On My Tits + Off My Chest - Babies + Sleeping

(Quick note  On My Tits + Off My Chest - is a new series of posts on this blog about subjects that are irritating me. I can have a rant and get it off my chest! Always take these with a pinch of salt - they're not intended to be too serious....)

Babies and sleep - or lack thereof - where to start? I'll say it right now, Baby45 is a crappy sleeper. This came as news to me until fairly recently in his little life. Well, not that his sleeping patterns had changed , but that others had it better. I was more of the view that, hey, babies cry and don't sleep much. TOUGH. But apparently some people are getting a full night's sleep more than say, 5 times in the last 18 months....

Having a good sleeper seems intrinsically linked to how good you are as a parent - it's the first thing anyone seems to ask you. And if you have a bad sleeper then, tsk tsk, you *must* be doing something wrong. After all it's not like babies are biologically programmed to wake up for food or to scream to alert people to their presence. That little thing called evolution is such a bugger.

Having a poor sleeper also seems to mean that people will - as with anything parenting related - give you tons of unasked for and unrequired advice. If I had a pound for every time I'd heard any of the below, well, I'd be able to afford a really expensive sleep consultant to tell me stuff I already know...

Hanging By A Thread

I'm a little bit excited tonight! As you know, pre-baby45 I did a fair bit of climbing - it's one of the things I miss most since he arrived. Husbando is a total climbing fanatic however and owns many books on the subject, including Mark Reeves' `How To Climb Harder`.

Tonight on twitter I spotted that Mark is actually in London on May 12th giving a lecture on The History + Technology of Climbing. Tickets are £10 and the talk commences at 7pm. As he normally spends most of his time in Snowdonia this is a real one off opportunity to hear one of the world leading experts in climbing and mountaineering speak.

Want to know more? Well here in Mark's own words is the background to how he came to write Hanging by a Thread - the book that forms the basis for this talk..... 

In Which You Learn Useless Stuff About Me

I've changed a little in the 5 years since I started this blog.  I've gotten married, moved jobs 4 times, been made redundant twice, gotten pregnant, had a baby, moved out of London, completed Nanowrimo once and had several lengthy blog hiatuses. Here's me in 2009, 2011, 2012 + 2014!

I've done a couple of "about me" posts (here and here), but thought it was time for a new one - and a game of blog tag! I've tagged some bloggers that I love in this post. I challenge them to answer these questions too and, if they feel like it, do a picture collage covering the time they've been blogging. So here goes:

See You On A Dark Night - Lyric Day

#WhyIDidntReport has been trending on Twitter and cropping up on my newsfeed. I've been shocked and saddened by the experiences I've seen tweeted. 

I don't know why I'm so shocked though, after my own (minor) sexual assault 7 years ago, so many female friends came forward to tell me of their own experiences, many of whom didn't report it - or even tell anyone. 

I've just started listening to Grimes (real name, Claire Boucher) and her particular brand of what has been described as "ABBA meets Aphex Twin" electro-y sort of music (and also as "witch-house" which I love!), but when I heard her song Oblivion, I just couldn't get the lyric "see you on a dark night" out of my head. Because, well, I got attacked on a "dark night". 

Parenting Venn Diagram

I think this says it all at the moment. Feel free to share!

Back soon with a proper post, promise - on being a so-called "mummy" blogger :)

Thank you and goodnight,

Stupidgirl has left the building