Someone has written these beautiful words. Must read and try to understand the deep meaning of it. They are like the ten commandments to follow in life all the time.
1] Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble, but it is a "steering wheel" that directs the right path throughout.
2] So a Car's WINDSHIELD is so large & the Rear view Mirror is so small? Because our PAST is not as important as our FUTURE. So, Look Ahead and Move on.
3] Friendship is like a BOOK. It takes few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write.
4] All things in life are temporary. If going well, enjoy it, they will not last forever. If going wrong, don't worry, they can't last long either.
5] Old Friends are Gold! New Friends are Diamond! If you get a Diamond, don't forget the Gold! Because to hold a Diamond, you always need a Base of Gold!
6] Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, GOD smiles from above and says, "Relax, sweetheart, it's just a bend, not the end!
7] When GOD solves your problems, you have faith in HIS abilities; when GOD doesn't solve your problems HE has faith in your abilities.
8] A blind person asked St. Anthony: "Can there be anything worse than losing eye sight?" He replied: "Yes, losing your vision!"
9] When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them, and sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you.
10] WORRYING does not take away tomorrow's TROUBLES, it takes away today's PEACE.
~ UNknown ~
Showing posts with label book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book. Show all posts
Thursday, 15 March 2012
Thursday, 21 May 2009
The top 5 lies women tell each other about childbirth.
Here's an extract from a new book called "Backwards In High Heels: The Impossible Art of Being Female" written by two British journalists, Tania Kindersley and Sarah Vine.
Your friend announces she is pregnant. You are, of course, delighted. You meet, for coffee (yours is a double espresso, since the children have been up all night), to talk about it. She wants to know everything, or so she says. Here’s what you tell her:
1. It doesn’t matter if she gets fat, the weight will drop off afterwards, especially if she breastfeeds.
2. The birth itself isn’t that bad, and anyway your body is biologically programmed to forget the pain.
3. Breastfeeding can be a little tricky to start with, but in the end she’ll get the hang of it.
4. You get used to not having as much sleep as you used to.
5. The experience of looking after a newborn can really bring two people together.
Here’s what you actually mean:
1. Her stomach will never be the same again, not even if she goes to the gym every day (which she won’t be able to because she won’t have the time), breastfeeds until her child goes to university and observes a strict vegan diet.
2. The birth is quite terrifying, gas and air doesn’t work like they say it does, having stitches is horrible, midwives don’t always get it right, there will be more blood and bodily fluids than an episode of CSI Miami, and having half the world staring at your most intimate parts while you make noises like a demented pig is not, in any sense of the word, empowering.
3. Breastfeeding can be very hard indeed, you feel like a useless failure if you can’t do it, you will almost certainly get mastitis (which is like the worst toothache you can imagine, only in your breast), old ladies will give you horrid stares if you try to do it in public, breastfed babies do get colic, you may have curious and uncomfortable anxieties about being a prize heifer, you will leak in public, your nipples will feel like they’ve been sandpapered and your breasts, like your stomach, will never really recover.
4. You will go insane with sleep deprivation. You really will. Even the hardiest of military men were reduced to wrecks after three days of no sleep in Japanese prisoner of war camps, and you were not trained for this. There will be days when the very act of putting clothes on your shattered body will feel like a major achievement.
5. Once the initial euphoria has subsided, you and your partner will effectively become shift workers: when he’s awake you will be dropping off to sleep, and vice versa. You will become resentful of his ability to leave the house in the morning, bound for the comparatively stressless world of work. In the back of your mind will be the sneaking suspicion that he is spending longer and longer in the office because he would almost rather be anywhere than at home sterilising bottles and dealing with a frazzled you and a wailing babe. Sex will be implausible, not so much because of the physical changes wrought by giving birth, but because you will both be spectacularly exhausted, and no one feels like having much sex when they’re tired. And smelling slightly of sick.
That is one side of the story: the disruption and chaos. The other, often equally unexpected development is the degree to which you adore your baby. For many women, the love they feel for their child far and away surpasses anything they have ever experienced before. At first you don’t really notice it – sure, this small pink bundle is adorable and absorbing, but you are still getting used to each other. And then somewhere around week three, quite possibly when you are dozing off at 4am, with this little milky person asleep by your side and the soothing sounds of the BBC World Service drifting from the radio, it suddenly hits you, with the force of an oncoming train: you love this thing more than life itself.
This love is a new kind of love. It is, in the true sense of the word, unconditional. The media, society, other mothers with something to prove, like to hymn this great novel love as a tremendous nirvana, the deepest truth of the female heart. But paradoxically, it can be extremely frightening, not just for the mother, whose happiness now depends on this highly unstable bundle of new human flesh and blood, whose very sanity can feel as if it hinges on one tiny human continuing to breathe, but also for her partner. Adjusting from being the centre of a person’s universe to being a distant satellite is never easy, especially if the ego involved is male.
All this is why you can’t really tell your pregnant friend the truth. She doesn’t yet understand the peculiar feeling of being hopelessly trapped and unspeakably elated at the same time – nor will she, until she’s given birth. You have to let her experience it for herself, in her own way. Far better – and easier – to toe the party line. Which is: my child is an angel/genius/source of endless joy, I am deliriously happy being a mother, my partner and I have as much – if not possibly more – sex than before and no, of course we do not miss the lie-ins/foreign holidays/expensive consumer durables/actual freedom.
Your friend announces she is pregnant. You are, of course, delighted. You meet, for coffee (yours is a double espresso, since the children have been up all night), to talk about it. She wants to know everything, or so she says. Here’s what you tell her:
1. It doesn’t matter if she gets fat, the weight will drop off afterwards, especially if she breastfeeds.
2. The birth itself isn’t that bad, and anyway your body is biologically programmed to forget the pain.
3. Breastfeeding can be a little tricky to start with, but in the end she’ll get the hang of it.
4. You get used to not having as much sleep as you used to.
5. The experience of looking after a newborn can really bring two people together.
Here’s what you actually mean:
1. Her stomach will never be the same again, not even if she goes to the gym every day (which she won’t be able to because she won’t have the time), breastfeeds until her child goes to university and observes a strict vegan diet.
2. The birth is quite terrifying, gas and air doesn’t work like they say it does, having stitches is horrible, midwives don’t always get it right, there will be more blood and bodily fluids than an episode of CSI Miami, and having half the world staring at your most intimate parts while you make noises like a demented pig is not, in any sense of the word, empowering.
3. Breastfeeding can be very hard indeed, you feel like a useless failure if you can’t do it, you will almost certainly get mastitis (which is like the worst toothache you can imagine, only in your breast), old ladies will give you horrid stares if you try to do it in public, breastfed babies do get colic, you may have curious and uncomfortable anxieties about being a prize heifer, you will leak in public, your nipples will feel like they’ve been sandpapered and your breasts, like your stomach, will never really recover.
4. You will go insane with sleep deprivation. You really will. Even the hardiest of military men were reduced to wrecks after three days of no sleep in Japanese prisoner of war camps, and you were not trained for this. There will be days when the very act of putting clothes on your shattered body will feel like a major achievement.
5. Once the initial euphoria has subsided, you and your partner will effectively become shift workers: when he’s awake you will be dropping off to sleep, and vice versa. You will become resentful of his ability to leave the house in the morning, bound for the comparatively stressless world of work. In the back of your mind will be the sneaking suspicion that he is spending longer and longer in the office because he would almost rather be anywhere than at home sterilising bottles and dealing with a frazzled you and a wailing babe. Sex will be implausible, not so much because of the physical changes wrought by giving birth, but because you will both be spectacularly exhausted, and no one feels like having much sex when they’re tired. And smelling slightly of sick.
That is one side of the story: the disruption and chaos. The other, often equally unexpected development is the degree to which you adore your baby. For many women, the love they feel for their child far and away surpasses anything they have ever experienced before. At first you don’t really notice it – sure, this small pink bundle is adorable and absorbing, but you are still getting used to each other. And then somewhere around week three, quite possibly when you are dozing off at 4am, with this little milky person asleep by your side and the soothing sounds of the BBC World Service drifting from the radio, it suddenly hits you, with the force of an oncoming train: you love this thing more than life itself.
This love is a new kind of love. It is, in the true sense of the word, unconditional. The media, society, other mothers with something to prove, like to hymn this great novel love as a tremendous nirvana, the deepest truth of the female heart. But paradoxically, it can be extremely frightening, not just for the mother, whose happiness now depends on this highly unstable bundle of new human flesh and blood, whose very sanity can feel as if it hinges on one tiny human continuing to breathe, but also for her partner. Adjusting from being the centre of a person’s universe to being a distant satellite is never easy, especially if the ego involved is male.
All this is why you can’t really tell your pregnant friend the truth. She doesn’t yet understand the peculiar feeling of being hopelessly trapped and unspeakably elated at the same time – nor will she, until she’s given birth. You have to let her experience it for herself, in her own way. Far better – and easier – to toe the party line. Which is: my child is an angel/genius/source of endless joy, I am deliriously happy being a mother, my partner and I have as much – if not possibly more – sex than before and no, of course we do not miss the lie-ins/foreign holidays/expensive consumer durables/actual freedom.
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