The Iron Giant

The Iron Giant is just the best movie.

Rosie watches it every day. She acts out the scenes. In her little voice she repeats verbatim scenes which have impacted on her little mind.

"I know you feel bad about the deer but it's not your fault. Things die. It's part of life. It's bad to kill. But it's not bad to die."

And...

"You're made of metal but you have feelings so you have a soul. And souls don't die."

And...

"You are who you choose to be. You are not a gun."

So here we are. February 2008. Still yo yo'ing about all over the place.

During one recent upturn we booked a ski ing trip to the Dolomites (next week). Just the two of us. Try and remember why we are together type thing.

Then a week ago in the playground one of the snooty mums (who already has two kids) pulled her coat apart and exposed a small bump to my new friend Emma (3 months pregnant).

She said:

"A little birdie tells me you are due in August?"

Walked back to the car in a funk. All day tried to push it under the rug. In evening tried to warn Nat I was feeling funny. He raised his eyebrows and silently walked away. Shame, because we'd actually had three really good weeks.

Later, in a heated argument he said: "there's nothing i want more than to have a brother or sister for Rosie".

So the carrot's still being dangled and I'm not ready to give up on him just yet.

Good books, great movies, busy jobs, socialising and no alcohol help.

Gay embryos

Met up with a friend this week who gave up her career for IVF. She's an authority on all things eggs. Scrambled, poached, boiled, stimulated and frozen.

She advised me NOT to go ahead with this. I listened intently and am so relieved i sought her out before paying up for my drugs.

She said the fact they will not closely monitor me during the two weeks of hormone drug injections will jeopardise a) my health and b) the quality of the eggs. She has blood tests every day when she goes through it. That way they can up or lower her dose so she harvests the very best quality eggs.

She said:

"Sperm freezes well, embryos freeze well. Eggs do not," and advised that should I opt for this route i use a different clinic and ask my gay friend Tom whether he may consider fertilizing the eggs so I freeze proper embryos.

Didn't like the idea at first but let's face it, if ever it gets to the point where I have to ask a man in a white coat to defrost a stack of test tube eggs, this "marriage" will be well and truly kaput.

Trying to live in the moment and appreciate what i have and not mention the B word. The words "Groundhog" and "Day" spring to mind.

This week it was the Prince's birthday and he got shed loads of Facebook postings from his girls.

Pouty cleavage girl said: "Have a gorgeous day birthday bunny, xx".

Mini skirt blonde posted: "happy birthday, we must do drinks soon, xx".

And Miss Boiler herself left a voice message, which I was given the privilege of hearing.

"Oh, hi Nat," she said. "I think, just THINK, it might be your birthday today... well have a great day" etc.

So that's still annoying. That these women think it's okay to flirt with a man who's in a relationship. The only thing that makes me convinced they do it, is he does it back. But going down that road is totally destructive and pointless. I have to accept that there are some men who are ridiculously flattered by female attentions and don't want to lose them. And there are women who manipulate and use their sexuality to regain some kind of power over another woman's relationship. Whatever happened to sisterhood?

Anyway, there are still irritations, plenty. He comes in to the room and switches the radio to a station he likes in the middle of my favourite radio show. Or he says:

"Ugh, I don't like daffodils" when I ask him to buy a bunch for the house.

"So what, I do and I asked you to buy a bunch."

Thankfully, at the moment, these are no longer split up issues, and we are hoping to go ski ing soon too.