Telling the nips to relax because you're so used to narrating your entire life

Looking over my list of possible topics stored in notes on my phone I'm afraid throws up some impenetrable rambling titles that I'm sure made sense at the time. They might have to be ditched..."Google poops sleep holding your breath" ? "The starving night and pee covered day" ?

Inadvertently telling the nips to relax out loud hasn't, unfortunately, been an isolated incident. Having negotiated the indecent nip-nops of pregnancy, carrying my basket through the meat and cheese aisles of Tesco like a cartoon old lady, clutched high under my chin to hide the offending articles, I thought I had whatever the boobies could throw at me covered. I could not have been more wrong. 

I really wanted to breastfeed, for all the well documented reasons of goodness, but also for the convenience, surely whipping a boobie out is easier than sterilising, mixing, reheating and all that palaver. So I was glad when the munchkin took to it like some kind of champion speed eater - she was a total pro, which made me look pretty good, even when I didn't have much clue. All well and good for the first couple of days, as Google joyfully told me the breasts may swell to 3 times the size, I smugly thought to myself, not I, with my professional eater of a child, she is super-efficient, my boobies, purely a fashion accessory for so long, have stepped up to the plate and it turns out they were (literally, apparently...) made for this. 

And then day 4. We got home, and my God they hurt. They appeared to have corners. Rounded corners, but corners none the less. Bring in the super-efficient hungry monkey and drain those bad boys. So that took a while to settle down. 

And then there's the nips, and the bras, which are now so large they have to be segregated from the equally ginormous post-section pants, two who readily shared a drawer before, now have to be separated, a neither shall thrive while the other survives type scenario. I did some "nice" feeding bras shopping to make myself feel better one day, I felt marginally better until they arrived. You peruse the online stores, where ladies seductively unclip their cups, or lift the wee flap of their discreet peephole top, like some kind of socially accessible flasher, gazing with come-to-boob eyes at the camera. So I negotiated the various options, trying not to look the models in the eye, and picked one with some kind of lacy ensemble, you know, to make the three sizes too big, occasionally angular udders look more enticing, but, as is the case with nearly all bras,  they are made for the smaller chested among us. Unless I thrust my chest aggressively forward, which to be honest, in the current circumstances, could be interpreted as threatening behaviour, or maybe even attempted assault, then the lace sits alone, peeking out of my top, then a wee bit of a gap till the easy access cup. Not appealing, but practical. Which could maybe be my new tagline.

We've been doing fairly well really, she eats like a trooper, it's generally felt ok, until this last week when I think she's gnawed one nip-nop which is now in a state of near constant vigilance, its pal over in the other cup seems to be acting out in sympathy, and there isn't just the fear of offending someone, like the pregnancy Tesco days, because I'm not sure I care if anyone's offended by them, but they are like adamantly resistant to being contained, and super sensitive, which is not a helpful superpower. Like cat whiskers on your boobs or something, by the time they tell me I've walked into something I'll already have a broken nose (I have a proportionally massive head to match). So I'm slathering on the lanolin, I'm not exactly sure how it's meant to work, but I'm trusting in the advice of the internet at large. 

So I've been knocked a little off my super-booby-lady pedestal, but I think I have the situation under control. Mean time I'm going to get expressing, which is a bizarre new skill to have learned. I couldn't quite bring myself to try milking by hand, that just felt a bit too close to being a fairytale friesian. I'm still not 100% comfortable with the idea of milking myself by any means, but the hand pump does the trick, and may give the one nip currently on the injury list a wee bit of time to get match fit, without losing her edge.

That's a thing about motherhood - they do say you lower your boundaries of socially acceptable conversation to include poops and boobs. So here we are, and the beast awakes, so I'm off.