't buy them anymore.

The real cravings she has though are for matoke and ripe mangoes....I say they are real cravings because she never liked matoke. I had to force her to prepare them for me but mostly she would just have me make them for myself. Today they are in our menu not less than twice a week - that's how I know that baby is definitely mine!!

However much prepared you think you are for parenthood, some things still take you by surprise. Everyday through this journey is a learning experience. I have five more months to go with this journey...

Do you have a rookie dad/mum experience I could learn from? Share in the comments section.

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Rookie dad tales

I am running out of fingers to use while counting the number of blogs I run, everyday I find out there is a new topic I want to write about and when it's unique enough I try and create for it it's own space online.

Today it's fatherhood...I am about to become a father in the next 5 months. I hope that this time it will come to pass and Betty and I will finally be able to hold our baby in our own arms. The previous attempt wasn't successful, we lost the pregnancy in 3 months. It was a painful experience but we got over it together and with the support of our very loving family.

How do I feel?

The prospects of being a father is exciting I wont lie. In my head I have a lot of fun things I plan to do with the baby as he or she grows up. I don't know at the moment whether it's going to be a boy or a girl and I do not have any preference.

Whether boy or girl all I want to do is have fun with my baby and be the best dad I can ever be.

Being the best dad is however scary, every day I see Betty's tummy grow bigger I realize how closer I get to being a father and at times the thought of it scares me.

I'm I ready? 

What sends chills down my spine most of the time I think about this is if I will ever be the best father to this kid. If I am ready to make all the sacrifices that comes with being a father - at times it involves a paradigm shift from how you are used to living your life.

Most of the time I am usually very mean on this online streets and I would hate it if somebody would mistreat my kid just because I was mean to them on twitter or on a post I did on either of my blogs....or it could be that heartless comment on facebook.

So definitely I am going to change a lot of stuff...I think I am ready to be a nicer person to everybody now.

The lessons

I am a kids person...I think I get that from my dad. I however had no idea of what has to go in place before the baby comes. I thought Betty was crazy when she started buying baby clothes in month two. The baby now officially has about six times more clothes than I do. She had to stop buying because we are waiting to buy more clothes once we know the sex which will happen next month.

Then I need to work on the nursery to make sure it's baby friendly....I have no idea what the paint job should look like but Google is always here when we need it.

My small bro had his baby last year and he told me tales of how I should prepare for sleepless nights. Working long hours during the day and going home to a sleepless night is not something to look forward for but if we got through the first 3 months of Betty's pregnancy we can get through anything coz that was pure hell on earth.

Baby names

Funny enough we are thinking of baby names already...Betty says if she has a son she'll call him Daniel Ominde Jr. While the thought of it is kinda tempting I would not want to punish my son like that. If he likes the name then that's a choice he will have to make himself...I made that choice and adopted my grand father's name Wambura.

So we are still in the hunt for names...suggestions would help but I kinda think we are settled for a name already if it happens that she is a baby girl.

...................more to come on "Rookie Dad"

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