Nearly got a parking ticket and waved at a man who totally saw my boobs

I don't understand why loads of toddler groups shut down during school holidays.  OK, I do understand - the people that run them need to look after their school age children and lots of mums can't attend the groups because they are at home with their older children.  However, it really annoys me.  What am I supposed to do? So, today I found myself at a complete loose end.  We have a rule whereby we must leave the house every day, otherwise I become thoroughly bored and despondent and a dreadful mother.  So, I was in a panic trying to think up today's activity.  Having not been clothes shopping for a hundred years I thought it could be a golden opportunity.  I asked the boy if he wanted to go.  He said no.  I told him he could ride in a 'noddy car'.  He said yes.

So, off to the shops we went.  The boy was very well behaved indeed and happily sat in his pushchair while I perused the shelves.  The girl was sound asleep in her little cubby in the back of the pushchair.  All was good.  The noddy car was successful.  I dragged the boy away from the bouncy castles and play park fairly easily with minimal tears.  I got his feet measured, bought him new shoes, bought loads of presents for other people and even a top for myself.

Now this shopping centre does have a carpark, however it charges a whole English pound for four measly hours parking (:P).  Next door to the shopping centre is a large supermarket which charges the same for two hours parking, however, if you spend five pounds you get it back.  Being completely stingy (and persuading myself that the saved pound would pay for the noddy car) I parked in the supermarket.  This meant that the shopping trip (including play park) could only last about an hour and a half and would have to culminate in a supermarket sweep.  It also meant that there was no time for a boob feed (although fortunately, one was not demanded).

We were doing well.  There I was at the checkout of the supermarket with a fussy starving baby on my hip and a bored toddler in the trolley when I saw her.  The parking lady.  My heart stopped.,  She was approaching my car.  I was five minutes late.  I snatched my card from the PIN machine and ran.  By some heavenly fortitude she took a circuitous route to my car and I bundled kids and shopping in and drove swiftly away.

I was now faced with a new problem.  Baby girl had a wet nappy, was bored and had a huge hungry hole.  I stopped at the nearest non paying carpark, which happened to be for a fast food restaurant.  I found a space at the back of the carpark and bribed the boy with being allowed to play in the drivers seat while I fed the baby.

As I have previously said on here, I have become more of an exhibitionist.  I don't really bother to cover up much.  I also think that there is a weird phenomenon whereby my car seems to be a little pod in which nobody can really see me or hear me.  I often do embarrassing things in my car (no not that....) and then remember that it is not a special protective bubble. Therefore, I don't particularly think about breastfeeing in my car in the same way as I do in other public spaces where I may make some vague attempt at modesty. Anyway, I was sat there in a state of undress trying to prevent toddler from using all of my washer fluid when a man got into the car next to me and started eating his takeaway.  I looked up and smiled as he caught my eye.  I then remembered that my boob was out.  I rearranged so that I was breastfeeding from under my top rather than over it (and therefore a bit more decent).  However, the man was clearly avoiding my gaze.  About ten minutes on however, he was forced to look up as my toddler was winding the windows up and down and being especially cute (and probably spraying washer fluid into the man's window).  We exchanged smiles.  I felt better this time as I was slightly more covered up.

Baby finished her feed and I decided to commence the journey home.  Boy was persuaded to clamber back into his own seat and I moved the girl's car seat into the front so that I could sing to her and keep her quiet (of course in no way diminishing my attention to the road - well less so than having her screaming in the back from boredom).  As I reversed out of my space I waved goodbye to the man.  He looked a little perplexed but smiled.  I can just picture him telling his friends about this deranged woman who had one boob out and kept grinning at him and for some reason waved goodbye.  What didn't help was that he was (I believe) a plater. For the uninitiated, this is a person who delivers cars and then often hitchhikes home by holding up their personal number plate so that you know they are a car deliverer and not a serial killer.  The reason that this was poignant was that my dad used to do this, so I had a bit of a 'that could have been my dad' moment.

Anyhoo, it took eight verses of  '10 little monkeys jumping on the bed' to get both children off to slumberland and I then had a wonderful twenty minutes of head space before the normal anarchy recommenced. 

A wedding, a crabby baby and a lot of breastfeeding.

This weekend I was bridesmaid at a friends wedding.  I faced the long journey and the quiet service with some trepidation considering my 2.5 year old son and 4 month old daughter.  It has been a weekend of breastfeeding highs and lows I think.

We, of course, had to make an unplanned stop at a service station halfway there to feed baby.  This resulted in cancelling a planned trip to see my sister, which was a real shame.  After our stop, baby continued to fret, even when I sang to her.  This was when I perfected my 'in car feeding method'.  I was damned if we were stopping again.  There have been few times when I have found breastfeeding inconvenient, but long journeys have been one.  The repeated stops drive me mad.  Of course, it would be thoroughly dangerous to remove baby from the car seat and breastfeed.  However, I have now discovered that with a bit of a contortionist act I can breastfeed her while sitting in the seat next to her (not driving of course).  This video shows how I did it, except that I didn't cover up at all.  I wish I had known this ages ago!!  So many long stops could have been avoided over the last few years.

Anyway, for the rest of the weekend my baby has insisted on comfort feeding continuously. Thank goodness my bridesmaid's dress was low cut!  I swear that most of the people at that wedding have seen my underwear though, as even though I wrapped up in a shawl it did occasionally slip off.  A fellow bridesmaid helped me keep my decency.  Of course it's one for breastfeeding in public and all that, but it would have been nice to get away from baby a bit.  Every time I did she screamed her head off.  In fact, she refused to be even spoken to by anybody and was the moodiest, clingiest baby I have ever known.

Baby made her best effort to spoil the wedding.  I had deposited her, fed and asleep, in Daddy's arms.  Halfway through the ceremony however, she wakes up and decides to scream blue murder.  I, being a bridesmaid, was powerless to help with my handy mute button (breastfeeding).  The wedding was stopped and Daddy was ordered out.  There was a slight snag in that big brother had taken off his shoes and so had to stay behind with some friends.  Anyway, daddy ran out into the corridors, nicely away from the ceremony.  Or so he though - he in fact walked behind the hall so we could just hear baby's screams coming in through the other doors.  I was mortified.  I eventually had to run out at a good moment and tell him to go away. I think my friend has forgiven me now.

It was an amazing wedding.  Beautiful bride, gorgeous setting, amazing food.  My little boy threw some shapes on the dance floor and threw a wobbly when we finally dragged him away for bed.  Baby was a pain all day, screaming for the duration of the photos, but fortunately sleeping through the wedding breakfast.  My escape from her in the evening when I got her to bed was cut short when the baby monitor broke.  The next morning at breakfast, baby was lovely and gurgly as if butter wouldn't melt. 

On the way home we stopped at a well known Swedish furniture company.  Baby was nicely asleep in the carrier and big brother was toddling around, opening cupboard doors and sitting on a variety of chairs.  All of a sudden I heard a bottom explosion.  My baby girl doesn't do little ladylike poos.  She does huge ones that burst forth from her nappy.  I knew that I would have to change her at once and ran back to the car to strip, wash and re-clothe her.  Unfortunately all the baby things were buried amongst the suitcases so by the time I finished, I was in a rage and baby wasn't too much better.  I had thrown my keys across the car, had a complete strop and had to be helped by the lady who drew up in the car next to me.  On rejoining my husband I sat and fed baby for a little while (whilst venting my rage at him) on one of the display chairs, not for the first time in my life.  However, my son wanted to move on before baby had finished.  This was when I worked out how to feed baby in a sling with her upright.  I have done it with her lying down before, but she's far too big to do that now.  It worked nicely, although husband was laughing and saying that I wasn''t as discreet as I thought.  Certainly not when baby spat out my nipple after she fell asleep and I didn't notice for a while.

Anyway, home now.  Some lessons have been learnt this weekend.

1.  How to breastfeed in a car
2.  Express milk if you are bridesmaid at a wedding
3.  Don't allow a small baby anywhere near a wedding if at all possible.  They like to ruin it.
4.  Be prepared to permanently breastfeed when you are in an unfamiliar setting
5. Always make baby clothes and nappies accessible in a car, and don't remove baby's clothes until you have found them.
6.  How to breastfeed in a baby carrier