Mega Boob & The Centipedes

Vignettes on extended breastfeeding

These are the stories I'd tell you if you sat next to me at playgroup 👀☕
(Guest starring my children – Poppet m/5, Pickle m/4 and Peach f/1)

My husband took me for pizza the other day. I was feeling a bit spent after a difficult time at work, and we had a voucher to use. Sat across from one another over a couple's chicken and pancetta (alright, FINE, we had one each), we discussed the future, work, and the kids. Then, pulling out his phone, he showed me a video that Reddit says is NSFW, but that I found quite cool. Here is a screenshot:

My fave comment: “Oh my, look how big you've grown. Your mother must be dead.”

Here is the link (click me!)

Here is a summary if you cannot see either: Mother centipede allows her babies to eat her alive for nourishment, video shows it happening.

Back in the room, “isn't that fascinating,” my husband said, looking up from his screen.

“Yes,” I agreed, “it’s like me and Peach.”

He laughed.

I laughed.

I wasn’t joking.

*

Since listing reasons to stop breastfeeding back in April

Reasons To Stop Breastfeeding

I have made very little headway into actually stopping breastfeeding. This is partly because Peach is mad for milkies and I am too weak-willed to fight her, partly because it’s a special relationship to break and I don’t want to be the one to break it.

Still, I have reached the stage, out in public, in which people have started to question my daughter’s motives when she violently removes a breast from my tee. “Not managed to wean her yet?” they will ask, with a sympathetic nod, as I try and fail to stop her pulling my shirt up over my head, and “she’s still doing that an awful lot isn’t she?”

“She is, yes,” I say, “it’s fine, really.” We’ll get there when we get there, guys, MUST YOU KEEP BRINGING IT UP?

*

A school mum approached me at playgroup the other week. “I’ve seen you feeding her in the playground,” she said, “I still feed my daughter, too!”

We swapped stories about children taking liberties in the night, about the classic 24 hour illness latch, and then another mum friend approached.

“Are you talking about breastfeeding?” she asked.

We were.

“He’s four,” she said, gesturing to her son, “I have no plans to stop.”

The first mum looked delighted.

“It’s so nice to meet others that do extended feeding,” she said, “it can feel so lonely at times.”

*

I walked past a bench last week on which a woman once approached me when I was wild feeding Pickle. “I noticed you were feeding,” she said, as I braced myself for negativity, “I just had to give you this.” She handed me a chocolate bar. “You’re doing so well,” she said.

That bench, right now, is covered in moth caterpillar webs, something I had never seen until this year but which are absolutely everywhere on this one particular walkway in town. The boys and I made a special pilgrimage past it on the walk home from school last week, watching hundreds of caterpillars crawl around. I revisited the next day to take a video to send to Poppet’s teacher, and noticed they were crawling on the ground as well as up and down the trees. I haven’t been back after realising I’d likely slaughtered hundreds of them underfoot (so gross), but remain fascinated by the webs from a distance.

My grandfatherly friend, who works in the building next to the trees, tells me my bench will be OK. I am pleased about this – I like to return to it when I need a reminder that people are mostly good.

*

On the school run this afternoon, I ran into my friend, Jane. She was in sportswear, looking for all the world like a regular woman in sportswear, but apparently mortified to be wearing sportswear because – the second she saw me – she felt the need to insist “I DON’T USUALLY DRESS LIKE THIS.”

“Jane,” I said, “this isn't the first time I've seen you, I know how you dress.”

She nodded in relief.

“Besides,” I went on, “you caught me just as I noticed something. I’ve not worn a fitted top in ages and look, this boob is much bigger than this one.”

I pointed.

“I look like I’m stood at an angle,” I said.

She looked, and: “Luckily no-one in the playground will be staring at your tits,” she said, which was frankly offensive, Jane, why wouldn’t the dads be looking at my nunga nungas?

I shimmied, trying to even out.

“It’s when they stop feeding entirely that things get really sad,” Jane said, miming balloons deflating, “enjoy them while you can.”

I gestured at my wonky chest. “I mean, they’re mortifying,’ I said, “but at least they’re good for a laugh.”

My god.

Until next time 🍈🍈

P.S. Wonky bangers direct result of being too lazy to feed from both sides. Learn from me, guys, I’m a self-made monster.