TheBleghHousewife

"He's so cute! How old is he?" She asks me as I try to seem casual as I get up to collect my crawling infant across the doctor's rooms for the umpteenth time. I smile, "Nearly eleven months". At this moment my son turns his head, bats his baby blues and starts opening and closing his mouth like a fish, and finishes it off with a giggle. "He's hungry," an older woman protests, "You need to give him his bottle," I smile and say that he's not hungry and is just playing. "Besides I don't have a bottle, I'm the milk," I say. "Still?" Rewind a few months: I'm carrying my son whilst walking through a shopping mall. An elderly woman seems to be making a beeline straight for me, and I'm quite surprised at how agile she is at navigating the crowds to get to me. Once she's within a close enough distance she yells, "You!" Pointing her finger in my direction, I double check to see if it is

"He'll fit in with our lifestyle," I overheard my husband tell our friends as we sat around a dinner table at some or other restaurant. My hand rested lightly on my belly as I wondered how our lives were about to change. We had agreed, our little boy would fit in with our lifestyle. How many times did we nap on the chairs of restaurants and play under the tables whilst our parents maintained their friendships over a meal? So yes, our little boy would fit in with lifestyle. Fast-forward some months, and as I look up from my laptop, my lounge tells a different tale. Baby toys litter a reading corner; The couches are pushed up against each other barricading some cables from my little one's reach and our lounge table is bare (as it has nothing on it). I'm not sure when it happened, but over time my little man has taken over every aspect of our house. In some rooms it's a subtle change, but essentially he has left his mark on every room, ensuring that any

Weight. Let that word sink in. Now, as a society we're obsessed with it. How much did you lose? How much do you weigh? How many cm is your waist line? What is your goal weight? We are bombarded with this issue centring on weight. As a woman, you have to be living under a rock not to notice. Two weeks after giving birth I stood in front of a full length mirror with my shirt hiked up, looking at my mid-riff and wondering when and if I would get my pre-baby body back. But then the word weight took a very different turn in my motherhood journey. Was my newborn gaining enough weight? We breastfed (and are still breastfeeding) and my son was a month prem, so weight gain became a topical issue. Looking back to those first crazy 6 weeks of dealing with a newborn, I tried to enjoy my little bundle of joy. I tried to settled in. I tried to find my stride. But the underlying issue was ALWAYS weight gain. We went for weigh-in's religiously. I expressed milk to make sure h