12) A Second Son
Jonathan had been three weeks late to the day according to the dates my doctor had given me so I started telling people that this second child would be three weeks late as well. It turned out that the three weeks turned out to be 1st August, our wedding anniversary.
Being three weeks overdue and with a baby son we had not planned any celebration of our anniversary but after supper Dot and Buck Jones from across the road came over to visit. The men had a few games of chess and Dot and I sat and talked. She had very kindly offered to look after Jonathan when Jonny took me to the hospital and had told us that no matter what time of the day or night it was, we were just to tap on her bedroom window and she would take Jonathan in.
At about 10 o’clock they were going home and Dot said “I thought that you had said that this baby was going to be born on your wedding anniversary” I laughed and said, “There is still two more hours” She thought that maybe I had started having pain, but I assured her that I had not and off they went. I got ready for bed and as I got into my bed my water broke and I knew that things had started. As I got ready to go to the hospital Jonny wrapped Jonathan in a blanket and carried him across the road to Dot’s house. He tapped on the bedroom window but they had not got that far yet. They had decided to have a cup of cocoa before bed and were still in the kitchen drinking that, but true to her word Dot took the sleeping baby and put him to bed.
When I got to the hospital and was examined by Sister Southgate, the nurse who had been there when Jonathan was born. She said “you have only just started, I wont deliver your second baby like I did the first one. The day staff will do that” But I told her there was still a few hours before she finished her shift so not to be too sure. We chatted for a while, I was telling her about Jonathan’s progress, we swapped news of the other mothers and she started timing the contractions that were now coming thick and fast. She said, “Is that a pain?” I said “Yes” then she said “Is that another pain?” and again I said “Yes” She said “I think we had better get you into the labour ward pretty quick” and that is just what they did. And my beautiful baby was born before 12 o’clock on my third wedding anniversary in a great hurry. He has been in a hurry every since.
He had a halo of black hair that stood up straight from his head and he weighed 8lb and 4oz, one ounce more than Jonathan had weighed at birth. He just seemed so tiny to me, I suppose that I had just forgotten how much Jonathan had grown in the last two years. I asked the nurse to weigh him again and when she confirmed the weight I said, “If you sent to the butcher for 8lb of meat and they sent you that little scrap, I am sure you would send it back” But even though I thought I had been short changed weight wise I did not send him back. He was too beautiful for that.
When we were choosing a name for Jonathan there had been no problem, as we knew that if we had a boy he would be called after his father and grandfather before him. I am not sure what we would have done if he was a girl, I think we had thought of Adele as a name for a girl but we had not been too certain about it as we had ordered a boy and did not think we would have a girl. When I was pregnant for the second time we decided we liked Adele, it was not common but was not so strange that a child would hate being labelled with it. But now came the problem of what to call a boy. At one time during the pregnancy when we were discussing names Jonny said “Well our first one is named after my father, maybe we should name the second on after your father, what is your Dad’s name?” My Dad had always been called Dom and Jonny was not sure what it was short for. I told him it was short for Dominic and we both laughed at the idea. But then my tum became Dominic and after nine months or should I say nine months and three weeks I began to like the name and so that was what we called him. When people asked what we were going to call him were told “Dominic” they said “Well it’s unusual” or words to that effect. I remember one of the nurses in the ward thought it was a wonderful name though. She was from Ireland and the name is used quite a lot there so it was not so strange to her.
People thought that I should have been disappointed that my second child was not a girl. I suppose a girl would have been nice but I was so pleased with my first boy another one just like that was fine by me. Before I had gone into hospital I had said that I was going to have a good rest and that they would have to throw me out of there, but once Dominic was a few days old I could not wait to get home to Jonny and Jonathan again.
I remember one sad thing about that time. Just before I went in to hospital to have Dominic our dear friends Anne and Doug Marshall lost their baby son. They had one fine healthy little boy called Duncan but Anne had had four other babies who because of some sort of genetic disorder had not lived long. The last of these four babies, I think they called him Stephen died just before Dominic was born. It was heartbreaking for them, and we and all their friends grieved for them.
With our two little boys, our two dogs, and two duiker, we were well satisfied with life. Our babies were good and developing well. But then Jonny decided that he would like an African Grey parrot. We saw some advertised in the newspaper and went to look at them. They were very young, the seller said he had bred them himself but we often wondered if they had not been robbed from a nest. We called our little chick Koos. He was too young to sit on a perch properly and so we had to put him into a shoebox inside his cage until he was older. We had to crush up seeds for him to eat. One day when we had just got him he got out of the cage and as the doors were all open and the dogs about I grabbed him and quickly put him back into the cage. I gave him quite a fright and he never forgave me. Jonny could hold him, feed him, play with him and Koos just loved it but I was not popular with him. Jonny would lay face down on the carpet and Koos would snuggle into his neck or under his arms and inside his shirt and make a noise that we assumed was a parrot version of a cat’s purring. He learnt to speak but not as quickly as I had expected him to; we always said that he just could not get a word in edgeways in our house. We were advised to give him a variety of food, anything that he would eat. He loved fruit and vegetables. It was a sight to see him eating a pea. He would hold the pea in his claw and take the top off it, then he would eat out all the flesh until he was left with just the skin, which he discarded. The same with a grape, he did not like the skins, so if he was given a Brussel sprout he tried to eat it the same way, he would take the “top” off and find that he needed to dig further for the flesh and he would end up digging down further and further, throwing what he thought was the skin away and getting most upset because he could not find the fleshy part inside. We did not give him sprouts often, as I am sure he found it very frustrating and he would have ended up neurotic. He loved chicken bones but I thought it was a bit cannibalistic.
About this time Jonny was beginning to feel a bit restless on the mine. Safety standards were beginning to drop and he was thinking of leaving the mine and going into business with a good friend Willy Pretorious. They were both boilermakers and they were going to call their business W & J Engineering. It was decided that as Willy and his wife Diane did not have any children he would leave the mine first and Jonny would leave when the business was more established. They worked like this for a little while, Jonny helping Willy out when he was needed but we were increasingly aware that there was no future for us in Zambia and decided to leave so we pulled out of our arrangement with Willy and Jonny’s place was taken by our next door neighbour Pat White. W J Engineering went on to be a very successful business but we never regretted our decision to leave the country and I’ll try to explain it in my next letter.
Being three weeks overdue and with a baby son we had not planned any celebration of our anniversary but after supper Dot and Buck Jones from across the road came over to visit. The men had a few games of chess and Dot and I sat and talked. She had very kindly offered to look after Jonathan when Jonny took me to the hospital and had told us that no matter what time of the day or night it was, we were just to tap on her bedroom window and she would take Jonathan in.
At about 10 o’clock they were going home and Dot said “I thought that you had said that this baby was going to be born on your wedding anniversary” I laughed and said, “There is still two more hours” She thought that maybe I had started having pain, but I assured her that I had not and off they went. I got ready for bed and as I got into my bed my water broke and I knew that things had started. As I got ready to go to the hospital Jonny wrapped Jonathan in a blanket and carried him across the road to Dot’s house. He tapped on the bedroom window but they had not got that far yet. They had decided to have a cup of cocoa before bed and were still in the kitchen drinking that, but true to her word Dot took the sleeping baby and put him to bed.
When I got to the hospital and was examined by Sister Southgate, the nurse who had been there when Jonathan was born. She said “you have only just started, I wont deliver your second baby like I did the first one. The day staff will do that” But I told her there was still a few hours before she finished her shift so not to be too sure. We chatted for a while, I was telling her about Jonathan’s progress, we swapped news of the other mothers and she started timing the contractions that were now coming thick and fast. She said, “Is that a pain?” I said “Yes” then she said “Is that another pain?” and again I said “Yes” She said “I think we had better get you into the labour ward pretty quick” and that is just what they did. And my beautiful baby was born before 12 o’clock on my third wedding anniversary in a great hurry. He has been in a hurry every since.
He had a halo of black hair that stood up straight from his head and he weighed 8lb and 4oz, one ounce more than Jonathan had weighed at birth. He just seemed so tiny to me, I suppose that I had just forgotten how much Jonathan had grown in the last two years. I asked the nurse to weigh him again and when she confirmed the weight I said, “If you sent to the butcher for 8lb of meat and they sent you that little scrap, I am sure you would send it back” But even though I thought I had been short changed weight wise I did not send him back. He was too beautiful for that.
When we were choosing a name for Jonathan there had been no problem, as we knew that if we had a boy he would be called after his father and grandfather before him. I am not sure what we would have done if he was a girl, I think we had thought of Adele as a name for a girl but we had not been too certain about it as we had ordered a boy and did not think we would have a girl. When I was pregnant for the second time we decided we liked Adele, it was not common but was not so strange that a child would hate being labelled with it. But now came the problem of what to call a boy. At one time during the pregnancy when we were discussing names Jonny said “Well our first one is named after my father, maybe we should name the second on after your father, what is your Dad’s name?” My Dad had always been called Dom and Jonny was not sure what it was short for. I told him it was short for Dominic and we both laughed at the idea. But then my tum became Dominic and after nine months or should I say nine months and three weeks I began to like the name and so that was what we called him. When people asked what we were going to call him were told “Dominic” they said “Well it’s unusual” or words to that effect. I remember one of the nurses in the ward thought it was a wonderful name though. She was from Ireland and the name is used quite a lot there so it was not so strange to her.
People thought that I should have been disappointed that my second child was not a girl. I suppose a girl would have been nice but I was so pleased with my first boy another one just like that was fine by me. Before I had gone into hospital I had said that I was going to have a good rest and that they would have to throw me out of there, but once Dominic was a few days old I could not wait to get home to Jonny and Jonathan again.
I remember one sad thing about that time. Just before I went in to hospital to have Dominic our dear friends Anne and Doug Marshall lost their baby son. They had one fine healthy little boy called Duncan but Anne had had four other babies who because of some sort of genetic disorder had not lived long. The last of these four babies, I think they called him Stephen died just before Dominic was born. It was heartbreaking for them, and we and all their friends grieved for them.
With our two little boys, our two dogs, and two duiker, we were well satisfied with life. Our babies were good and developing well. But then Jonny decided that he would like an African Grey parrot. We saw some advertised in the newspaper and went to look at them. They were very young, the seller said he had bred them himself but we often wondered if they had not been robbed from a nest. We called our little chick Koos. He was too young to sit on a perch properly and so we had to put him into a shoebox inside his cage until he was older. We had to crush up seeds for him to eat. One day when we had just got him he got out of the cage and as the doors were all open and the dogs about I grabbed him and quickly put him back into the cage. I gave him quite a fright and he never forgave me. Jonny could hold him, feed him, play with him and Koos just loved it but I was not popular with him. Jonny would lay face down on the carpet and Koos would snuggle into his neck or under his arms and inside his shirt and make a noise that we assumed was a parrot version of a cat’s purring. He learnt to speak but not as quickly as I had expected him to; we always said that he just could not get a word in edgeways in our house. We were advised to give him a variety of food, anything that he would eat. He loved fruit and vegetables. It was a sight to see him eating a pea. He would hold the pea in his claw and take the top off it, then he would eat out all the flesh until he was left with just the skin, which he discarded. The same with a grape, he did not like the skins, so if he was given a Brussel sprout he tried to eat it the same way, he would take the “top” off and find that he needed to dig further for the flesh and he would end up digging down further and further, throwing what he thought was the skin away and getting most upset because he could not find the fleshy part inside. We did not give him sprouts often, as I am sure he found it very frustrating and he would have ended up neurotic. He loved chicken bones but I thought it was a bit cannibalistic.
About this time Jonny was beginning to feel a bit restless on the mine. Safety standards were beginning to drop and he was thinking of leaving the mine and going into business with a good friend Willy Pretorious. They were both boilermakers and they were going to call their business W & J Engineering. It was decided that as Willy and his wife Diane did not have any children he would leave the mine first and Jonny would leave when the business was more established. They worked like this for a little while, Jonny helping Willy out when he was needed but we were increasingly aware that there was no future for us in Zambia and decided to leave so we pulled out of our arrangement with Willy and Jonny’s place was taken by our next door neighbour Pat White. W J Engineering went on to be a very successful business but we never regretted our decision to leave the country and I’ll try to explain it in my next letter.
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