REVIEWED BY: Marguerite Zelle
MY RECOMMENDATION: YES
AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: N/A
WEB ADDRESS: http://mum2babyinsomniac.wordpress.com/
BLOG DESCRIPTION: In November 2010 I gave birth to my little girl, Iyla Cherry. My labour was 46 hours in total and was a fairly traumatic experience but the end result was most definitely worth it. Iyla was born at 10pm and she pretty much slept from then right throught to the next morning, I didn’t realise until later that most babies do this. So when dad2babyinsomiac came to pick us up from the hospital and I was telling him what a fantastic sleeper she was I was expecting it to last. It didn’t. I had given birth to a baby insomniac.
MY REVIEW: Before having a child, would-be parents really should educate themselves as to how much work is involved in raising a child. (As well as joys, of course!) To that end, there are plenty of blogs out there from parents, from parents of newborns, to toddlers, to teens, This is one of 'em.
The autor writes well. The blog is illustated with lots of photos - both of the kiddes and of places they've traveled. Much to see here. Check it out!
Sample post
The one about weight, calories and dieting
Weight. Up until I was about 19 I never worried about mine, I was pretty small and could basically eat anything I liked, then I moved in with dad2babyinsomniac and put on about 2 stone over the space of a few months. We used to go out to the pub on a Friday night where I would drink pints of beer (I had no clue how many calories each one contained), then we would come home and cook up midnight snacks. The rest of the weekend would be spent in bed eating rubbish. Pizza, roast dinner, crisps, chocolate, that plus the fact that I had been introduced to cheesy pasta bake and fallen in love with it meant that I piled on weight fast. I literally had no idea how many calories I was consuming or what a calorie even was.
I am not blessed in the height department and once my Mum had told me that I was looking all ‘soft’, ‘lovely’ and ’round’ I knew it was time to lose weight. (She didn’t mean it in a bad way but who wants to look ’round’?!) I changed my diet drastically after that, I went pretty over the top with it. Out with the sugar and dairy and in with the tofu and carob. It did mean that I lost the weight though.
I eased up with how strict I was after a while and eventually ended up just eating a normal diet but not eating to excess. This was fine for a few years until I was going through a really stressful time in my life, I was having panic attacks and suffering with really bad anxiety and this made me not want to eat at all. Food (or lack of it) became my main focus in life, it stopped me thinking about things that I didn’t want to think about and made me feel good.
I became obsessed, I am not in any way claiming to have had an eating disorder but my obsession with food was definitely bad enough to have quite a serious impact on my life and my relationship. All I used to think about was food and calories, I was working in an office and there were pieces of paper on my desk just covered in numbers where I had been working out how many calories I had eaten that day. I didn’t want to make a mistake and miss any out so I would do it over and over again. I used to eat a weighed out portion of cereal with light soya milk for breakfast and soup for my lunch and dinner or sometimes salad. My ‘treat’ was a bowl of raw carrot but even this was weighed and calorie counted. As long as I didn’t go over my set allowance of calories for the day then I was happy, even happier if I had managed to bank a few hundred calories.
Pretty soon I got down to under eight stone and instead of the positive comments I had been receiving I started to get people acting concerned. My sister told me that I was starting to look like a lollipop head and that I should stop losing weight but this just made me feel even more determined.
I didn’t realise it at the time as I was so caught up in myself but dad2babyinsomniac was starting to find my behaviour pretty hard to deal with (totally understandable as there is nothing worse than spending time with someone on a diet!). He was always trying to tell me how I was too skinny in the hope that I would listen to him but I didn’t. I loved the attention I was getting from it even though it had started to turn negative. He was fed up with coming home to soup every night and every time he used to suggest going out to eat and I refused meant that we weren’t spending any proper time together. We were living in a small flat in a town where we didn’t know anyone and he started to avoid coming home which made me start to resent him. I held him responsible for everything that was going wrong and was so bored of spending every night at home in our poxy little flat. It got to the point where I didn’t think we should be together anymore so I went to stay with my dad for a while. It was during this time that I started eating proper meals again, this plus the time to think meant I sorted myself out. I realised a lot of things about myself and our relationship and how unfair and selfish I had been. I also realised how much I loved and wanted to be with dad2babyinsomniac.
When I look back to how I was at my worst point it does scare me a bit but I was in a bad place, once I had sorted everything out in my life and in my head my obsession with food stopped. I know I will never be like that again, especially because I now have the responsibility of setting a good example to Iyla so she doesn’t have an unhealthy relationship with food. I don’t want her to see or hear me going on about food or weight all the time.
I have loved the freedom with eating that pregnancy and breastfeeding has given me but Iylas breastfeeding days are going to be over in the not too distant future and I need to start thinking about how I am going to maintain my weight and be healthy, without it taking over my life. This is another one of those situations where men have it easy. It is so much harder for them to put on weight. The sad thing is that no matter how hard I try to make sure Iyla doesn’t have a issue with food or her weight, at some point she will think she is fat, go on a diet and be unhappy with her body. Unfortunately it seems to be something that women are destined to do, and it’s only getting worse with all the photoshopping of celebrities that is carried out these days. But that is a whole other issue.
I just need to remember that if I am feeling bad about eating too much dessert then the answer is to get off my arse and do some exercise. Although at the sametime, I am always going to be wishing for an easier solution!
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--Bye bye baby…..
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--Silent Sunday
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Reviews published every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
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Check out my kindle BOOKS!:
Whose Body, by Dorothy Sayers (the Annotated Edition)
The Coldest Equations (science fiction)
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
The Lady and the Tiger...Moth
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