Gosh where did last week go? It is Tuesday already and I don't seem to have caught up yet.
It was a busy one that's for sure.
G Kisby turned the big 31 meaning we had steak and red wine on a week night - hooray. Unfortunately for him there were no gifts to open on account of my poor organisation skills and we were still in bed by 10 but hey, we still have a newborn to blame (don't we?)
Mabel and I tried out some new classes. Baby yoga - sounds lovely and relaxing, in reality was slightly stressful and hard work. Not sure if it was for all in the room (though Mabel's need to shout obviously affected everyone during the meditation bits) but when the teacher has to offer to hold her for a second to let you at least manage one position you know things aren't going so well. We will return this week to try again, suckers for punishment.
Baby gym - not so great either. Turns out when your baby doesn't crawl properly yet they can't do much and the ladies showing you how to use the equipment, though lovely, were a little safety conscious. I completely get that they have to be but as I gently rocked Mabel on a large gym ball she was just looking at me like, "er o.k, when you gonna turn this bad boy on and get things moving". And when things didn't get any more exciting she just started to thrash around, in the style of a contortionist. "Oooh she is a little tired today" I tried to justify whilst making my own escape (you can see why yoga was a no go). Dam the over stimulation as a baby.
We had continued teething pain (both of us that is), I do wonder if there is such a thing as too much calpol?
To quote my Health Visitor, "some people just dose their children up on Calpol, it's awful really".
Me, "yeah, really bad" whilst trying to discretely scan the kitchen for the location of the nearly empty bottle.
We had a lovely trip to the church of John Lewis for coffee and cake with my fellow Bryce women, spent money we don't have, as always.
And we ended the week with a meal out for G Kisby's birthday which was just fab. Aside from excellent company and good food / wine I was thrilled to be spared the hangover on Sunday. All day I expected it to arrive and when by bedtime I still had no headache I literally skipped to bed.
So a bit of a whirlwind and this is now our final full week without any nursery intro sessions etc. So we are making the most of it with another jam packed schedule.
I'm off to dig out my sunglasses and sandals again in order to be typically British and get carried away the moment I hear the word sun.
So I have finished my breasfeeding completely now and realised that I didn't do my final diary entry on the experience. So here goes...
I actually didn't have to make the decision to stop the final night feed, Mabel made it for me. I think she was just enjoying the full fat, faster flowing version too much. One night I offered her a boob and she looked at me like I was crazy. Like a serious, 'what, THE HELL, is that?' look - hmmm, way to thank a girl who has let you use her boobs as milk cartons for the past 7 months. It was actually really strange. I tried to encourage her to take a swig (thinking it might stop the blockages) but she didn't seem to know what to do (though she clearly did - she has drama queen tendancies).
I was really lucky not to have any more mastitis or need to do much more expressing. In fact the end was much less painful than I'd expected. Job done. Boobs returned (I say 'boobs', they have been returned way smaller than prior to getting pregnant, I wonder if it is a lack of contraceptive pill...?)
The only thing I'd say is that considering all the advice at the start, things dried up on both counts by the end. And I actually do think I could have done with knowing a little more about how to stop and the process of reducing milk down when weaning.
I hadn't realised that by now she only needs a pint a day (we've just spent weeks getting her on to formula and working out what the hell we do with sterilising etc). In hindsight I might have given it to her in a cup with meals rather than even introduce day bottle feeds.
But we can't complain, she loves her food (doesn't refuse anything) and doesn't seem to have even noticed that we dropped one milk feed this week.
And I actually don't feel too sad in the end to have finished. It is lovely to have my boobs back and it has returned a load of freedom. I'm happy that I managed to do it for 7 months and will definitely try to do it again if we have more children. Only very occasionally, like the other day in M&S cafe when a lady was breastfeeding, do I feel a twinge of, erm, I'm not sure what really. Nostalgia? Sadness? Bizaarely perhaps I felt the need to say, "I did breastfeed, I have just finished" - hmmm a sudden insight into the feelings of those unable to breastfeed perhaps...? Or perhaps it is more to reassure, "Don't you worry about being discreet, you just crack on". I didn't have anyone make negative comments when I breastfed in public but you just don't seem to see it that often which did, particularly by the end when she wriggled, make me feel a bit consipcuous. I won't miss that!
So all thats left for me to do is find a good push up bra!
