Balancing Motherhood, Yoga and Writing

Computers, computers. I just spent an hour typing a new article into my Suite 101, trying to meet my deadline of 30 articles by the end of this month (only one more to go now), only to have it all disappear! When will I ever learn to save my work!

I then re-typed most of it, saved it, and went back in: but this time the computer gremlins had more fun in store for me, and it had all been encrypted in some weird type, and most of it was in italics! I had to laugh. It’s now 10:15 p.m. and I still have to RELAX, read a book, meditate, etc. And I didn’t do any yoga today. Nor did I make it to the internet writing seminar I was planning to go to. It feels a little..erm…unbalanced!

Usually I do my yoga in the morning when I get up, but this particular morning I woke up far too ravenous and ate breakfast instead. I find if I don’t get things like that done in the morning, I seldom find time in the evening. Also, tonight the Pibler only went to bed at close to 9 pm after a failed attempt to get him off to sleep at his usual time, 7. Sometimes it just doesn’t work, and I ‘ve got more relaxed about that. I bring him downstairs again and he just potters around (this time playing with my store cards again!) until he’s really tired and ‘asks’ to go to sleep.

I’m amazed at the Pibler’s developing language ability: he’s now repeating back specific animal noises, from ‘baa’ to ‘neigh’ to ‘moo’ when I sing to him (during nappy changes - which have got a little less challenging lately, if lengthy!), and saying the ends of long words like ‘potato’ (’toe’ when he points to a potato - I know what he means )

The two articles I’ve published over the last couple of days on Suite 101 are both about breastfeeding, which I’m as fired up about as ever after reading a brilliant book, Successful  Breastfeeding by the Royal College of Midwives. It went into detail about all the nutritional constituents of this amazing life-force substance, and how infant formula cannot replicate it, despite the companies’ claims. One of my new articles is about Breastfeeding Problems, which I was fortunate to not experience but have learned more about on my peer support course, and one on the Risks and Disadvantages of Formula Feeding.

I think this last one may get me some heated comments on the site - it’s such a sensitive topic, and people are often up in arms because they were formula fed or they formula fed their own children - but I think it needs to be said. I found a new American ad campaign on You Tube which was focussed on the risks of formula feeding rather than the benefits of breastfeeding, as the campaigning has been saying up till now. I think this is far better - this ad showed heavily pregnant women doing dangerous things and said ‘You wouldn’t take risks before your baby’s born, why would you start after?’

Oh and I found out that my breastfeeding counselling training is only 2 1/2 hours long, so with the travel time it’ll only be about 4 1/2 hours. That makes me feel better about leaving the Pibler with my friend. We are going to spend most of today with her and her family too, having a braai (barbecue) and later going to the Winter Solstice celebration of Burning of the Clocks on the seafront. I’m looking forward to celebrating this ceremony with my family.

Well, that’s all I have time for tonight..