Silent Sunday

Terrible teeth in her terrible jaws

The Captain is growing her fangs and has been in quite a bit of pain with them the past few days.

She has been pretty much perma-latched at night, rolling off to snuggle Daddy, only to cry out in pain and get back to Mama and the all-curing boob again. I'm glad I can offer her some comfort.

Daytime happiness is shadowed by horrible teething poos. And when you cloth diaper, you remember exactly how many of them the poor little darling has to deal with. We deal with this by nappy free time and extra playtime in the shower. That, and breastmilk lotion. That stuff is better than magic.

Hubby came to today's sling meet with us, to keep Captain entertained in the play area. But sometimes even slides and football with Daddy don't cut it. Especially if mama is wrapping demo babies and trying slings without you. So Captain came to find me and told me she wanted milk.

Sometimes you wrap your toddler and continue doing what you're doing.

Sometimes they just need you to sit down and hold them, without any rush or care about anyone else's needs. Today Captain needed me more than anyone.

So I sat, nursed and held her until the pain eased and her little limbs relaxed in my arms.

Those are the moments full of contentment.

Silent Sunday

Tricks and treats

Captain has started to sign "cookie", while saying "nacks" (aka snack).
For her this means organic toddler finger food snack packet, which is an occasional treat for her.
For a few days I was just praising her for signing and saying the word, while trying to trick her into thinking her packed lunch was just as exciting. Today I told her we were going to get a Friday treat, so off to the shop we went.
Toddlers are great at navigating shops, especially when they want something....

While we were visiting the strange, not usually seen land of The Baby Aisle, I glanced at the shelves of formula. Sure enough; bright, colourful strips with promises of vitamins, minerals and all sorts directly under stage 1 formula. Underneath them were some shelf talkers, promoting this new product. Although they mentioned only stage 2, they too were directly under stage 1, just in case the first ad didn't draw the attention enough.

After Captain picked her selection of nacks, off we went to find an employee.
She was very helpful and came over to see the offending materials, promising to talk to the manager. The she said thanks, without even thinking I was a member of some international formula spy agency.
(Can you tell my first code violation spot in a certain pharmacy didn't go down as well as this one?)

For more reading on the code
Breastfeeding.ie summary on the code here
IBFAN Ireland here

If you want to give me parenting tips...

I met my friend for a coffee today.
She gave me a lovely, homemade brownie, followed by another one.
At this point Captain sensed chocolate milk and climbed up for a feed.
My friend looked and commented; "It's good that she's still breastfeeding." This woke me from my chocolate induced dream. What, a positive comment on my parenting? Could it be?
While I looked at her, puzzled, she continued; "Just hope she'll want to stop soon. My relative had a daughter, who was nearly three and wouldn't stop feeding. She was big and it was difficult, and..."

At this point my lovely chocolate buzz was starting to wear thin, but there was enough sugar and caffeine in my system to keep me on my seat. (And a large toddler laying across my lap. That helped too...) So, instead of doing my usual trick of quick escape with no excuses, I actually answered.

"I'm happy to feed her until she self-weans. The fact, that the people I spend time with find feeding older children natural is a big help."

And then there was silence. A lovely silence, during which myself and Captain enjoyed the last crumbs and drops respectively.

What can we learn about this?
Well, if nothing else, take away this; If you want to give me parenting tips, feed me chocolate first.
Oh, and don't expect me to take it to heart.

Nourishment

When I was twelve, I developed an eating disorder. I managed to keep it a secret until I moved to live with my father at 14 and was hospitalised at 15 for depression, self-harming and eating disorders.

I stayed in hospital for about six months, during which time my parents nearly came to their first agreement in over a decade. I was to be given over to a foster family, who would also adopt me in the process. Somehow I managed to talk them out of it and on my release from the psychiatric ward I moved into my first apartment at the age of less than 16. I continued therapy for a good while, made plenty of mistakes along the way and never got out of my depression. The eating disorder also remained.

I told Hubby about this when I'd known him for approximately 24 hours. When I moved in with him, I made an effort to stop physically acting on my eating disorder, which obviously only hid the outer signs. At the time that was all I was capable of doing and it took all my strenght, but I was trying my best not to have a negative impact on then tiny Mr. Buttons.

When the time came to talk about having a family, one of the first things Hubby said was "You'll get bigger during pregnancy, what if that makes your eating disorder get worse again?" I said I would be careful to watch my thoughts and promise to get help.

When I did get pregnant and my bump started growing, I was so excited. It grew, grew and then grew some more. I loved it unconditionally. I rubbed it, sang to my baby and couldn't have cared less about my size. My cousin lovingly commenting "What the hell? Are you even pregnant, or do you just take after your father?!" just made me chuckle.

And then my little Captain was born. I loved her and I loved my flabby tummy. I loved every stretch mark, every newly highlighted vein in my breasts, everything. I loved it because it had been her home and kept her safe. Because it had done something so right, even after everything I had done to hurt it. Because it had forgiven me and grown something so perfect. Few short months of pregnancy did to me what years of professional help could not.

When I was leaving the hospital, I was given some leaflets. One of them was from LLL and it had one of the most beautiful thoughts I had ever heard. It said that a mother is a habitat for her baby. It made me cry then and it still moves me the same way now, 21 months later.

That gave me strenght in the first few weeks, when I was tender, scared and lonely. That my once useless body was still a home for my baby and that I was all the nourishment she needed. How could you do anything but love something that miraculous?

Fabulous Friday

An Irish woman, an English woman and a Finnish woman walk into a café...

Sorry, I've got no jokes. That was the highlight of my day today.
I met two of my favourite mamas in the world and got to chat about cloth nappies, boobs, osteopaths, wraps and plot a breastfeeding families' picnic. Books were mentioned too, but only briefly.

The kids played together and everyone was happy.

Then myself and the kids went to an indoor play area and had lots of fun. By the time we were leaving, poor little Captain was saying "Wheee, mama, whee!", while barely able to keep her eyes open. Mr. Buttons was sweating and drinking buckets of water. The smaller of the two was asleep within minutes of leaving the place, the bigger spent most of the walk home chatting to his newly found imaginary friends.

I've never seen the two of them happier to get back home. We got straight into our jammies, the kids had dinner and then we just chilled out with books for Captain and some telly time for big bro.

It appears my plan has worked. Both big and little are asleep, while I have managed to stay awake.
Now, to last until take away and some programs without talking animals or fast snails... (Graham Norton, don't let me down!)

Enjoy the start of your weekend!