NotSheep

…without breaking some eggs. Or so they say. Whoever “they” are, Jack obviously believes them, because this evening he broke fourteen eggs. That’s fourteen, out of fifteen that I bought today. He was “helping”. Hm. Guess it’s omelette for brunch tomorrow. Or, more likely, French toast.

We visited the library today and the kids all borrowed more books. Barney and George borrowed some Star Wars books, because they’d been talking about it with Scratchy. They couldn’t have been talking about it with me, because on the three occasions I’ve tried to watch it, I’ve fallen asleep within the first ten minutes. We got Jack a library card, because all the spots on the other library cards were full I think it would really be better if they just issued “family cards”, because our books are always all mixed up on the various cards anyway. And it would save me from carrying around all those cards. Anyway, now we’re a five-library-card family, so we can borrow up to 45 books at a time. Because what this house really needs is more books, to add to the thousands already here. Heaven help us.

After the library we did our regular check on the local charity shops. I bought a skirt for me - hey, me wearing a skirt could happen! - and tried to buy a sewing-machine, but then one of the staff remembered that they weren’t allowed to sell electrical goods. So I suggested that they could “donate” it to me, and I could make a “donation” to them - two entirely separate transactions, of course. Since they couldn’t sell it, they also couldn’t offer me any assurances that it would work, so in the end she said to take it home and, if it worked, to come back with a donation

Haven’t tried it out yet, but will get to it. If it works, I’ll have got myself a fine sewing machine for a fiver, and if it doesn’t, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Bought some groceries and was told by an old man in the shop that my children were lovely and fabulous etc… sometimes you just warm to people, y’know? Then he went and told the cashier (who he knows as “Brenda” ) that we were a lovely family and she was to be nice to us. Then he came back and told us he’d told her that. And when we got to the paying-for-it bit, he was still about and pointed us out to her, just in case she didn’t realise who we were He was really sweet though, and even thanked me for talking to him, which made me a little bit sad to think that a lot of people probably don’t

Fed the boys a snack and headed for the swimming pool, where we splashed about a bit, and then I sat on a seat a few feet from the pool with Toby and fed him under a towel - partly because swimming costume requires yanking down rather than pulling up to feed, and partly because he’d been in the water so I wanted him warmed up. After a few minutes, one of the life-guards approached and told me that I couldn’t breastfeed there. Hm, I say, interesting. By that time he wasn’t actually nursing any more, as he’d fallen asleep. Anyway. A little bit later she came over and apologised and said that she had no problem with it but that someone had complained so she’d had to say something. I said that it would probably be good for the leisure centre to have a written policy, and asked for the manager’s name. I felt sorry for the life-guard - she was clearly totally embarrassed about the whole thing. I reassured her that it wasn’t her fault and promised not to push her into the pool

When we went into the changing room, a mother whose kids had been in a private lesson commented on Toby, and I mentioned that I’d just been told not to breastfeed in the pool area. She was stunned and immediately started saying “That’s insane! How stupid is that! I can’t believe it!” - etc. She said she’d fed her children until they were two, and she’d fed them everywhere, and she thought that not allowing a mother to breastfeed by the pool was completely unjustifiable. At that point the swimming instructor - who also happens to be the teacher of the class my older three are in - came in with this woman’s children, and the woman told her, and she went off on one about how stupid it was. Since she’d actually been in the pool at the time, she was saying “and there wasn’t even anything to see, for goodness sake! - you’d a towel wrapped around you!” I said that there might possibly have been a very brief glimpse of flesh as I latched him on, if anyone had been really trying to see - and she said, very forcefully, “No! There wasn’t! There was nothing to see! And anyway, why would anyone be looking?!” So - nice to feel that I at least had some support. I said I’d probably write to the centre manager and suggest a meeting to work out a policy on breastfeeding in the centre.

I got Jack and Toby dressed - the others were in the male changing room - and went into the hall, to find the other mum standing waiting to tell me she’d been “so incensed” that she went and “demanded to speak to the manager” so she could tell him how angry she was Apparently he made noises about “trying to keep everyone happy”, but at least he didn’t try to claim it was anything to do with health and safety or something stupid like that. I thought afterwards, when I was telling Scratchy about it, that I should have suggested that if the staff could actually see any food I’d gladly remove it from the premises

I will contact the manager, and at least now I know that I won’t come across as some one-woman-mad-thing. The other mum gave me her name and said she was very happy to support any move to get a pro-breastfeeding policy in place. Funny how an experience can start off negative and yet leave you feeling warm and fuzzy, isn’t it?

Barney, George and Freddy had soccer school after that; thank goodness the rain from yesterday didn’t continue, as the field would have been a disaster. Oh, uh, just remembered it’s astroturf. Never mind We got home just a few minutes before our grocery delivery (I never feel it’s worth bothering ordering on-line, but I do like it when they deliver for free! :-D) - this was the point at which Jack’s “help” was so… er… “helpful” - and Scratchy cooked while George, Freddy and Jack cleaned out the car and I vacuumed it. I might be a stay-at-home-mum and all, but traditional roles don’t carry much weight here After dinner Scratchy and Barney went off to basketball.

Shock of the day was when George declined to have more chips and said Freddy could have them. George does like his chips! Slightly lesser shock when he changed his mind a minute later and Freddy cheerfully gave him the rest of the chips: “You can have these, because I’ve already had some.” See? My children can be lovely - the old man in the grocery store was right

And there goes another week. Just the weekend to cope with now!