laugh

A smile is a curve that sets everything straight

~ Fridgesays ~ 22 Comments

Quote by Phyllis Diller

It’s late at night and I’ve been exhausted all week, you think I’d be snuggled up in bed, but I feel the need to vomit words all over this screen – so here I am typing, no plan and no agenda, just a over tired woman and the need for some typing therapy. Ahhhh I’m already smiling.

Lets talk about the humble smile…a simple smile is the easiest and cheapest way to live longer, give your health an over all make over (it reducing your chance of heart disease, lowers your blood pressure and reduces stress). New research even suggests that it increases your chances of success and it makes you more attractive to a potential partner or new born baby; seriously babies love a cheesy grin.

So with these facts in mind why don’t we smile more, do smile-aerobics, smile indulge diets (like a diet but increasing not decreasing – yup I made the phrase up), why don’t we take time to laugh, like we make time to do chores or attend important meetings?(*any meeting that claims to be important are always extra dull and guarantee to be pointless). Honestly, I’m not really sure of the answer, but its something that I think adults should do more.

I’m lucky that I never lost the ability from my childhood to belly laugh – I’m talking full tears, can’t breath, abdominal workout, could possibly die, hard core LAUGH. I do this most weeks and several days of those weeks. Maybe whilst reading this you’re pondering on when you last ‘lost it’ in the giggle department? Mine was yesterday when one of my GCSE pupils used Hannah Montana as an answer in her MOCK exam, or two days before that when one of my yr 7 pupils was in a drama lesson being a shark (obviously) and her jaw ached so badly in rehearsals that when she drank from her water bottle her mouth muscles spasmed sending the water the wrong way and out popped the water via her nose…yup, kids are funny. My son comes out with killer phrases of both joy and oddness most days, his five years old, so humour and naivety are his friends.

I’m not sure I can teach you how to belly laugh? I think it comes from living in the moment and not being afraid to control situations. I think its helped by watching youtube clips of cats falling, babies giggling and humans failing. wikihow has a link to ’11 steps to laugh more’ (with pictures) which I haven’t linked because I think its rather sad. I think we all have belly laughs waiting to explode within us and would totally encourage you to release them.

Mr F, as regular readers will know is a grumpy human, his face falls in a nature frown and very few things make him chuckle or smile even slightly. He mainly smiles when I’m rolling on the floor laughing at something and I’m in pain from it. Seriously, pain makes him smile – mainly at my expense. That’s the absolute joy of smiles, they come in all shapes and sizes and what makes an individual smile is unique to them.

TASK:

Write down three things that make you laugh / smile. My ‘try not to think before you type’ ideas go something like this:

  1. watching stand up comedians
  2. people watching
  3. horrendous ‘Dad jokes’ (Need to build an ark – I Noah a guy)

Now you have your list make time to do these every week, then daily and I promise you’ll be healthier and see many advantages, then add to the list of things that make you smile, there will be so many more than just three. I’m also partial to an old school cartoon like Tom and Jerry or Henry’s Cat. Laughing is contagious, so if you smile it also boosts those around you.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I’ve had a seriously heavy week of being an adult, stress levels were high, responsibility lists were long and juggling home, work and life was a challenge – time to pop of some cartoons on I think?

Please comment below with either the things that make you laugh or your favourite Dad joke (the lamer the better) and when I’m feeling overwhelmed i’ll pop back for a smile through the comment section 🙂

My boobs are not small, they are low fat.

~ Fridgesays ~ 45 Comments

Quote from an unknown petite chest, fab perspective lady.

Today my inspiration is all about boobs and my boob journey. I just got into bed and had an epiphany about life (as you do), so I began to type it out. It may be useful for breast feeding mums, but actually I’m hoping you’ll see it’s not about boobs at all.

When I was twenty-two years old I remember walking out of the doors of our local shopping centre with my Mum and I began the sentence with ‘when my boobs stop growing…’ she then interrupted and broke the news that they were done growing and what I had was all that was coming my way. I obviously knew this deep down but I guess the Disney princess in me was hoping for a extra handful, plus my Mum has more than her fare share so I was clutching on for some of her genes. Turns out I’m my Dads daughter and match his moob size.

Life went on and I learned about wonder bras and perfected scaffolding techniques that meant I now have a back up industry should I ever need a new career.

Then just when I was at my lowest they let me down by being amazing. After we came home from the hospital without our new bundle I was told that due to my emergency caesarean, stress and how long it had been I was unlikely to get any breast milk through. Mr F took me ‘home’ not to our house (too many baby items ready and waiting that I couldn’t bare to look at) but to my Parents. He surrounded us with love and my bestie came to stay over night. In the morning I woke and cried at the realisation that the nightmare we was living wasn’t a dream but our new reality. It was during this emotional outpour that my boobs exploded with milk. Useless milk that was too late, that meant my body didn’t know what my mind did…the baby had died, it didn’t need to be fed and I certainly didn’t need reminding. It was another stab and firm reminder that my body wasn’t my own. Luckily, it soon dried up and I have to say months after I was pretty proud that my fried eggs had it in them to produce milk. They worked.

Four years later we decided to ‘not try to try’ and have a baby. During this pregnancy it was worse, denial was my only hope of sanity as any interaction with the reality of ‘this could happen again’ was too much for my heart to cope with. I read nothing, I only went to appointments that I absolutely needed to and I worked as close to my due date as possible. Then I had my planned Caesarian (I already had the sunroof , why not use it?) and with a tug and a pull a healthy baby boy. With this came a new game plan: Get him home. In the UK this means approximately 3 days of monitoring and a lot of wee to produce for midwives that like to measure it by the pint. I have never drunk so much water in my life to satisfy there wee desires. My milk didn’t kick in straight away so we fed him with a little cup and some formula, I also breast fed – it began straight after he was placed on me for skin to skin contact and he literally sniffed by breast and attached himself; his Dad always gets good value at an all you can eat buffet, so I wasn’t that surprised. Did I know what I was doing? Hadn’t a fucking clue. If it hurt – I pulled him away, if it felt nice I let him stay until he had got bored. Now before we get into breast feeding Vs bottle formula, I couldn’t give a scooby doo, I had mission ‘Get him home’ everything else was irrelevant. I kept Midwife’s away by telling them what they wanted to hear, I kept my curtains closed and counting the sleeps down one by one. I even gave the scary cow machines a go (keep the Midwife’s happy) and expressed pretty much nothing. We continued to cup feed and I knew my boobs could do it.

We managed to get little dude home and then the next mission began: Keep him healthy for the next eighty odd years. Generally I breast fed and Daddy gave him one bottle a day. I kept the formula because it served three purposes – bonding for Daddy, a break for me and it also released some new mum guilt that I was producing by the bucket load of ‘if I’m not producing enough then at least he is getting something’, this is where the breast feeding journey should end but life’s a b*tch and just when you figure things out a new born likes to screw things up – he rejected my right breast. Apparently this is to do with me being left handed and how I was holding him, I then expressed the right, fed from the left and Daddy did his one evening formula…until I lost my sanity, expressing wasn’t for me, it felt totally unnatural and dull. It took over lives as I had to be near the express machine for every other feed which meant our house became my prison.

I then read an article about mums of twins who feed each baby on each breast (not sure how triplets do this?) and thought ‘screw you right express boob, I’ll just feed from the left’. And so until we introduced food this is what I did. The right boob dried up, he only drank from the left side of the bar and had one Daddy formula before bed.

Now to relate my boobs to life. I think if you over complicate things (breast feeding) then you’re likely to fail. I honestly didn’t know how to attach a child to my nipple – he did it himself. I went with the flow and made it work for me. I also scaffold those bad boys like Amazon packaging – the gift inside isn’t always as big as the box it comes it, so don’t be fooled by how people package their life, social media tells a lot of ‘amazon boxes’ and people like to post only the best of themselves, it doesn’t mean they are better than you or have anything worked out. I truly believe we are just winging it, day by day.

The human body is amazing. Seriously I made 2 tiny humans with 2 basic ingredients and a shed load of percentages against me. I’ve probabaly insulted my boobs more times than reality TV stars have told the truth and they fed my son regardless. I think we need to start loving ourselves and especially what we perceive as our flaws way more to be happy, healthy humans. Life (much like a new born) likes to throw a curve ball every now and then and we like to get stressed, frustrated and angry – when really we need to take a step back, breathe and may be a little like Dory and look for another direction to swim in.

So a toast, to boobs, moobs and the miracle of life! We can make it work, overcome anything thats put in our path, which I think its something seriously worth toasting. Stay blessed and if like me you have low fat boobs be grateful they are healthy.