WHALES SUCKLE THEIR YOUNG TOO

“Do you feel like a cow sometimes?” Asked my sympathetic brother as he watched me feed the peanut once more.

“Oh easy now,” says my dad, “there are plenty of other animals that suckle their young. Like whales.”

That’s the type of support I’m getting in my neck of the woods. It’s excellent for morale. 

Like the lack of sleep leaving bags no cucumber can heal aren’t bad enough. 

Or the poo-brown line down my middle that doesn’t seem to want to fade; now there’s a great addition to a bikini. 

Then there are the leaky nipples. I tell you, there can’t be many more attractive things than a lady soaking through her t-shirt in public. 

Not to mention the cellulite that seems to have formed a security blanket around the top of my thighs. Trust me body, I have enough for the peanut to feed on without you keeping a reserve supply of cottage cheese right where my jeans used to fit.

This is why you should have kids when you’re young. Fifteen perhaps, when puberty hasn’t even really finished. Before you’ve had a chance to live with your body in its unaltered state and get used to its quirks and foibles. You’re insecure enough as teenagers as it is, why not throw in a big ol’ stomach just to really round things off.

I write this nonsense as the peanut slumbers peacefully in our bed, having slept almost the night through.

This is my victory.

Not the loss of the six-pack I never had, or the end of the modelling career that never was.

But sleep. Pure unadulterated sleep. On the part of my child anyway, now if only I can get my busy brain to follow suit...