How the Lally got his name.

You have to feel a little sorry for Lal. He’s only just a year old and he’s already had three names!

Between Georgina and Lally, I had one miscarriage that put me off trying again for a while. Dh was also away a lot in the army, so we decided to wait and try for me when he knew that he would be home to help this time. The plan was to start trying in the March, with a view to conceiving around December and for baby to be born in September after Kit came home in April. There may well be a way of saying that in a sentence that makes grammatical sense, but I can’t find it.

I got my BFP in April. Lal didn’t want to wait to come, so when he was born, K still had 4 months left away. Great!

At the 20 week scan, I decided to find out what the baby was, but so G felt involved, the sonographer whispered it to her first. I could tell he was a boy from her squeal of delight! Because I come from a large catholic family (4 brothers and 15 nieces and nephews) all the good names where taken. I liked Alexander, G liked Alexander and K said, “Hmm, it’s a bit Scottish” Well yes, but you’re miles away, so you don’t get a say!

Lal was born at home, on my sitting room floor (lots of plastic sheets) after a 3 hour labour. Yes, you can all hate me now! His father had arrived home on leave the night before, so I wasn’t entirely on my own! I rang the m/w at 1.45am, and Lal arrived at 4.22. **puffs chest out** And, completely without drugs. Admittedly, that wasn’t intentional, but I couldn’t work out how to breathe the damn entonox in whilst the m/w was telling me to breathe in and push twice through each contraction. I did try, but I forgot to breathe out, almost resulting in a lung explosion. At one point, I do remember getting very annoyed with the m/w and telling her that I wasn’t going to bother anymore. Her response? To get the Doppler out and check his heart beat. Sneaky woman. He was born a few minutes later.

He had hair! Not much, but after the sheer baldness of G, it was a complete shock. He was also beautifully red, and perfect, not messy at all. I crawled up the stairs about 45 minutes after he was born so I could wake G up and ask her if she wanted to meet her brother. Of course, she had slept through my entire labour, so was over the moon!

After looking at him for a while, I decided that he wasn’t an “Alex” even though he had been for the last 20 weeks. We called him Michael Charles,, Mikey for short. Except we kept forgetting… “ K can you get AleMich.. umm Mikey a bib?” etc etc. We gave up and called him Alexander James.

When he was 13 days old, after 2 weeks of not daring to lie him down for fear of a stream of projectile vomit, he was sick so badly that he choked. K had gone back Iraq at this point, and I was terrified and called an Ambulance, He was eventually diagnosed with Pyloric Stenosis and was transferred to Great Ormond Street for an operation. Had operation, came home. All is now well. Few words not signaling absolute terror and helplessness felt!

Anyway.. how he got his name! I make up songs. It’s what I do. There’s the pooey nappy song:

Lally Le Poo, Lally Le Poo, tubby little botty all stuffed with POO.. he’s.. etc etc

The bath time song

He’s a Lally, Lally bather, Yes he is.. Repeat.

The stop screaming in the car song

“Hey Lally Lally Lally.. o O o O o OO”

“He’s my Lally lally lamb Chop, yes he is.. “ sung to tune of She’ll be coming round the mountain

I was singing to him, “He’s my Ali Lally Lander” And “Hi, Ali Lally Lander”

Lally stuck. K hates it. It’s not the name for a blonde, curly haired little boy. All he needs is a lisp and he won’t survive the playground. I was supposed to stop calling him Lally when he turned one. That was nearly a month ago. Oops.

He’s been to Gymbabes today. I am exhausted. He isn’t, I have a feeling that it’s going to be a long night. I’ve given in and am about to order a Chinese..

K x