Hi all, hello peterpie, hello again Clutter. Did you go to mass yesterday? And how was your ds? did the old dears adore him again? I bet they did.
The day I was dreading came: I was asked to help out at Sunday School. I was selfishly hoping being in the choir got me off that hook as being some sort of contribution, but I knew in my heart that most people do more than one thing. I got out of it in the short term by reminding her I have a two year old who is sometimes with me and not of an age for sunday school. this is a big con because I often leave dd2 at home with dp and have a lovely child free service while dd1 is in sunday school. I am just battening on the kindness of those who do do sunday school and I should get a grip and contribute.
dogsareeasier - nothing worse than a child who will not sleep. I feel your pain on the dh resisting cc. I wonder if someone else could talk to him for you. I don't know who or quite what I mean by this - I sometimes used to think that dp would see my point of view better if he heard it from someone else - that might just be paranoia.
stripedmum - yy about loss of self. very weird, very strange.
I slept well two nights in a row while dp was on the sofa. he is not happy with me this morning. ok I know it's his bed too but goddammit the difference a night's sleep makes is absolutely insane, is so extreme, I can't believe I have somehow organised a life for myself where it is considered a luxury I have to feel guilty about.
Someone above mentioned the book "Life after Birth" I think, though I couldn't find out who when I just searched for it. one of my friends read it when our babies were tiny and I meant to but never got around to it. So I bought it on kindle and it is ok but she is not like the world's greatest writer or anything, but it is great to see a lot of stuff written down, a lot of the stuff we are saying on here, and acknowledged.
I think she is afraid that she is falling into the trap of just being negative about all the awful things you can feel so she attempts to leaven it with positive suggestions about what you can do. Which can be very annoying as they are just hollow suggestions for many people - noting the outcome you desperately need with no actual practical nuts and bolts of how to get there - the equivalent of sitting down with a starving person and doing a head tilt and saying, "I think, sweetie, you are going to have to get yourself some food from somewhere, hm?"
I think this habit comes from an unwillingness to acknowledge how all the things that could help are completely dependent on other people's good will, or having the money to pay them, which are outside the grasp of many. The latest gems I read this morning on the train were "build back in something selfish and indulgent for you a few times a week" (if I had read that when either of my babies were under 6 months I would have wept, and had an imaginary hysterical conversation with her where I shrieked HOW? HOW? WHEN? HOW?) and "play to your strengths. If you like stickers and colouring but don't like playgrounds, avoid playgrounds, or let someone else take them there." Seriously? When you have an incredibly physical two year old child trying to climb the bookcases you are supposed to say, "no, I don't do playgrounds. Do some colouring instead."
I know I am lucky in that I don't have incredibly physical children and I can play to my strengths, which are things like books and lego and imaginative play; and also in that I have my job and while I am at work someone else can stand in for me, and be not-me, and do the things I don't want to do. This is pure luck.
Mothers should strike (of course we can't because we would never risk neglecting our children) - but we are asking, asking, asking, or not daring to ask, for what we need. Other workers only got their rights by taking them by force.
Have a good day, all you heros.