Mum and Dad get to see Little Monkey's latest scan

I'm back home in my little hometown in Malaysia for a week to see my mum and dad. I flew infrom Jakarta on Air Asia, one of the region's many budget carriers. It's pretty good service, the planes were on time and we landed 20 minutes early. Unfortunately, the baggage took about 20 minutes to appear so we lost the time advantage.

I'd emailed home Little Monkey's latest scan to my parents to show them the baby but it so happened the PC at home konked out and they didn't get to see it. So I brought the actual scan home to show them a glimpse of their first grandchild-to-come.

I didn't realise that people who aren't used to seeing ultrasound scans can't make head or tail of them. I'd been seeing them so often that when the doctor points out, "Here's his head..." I can make it out immediately. So when Dad first saw the scan, he was puzzled, "What's this?" All his three children were born in an era when ultrasound wasn't freely available and I doubt if he ever got to see much of us in utero.

I told him it was the baby's face and hands. It took him a few minutes of squinting before he finally saw it. And when he did, he was just delighted! It was lovely to see his pleasure and excitement. My dad adores babies and children and he's always the one who would play with the kids in the family.

What my dad liked very much was that our Little Monkey seems to have inherited his father's strong Caucasian nose. We come from a family of snubby noses (or no-nose as my amused husband likes to put it) and a strong, sharp nose is a highly prized feature. He was proudly pointing out the nose to my mum when she appeared later to have a look. I'm guessing that when he's born, they're going to want to make a cast of his nose to show off to neighbours "Look at my grandson's nose! It's sharp enough to pierce a can!"