The Unmumsy Mum Diary

by The Unmumsy Mum

  It was a good question.

  After only a short pause for thought I answered, ‘No.’ Although I know it’s more than possible that my material might dry up, I have never been worried about when that might happen because, if it does, I don’t think it would be a bad thing. Quite the opposite, to be honest – if I get to the point where I no longer have an abundance of everyday parental failings and frustrations to share with the world, it will surely be because I’ll finally have cracked it. There will be no grumbles or depictions of disastrous outings because my household will be in a state of organised euphoria, the kids will be impeccably behaved and I’ll try my luck branching out to run a series of workshops entitled ‘How to Be the Best Mum You Can Be’. Yeah, OK, that will probably never happen, but I remain hopeful that, in future years, I will naturally have less ‘unmumsy’ stuff to write about, that I will be finding the parenting gig slightly less testing and will no longer be convinced that I am making a mess of everything.

  Deep down, though, I have a feeling that I’ll never crack it, that even as they grow up the boys will continue to protest at the unfairness of me ruining their fun. Their sense of injustice over me not letting them play on the train track will evolve into the injustice of me not letting them stay up past nine o’clock and later the injustice of me restricting their internet usage because I’m worried they are watching hardcore pornography rather than revising.

  I suspect I will spend another sixteen years shouting, ‘Why is nobody listening to me?!’ and remain disgusted by the humour they find in farty-bum water, poo jokes and their apparent inability to tidy up any of their crap. If I ever do end up branching out to run a workshop for parents I imagine it will be something more along the lines of ‘Pretending You’re on a Legitimate Workshop Just to Get a Bloody Break’. Whatever happens, what becomes of my writing material is certainly not something I’m worried about.

  Right now, I’m looking ahead to another night in the sauna ahead of Henry’s special outing tomorrow. I would have treated myself to a cup of tea made with one of those shitty UHT milk pots but Henry put all the teabags, coffee sachets and sugar packets in one big cup of water when he was ‘making potions’ yesterday, so I’ll have to make do with warm Highland Spring again.

  Friday 2nd

  Oh Lordy. I am writing the bare bones of this diary entry as an iPhone note in the car while James drives. We have just left the Land of Lego behind us and are now sitting in Friday-evening commuter traffic ahead of a three-hour drive home, so I thought it would be as good a time as any to debrief on the whole experience. I just asked James (over the unconvincing Cockney tones of Dick Van Dyke on the kids’ Disney soundtrack CD) whether he could help me out by providing a summary of our family’s outing to the brick-themed adventure park and, after a long exhalation of breath, he replied simply, ‘Fuck me.’ So I’m going to try to flesh it out a little bit.

  Firstly, I should say that the entire ‘take Henry to the place he most wants to go on earth that isn’t Disney World Florida’ endeavour was arguably worth it purely to see his little face when we first walked through the gates and told him he was in charge of the park map. I’m not sure at what age kids are able to start banking long-term memories (I can’t remember much before the day Crumble the dog joined our family, when I was around four), but as Henry stood tracing his finger over all the rides on the map and staring in wide-eyed wonder at all the buzz and commotion, I felt certain that he would remember this trip. If he doesn’t remember it, I will drip-feed him a favourable version of events until he thinks he remembers it. Whatever happens, it’s safe to say James and I have banked a long-term memory of Legoland.

  The day started with some vocalised impatience from a pram-restricted Jude. He gets irritated whenever the pram isn’t moving, so things got tetchy as we waited in the Q-Bot line for what felt like an eternity. (There’s something ironic about queuing for a device that alleviates queuing, no?) After finally setting off to properly begin our Big Day of Fun and making our way towards the first ride, it soon became apparent that the day wasn’t going to unfold quite as we had imagined when Henry performed a dramatic U-turn on his chief reason for having begged us to go there in the first place.

  You know all those rides he’s been telling us he has been desperate to go on ‘all his life’? The rides he has made us watch endless hours of YouTube footage of? The rides we secretly feared he would be too young or too short to go on? It turns out the age and height thing was pretty bloody irrelevant because he didn’t want to go on any of them. Not one.

  (Deep breath) ‘But Henry, sweetheart, this is the Dragon’s Apprentice! You know, your “favourite ride” that you were telling Grandad about? Shall we get in the queue?’

  ‘No! I don’t want to go on it! I want to watch other people on it. Can I have a snack?’

  ‘Sorry, pudding, Mummy’s just trying to understand what’s going on here. You want to watch other people go on all the rides you said you wanted to go on? It’s not snack-time yet. We’ve just got here, to ride some rides. Shall we have a wander along to see if you want to go on a different ride?’

  ‘OK, I’ll have a look at the other rides. Then I’ll have a snack.’

  The exchange of glances between James and me at this stage was a mixture of ‘Fuck my life’ and ‘Whose idea was this?’ The entire trip had, of course, been my idea and, in the preceding two days, James had endured several hours’ driving, two train journeys, ‘sweaty balls’ from the sauna-like sleeping conditions, and the smallest telly in history – all as a warm-up act for this outing, to give our little H-bomb his special treat before he starts school.

  Do you want to know how the day panned out, in the end?

  Well, Jude, in his pushchair, lost the will to live, so he ended up sitting on James’s shoulders as I followed behind with one hand on Henry and the other on the empty pushchair, which I had to slalom between hordes of excited families as they made bee-lines for rides their children actually wanted to go on. We parted with the best part of £15 for two lacklustre baguettes and some water which the boys then turned their noses up at. I failed to get a ‘look at how much fun we’re having on our day out’ family photo and, overall, aside from the forty minutes they both spent happily playing in the splash pool (a definite hit, but we have water parks in Devon), neither of the boys wanted to go on anything. We ended up having to use the lure of a toy in the gift shop to essentially bribe our firstborn to allow us to take him on just a couple of the rides he had been begging us to take him on for months. After a quick ram-raid of the shop on our way out, we are now sitting in the above-mentioned traffic jam, with Jude having a Danger Nap (anything after 4 p.m. spells trouble), me checking my phone for travel updates, James staring ahead like he’s dreaming of leaving us all and Henry piping up with completely random questions every two minutes, such as:

  ‘Who’s taller? Jude or a penguin?’

  ‘Why are roads called roads?’

  ‘Does Father Christmas wear pyjamas?’

  And ‘How did pterodactyls die out?’

  I bet pterodactyls died out not because of the impact of a meteor or some kind of climate change sixty-something million years ago but because the mummy pterodactyls were so stressed after a day out at DinoLand that they ate their babies. I might tell Henry that if he doesn’t stop talking.

  I know it’s frowned upon to daydream about alcohol or indeed to rely on a bottle of something as a pick-me-up when things get stressful, but I am now properly fantasising about pouring myself a glass of Sauvignon Blanc as big as my head.

  What a day.

  Monday 5th

  08:46

  Henry’s teachers are coming for a home visit this morning. HIS TEACHERS ARE COMING TO OUR HOUSE! As you can probably imagine, I have spent the best part of two hours cleaning and tidying in an attempt to make the place look spotless, before strategically re-placing a few carefully chosen toys on the floor (the trendy wooden ones; I’ve hidden the plastic tat) so it doesn�
��t look like I’ve just tidied. That way, if they say, ‘Wow, what a lovely house!’ I can say, ‘Oh God, no, it really needs a clean. I totally forgot you were coming!’ as I casually rearrange the dust-free scented candles that will have been burning prior to their arrival so they get a whiff of fresh linen and jasmine as they walk in. I bought some flowers – they’re only cheap supermarket ones but I thought they would brighten up the dining table. However, the immediate flaw in my flowers plan is that I can’t find a vase. In fact, I’m not even sure I own one. So the flowers have had their stems cut and been shoved into the only remotely vase-like thing I could find: a Bacardi rum pitcher. Does that make me look like I’m an alcoholic? Should I just hide the whole thing upstairs? There’s no time; I’m expecting them here any minute now. I haven’t even had time to bake a few drops of vanilla essence in the oven to create the illusion that this is a home-made cakes kind of house. I should have made cakes. I’ve got Jammie bloody Dodgers instead. I bet that goes on his record.

  10:11

  Update: the teacher visit lasted less than fifteen minutes. They were very nice, Henry was eager to show them his bedroom (thank God I had whizzed around it with a bin-bag and some Febreze) and no comments were made about my biscuits, our exemplary educational wooden-toy offering, the pleasant scent in the living room or my Bacardi pitcher of budget flowers. I think perhaps I over-panicked.

  There are just four more days until I am officially the owner of a school child. I will no doubt be writing more on this later in the week but for now I am going to focus on the practical stuff, like the fact that I haven’t yet bought him a PE kit or a coat and, perhaps more pressingly, the fact that I’m still not confident we have mastered independent bum-wiping. Four days to crack it (no bum-pun intended). Game on.

  Thursday 8th

  So here we are, then. Just one more sleep. I have been a walking muddle of emotion for the past few weeks and, shy of hiding in the fridge sobbing into Dairylea triangles (again), I don’t know where else to channel it all. My brain is a starting-school cliché: Where has the time gone? I can’t bear it!

  I have looked ahead to this moment many times over the last four years and the truth is I simply never expected that I would be one of those mums. The criers. The ones who get struck down with ‘my baby is starting school’ pangs in the middle of Tesco. The ones who make an excuse to escape to the kitchen with a lump in their throat when the uniform is tried on for the first time. The ones who scroll through toddler photos from two years ago on Timehop and say, ‘I just can’t believe it.’ But I just can’t believe it.

  Timehop presents me with a photo of my about-to-start-school child from when he was a toddler, waddling around, not quite able to master walking in his wellies, and all at once I’m floored by a hurty heart.

  Just like that my Henry Bear, my biggest boy, is going to school. Joining the throngs of reception-starters, he’ll be making his way through the school gates in the oversized uniform I’ve dutifully labelled with name tags, carrying a book bag that I’m told will come home bursting with reminders about all the things we need to do to help him succeed in numeracy/phonics/life.

  Parents of children already at school tell me this overwhelming emotion will soon become a distant memory, and I have no doubt that when the autumn term begins next year I, too, will be skipping up the road and updating my Facebook status to ‘Lovely summer and everything but thank God for that!’

  I will know the drill by then. I’ll be used to having a school-aged child and I’ll have realised that the school day is actually quite short and that it’s never very long before the next holiday (which will present me with all manner of childcare issues). With my level head on, I already know all these things, but level-headedness rarely makes an appearance in Parentland, does it? In fact, Parentland has proved the biggest mind-fuck of a destination I’ve ever been to – and that’s without the use of any narcotics. Parentland is maddening and hilarious and weird and makes me cry all the bloody time.

  It’s not that I don’t want Henry to go to school. I do. He is more than ready and I’m excited for him. It’s just that seeing him trying on his uniform this evening while singing along to his favourite song of the moment (Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’), I can’t hide from the fact that he is growing up. Just as I realised when we were on holiday in France, during a normal week at home one day rolls into the next and it’s easy not to notice the change. Sure, he grows out of his clothes and shows an interest in new games and TV programmes, so I know he is growing up, but I don’t take proper notice of it.

  School very obviously marks a brand-new chapter and, although this is no bad thing, it means I have to accept that a line is being drawn under the old chapter – the chapter where he was a baby who was sick all the time who then became a toddler who called all animals ‘Cat!’ and later a preschooler who made me howl with laughter at his naked living-room dancing and incessant willy-show antics.

  I have moaned about him a lot over the last four years (because he’s annoying – really, he is) but this last year has seen a change in our relationship. He makes me laugh and he’s bloody good company.

  I will miss him.

  There have been times when I have muttered, ‘Roll on, school!’, and I could spin you some bullshit here about how I didn’t really mean it but, in all honesty, at the time I definitely did mean it. I think maybe that is why I am so sad. Because I never enjoyed the earliest days as much as I could have. I tried, but it turned out the whole baby thing just wasn’t my bag (though my broodiness has once again been ignited at the prospect of being one child down during school hours, so I think James will be wearing three pairs of boxers to bed for the next week to fend off my procreation advances).

  On top of the fact that I am distraught about him going to school (not an exaggeration), I am also worried about how I will fare as a School Mum. I’ve bumbled through the last four years of motherhood on a wing and a prayer but now I’m fairly sure my maternal incompetence will be outed sometime in the first term. The other mums might have read my book. What if they stand in the corner of the playground whispering, ‘There’s that mum who called her baby a dick. Look how creased his trousers are – I did read she doesn’t iron anything. Oh, and there’s her husband. Do you know he once had to milk her?’

  I hadn’t thought it through (and maybe I’m still not thinking it through; if they go on to read this book they’ll know all about my drunken sickness and that time I had thrush. Jesus).

  But it’s not about me.

  And my main worry is not how lazy I’ll look when I put Henry in his skeleton pyjamas for World Book Day (Funnybones, and yes he has worn them for the last two Halloweens), my main worry is simply my Henners.

  Will he enjoy it? Will he make friends? Will he fit in? Will he manage to remember that not everybody wants to abide by his rules when playing Star Wars?

  He’s too young for me to give him the school advice I want to give him. I want so badly to tell him the things I learned from school. That it’s better to be nice than it is to be popular. That if you are nice you will be popular for the right reasons: because people like you. That if you strive only to be popular you will be popular because people think they have to like you, because you’re popular. That is not the same thing. I want to tell him to work hard, to play harder and always to be kind because his kindness will always be invaluable without costing him anything.

  I want to tell him that I am so very proud of him. So proud I feel like shouting, ‘That’s my son!’ at anyone who will listen.

  I want to thank him for giving me something so wonderful that I will miss it. For allowing me to make a million and one parenting mistakes in the first four years of his life, but which will no doubt benefit his little brother. (Trial and error – it’s the only thing I know.)

  But I won’t tell him any of these things.

  He’s a sensitive creature, and it would be selfish of me to burden him with the extra worry of his mother having the emotional re
straint of Gwynnie at the Oscars. So when I tuck him in tonight I will bite my tongue and, in my best cheery-mum voice, I will say, ‘School tomorrow then, buddy! How fab, you’ll love it.’ I will keep things upbeat. I won’t make it too big a deal. I will do all the stuff I hope will make school easier for him and none of the stuff that will make school easier for me.

  I know it is probable that at some stage he will cling to me and tell me that he doesn’t want me to leave and, just like at preschool, it will break me. I know every ounce of my being will want to stay there in the middle of reception class holding on to him, but it would start to look a bit weird if I did. So I will be firm, because that’s what parents do. And he will be fine.

  I will not be fine. I will come home and cry and eat Dairylea triangles and say, ‘Where did the time go?’

  That’s Parentland. The best place on earth. The worst place on earth.

  I bloody love you, Henry Bear. Go get ’em.

  Friday 9th

  Well, he did it. Or rather, he is doing it, as he’s currently AT SCHOOL! The four of us walked in together – the first of a great many trips down the road and up the hill. James remained calm, I fussed over everything being clean/labelled while also pretending I wasn’t on the verge of bursting into tears, Jude had a tantrum over not being allowed to eat a slab of cheese at 8 a.m. and Henry was absolutely fine … until it was time for us to leave him in the classroom, when he cried his little eyes out and clung on to our legs with such ferocity I’m pretty certain he has left marks.

  Naturally, I then cried all the way home and I am now writing this diary entry to convince myself that I am fine about having abandoned my firstborn in an environment he was clearly unhappy with, despite having promised him that I would never make him do anything that he isn’t happy with. Mum guilt, you are a relentless force of nature and I hate you.