"There can only be one!"

Yup, cheesy quote from a cheesy movie, but most people remember Highlander. If you cast your mind back, you may remember that when one immortal kills another (by chopping off their head) the immortal doing the killing absorbs the life force and power of the immortal being killed. According to the movie this process is called  "The quickening".

Still with me? Wondering how this relates to pregnancy? Read on...

We're told by our obstetrician that at around the 21st week is the time that most women with their first pregnancy start to feel the little one doing backstroke, star jumps and skip rope. Women who have had a child before know what the sensations feel like, so tend to feel them somewhat earlier. In the last few days, Gumby's mum has been feeling some odd sensations which she has described as a mobile phone on vibrate inside her tum, and the sort of sensation you get when you have some gas and your stomach sort of does that bubbling thing. Except she has no gas. It was enough to wake her up one night, and given she's pretty well 21 weeks, we're pretty convinced that it's the baby she can feel. I've put my hand on her stomach, as well as my ear to it to see if I can hear anything, but nada. This is a point where blokes can (rightly) feel a bit like they're missing out. I know I do.

You might be surprised (as I was) to find the very first time the mother feels the baby is also called "The quickening" and has been called that for some centuries (pre-dating Highlander). Wikipedia tells me that initially 'quick' meant alive, and the quickening signified that the baby was indeed in there, alive and well. As such anything that happened to the quickened woman (eg if she was murdered) was also bestowed upon the baby. So it would be a double murder in this example. Laws have moved on and now the quickening is a cool name for the special event of feeling the baby move for that first time, but has no other significance attached to it. So... it's a useless, if not interesting piece of information.

Something slightly less useless we did this weekend just gone was attend the Pregnancy, Babies and Childrens Expo, or baby expo". We'd been warned that it gets busy, but holy squadron of babies batman!, there wasn't enough room to swing a toddler! I suspect all the prams is part of the problem.

To be honest, the crushing crowd made the show at best, unappealing, at worst - unworkable. We managed to wander around a bit, but it was nearly impossible to stop and look because the crowding meant if you paused you were likely blocking someone getting through and I could just imagine getting one of those big three wheel monster prams embeded in the back of my head by an impatient pregnant mother with a screaming child. I think if they used a larger area it would be far better. Perhaps it needs to run longer so it doesn't have the same volume of people. I do think that in it's current guise it's counter-productive to itself.

Having said that, we did manage a couple of good things though.

We scored a baby monitor at a very reasonable price. Some $100 below RRP and $30 below street price. We also got to see quite a few people we hadn't seen for a while. Helen, Dyon and Kai (for brunch beforehand), Martin, Fran, their little fella and bump, Leon, Beck and bump and finally Nat, Dave and Avery. Hi guys! :)

There were a few notable items spied when wandering around as well. The first was what cloth nappies have become. I must admit, when I think cloth nappies, I think a small white piece of towel folded up and fastened with a safety pin. The new ones - called Modern Cloth Nappies (in case you want to go googling) have velcro fastening, don't need folding as they're shaped for bubs bum already, and use exotic materials like bamboo, polyester and panda eyelids. They also use velco instead of a safety pin and some have inserts that come out separate for washing. Generally, they look very good. Then there is the punchline - the ones I saw were about $30 each (give or take). Disposables run at about 28c each, so (forgetting, electricity, washing powder and water etc) you'd need to get about 108 wears out of each nappy to make it worth it on the dollars. Dollars isn't the only consideration though. There are lines of thought that the chemicals used in disposables are no good for your little one, there's the environmental impact and then there's the convenience factor. Like a lot of choices, it's going to boil down to what works best for your family.

At one stall we spied a bath that looked like a transparent plastic bucket on a plastic stand in which the baby is bathed sitting up. I couldn't help but think that it looked like a baby in a blender. I made that comment to Gumby's mum and the stall holder across from the 'baby blender' heard me. She said "It's dreadful isn't it? it makes me uncomfortable looking at it all day".

We also saw a lot of prams. Not so much those being displayed, but those of friends, and of people walking around. We saw one couple with the faux old style prams which sells for about $6k, and everything else in between. There was one pram that I had looked at online but hadn't seen up close. Jen loved it, and I think we'll look at it again more closely (it's a Combi Urban Walker in case you're interested) but in typing this, I do recall a review saying something that Dyon commented on in a previous blog post - about there being enough room at the back of the pram not to smack my feet into. It was light, and folded/unfolded easily and had a reversible handle - looked quite versatile. I'll keep you updated.

There wasn't a whole lot else that I recall there.  I do remember that there was a Buildgreen expo, and a multimedia expo called "Armageddon" on in the same convention centre. It made for a interesting mix in the communal area - nerds dressed up as cartoon characters, greenies, and pregnant women and babies. I'm sure a dodgey b-grade movie could be made from such a situation.