Update

Well, we're just now reaching the half-way stage of the pregnancy - only another 20 weeks or so to go!

Being 20 weeks in means that the first scan is coming up and I'm a little nervous about what we might find out. I'm not worried that we'll find out something's wrong since I don't think there is but we may well discover that we need to come up with more than one name come the spring. Twins don't run in either family so the chances of us having them are reduced but from my (admittedly limited) experience, I think L is bigger than most four and a half month pregnant women so you never know. We'll find out on Monday morning.

I haven't yet had a truly emotional reaction to the fact that we're having a baby and the scan may be the first time I do. The uncertainty about exactly how I'll react (since I know in general terms how I feel about the whole idea) is probably also adding to the nerves a little. Will I feel like a father by lunchtime on Monday? What does that feel like, anyway? I'll just have to wait and see.

In other news, I am still pretty wrung out a lot of the time. The couple of days off this week have helped a little but they were never going to be enough to make any long-term difference. What I really need to do is force myself to go to bed earlier and try to get eight hours of sleep a night over several weeks. Of course, that's easier written than done.

Our house is feeling a little bit more like the home we want now that we have finally got a bed in the spare room. We can now offer our guests somewhere comfortable to sleep, rather than an airbed on the floor. Not that we're expecting any guests in the near future because we're pretty well booked up. Of the six weekends before Christmas, we are spending at least part of four of them seeing family and we're jealously guarding the other two to keep them for ourselves.

The list of jobs to be done around the house isn't growing any smaller, mainly because I haven't had the energy to do any of them recently. The big job that really needs doing is to paint the stairs and landings. Given that our stairwell goes up two floors, the total area of wall to be painted is something in the region of 75 square metres. That's not going to get done in an afternoon. Then there's the bathroom to be done, and the nursery and the loft needs boarding and... The list goes on and on.

All in all, it was very nice having a couple of days just for me. I was under strict instructions not to do anything at all (apart from sort dinner out) so I spent them watching TV and playing on the Playstation. Not enough to recharge my batteries completely but it was certainly a nice break.