I am very proud to say that on 10th January my son Lewin was born weighing 8lb 11oz.

Somehow its been 4 days since he was born, so much has happened and we’ve had so little sleep you might think I would have blogged earlier but there has always been something else to do. Taking photos of his first trip in the buggy, changing his nappy (which happens a lot at the moment) and so on. So there’s a distinct possibility that I may not be able to stick to the 2-3 posts per week schedule that I initially set for myself. I am on leave this week and next but then it will be back to work for me and I wont be spending every moment staring at him, which makes me a little sad… it seems wrong to me, working from home seems ideal – yet I think I’ve proved to myself already that I’d probably get no work done, or if i did it would be as good as Norther Winslow’s poetry became when he moved to the town of Spectre in the Tim Burton film Big Fish!

When I started this blog I was aiming to write 2-3 times a week and for the most part I think I've been able to do so. However Christmas is coming up this week and we are expecting a baby on Boxing Day, so I am going to be taking a short break from blogging for the next couple of weeks.

I will, more than likely, post something shortly after the birth, I'm already getting proud fatherly feelings. But I will be taking the opportunity to keep away from work and the computer as much as possible during this time.

So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to those that celebrate them.

I struggle to come up with good application names and sometimes even humble variable names; so its no wonder my wife and I are finding it difficult to choose baby names.

We've still got 4-5 weeks to settle on a name, though there's also the middle name issue to sort out, but we both think Jack is a great name. However, and this is where naming a baby differs from naming a variable, Jack has been the most popular boys name in England for at least the past 5 years in a row if not the last 12. We don't want our son to be just another kid with the same name, so this fact is putting us off the name a bit, whereas if the name fits for a variable then its probably a good idea.

We're both agreed that we'd like a strong English name with some appropriate meaning behind it and something that will continue to work throughout his life (there are some names that are great for young children, but less so in your teens... Nickolas gets shortened to Nicky as a boy but as a teenager - well maybe not). We both really like Anglo-Saxon names, but you have to take into consideration how the name will get (ab)used in the playground and quite simply names like Kent or Tostig are too easy to twist to something rude.

Then there's all the names that are out of bounds; the name of the teacher you didn't like at school, other relatives with the name, famous associations etc...

We went for our 21 week scan last week, we're having a boy!! and I just wanted to upload a few of the photos.

I know its been a week and more, but I've been away

Everything is as it should be and we are all looking forward to seeing our new boy soon, but for now here are the images...

Its a remarkable thing seeing your baby for the first time, something that makes me a proud father (to be).

At 7cm long its already developing a personality and sense of humour and didn't like having its privacy invaded by the scanning so kept moving around.

We've been asked whether we will find out whether it is a boy or girl and to be honest I don't need to know, I'm just happy that we've got a healthy baby. But I don't want to keep talking about "it" or "the baby", it is our baby and so maybe finding out would be a good thing, then I can introduce our baby with its name.

Next scan is in 2 months so we've got until at least then to wait...