By JAN HOFFMAN from NYT Health http://ift.tt/2fNBfDc
via IFTTT
I keep meaning to write about my pregnancy. Mostly because by the time its over you forget all the little weird hormonal ups and downs. Last week the littlest thing set me off crying and I started to worry because my first trimester symptoms had finally died down but now I didn’t feel pregnant enough. The brain does strange things!
I’m now 16 weeks and day to day feeling fine. I’ve started to feel little squigles of movement low down and still feel tired some days. Woody is still breastfeeding. Hes 2 and 3 months. Its getting tough now though. Yesterday was the most painful day. It felt like he was sucking dust as there was nothing there. We had had a busy weekend so his several feeds a day was just down too a couple of feeds a day. I don’t think this has helped my supply. The past two days we’ve spent time reconnecting though and that seems to have helped.
Some folks might think why not wean now (some folks probably think I should have weaned months a go) but I think feeding will be so handy once babies here I really want to cling onto it if I can. Hes such an active toddler its the one way I can calm him. I think it will also be good bonding time for him and his sibbling. Not much else we can do but try.
This is one of many reasons why I’d like to see natural term weaning supported and encouraged. Its so handy and sorts all sorts of issues and problems. People say things like if hes old enough to ask for it hes to old to have it. Rubbish! Or if hes walking around and drinking from cups why not express. For one not all of us are equiped with the skills to express. Also boobs are awesome! When little one is feeding his saliva will be sending messages to my breasts to tell them if there is an infection that needs fighting. Woody has had a couple of colds and thats about it! And obviously the most important reason to carry on breastfeeding because we want to and it doesn’t matter what any one else thinks!
I had a quiet weekend not feeling well a few weeks ago, so I decided to binge read Jo Walton’s A Just City, chosen for me by my husband and daughter on their weekly library visit. My daughter wanted to read it immediately, after looking at the first few pages and realising it was a book about Apollo and Athena. The basic premise of the book is that Athena decides to honour the prayers of all the people throughout time who have read Plato’s Republic (in Greek) and prayed to her to be able to live there. She pulls together 300 or so such people, takes them out of time, then gives them the task to make it happen. Apollo (in god time) has recently had a near miss in a ‘chasing game’, where the nymph he was pursuing to mate prayed to Athena to be turned into a tree rather than mate with him. He decides to incarnate (be born as baby in the right time) and join the city as a child in order to learn about volition and equal significance — meaning that other people besides gods have volition and their will is also equally significant. Basically learning about consent, in today’s language. The book follows Apollo (as Pytheas), another girl named Simmea, and an 18th century minister’s daughter, renamed Maia who is one of the ‘masters’ (the intial 300 adults).
What follows is an often amusing, and often thought-provoking exploration of the extent to which Plato’s Republic is feasible. As is to be expected, most of the female masters are classics scholars from universities and most of the male masters are actual famous folk like Cicero who have grown up in times that don’t take Plato’s idea about having females as equal partners in the Just City seriously. They go through with all the stuff, like having yearly mating rituals but communal babycare and no marriage, in an effort to avoid nepotism. The book highlights the themes of volition and equal significance throughout — there is a disturbing rape scene where the rapist is convinced his victim is enjoying it, there are discussions about the robots brought from the future to do the work of slaves only for all to realise that they are actually sentient and there against their will.
I think for the most part my daughter would get alot out of it, and enjoy the portrayal of Athene and Simmea particularly, but I haven’t given it to her to read because of the rape scene and 2 or 3 sex scenes that I think would be confusing for a 10 year old. I so remember being at the age (I actually finished the entire children’s section of our country library around 10 or 11 years old) and being so frustrated about finding things to read that were meaningful — beyond teen narcissim and angst. There is a lot more available now for her age, so I guess its just a matter of a few years before we can read and enjoy some of the same books. I try to read series she is really into, sometimes first (e.g. The Hunger Games) and sometimes I just pick them up now and then to read a bit. I don’t know, I guess I feel frustrated that Walton’s book is mostly about 10 year olds, but not really FOR 10 years olds. She might disagree…
Wow it has been a while since I have had a chance to write, what happened?…..life! Life with twin babies plus 2 other children will do that to you.
I actually have felt a bit too ashamed to write anything. I have been so slack with my exercise and what I have been eating that I have put on weight instead of losing it. I have dieted and exercised one day a week so I should be skinny by now right? Haha. When I talk to my friends about it they tell me that I’m so busy with my kids that they are amazed at what I do do. I get the sense that they are trying to make me feel better. But it gets lodged into my brain and when I go to exercise but feel ragged this pops up and then I think I may as well relax instead and try again tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and the cycle keeps going and then after a week I just feel sad for myself.
Last night we went to McDonald’s after an event at my daughters school. I told myself I WILL be good and get a salad, but this is what I ended up with…..sad deliciousness shopping is one of my to go to exercise for when I don’t have time and babies are unsettled. I will go out and walk around shops, though it’s not a great idea when there is a doughnut shop outside my local Kmart. Though I did share this with a friend.
Look at all these fantastic goodies that come out when I’m trying to be good.
The hard thing is that I’m still breastfeeding in the mornings so my body wants more food but my babies don’t want to drink as much so my body isn’t naturally working it off.
Well that’s it for another day. I will try again tomorrow, that should be my catch phrase lol
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