NEW PROFILE

So I really should have updated my Blogger profile a long time ago given that our youngest son is nearly 3 and he is not even mentioned in it.  So it is done now, but I wanted to keep a note somewhere of how I saw myself when I first started this blog.

"This Woman's Work is, amongst other things, as a full time mommy to twins, part time twilight legal secretary and volunteer breastfeeding peer supporter. My greatest achievement is my family and for now I feel like I am doing ok at this wife and mommy lark, although my feelings on that do waiver from time to time. I dream of being a domestic goddess and of being able to take amazing photos, but both are a slow work in progress...let's see where I end up."

BITTERSWEET

Teeny's First Feed
Photo courtesy of Karen Pooler

 

Breastfeeding Beyond Infancy
Photograph courtesy of my lovely friend Julia

I remember it vividly, it was the summer of 2007 and 18 months before our twins arrived, talking about how I didn’t want to breastfeed any babies that we had; if I’m honest I was 25 and blinded by the sexualisation of women’s breasts in today’s society, but at the time I didn’t realise that.

 

So let’s fast forward three children later to now and I am pretty sure that our littlest has weaned so, with no plans to add any more children to our family, my journey as a breastfeeding mama is complete after having spent four of the last six years breastfeeding; our twins for 15 months and the littlest for 2 years 7½ months.

 

I am sat here trying to write down how I feel about the end of this journey and yet I don’t really know.  It is a whole mix of emotions.  Were somebody to ask me that question then of course my immediate answer would be sad.  Sad that this journey with Teeny is over, sad that a breastfeed no longer makes everything in his world better; I could have a list as long as my arm of why it makes me sad, but the most heart wrenching thing is that I will never ever breastfeed another baby ever again.  At this moment in time that thought makes me feel sick in the pit of my stomach.

 

However when I spend a little more time pondering on how this time in my life makes me feel there are a whole host of other emotions wrapped up with this sadness.  I don’t say this very often, but I am so proud at having exclusively breastfed all three of our children for as long as they’ve wanted.  They are two particular times that are very prominent in my memory and those are my belief in my instinct, my body and our daughter that despite a 12% weight loss at day five there was no need to bow to the pressure to top her up with formula and then there is my post two year wobble with Teeny when, for a while, I wasn’t even sure how I felt about our continuing journey because breastfeeding past infancy/ natural term breastfeeding are not without their own challenges. 

 

Then of course I feel completely blessed; blessed to have had straight forward births, no medical complications and the best support from my husband, our families and the overwhelming majority of midwives and health visitors who cared for us which made our breastfeeding journey possible.

 

I’m also full of excitement; excited to watch Teeny grow and to get to know the boy and man he is set to become.  We have so many more milestones to reach together and we are just at a cross roads at the moment, not a dead end.  

 

Then of course I am excited about the journey that having been a breastfeeding mama continues to take me on; I might be at the end of my own breastfeeding journey, but as a salaried and volunteer NHS breastfeeding peer supporter and vice chair of our local hospital’s MSLC I have the huge privilege of being able to support families at the start of their journey into breastfeeding and parenthood.   This is just the beginning of another journey for me and at the moment I am unsure of the destination, but I hope it will be as long and fulfilling as my own breastfeeding journey with many a twist and turn along the way and without being a breastfeeding mama I would never have taken this amazing path in life.

 

Finally and importantly I feel immense gratitude for my babies who were the catalyst for an amazing journey that continues despite those babies no longer being breastfed and of course I am grateful to everybody who has encouraged, supported, empowered, educated and reached out to me throughout this journey and even to those who have judged or criticised because those judgements and criticisms only serve to make me more determined to be the change.

 

 

6/52 TOGETHER

I miss your babyhoods so much.  I miss the endless breastfeeding and you wanting to just snuggle up on my lap for hours and not being able to move from the sofa.  I miss watching the sun come up after a sleepless night and long daytime naps; your wrinkly rolls of chub and toothless gums.  It makes me sad to think that sometimes those memories will not be so fresh in my mind, but we are making new memories all of the time. Memories of the relationships between the three of you growing; the way you cuddle up on the sofa together and the way Teeny calls A and D from the bottom of the stairs and can't quite pronounce the 's' at the end of his sister's name.  I love the way our beautiful girl mothers her little brother (even if the fear of her breaking his arms because of the way she tries to lift and guide him makes me feel a little sick at times).  The way the three of you play together with our big boy's castle and his desperation to teach his little brother all of the things he knows. Our littlest always sucking in his cheeks accompanying his needs to kiss everybody special to him before he leaves the room and his repetition of the word "cud-tle" to those very people he adores so much. 

 

These tiny moments in amongst the chaos are what makes my heart sing every day. 

 

Thank you my little loves.

 

xxx

 

The best big sister

Riding home from school

Colouring Together
 

QUIET CALM

A - 365

D - 365

Teeny - 365

I love you all so much, but sometimes being a mommy is hard for me, really hard and some days life is crazy, really crazy so creeping in and watching you sleep is often what brings calmness to those crazy, difficult days.

WELCOME HOME MOMMY

A - 365
D - 365
Teeny - 365

I get this greeting every Monday and Friday when I arrive home from work and I just love it.  To hear or see their excitement as I pull onto the drive or open the front door is one of the best feelings in the world. 

 

(By the way this photo is yet another one that should be black and white, but Blogger has decided to upload it in an weird sepia sort of tone....Again!)

PRECIOUS HOUR

A - 365

I am still struggling with you and D being at school.  I have to collect you both just after 3.00pm and we are normally in the house and sorted by 3.30pm which, on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, gives me an hour with you both before I have to dish up the dinner and then start working at 4.45pm.  I am desperately trying to make sure I have prepared dinner while you are at school and that I have something we can all do together for our precious hour.  Today I got out some phonics wipe clean books that we have and we all practiced letter formation while we talked about your day at school.  Oh how I miss the luxury of the time that we have had together for almost the last five years.  It is so heartwarming to see how you submerse yourselves in school and how you are forming such lovely friendships, but there is a tiny bit of me that constantly feels anxious and possibly even uncomfortable about school and wishes I was confident enough to consider other approaches to education like homeschooling and unschooling.  I know that as parents we are all supposed to know what is best for our children, but I'm afraid that I honestly sometimes really don't...... 

BOOK CORNER BOOKS

A - 365

D - 365

When we go into school in the morning you get to choose a book from the book corner to bring home with you.  On the days when I work evenings I try to make sure I can sit down with you to do an activity before I dish up the dinner and go up to start work and quite often that will be reading your book corner books.  I am still really struggling with all of the time that you spend at school and my resultant loss of time with you and so I really cherish this little bit of time with you both.

CO-SLEEPING AGAIN!

A - 365

So who's going to tell this spirited young lady that you shouldn't co-sleep?  It's not even a real baby and look at the almost perfect position she is in.  That baby is going nowhere!

TV

Teeny - 365

I'm really not one of those people who likes to have the television all of the time, but I'm not ashamed to say that sometimes in our tiny house when it is all getting a little bit chaotic and I can feel my patience starting to wear thin a little bit of television is the perfect distraction to allow us to all to calm down and take five.  The other benefit of having the television on is that it provides the perfect opportunity to see just how cute you look sat with your brother and sister huddled up on the sofa and when I watch the three of you sat together like this I have to pinch myself to make sure it is real because sometimes I just can't believe that you are all mine ours.

THREE IN THE BED

A - 365
D - 365

Tonight we made the most of me being around at bedtime.

LOVELY HORMONES

Teeny - 365

Sometimes when those nasty teeth wake Teeny late at night and nothing else will do we resort to the magic that is boob.  Judge me if you will, but the release of all those lovely hormones settle a baby in no time and then we all get to go back to sleep quickly and it's the only way (other than the obvious) that you can burn calories while being laid down in bed.

DADDY, HOLD MY HAND

Teeny - 365

What I love about this photo and the reason I chose to post it on this blog is because you have taken Daddy's hand of your own accord.  I was going post it with a little quote or poem about holding Daddy's hand, but whilst looking for something to accompany it I was struck in the pit of my stomach by the realisation that there will come a time when neither you nor your brother or sister will want to hold my hand.  I don't think I will ever be ready for that day to come and tomorrow I will be grateful that I can hold your hands that little bit tighter and for that little bit longer.

SUMMER FEET

Teeny - 365

We all know that I am a mama who loves little feet and as you are not walking yet I find it completely unnecessary to put you in shoes.  Most importantly though it provides great opportunities for me to take more feet photos.

SO GROWN UP

A - 365

Today you looked so grown up to me, I don't know why.  Maybe it was because you had new clothes on; maybe it was because we've been having lovely whether and so you had your little legs out, but whatever it was you just suddenly seem like a little lady to me.  Gone is the roundness of your early years and in its place are long slender limbs and the development of a nipped in waist.  I am finding this new stage of your life both exciting and extremely challenging and I am wondering what lessons I will learn from this young lady before me.  Please be gentle with me.

TEAR STAINED

A - 16/365

I never want to crush your fighting spirit, but maybe I need to help you to better understand when to use it because today it resulted in tear stains to your face and to my heart.  I ended up letting you cry it out on the short drive home and this is how I found you when we got there; asleep from crying so hard and when you awoke and I asked you why you were cross you replied with "I don't know, but I am cross at myself now" and then the tears flowed all over again.

REFLECTING ON OUR FOURTH YEAR

 

So the tiddlers are now four. How on earth do I have two four year olds?  More to the point how did I survive the last four years because to be honest some days I have no idea.

 

When I was pregnant with them I assumed that once twins were past their baby stage it would be no more challenging than having two singletons, but some days I look back and think give me two babies any day even with the endless feeds and the sleepless nights.

 

Every new stage that we reach I am having to do twice over with two completely different individuals even though I have no clue how to do it. I don't get the opportunity to try it out with one and master it with the next; instead we all bumble along together and there are lots of mistakes and tears along the way (usually mine!). If I am honest I have to admit that I have found this last year the most challenging so far with them and it has very little to do with Teeny; in fact I can hand on heart say that I don't think it would have been any easier without him.  The challenge lies in the fact that they have more opinions, ideas and desires of their own than they have ever had before and I have no idea how to balance their expectations with my own.

 

This year I have lost my temper and shouted more than I should, cried more than I should, beat myself up more than I should and failed more than I should allow myself to, but despite all of that I am still here.  I still have a wonderful husband and we love those two little people more than anybody else ever would.  They, along with their little brother, are my world they are the reason why, when all I want to do is hide under the covers, I get out of bed and face the day.  My family are my reason for being and they make me who I am.  Granted I am no domestic goddess and a far from a perfect parent; we live in what I label organised chaos and most some of the time I don't get it right with the children, but they challenge me and I try my hardest to learn from them and to do better next time. 

 

After all nobody is perfect.