Something that surprised me about becoming a mum is that I was less concerned with routines than other, non-aspie mums. (It’s one thing when you are Aspie and people stereotype you. It is a strange, fracturing experience when you stereotype yourself.) What I mean by not being concerned with routines is this: I never followed…
Fiction Billy and Me, by Giovanna Fletcher. I got this book from the library because I follow the author on her YouTube channel and her podcast, Happy Mum Happy Baby. I knew she was also a fiction writer so I thought I would see if I liked her novels. I am sad to say I…
When I was pregnant, I got sick. Morning sickness, yes, but also sick of what I was reading about motherhood. I was reading articles on BabyCenter like ‘How to adjust your desk at work to make room for your belly’ and ‘Top ten nutritious meals to eat when you are 16 weeks pregnant’ with images…
I did it! I slept through! I feel even more jubilant than when Finley first slept through. After writing and posting my blog post yesterday, I felt so much better about my sleep situation. Just putting the whole story out there, even thought I thought it was maybe a bit too detailed and possibly boring,…
On the 10th of March, when Finley had just recently turned one, I started sleep-training him. Matt was away for two nights so that’s why I say “I” not “we”. I have read a lot about sleep training and we tried it back in November, and quickly stopped because it was traumatising for all three…
Books I have finished so far this year: Non-fiction Sex education: The Gospel of Ruth, by Carolyn Custis James (5/5) Good Christian Sex, by Bromleigh McCleneghan (5/5) Pure, by Linda Kay Klein (5/5) Motherhood: Little Labours, by Rivka Galchen (5/5) Working Mums, edited by Danielle Ross Walls and Louise Correcha (4/5) Fiction Of Mice and…
I escaped Westfield, and spotted my bike, which I had locked to a tree out the front. A brief moment of panic overtook me. In my absense, this particular tree, with its attachment, seemed to have become a site for a conference of old people. I got the sense they were waiting for a ride.…
Content warning: Some readers may find this piece confronting Love pours out of me like vomit did when I was pregnant. When pregnant, sometimes I could literally feel my energy pulling from every cell of my body into my womb. No wonder I was exhausted. The baby was dragging my lifeforce into himself. And my…
I would like to talk about masculinity, and in particular healthy masculinity. Gilette recently put out an ad which sparked a public discussion about toxic masculinity. Some men seem to have interpreted the message of “toxic masculinity is bad” to mean “masculinity is bad” and therefore “all men are bad” and therefore “I am bad”.…
There is a constant attentiveness involved with being a mother. Annabel Crabbe, when attempting to describe what kind of “work” is involved in mothering, writes about lying on the couch reading a book while the kids play. She is not doing any childcare “work” in that moment. But she also can’t nip down to the…
Last year I started keeping track of books I finished once Finley was born, in late February. So if I did finish any books in January or the first part of February, they are lost to the annals of history. Part One: My reading in 2018 In 2018 I read 20 books: Fiction: The Last…
It only took me all of 2018 and a bit of 2019 to complete! See part one. July Persuasion, Jane Austen, novel, 5/5, re-read Rated highest number of likeable characters in an Austen novel. I enjoyed the pace of the love story: slow, then exploding all at once. I love the unexpected dramatic incident, and…
