Z is tired, but still blogging.

Doesn't miss a day? Always in the mood? If not in the mood, gets in the mood, by doing it and, ooh, that's rather good, isn't it?

It's working already.

"HEYYO" shouted Squiffany, running towards me and planting several air kisses "MWAH, MWAH, MWAH!" "We're going down to the playground," said her mother. "Exercise might have some effect."

The baby was due today. He will be late. Dilly feels that she has already waited quite long enough.

I am glad, in almost all ways, that I will never be pregnant again, that I will never go through the waiting, the childbirth, the exhaustion and the sleepless nights. But even as I write that, I find that it's not true. We decided, when Ro was a month old, that he would be our last child (it sounds really insulting to him to say that, until he was born, we had meant to have a fourth, but he wasn't an easy baby and we were not so young then as when the first two were born) and we never changed our minds, but a bit of me has wanted another baby for the last 30 years (and had my wish once, 22 years ago). If you are a man or haven't borne a child, I'm sorry, and if you don't intend to be a parent, this is not aimed at you, it is simply personal and probably brought on by sheer emotion, at the imminent prospect of the birth of my second grandchild.

There is nothing like feeling your baby kick inside you. Or the first contractions, or the later ones, unwelcome as they are - "Oh bugger, this is the time I wish I'd just said 'no'." Or that slithery feeling as all your baby is born, followed by that first cry, that primitive instinct to sniff, when what you smell is yourself, the essence of yourself. And breastfeeding (especially at first, when you feel your womb contract and think, satisfyingly, that your stomach is going down every time the baby sucks), the knowledge that this infant is totally yours and that although you are separate, you are still entirely one.

Yup. I miss it. I didn't regret the decision not to have a fourth baby, but there is some little bit of me that will be, forever, broody.

And I had no idea that I was going to write that. If you read it, I even posted it. Well, well.

Oh, and having a baby and feeding it yourself is the best diet in the world. You can eat forever and lose weight. It is impossible to keep it. You can stuff chocolate cake and be a size 8, with a natural D cup*.

Yay. Lucky Dilly. Despite labour and the sleepless nights, I envy her.

*Still got the D cup. But not the size 8.