It’s been a long day. I’m not quite sure what’s wrong with me, I feel lightheaded, tired, and headachy, but nothing particularly concrete to say I’m ill. But I went to bed at 6pm for a lie-down last night, and didn’t surface til nearly 9 this morning.
Despite that, I can already hear my bed calling to me, but I don’t think I can go until the children stop yelling really, so I’m filling in time by blogging.
Long day, yes. But I’ve tried to fit in things they like – Big did her painted your own egg cups (from a kit she got at Christmas, desperately trying to work out who from though!) and very kindly shared with Small. I’ve only just discovered the small print, white on orange instructions on the bottom that say that you shouldn’t paint the inside of the cups, oops! As Small did, quite comprehensively ๐
Then they moved on to painting on paper, and I retired to the bedroom to finish off reading Fresh Milk, the secret life of breasts.
I’d been a bit worried about reading this, as discussion around it over on the lactivist blog suggested that I could find it a little more enlightening than I might like ๐ I’m a bit of a prude tbh, or maybe a bit of a square is a kinder way to put it, I’ve never gone in for anything even in the way of soft porn, so I was wondering what I was going to be reading about in a book that includes a section on lactation fetishists.
I needn’t have worried. Apart from lots of gushing similes and metaphors (and yes, I did choose the word carefully ๐ ) there wasn’t anything much to be afraid of. Yes, there’s a discussion of porn films like the Battle of the Milkmaids (or some such, can’t remember clearly) but it doesn’t go into any gory detail, apart from describing the strength or distance of some low flying milk. And given that that is what milk does under pressure, as many of us no doubt know, it’s not that exciting a topic.
Much more interesting is lots of debate about how breastfeeding really feels. None of this wishywashy it might be slightly uncomfortable in the early days, either, some quite up front discussion of it being really rather painful. Which is good, tbh, as I felt like a complete failure when I was dripping blood for the first few weeks of feeding Big and everyone was telling me that I must have been getting it wrong. I think I was, slightly, with hindsight, but I still think it can and does hurt.
So anyway, I rather enjoyed the book, and I was grateful for the loan, from a friend on Feminist Parents
And back to our usual pastimes. We had a break from the usual routine tonight when I went and got fish and chips for tea. This turned out to be a bad idea. Small doesn’t like fish and chips. He doesn’t like the routine altering – I said it was a bit late for a bath and they’d better just go straight to bed and that was it, instant meltdown. Boy he’s loud when he’s unhappy. And verbal too. Now you don’t just get wailing, you get informed “I sad. I not happy,” which is lovely on the breaking into words grounds, but not too great on the actually happening and needing to be described.
Two edged sword this verbal stuff it would appear!
Anyway, Tim appears to have calmed them both down with a story, Swallows and Amazons, I think. So I’m going to watch some junk tv and then go to bed early.
Nicki says
You sound similar to me, Jax. I got a flu/cold bug a fortnight ago, thought i’d got better but still suffering. Had a fever again last night but mostly just exhausted. I keep going to bed before DH and that *never* happens. Twice i’ve been to bed at 6 which is very unlike me. So really hoping for your sake it isn’t the same thing!
That book sounds interesting. It really annoys me all this false info women are given about “if it hurts you’re doing it wrong” It just sets them up to feel like they’ve failed ๐
Looking forward to reading Swallows and Amazons to ours.
SallyM says
Big sympathy, we had B yelling at us in the car today whilst DH was getting McDs “K stop singing, you making me RUDE” LOL! Enjoy the early night!
Deb W says
Despite missing you on IM all week, I have caught your bug.
Fresh Milk is excellent ๐