One of the little differences for us is that we have to decide what to be called. I have every hope that in due course Harriet will have an affinity for numbers but I don't want her to start from the beginning with Daddy 1 and Daddy 2. In time she will decide how she will call us but initially at least we are going to go with Daddy for J and Pops for me.
The nursery is also taking shape. J has rearranged the house into yet another configuration. Amazingly the 'little' bedroom, which has hitherto been little more than a storage room, has become our bedroom. It is small but not oppressively so and in fact reminds me of the kind of double bedroom one would have in London where space is at such a premium.
The result of this is that our former bedroom has now become a very large guest room and the front room, the largest of them all, has become Harriet's nursery. We don't yet have a cot but we do of course have J's Moses basket, which his mother made for Kevan and all the children have slept in. We also have a travel cot, which is up and it now looks like a nursery. There a few hints of pink springing up everywhere to liven it up.
One thing that should not be going pink is the thermometer. It was a surprise to me to learn just how cool a baby's room should be (about 18C). The thermometer glows blue if it's too cold, red if it's too warm and yellow if it's just right. The heating is off and it's cold in the morning but it stays stubbornly yellow.
The upstairs of the house looks as good as it ever has. The downstairs also looks good if you please just avert your eyes from the kitchen. Hopefully some more of the puppies will be going very soon and they really need it because they are all getting a bit boisterous.
This year we even have names for the puppies because to identify them they have coloured cat collars. So now we can address the offending puppy properly ("Purple collar please stop biting my feet", "Black Collar please stop sitting in the food bowl") and we notice their individual characters much more.
If we know the name the new owner has chosen we will use that. The largest boy has the name Hendrix, which is universally agreed to be a great name. Names are such a vital part of our identity and most of us have different names with different groups of people (you can't be friends with Kevan on Facebook but you can be friends with Chester, who seems to have a very good grasp of technology for a Labrador who is a few months old).
I like the idea of being Pops because it is resonant of her American birth and Daddy seems too babyish for me. I hope she enjoys seeing people's surprise when she announces that she was born in Sacramento, California. I wonder what names she will choose for herself and whether she will ever use her middle name or something completely different.
What's in a name, well quite a lot but not as much as I suspect will be in that nursery in its final form. We have been touched by people's generosity already and for that we are truly grateful.
