Quick message to a commentor

I accidentally deleted a comment from somebody who didn't leave their name, while trying to remove the typos from my reply. The comment was something like "Brave would be telling him to his face, not hiding behind a blog." I decided to respond via a new post, in the spirit of taking the rough with the smooth and in the interests of not censoring people just because I disagree with them.

Who's hiding? The blog is no secret to either my family or Mat's and my photo is right up there. If we're Facebook friends, you'll see that I'm not slow to claim and promote my posts under my personal page. He'll see it.

Are you suggesting that I get on a plane to a different country to tell someone who doesn't want to speak to me that I don't want to speak to him either? Seems a little excessive.

But hey, you stay anonymous while talking about hiding and telling others how to be brave. I enjoy a bit of irony.

Oh, I've found my voice alright

If you spend enough time around writers or wannabe writers, at some point you might hear talk of "finding your voice".  That does not appear to be a problem in my house.  All of our voices are present and correct, especially, it seems, mine.

Way back when I started this blog, almost two years ago, I wrote this post which discussed my parenting style, or lack of it.  I didn't and don't feel comfortable labelling my approach to this crazy job in which the rules change constantly, the boss is an adorable tyrant and the wages swell no coffers but threaten to burst my heart every day.  It's too unpredictable when you're dealing with human beings to say exactly how you're going to approach every situation that could arise, to say nothing of the fact that toddlers will throw situations at you that you never imagined possible.  Once you've told someone not to rub his apple on his willy like it's a perfectly normal thing to say on a Tuesday morning, you begin to realise that in the game of parenthood, every ball is a curve ball.  Add to this the fact that the little person you're dealing with hasn't even finished developing the neural pathways in their brain and is effectively still a work in progress (aren't we all?), and how can it be possible to insist that you'll only ever do X or Y, and NEVER Z?  

However, there is one exception to this self-imposed rule, and it's one I feel quite strongly about.  I don't want to enforce harsh discipline on my baby.  I don't want to smack him and I want to avoid shouting at him.  I've been the child cringing in fear at a raised voice or a raised hand, and I never want Dom to be afraid of me like that.  Apparently, this is called "Peaceful Parenting", and it's actually A THING.  If it sounds like it could be your thing, there's more info about it here.

Anyway.  I don't want to get too into the nitty gritty of it, because I'm not interested in or here to preach at people to do things a certain way.  If your kid is loved, fed, clean, warm and cared for, that works for me.  Also, I'm not exactly the best example of peaceful parenting right now, as I'm in the middle of writing a blog post about how I failed miserably at it earlier.  

I come from a large, loud family.  Our time together is interspersed with arguments and laughter at full volume, and I love the chaos of that kind of family dynamic.  Now that I don't live in it any more, I can see how it could be overwhelming to some, but it's a lot of fun to be around.  The only problem is, growing up in a loud family means that if you want to be heard, you have to be louder than every one else.  And my word, did I rise to that challenge.

I've been told various things about my voice - that I am unable to modulate it; that it's not so much the volume as the pitch that causes it to carry across rooms, offices, parks and beaches like I have a megaphone in my throat; that when I think I'm whispering, the family three blocks down would beg to differ.  When I was a kid, my best friend's mum called me Foghorn Leghorn.  I genuinely can't help it - I'm just loud.  What I lack in altitude, I make up for in amplification.

Anyway, lately I've been feeling pretty good about myself as a mother.  Of course, it's a constant guilt-fest about every thought that ever crosses my mind, but I can live with that.  I've been feeling like I'm dealing well with Dom's challenges, or maybe there have just been less of them, but either way I've felt pretty proud.  

Until today, when I gently but firmly told him to stop using his spoon as a catapult to ping rice and stir-fry all over the floor (where do they get these ideas from?).  Afterwards, I thought I might have sounded a bit more grumpy than I intended, so I ran it by Mat.  He answered that I hadn't sounded narky, but that we'd agreed not to shout at Dom.  

I was taken aback.  I hadn't shouted, had I?  I certainly hadn't meant to shout.  Mat, with fear in his eyes (yeah, I'm great at this peaceful lark, obviously), hesitantly mentioned that it wasn't the first time he'd heard me raise my voice to Dom.  I didn't even know and am pretty crushed - I don't want to shout at him even when I'm angry, but it looks like I've been going around bellowing at him like an injured buffalo at the slightest provocation.  Apparently, when I think I'm putting on a firm but kind tone, I'm just getting louder.  

OK, it's not the end of the world.  He's not being abused and it doesn't seem to have affected him.  It certainly hasn't stopped him doing any of the things I was trying to stop him doing.  But it's a wake-up call for me to pay more attention to how I speak and how I'm perceived.  I'm 31, for the love of God - you'd think I'd have learnt to control my own voice by now!

Traumatised, as you can see.

Things T25 Taught Me

You may remember this post, in which I got all fired up about how I was going to lose weight, get healthy and fit back into my clothes.  I wrote the post and promptly went back to my old habits for a couple of weeks, hoping that scowling hard enough at my stomach would make it stomp (or wobble) off in indignation and avoid me having to actually do anything to get rid of it.  That didn't work, so I admitted defeat and stopped buying chocolate croissants, started eating a few more salads and refused to take money to work so I wouldn't be tempted to raid the vending machine.  Sadly, after a few days of this, I still wasn't skinny.  

The only thing left was to actually move my arse (and the rest of me) and do some exercise.  I tried to take advantage of the good weather to get out on long walks with Dom, but he's now at the stage where he'd rather eat his own toes than stay in the pram for more than 5 minutes.  Walking at toddler pace probably burns less calories than sitting down eating chocolate, so I needed a new idea.  Much as I'd love to go swimming, two jobs, one baby and a house which grabs every opportunity to throw parts of itself on the floor mean I'm very pushed for time, and the thought of having to wash my hair more times than I currently struggle to do in a week was off-putting.  Joining a gym was also problematic in the time stakes, to say nothing of the fact that I'd rather set my eyebrows on fire than have other people - fit, thin, healthy people - see me sweat.  I needed something I could do at home, with Dom around, in my own time.  Hello, Insanity.

 A friend recommended starting with the T25 workout instead, which sounded great to me - I pretended it was because of my busy schedule, but actually it was due to my inherent laziness provoking sheer delight at the thought of 15 minutes less of effort.  So, after spending a week and a half threatening to do it, tonight I actually got as far as clicking on the link.  Here is what I learnt from the experience:

*  When getting into your workout clothes feels like a workout, the workout is probably long overdue.

*  My sports bra is not the boss of me.  It WILL fasten if I shout at it enough.

*  Unfortunately, my sports bra is also not the boss of my chest.  I need some sort of binding, like buxom ladies in the twenties used to make themselves appear boyish and flat-chested as dictated by the fashion of the time (see, the fashion world have always been gobshites).  

*  I have no hope of ever achieving an androgynous look.  At this point, let's just aim for contained with low chance of concussion.

*  Likewise, my bobbles are no match for my hair.  Having to pause the video every 2 minutes to scoop up strands of wayward frizz is not making this pass any faster.

*  Remember the whole planking craze?  Remember how it was mostly youngsters doing it?  This isn't, as I thought at the time, because they're the only ones daft enough to do it.  It's because they're the only ones fit enough to do it.

*  I have no core.  There is no point telling me to use something I don't have.  The trainer may as well have spent 25 minutes exhorting me to use the million euros under the mattress for liposculpture instead.  Lovely as the idea sounds, it's no good to me when it's a figment of someone's imagination.

*  Sweating for 25 minutes will not, contrary to my long-held beliefs, actually kill me.  

*  Sometimes, when sweating for 25 minutes, I wish that sweating for 25 minutes would kill me.

*  Stretching is important.  Yes, I stretched before and after.  No, it wasn't enough.  On the plus side, I can see my bedroom from my living room, so crawling back and forth for the next few days shouldn't be too difficult.

*  You know those people who say exercise feels good afterwards?  They're not lying.  The adrenaline rush is great.

*  The adrenaline rush is not great enough to make you want to do the dishes when you've finished.  Next time, do them first.

I'd continue but I'm about to pass out.  That's a good sign, right?

See this snuggly guy with the earring?
See how sweet he looks?
I'm pretty sure I'm going to hate him in the morning.

To All The Friends I've Never Met

We're constantly hearing about the "Mommy Wars" - for some reason, the American vernacular is the one that is always used. The media tells us how breastfeeders feel themselves superior to formula feeders, how the Bugaboo brigade look down on the babywearers and how crunchy "granola" mothers can't bear to be in the same room as those who are more "plastic". (Yes, these terms exist and mean something in the murky world of modern mothering - not parenting, but mothering. I've yet to read an article about one group of fathers criticising another for their disciplinary methods). 

I would have been tempted to believe that these wars existed only in the mind of those who produce our internet entertainment, our magazines and occasionally our highbrow articles in the Guardian or the New York Times, had I not seen them in action myself at times. In our technology-driven world, many parents turn to what I call "mum groups" - MumsNet forums, CafeMom chatrooms, Baby Centre boards and umpteen Facebook groups - for advice, ideas and support. Unfortunately, the relative anonymity of the internet means that the advice often comes with a giant serving of judgement, the ideas are tinged with sanctimony and the support only exists when you do as others do.  In short, the internet can bring out the idiot in people faster than a large vodka and orange, and there's nothing like a thorny parenting issue to call forth the name-callers and the keyboard warriors.  

That being said, these groups aren't all bad.  Far from it, in fact.  There's a group for everything, it seems, and while some of them are hotbeds of viciousness, sometimes you can stumble across an absolute diamond of a group that restores your faith in humanity.  I used to be a member of many different parenting (mostly women-only) groups on Facebook, but I've slowly whittled them down to just two I pay attention to and one I actively participate in.  That group has become a part of my life and I'd be lost without it.

It's almost embarrassing for someone of my generation, the last generation to know life before www., to say it, but some of the people I consider friends - actual, real friends - are women I've never met in real life.  They're the women who've supported me through relationship troubles, who probably know more about the ins and outs of my personal life than people I've known for years.  That same anonymity that brings out the worst in people also allows a certain freedom of expression, where we're not so concerned about bitching online about a boyfriend or husband as we would be about talking to someone who will then have to eat with them on our next double date.  I know I've made the mistake of tearing into my partner when things have been going badly, only for friends and family to be less willing or able than I am to forget the bad parts when things start going well again.  Sometimes just being able to have a rant is enough, to have other people agree that only a complete gobshite would ever do whatever he's just done.   It's a safe space to laugh, chat and blow off steam.  These women have helped me navigate the sometimes terrifying waters of motherhood, all with different insights, various points of view and sometimes opposing principles.  They were the first people I was brave enough to share my writing with and they were the ones who supported me in it.  They've applauded my baby's achievements with as much genuine happiness as my own family.  They've picked me up when I've been down, they've made me laugh until my sides hurt, they've respected my views even when they don't agree with them, they've treated me with tenderness when I needed it and they haven't hesitated to tell me off when I've been out of order.  

And that's just the little stuff, the "can I give carrots to my 10 month old?" stuff.  I've seen these women deal with the big stuff with class and bravery and more balls than a football stadium on Cup Final day.  I've seen them coming together to give advice to a new mother who can't get her baby to latch. I've seen them deal with marriage breakdowns together, cry with mothers we'll probably never meet and mourn their losses like they were our own.  I've see women dealing with the most horrendously difficult situations getting support and friendship from strangers. I've seen mothers who are struggling being offered storage bags, nappies, financial help and advice from people on different continents.  I've seen the strength and hope and power and potential we have, and I'm grateful and proud to be part of it. Thanks, ladies. I'm glad you're here.

Tit Tape Meant Something Different In my Twenties

PLEASE NOTE: This post is quite detailed about nipples. Specifically, mine. If that's going to traumatise or scandalise you, may I suggest trying a different post? I'm pretty sure the rest are safe, though if it's nipples in general that bother you, you might want to steer clear of "Am I Asking You To Put Your Nipple In My Son's Mouth?". But I imagine the title of that one is pretty self-explanatory, and also probably the most graphic part of the entire post. Everyone else, please proceed at your own risk.

Men may still earn most of the money, own most of the land and yield most of the power in the world, but there's one thing we women do that we'll always have the monopoly on.  No, I'm not taking about the miracle of childbirth - frankly, I'd have relinquished that "privilege" to any passing stranger with cleanish nails.  I'm referring to the wonderful moment which is removing your bra at the end of a long day.  It's a feeling of relief with few parallels, possibly matched only by another sensation more commonly reserved for ladies - that of removing tight or high heeled shoes.

(Excuse me while I go off on a tangent.  I don't know what's more infuriating - the oppressive and damaging beauty industry or the fact that we continue to buy into it.  Seldom do men feel the need to squeeze, paint and pluck themselves into oblivion in the pursuit of bodily perfection.  I don't know whether my innate laziness and inability to endure discomfort pushed me towards feminism as a backup against and reaction to the culture that made me feel wrong for not being "girlie" enough, or whether the movement gave me the strength to finally get rid of my heels and "let myself go" in my jeans and my Converse.  Either way, I'm glad my feet don't hurt any more).

Anyway, back to the bras.  Anybody who's ever spent a day with their bosom trussed up in an over the shoulder boulder holder will understand and appreciate the feeling of relief when the girls are finally allowed to swing, roam, drop or flop free.  It's the high point of the day that signifies the slow, relaxed slide into evening for many of us.  So what do we do when that pleasure is taken away?

Allow me to explain.  I haven't superglued my bra to my back or decided to stop wearing one altogether (call me oppressed if you like, but the last thing I need is my boobs in my armpits all day).  My dilemma is a little more sensitive than that.  Literally.  Almost two years of breastfeeding means that my nipples are on constant red alert, seeking for any piece of clothing or matter upon which to press themselves.  They spend their time like meerkats checking for predators or puppies desperate for affection, the constant friction resulting in even more sensitivity, which makes them protrude, which makes them more sensitive... You see my problem.

Please don't misunderstand me.  This is not sexy.  In fact, the sensation makes me want to remove my own skin.  The only thing that puts the brakes on their relentless quest is keeping them tied up like prisoners of their own misguided mania.  But that, of course, means I have to suffer in a bra all evening.  What's a girl to do?

Being an inventive and impatient sort, I decided to tolerate it no longer.  I took inspiration from a time when slashed-to-the-waist catsuits were, thanks to Kylie Minogue, the epitome of style among the young and beautiful frequenting the pubs and clubs of Liverpool. Sadly, given my more buxom figure, this was a look denied to me, but some 13 years later, it's finally coming in handy for something. You see, it's not just us melon-slingers who have titty trouble from time to time. Even the girls with less in their bras can find themselves in a pickle when dressed in low cut, slinky material designed to titillate. Sexy is a sliver of flesh peeking out from above a toned navel, the suggestion of cleavage nestled in folds of whispering fabric. Sexy is not standing on the dance floor clutching at parts of your errant outfit as it tries to make a run for it, leaving you desperately trying to retain some modesty. The answer then, as now, was tit tape.

This is essentially Sellotaped to her body.  Were it not, there's no way she'd dare to lift her arms above her head.

Back then it secured the clothes firmly to the boobs of the wearer, ensuring that they wouldn't slip over a shoulder and down an arm to the floor. Now, the grown up equivalent (hospital tape - seriously, why would I have tit tape now when I couldn't pull off the outfits that needed it in my twenties?) is used to secure little pads of folded gauze over the offending body parts, acting as a barrier between them and the outside world they're so eager to embrace. It looks awful, especially when you first wake up and have forgotten that it's there. It can be quite the shock, having what looks like two deformed boobs grinning up at you in the morning. But my God, it's worth it. Bra off, tape on, and baby asleep is the starting point for a wonderful Saturday night.