Wondering if we maybe shouldn't have bothered with going to the Easter parade. Might been fun if the kids hadn't cried so much.

Not enjoying British Summer Time. Dark mornings and over-excited kids are not fun.

Brilliant gp. Perfect result. Could be an interesting season.

aaah formula one on bbc. It's just so... right.

Playing fable and amazed that some people didn't know i was no longer a vege. I meant meat ball before btw.

Making meat call stew. Hearty stuff for me and the boys.

Having a day with the boys. Think it's finger painting later.

fairy-tale stuff in the gp. Looking like it's gonna be a good season.

liking The Mentalist. Derren Brown does csi. Great stuff.

loving fable 2. Especially searching for tips on having sex with my wife. In the game that is...

Watching Alan Sugar. Dunno who write's his scripts, but I reckon he should be fired first.

so let's see how ping.fm goes...

Diversion

Due to extreme laziness (and little things like parenthood), the wife and I have relocated to a combined blog.

It's piccy time

So we had our latest visit to the hospital. Everything is progressing as intended. Babies are developing well. One is a couple of days behind the other, but there's always been one smaller than the other and proportionally they're developing at the same rate.

You'll have to excuse the blurriness of the images. The camera wasn't really cut out for this kind of thing.

I think the one on the left is T2. So far that's the best name we've come up with for the little lad. Although we are moving towards "Owen" for this one. That may firm up, depending on which England player scores the winning goal in the World Cup final.

This pic (on the right... hopefully... if I haven't screwed up the formatting) proves - for those of you who may have had doubts - that we are having twins.

I guess it also proves that they're gonna be pretty close. They seem to revel in lying on top of each other. Which makes getting decent pictures pretty difficult.

Think T1 is on the left and T2 on the right. T1 so far is called Thomas. And no, there's no chance of it ever changing to Rooney. Or Defoe.

Due date so far is anywhere between late July and start of August. It's all a bit up in the air, particularly as twin births very rarely go full term. I'm reckoning start to middle of July myself. I guarantee now that it will coincide with England winning the World Cup for the first time in forty years.

Not much else to report in the visit. Pig had some glucose and protein in her urine, which isn't fantastic news. They'll keep an eye on things to make sure it's nothing to be concerned about and to treat it if it is.

This is T1 on his own. Not sure if he's got a headache, he's waving or if he's telling the sonographer to bugger off.

So that's it for now. Sure Pig will get round to updating her blog with some more of what's been going on in the Sid and the Pig household.

It's all been a bit hectic, so you'll have to excuse the sporadic posting. It's not you... it's me. My mind (and my heart) is on someone else. Or rather a couple of other people. And their lovely Mum too, obviously.

Oh - and if you have any better suggestions for boys' names then please post a comment.

Not staying...

Just gonna give a quick update on the world of us.

Things are progressing well, although I'm sure the pig might disagree given how cack she feels. We even got to go out to a pub. Friends of ours were embarking on a bit of a tour so we popped over to Hull to say hi-bye. You can check on their progress here.

In other news, it's been snowing. It's ace. Snow is fantastic. Just wish it was heavy enough to prevent us going to work, rather than make it take two hours to get there. The place looks stunning in the snow.

We've got an anatomy scan next week, so I'll be back with a proper post on Monday night if I'm not too lazy.

And the pig's sister should be moving in this weekend. She's flying over as we speak.

Two little boys had two little toys

Yes, yes I know I've not been around. Got a lot on my plate, ok?

It's been tough coming up with a post these last couple of weeks. My mind has been in a bit of a fug due to having way too many things going on in it. I got used to the idea of being a Dad. Then I got used to the idea of it being twins. Then we had the added stress of mono-amniotic twins. It was all a bit much really.

But my mind eventually calmed down, helped by some productive weekends around the house a bit of a refocus at work and a nice visit from the Grandparents to be.

So with a slightly more sorted outlook it was just time to wait for today's scan and then I could get back into this thing and reacquaint myself with you (albeit in many ways imaginary) lovely readers.

Today's scan was good.

The consultant was much friendlier as was the rather loud midwife who we saw a few weeks ago. They were chatty, even to the extent of faking remembering conversations they'd had with us previously. Then they commenced the assault on Pig's bladder (one thing that pregnant women never tell you is that ultrasound scans have to be done on a full bladder and if they're searching hard for something then they're putting quite a strain on it).

First revelation was that the little mites had developed to such an extent that you could make out their genitals. The fact that you could make out genitals kind of gives away the big reveal.

We're gonna have sons. Two little twin heart-throbs.

Then there was the next revelation. They spotted a membrane.

Yes, I know that finding out the sex of your unborn children should be the big news. But you have no idea of the relief that finding that faint line on the screen brought us. No longer do we have the fear of tangles and the horrible statistics of a mono-amniotic pregnancy to contend with. Just a nice regular twin pregnancy.

So all in all, a good day.

We've got more pictures to show you, but the stills never really convey the feeling of when you're in the ultrasound room watching the twitches and movements of those two little boys.

Oh, and my Dad's chuffed 'cos now he can take them to the football. Like any daughters of Pig would be fussy, prissy little girls that wouldn't have enjoyed that kind of thing.

Part 1 - The Wedding (Off to see the other Dad)

So we had our honeymoon and it was fantastic.

Then it was back to Johannesburg and goodbye to most of our party. BM stayed on and our SA friends who had accompanied us went off to enjoy the sun and countryside.

The next part of our holiday was to be spent in Kwazulu-Natal with Pig's biological father (I came to the conclusion through the holiday that "real" father was an unfair title, as her step-father is way more of a real father than the one who supplied her genes). This part of the holiday was a bit surreal.

We were to stay with Dad v.1, his partner and a couple of his friends in a guest house that they had arranged. So we drove the few hundred miles from JHB to Howick with the aim of getting more detailed directions once we'd arrived. We got there and gave him a ring. He informed us that they were at another friend's house. They were having some drinks and would be having a barbecue (well, obviously he didn't call it that being South African but I'm done with my colloquialisms for the moment). Could we pick up some drinks and some food?

No problem, we thought and bought the supplies. I phoned him back to get directions and he handed me over to a very confused guy who gave me vague but strangely successful directions to their place.

We rolled up and were greeted by a strange site. A middle aged (and rather gone to seed) woman in the skimpiest bikini you could imagine. A feral child of about three wandering naked and refusing to be controlled by anyone. Dad v.1 and his partner lounging in the sun and obviously a little worse for wear. A young couple (the parents of the feral one) and their baby. None of them quite sure what was going on. They'd been to see a white sangoma (I know that isn't the right spelling). They were all a little altered.

It was summed up by two things:

1) It took three hours before one of the party turned to the pig and asked if she and Dad v.1 were related, "cos you look alike".
2) Roughly an hour after this, the sangoma and her two apprentices turned up with a bottle of champagne. When we asked what the champagne was for we were informed it was the guy of the young couple's birthday. We'd been there four hours and no-one had thought it was worth telling us this.

It was all a bit... odd.

So that afternoon and evening passed and we followed the slightly inebriated couple back to the guest house we'd be staying in.

The next day we'd be visiting a sea-world type place (on Dad v.1's partner's prompting) in Durban.

We got up in the morning to find v.1 and his partner about to set off to collect the mad middle-aged woman from the weird people's guest house. He'd pick up his mother (Pig's grandmother) and see us at the sea world type place.

We got there and had a look around. Pig phoned v.1. He was running late so he said we should enjoy ourselves for a bit. It was a bit of a miserable day so we looked through some shops and sat on the beach in the drizzle. We phoned again. They were still running late. We got some lunch. We wandered around a bit more. V.1 finally phoned - he'd arrived. We accompanied them while they had lunch. Then we went to the aquarium. Then we went home. Ace!

Now one thing I should just explain to you is that Dad v.1 is a bit of a thinker. He used to be an architect and then scaled back his life to find himself. He's been writing a book for about ten years. His open mindedness has had a very positive influence on Pig and the way she approaches the world. But now, he's retreated into the world of theory so much that he doesn't seem overly connected to the real world. His life is so theoretical that other people's schedules don't matter to him. Other people's feelings often seem to pass him by. He adapts his perception to fit into his theoretical view of the world. He self edits to such an extent that it's almost as if he doesn't see the same world as you or I would.

That evening was spent Ten Pin Bowling. I don't mind telling you that v.1 was crap. Theory is all well and good, but it doesn't really help in games of skill. We slaughtered him. It gave me far more pleasure than it should.

The next day we went to the mall to do our Christmas shopping. Once that was out of the way we could concentrate on the main purpose of our being there - making our marriage legal.

You see, even though v.1 had performed marriage ceremonies before his forethought hadn't extended to how we would make it legal. We thought it only right therefore to get the legal side of things sorted out in such a way that the person who performed the ceremony could at least be there when we made it legal. We had a vain hope that he might even help us a bit.

No such luck.

On that morning, as we prepared to head off to the Magistrates Court, v.1 said his goodbyes and he and his partner headed off to the beautiful countryside near Lesotho. We would have to do this ourselves...

More tests

So we went for another antenatal and ultrasound today. We'd pushed for the tests for Downs and Edwards and what-not. Us being us, if there's a none-invasive test out there we'll go for it.

The results came back very good, we're at less risk of those things than other people with our backgounds. The chances are infinitesimally small.

The twins are doing well. They've grown and are closer to being the same time size now. But it's looking more and more certain that they're mono-amniotic. This is a bit of a worry.

For those who don't know (and baring in mind that this is from someone who's new to all this twin stuff), twins can either have separate placentas, share a placenta (mono-chorionic) or share both a placenta and amniotic sack (mono-chorionic and mono-amniotic). Ours are the third kind.

This means a couple of things. They're definitely identical. They're less likely (apparently) to suffer from twin transfusion problems. But they are in quite a high risk group due to sharing all their living space. What this means in practice is that there's the potential for complications due to the chords getting tangled.

We're trying not to let it phase us too much. There's nothing at all we can do about it at the moment. What it does mean is that they will have to be monitored very carefully once they are viable (in terms of delivery). It means that they are much more likely to be premature and that the chances of a natural birth are fairly slim.

So we're a bit stressed but trying to remain optimistic and to continue treating the pregnancy as the blessing that we still believe it is. The babies are healthy and active, so there's no reason to think that anything is wrong at the moment.

We'll keep you posted on further developments. I only wish we'd had the presence of mind to ask for some hard copies as everything was much clearer this time.

Part 2 - Back in the real world

Another one of our typical weekends. Moving furniture around. Eating junk. Watching cheesy TV.

The house is now thankfully free of builders (they haven't finished yet, just that they haven't got much left to do inside), so another room was free to be filled with furniture. Again, we've reassured ourselves that this will be a great house... one day.

Got a nice message from a friend of ours in the U.S. Her reaction to the twin news was just what we needed. Happy, but full of "Oh, My God!"s.


Anyway, back to the compulsive "Celebs do Ice Skating" thing that we're watching at the moment.

(Do you like the nerdy category thing I've put in now? Such amazing programming skills. You never lose 'em, y'know. Course in my day, it was all done in Notepad, mutter, mutter)

Part 1 - The Wedding (Safari)

So after the wedding it was time for the honeymoon. Being in Africa, this meant it was Safari time. Being us, this meant dragging seven of our friends along with us.

We drove from Johannesburg to a fantastic spot near Sabi Sands called Djuma and stayed in the Galago camp. We arrived at night and were stunned at how The Pig had excelled herself in organising this place for us.

It's a fantastic place for a group of friends to go to and experience the bush in all it's beauty. Clean, functional rooms. A big open space for a camp fire and to cook. An outside, covered dining area. All curved around a view of a grassy plain. We sat around and aclimatised ourselves to the sounds of the bush and the millions of insects. Then it was an early night so that we could be up for the morning bush drive.

What a drive. Our rangers got a call that some leopards had been spotted. Leopards are very difficult to see when you're holidaying in the bush. We drove to where they'd been seen and caught a glimpse of them through the shrubbery. It was incredible, but it was only the start. We drove on a bit further and saw another leopard in the trees, with a kill. It dragged it down and the rest of the family gathered around it. Our driver took us to within a couple of meters and we watched as mother, father and two juveniles took turns to crunch through the body. No words, or even photographs can get across how unbelievable it was.

The rest of the drive just continued in the same vein. We saw a cheetah, we saw a family of lions, we saw an elephant, we saw buffalo. We even saw a hippo as we stopped for a cigarette break.

It took us until the evening to see a Rhino, otherwise that would have been the entire big six in one morning.

The rest of our time at the camp was just as good. Everything we asked our rangers to track down they did. We saw herds of elephants, with babies playing in a waterhole. We saw more leopards (one - a cub on it's own, playing at stalking gecko's, probably the cutest thing I have seen in my life). We saw a pair of cheetahs, slinking their way through their territory. More lions. Our rangers could even spot cameleons in the trees at night.

There were so many highlights, that I keep thinking of more as I type. The elephant that almost came into the camp to drink from the pool. The trip to our ranger's village. The dung beetles.

Just an awesome experience.

...

Oh, and Zinnia - those comments were directed solely at the people who've said those things to us in person. Thanks for the links and please don't let my ranting put you off from commenting again.