male can be a trial at times. No, I do not mean their deafness or their confusion or their tendency to forget things in the normal way. This time it was important but not serious.
Brother Cat phoned yesterday. The Senior Cat was curled up on his sleeping mat but awake. I had someone here. I took the phone in to the Senior Cat because he wanted to know if the Senior Cat was all right.
My visitor and I went on talking. When she left I went and brought the washing in - just as the Senior Cat was finishing the conversation. Right. Did he want a cup of tea? Good idea.
"And you know what that was about?" he asked me of the conversation.
"No, I just passed him over to you because W... was still here."
"Oh, R...'s son has had the baby." R...is my SIL. This is her son by her first marriage.
"You mean his wife has?"
"Yes."
"Is everything all right?" This was not a silly question. She is forty-one and it was the first child. There has been some cause for concern.
"Yes."
"Boy or girl?"
There was silence and then, "I don't know."
Right.
I emailed R... and asked her for the important information. Yes, caesarean because the baby was breach/breech and there was another potential complication. All went well however and the baby boy weighed in at 3.8kg. (8lbs 6oz). They have not yet named him.
Armed with this information I informed the Senior Cat who said,
"I did wonder."
A female would have asked those questions. I know, that sounds incredibly sexist but a female would have asked those questions. We might have gone on about APGAR scores (fine in this case) and Guthrie tests - although the latter will not yet have been carried out. The male of the species, unless of the medical profession, would seem less likely to ask about these things.
But I would have thought they might ask about the sex... or are they simply following a modern trend of some sort?
What the heck....baby is apparently fine. That really is all that matters.
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3 comments:
Dear Cat - How very typical and male this episode was! They are all guilty of it and they don't get any better - neither with age or education or anything else. It has to be genetic.
Can I be rude and take you up on one silly ittle thing. I would have written that the baby was "breech" having always understood that it was because the bit of the body that wears the breeches was coming first. I see breach written quite often in this situation and wonder if it is one of those optional things. I used to reckon that it was how one could tell we were talking about a birth rather than a "send for the little Dutch boy with his fat finger" breach.
I wrote it "breech" Jean - and it was "auto-corrected". I thought I was wrong but I wonder if it is the American way of doing it?
Blow that auto-correct! I don't think breach is an Americanism, even though they have some very odd spellings to my old-fashioned mind.
I see that particular one often in the English press, but it think it is just one of the many that arose during the time when children didn't get drilled on these spelling differences. I am too old to be one of those, and still remember my pride at being top of the class in the spelling tests. It is the way my memory works - visually, not aurally. Still doesn't prevent me missing the typos until a millisecond after pressing "publish"!
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