I’ve had time to think this year. I’ve had a little time to think more about what I want out of life, and, more precisely, what I don’t. At the age of 36 I think I finally know myself well enough to know which battles are worth fighting and which ones I really don’t have time for. So here’s the list of things I’m dumping as we turn the final corner of 2017. 
Heels
Oh, how I love them. Feet jewels. They’re so pretty. And I so can’t wear them.
I’ve been trying since I was a teenager, but every time I wore them to a party or out clubbing they’d end up swinging from my hands while a mate gave me a piggy back, or kicked to the side of the room while I risked my feet on a sticky club carpet. A friend of mine used to say “You know it’s a party when Vicki takes her shoes off”. My lifelong search for the perfect comfortable and beautiful pair of heels is now over. I’m loving my brogues and Converse, and contemplating a pair of DMs like the ones I had when I was 15. I’m short and I don’t wear heels. The end.
Saying yes when I mean no
I’m a terrible people-pleaser. I want the whole world to like me, and in order to achieve this nonsensical goal I’ve always had a habit of saying yes to absolutely everything, then having to let people down at the last minute because I can’t possibly manage it. I even say yes to things I have no interest in doing at all.
No longer.
Having Arthur has changed me in many ways. This is one. When I know something isn’t going to work for us for whatever reason; travel, bedtime, nap time, more than one activity per day and so on, I just say no. I did think it might just be a family thing, but I seem to be doing it in other areas of life too. It’s far better than saying yes and then no and being known as Flaky McFlake Face. I’m also getting better at not giving a protracted, apologetic reason for my refusal. Which brings me nicely to…
Apologising for myself
Apparently this is very common for women. We often write emails at work that beg forgiveness for taking someone’s time, or asking a question about something we couldn’t possibly have known about. I’m terrible for this kind of thing. If someone bumps into me there’s a good chance I’ll say sorry.
I recently got a new job. It’s my dream job, really; freelance, working around Arthur and in an area of my field I’ve been wanting to get into for ages. I really had to talk myself into applying for it. “Oh,” I thought, “That looks great but I’m really not qualified.” 
Why not? My inner Confidence Beast asked. Isn’t your Masters degree as good as anyone else’s? Doesn’t your 16 years of experience count for anything? Haven’t you wanted to get back into work in a way that fits around family? WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Reader, I got the job.
Dieting
This is a big one. Perhaps the big one. It’s been brewing for a long while, but having an HG pregnancy has really put my relationship with food and my body into perspective. I had to slowly starve myself over the nine months of my pregnancy and when I told people I had lost a stone in weight whilst pregnant I would get “Well, every dark cloud has a silver lining!” which tells you everything you need to know about what we think of larger-bodied people.
Since then I’ve decided to get off this particular merry-go-round. It’s never worked for me. I can’t be the person who has the ‘will power’ to make my body smaller. All diets have ever done is make me fatter in the long run, and since I stopped earlier this year and started to observe myself and my habits I’ve noticed that my weight has stabilised and my food moralising has stopped. After all, how can a delicious burger actually be bad? If I’m hungry the salad isn’t going to cut it.
For more information about Intuitive Eating and stepping away from diets I highly recommend Christy Harrison’s Food Psych, a brilliant podcast which looks at the flawed diet culture and examines ways to move forward. https://christyharrison.com/foodpsych/
Huge crowds
Have you ever stood on the South Bank on New Year’s Eve?
Don’t.
Gigs, festivals, carnivals, Oxford Street. I hate them all. It’s partially because I’m all of 5 feet 2 inches tall, and partly because the sight of all that forced jollity makes me anxious. YOU MUST HAVE A GREAT TIME. It’s guaranteed to give me the reverse. My last attempt was the Lambeth Country Show (a misnomer if ever I heard one), at which I sat in a horrible hot park with thousands of other people, ate an overpriced pork bap then raced home as fast as I could. Then contracted food poisoning. I’m grateful to the bap for the lesson. Big crowds are not for me.
I’d love to hear your version of this list. What are you happy to leave behind from your younger years?

Arthur is nearly 11 months old. In some ways it feels as though my tiny baby disappeared in the blink of an eye, but mostly it feels as though he’s been here forever. In the blur and fog of the first year, it’s hard to remember what it was like before he showed up, perfect despite everything, and we lost ourselves to him. Now he’s almost a toddler really; pushing around the baby walker I found at a charity shop for peanuts, turning over all his toys with wheels to examine them intently like a baby mechanic, babbling as though he really wants us to understand him. 
I’m still breastfeeding. In all honesty, I thought I would have stopped by now but we’re dealing with a very specific set of circumstances. When I started to offer Arthur food five months ago (is it really that long?) he started to show signs of something called an IGE Mediated Allergic Reaction. Put simply, certain foods give him an alarming rash. Eggs, dairy, soy, citrus and banana are all off the table. I check ingredients obsessively, making sure he isn’t going to consume anything that will make him poorly. He can’t have any commercially available formulas as they all contain one or more of the things he’s allergic to.
In addition to this issue, Arthur won’t take food from a spoon. By necessity we’re doing ‘Baby-Led Weaning’ which means he hardly eats anything at all, and he also won’t take a bottle or drink water from a sippy cup yet. 
Breastfeeding is wonderful, a perfect cuddle, stillness in a busy day and a chance to check on Arthur at night. It helped us to get that elusive bond from day one, and I’ll always be so grateful that we were able to do it first time. But after such a long time of being my baby’s only real energy source, I find I’m tired. I’m starting to look forward to a time I can say yes to evening invitations, or to going out on the weekends for longer than three hours. I want to know that next year I’ll be able to organise some childcare without worrying that he’s not going to eat anything for hours. My hair and skin are suffering under the strain of my body providing nutrition for someone else for so long. My shoulders and back are always sore, as are my joints because of the relaxin that’s still being released into my system. Teeth make it very uncomfortable. I’m tired from having to get up at least once every night to feed, meaning I haven’t had an unbroken night’s sleep in nearly a year. My husband can’t really parent in the way I’d like him to (or the way he’d like to) because Arthur is still so dependent on me. It’s me he needs when he wakes up in the night, only me who can do bedtimes and first thing in the morning wake-ups. So, as a way of learning from my experiences, here’s what I’d recommend to other breastfeeding mothers in the early months based on my experience. Hope it’s helpful to someone!
Introduce a bottle and offer it consistently
At  5 months Arthur was able to take a bottle, and we’d offer it sporadically on the very rare occasions Will was parenting solo. To my regret we didn’t keep doing it, and by 7 months when we tried again he angrily rejected it. We’ve tried tonnes of different teats, all to no avail. He just won’t have it. I can’t help thinking that he might have found drinking from a cup a little easier if he’d realised he could actually suck from a bottle!
Introduce foods one by one and monitor for reactions
I had never even considered that Arthur might have food allergies. I blithely assumed he’d be just like me and be able to eat anything. If I had my time to do over again I wouldn’t crash straight in and offer everything at once the way I did this time, and I would (despite all current advice) start with the blandest foods, one at a time, which is what I eventually had to do on the helpful advice of a friend who’s been there before. It was hard to tell at first what he’d reacted to, and I didn’t even realise the rash was a problem until I raised it with my wonderful online Mum group. The only way to tell what was going on was to give those foods again, and I really think part of Arthur’s reluctance to eat is that he remembers those early reactions. I’d also (sorry, sorry BLWers) offer a spoon consistently every day. Even if I had done this there’s no guarantee, but I suspect Arthur might be a little further on with his eating and I might be able to leave him with someone else once in a while!
I know just how many women try to breastfeed and find it impossible, and I’m really glad and grateful for our success. Having said that, when the time comes to finally move on I think I’ll be glad that Arthur can be a little more independent. As we say in our group “This too shall pass”. Until then, my boob monster and I will keep plodding on.
Good luck with your feeding, however you’re doing it!