Shrimp

Finally it’s out in the open. My friend C is having a baby in a few months. A white one from her British husband, just for the record. The picture is just an illustration and they are the beauties I saw on the beach last Saturday.

A few weeks ago I had the huge privilege to accompany C while the doctor was putting some scary ultrasound thing inside her to check out the little shrimp. It moved it’s little arms and legs, like it was dancing a little dance. And I was speechless. Suddenly I got it. Why women take a million pictures when it’s born. Why they change their facebook profile picture in a picture of their baby. Why it’s all they talk about. And all other somewhat bit annoying symptoms of newly mothers. It’s all because it is freaking amazing.

By now the little shrimp is actually not even a big gamba anymore. It’s a little boy. Most likely. And he is as big as a large orange. How amazing is that?!

Superstition in the night

I have some very sick habits. One of them is checking the BBC website when someone I love is flying. To see whether there has been a plane crash. I even do it in the middle of the night. Suddenly I wake up, shiver and I think that I ‘feel’ something has happened. Once I get that on my mind there is nothing I can do but get up and switch on my laptop. With the speed of internet in 1992 I wait for the website to load. I feel my heartbeat, hold my breath and think about who would have called me to tell me if something had happened. What if I find out first on the internet. What on earth would I do?

And then, with first the red header slowly appearing on the screen, I go over the headlines and breathe out. And I thank God, Allah, the Universe. Only a hurricane, deaths in the Middle East and an increased risk for thousands of children to die from cholera last night.