Write despite it.

A friend posted a link to "I Write Like..." and I have been having a lot of fun since plugging in different poems and bits of writing and seeing the results. I'm also having a lot of fun reading through my old work. I used to write a LOT. It was what I was going to do. I felt really really passionate about it. Also? I was good. And I don't say that with smugness. I haven't written much since I got pregnant, I have nothing to be smug about. But I consistantly got very high praise from anyone who read my writing, including my university teachers, who were writers themselves. A teacher at school was willing to pull strings to get me into the best Creative Writing course in the country. I Was Good. Especially looking back on things I wrote when I was 16/17. I really did have quite a remarkable way with words and language for such a young person. I miss it, but more than that? I miss being YOUNG and being good. Somehow being good now wouldn't have the same impact as being good at 17. Although of course when I was 17 I had no idea I was good. I thought I was rubbish and I wrote despite that, and I think that's probably what made me good. That I wrote anyway and that I was never complacent because I never had an inflated sense f my own skill.

Today was a good day again. I'm still in lots of pain (what's new?!) but I just had a good experience, on the whole, of the day. It rained again and that sucked but both A.B and I were in a good mood and there was much less grumping than usual. On both sides. The phone got re-connected and so now I can phone my mom and dad again and it'll make our lives easier to not have to rely on our mobile phones.

I wish it would stop raining and get warm again. I can't do washing if I can't dry it and I can't be bothered with all the lifting necessary to dry it inside.

We had a paediatric appointment yesterday, the paediatrician is very pleased with Beastlet's progress but once again managed to upset me with her anti-breastfeeding attitude. She's genuinely a nice person and I couldn't have coped without her listening to me when Beast was small and no one else did, but while she doesn't out-and-out tell me to stop feeding, she's really dismissive of it in a way. She'll be all 'You've done really well, she's thriving, but you know I had all mine off the breast at a year old' or '...but she really can do without the breast now.' or '...you just need to break her will, she'll get hungry enough eventually and just give in.' Which really really upsets me. The idea of trying to break the will of a 12 month old baby, just starving her until she 'gives in' is just horrendous to me. I would make a complaint but other than her very un-hippy attitudes she's a great doctor and has helped us so much. I do worry about a less determined mother seeing her and maybe giving up breastfeeding because of what she says but I worry MORE about the mothers who desperately need help their GP's can't or won't provide, for whom Dr S might be a godsend. After our first appointment with her I sat in the car crying in relief. She bouyed my spirits. Without her I'd still be living in a nightmare and i definitely would NOT still be breastfeeding, because I wouldn't have been able to keep up with Beasties demand for extra milk to soothe the pain her allergy caused. So I put up with her occasional upsetting aside, because it's a compromise, and if there's one thing the NHS has taught me, it's that you compromise, every step of the way. You have to. You don't have a choice.