by Poppy Dolan
‘Now, Cherry Pie, what on earth are we going to wear to this new baby class, hmm?’
If this was an Eighties movie, there’d be an upbeat synth pop tune blaring out as I dig through my wardrobe and hold up various outfits to the mirror. This long checked shirt or this long checked shirt? The Dorothy Perkins jeggings or the New Look jeggings? Perhaps the music would change to something more ominous now: a lone cello and some kettle drums as I flick through hanger after hanger of brilliant clothes I can no longer fit into. A weird fact about pregnancy that no one really tells you till it’s too late is that your hips and rib cage spread out to fit the baby in as it grows. And they take their sweet time moving back in again. Combine that with a paunch of fat around my tum from all those 4am digestives, and a saggy double chin, and I’m not exactly runway-ready. Not that I aspire to be stick thin or any madness of that kind; I’d just really like to get back into my favourite slate grey, fancy jeans and the sky-blue silk shirt that was my lucky charm in pitches and dates alike, back in the day. But neither of them can take in my post-baby body, and I’ve not exactly helped by shunning all exercise in favour of cheese on toast on the hour.
Cherry is watching me from her position on my bed: lying on top of two giant muslins (to absorb any sick) and encircled by a range of cushions, should she decide to commando-roll while my back is turned and thump onto the floor. You never know. Now and then she lets out a grizzle that confirms this process isn’t much fun for either of us, so I break into a gaudy song and dance routine of Incy Wincy. With mad leaps and jazz hands – the lot. That buys me three minutes at a go. How do those glam mums on Insta do it? How do they perfectly coordinate a crisp white peasant blouse with jangling yet tasteful bracelets and a big, bouncy blow-dry while children crawl around their feet? I don’t even know where my hairdryer is. I don’t think I’ve used it since I was six months’ pregnant and I lost the ability to bend over.
‘Sod it,’ I whisper to myself as I reach for my trusty striped Breton top. The mum staple. But it’s from Joules so it feels classy and the three quarter-length sleeves are super-flattering. I spin around to Cherry. ‘What do you think, missus?’
A mouthful of white throw-up leaves her lips.
‘Everyone’s a critic. Watch it, or I’ll put you in the pink tutu nightmare Auntie Phyllis sent.’
My lovely Aunt Phyllis really does try, bless her. I think she feels that with my mum living in the States again, she should step up and be a surrogate mother figure. This shows itself when she sends a range of outfits for Cherry that I can only describe as pageant-worthy: scratchy tulle, sequinned ra-ra skirts, ‘Daddy’s Little Princess’ stamped over nylon onesies. It comes from a good place, but it’s so very, very bad.
I wipe up the sick with a corner of a muslin and heft Cherry up, walking her to her room. She’s got a ridiculous mini-wardrobe which I couldn’t resist buying when I was three months’ pregnant and totally clueless about the reality of babies. They don’t need hanging space – you need stuffing space! I crouch down and rummage one hand around in the pile of clothes in the bottom. Cherry also has a Breton-striped all-in-one but I worry that would ring mum-mum alarm bells with Nelle. I think I’ll play it safe: a grey marl vest with tiny robots printed on it, and purple dotty leggings. There’s some sort of balance there.
Twenty minutes later, after cleaning up a thunderous poo from Cherry that made her sound like a backfiring van, we are ready to hit the streets. I’m washed, I’m dressed, I’m coherent: this is going to be a good day! I might rehearse some conversational topics on the way there, but nothing too controversial for starters. Something flickers in the back of my mind – ask questions. That’s what I did when I was meeting new people as a PR and I’d forgotten their names and backgrounds but I wanted them to feel included. I’ll ask questions. People love talking about themselves.
My trainers are bouncing along the pavement as I happily head to the community hall. Cherry likes a running commentary to keep her amused so I prattle on: ‘There’s Mr Tilbury’s cat. Hello, cat! And people have put their bins out today. But not the recycling, oh, no, no, no – that’s on a Tuesday. Recycle, recycle, recycle!’ I start singing a little ear worm from a Peppa Pig episode.
And then my pram wheels collide with something. Speeding out of the public footpath that starts at the bottom of our street and takes a back route to the park is a luminous green scooter.
‘Move!’ shouts its owner to me, dark eyes glowering up from a curtain of sandy, straight hair. He can’t be more than four, but he’s got the weary aggression of someone who’s been stuck in rush-hour traffic all his life.
Annoyingly, on impulse, I do move back and he scoots off down the pavement, just as I am thinking of mature but cutting things to say to him. My mouth twitches and my lips curl, but I’ve missed my moment.
Where are the flipping parents?!
A flick of shiny, golden-blonde tresses precedes a woman dressed all in expensive grey tones. She must have seen our mini-collision and heard his tart little shout. I wonder if her apology will be just as smooth as her hair.
But nothing comes. Her glossy lips stay closed but her eyes flick up and down, over my slightly stained jeans and maybe just a hint of muffin top. I inch further behind the handles of the pram.
I now totally get what Nelle means by a mum-mum.
Confessions of a First-Time Mum
Blog post 3.12am
Baby Groups: Not for the Faint-Hearted. Or the Wet-Haired.
Baby groups: a soft, cosy haven for the new mum, right? A place to meet likeminded mum friends, take a load off for forty-five minutes, bond with your baby and come away with a new affinity for parental life and strengthened mum skills. Yes?
Um.
No.
Maybe I’ve just been to the wrong groups. Maybe I was so mental from lack of sleep that I wandered into Aggressive Negotiating for Women 101 and that explains all the blank stares I get in return for my nervous grin. No one moves a bag from a chair for me, and the little cliques in corners move closer together, whispering and nodding. Their whispers make me very self-conscious about my wet hair, baggy leggings and Big Baby’s general whiff of curdled milk.
So I always end up with the chair right next to the person taking the class, further distancing me from the others as Super Swot and putting me right in the line of sight when everyone starts singing and clapping, and I am completely lost mid-verse of ‘Three White Mice’. (I swear, once a class leader turned to me, interrupting the song, and snapped: ‘We don’t say ‘blind’ any more! It’s offensive!’ as if I was scrawling graffiti on the RNIB building.) Big Baby does not dig the tunes and quickly builds up a head of steam into a major meltdown. The class leader will take this as a moment to cheerfully demonstrate some distraction techniques for When Baby is Crying: flying her around like a plane, pretending to drop her down with a lunge, blowing raspberries in her face. And Big Baby demonstrates that she is a baby that will not fall for that crap, thank you very much, her face getting redder and sweatier with each failed method.
The eye rolls spread round the room like a grumpy Mexican wave. No one else’s baby is this angry. No one else’s baby is ruining it. No one else came dressed like they were going to service a boiler.
The shame and the noise get too much. There’s only so much polite smiling I can do when underneath my face my head is awash with tears and panic and despair. And so each time we bolt, the sound of Big Baby’s shouts trailing me out of the community centre, behind the high street and back to the car park.
So, all in all, a great day out and totally worth £6.50 a time!
Is it just me? Have you been to a class that hasn’t been a minefield of social codes and ear-drum splits? Actually, don’t tell me if you have because that would just confirm that it’s ME who’s the incompetent one here.
Stay strong, stay well fed.
Love,
First-Time Mum x
Chapter 3
‘I can’t believe I�
�m doing this shit all over again,’ Nelle mutters out of the side of her mouth, in my direction. We are bicycling the babies’ legs very gently, to the tinny tune of a boppy backing track. Tinkle Tots is the kind of operation where the class leader is given a playlist, a boxful of props, some anti-bac wipes and is then free to set up camp in a village hall and play such original songs as: ‘This is the way we bring up wind, bring up wind, bring up wind.’ I’m gingerly rotating Cherry’s more than plump legs as she lies on her back, staring up at me in boredom. Yes, I’d love an effective way to bring up her wind but she’s also the most volatile vomiter on the planet. I’ve gone eight days without her puking on something in a public space and that’s a personal best, so I want to keep it up. Will didn’t have much luck, either, in getting his girls to do the toddler version of pretending to climb up an invisible ladder, hopping from leg to leg. They chose instead to climb up the very real stage and race back and forth, in and out of the heavy velvet curtains. So he politely made his excuses after this madness and said he’d meet us at the pub in a few days. I think quite a few of the mums were sad to see him go but happy to watch him leave. On the poster Tinkle Tots says it caters up to three years, but I doubt they’ve encountered a burst of two-year-old energy quite like the girls, let alone when it’s double strength.
Joe seems happy enough, a bubble of spit at his lips as his mum tenderly moves his limbs about to the tune. But it’s clearly not giving Nelle the same feels.
‘Ten years on, and they’re still playing the same bloody songs.’ This earns her a glare from the mum on her other side. My cheeks colour at the awkwardness but Nelle seems unfazed.
‘And now it’s time for a trip to Tummy Time Town!’ comes the chirpy voice of the class leader. ‘Little ones on their fronts, so we’re working on strengthening the neck and preparing for the crawling milestone. We have mirrors and fairy lights for them to look at so they’re engaged and to improve spatial awareness.’
Nelle turns her head my way and crosses her eyes. I bite back a giggle. As much as I want Cherry to hit her milestones and be able to shift her plump self around on all fours, I do wish someone could phrase it simply and sensibly. And not like we’ve all suffered major head injuries.
‘I don’t know about you,’ Nelle mutters, ‘but I need a trip to Tequila Town after this.’
Somehow we get through the remaining twenty minutes without my new friend’s head exploding, Cherry freaking out or me letting the laughter spurt out of my clenched lips.
Pushing the prams up the hill towards home is a sobering blast of reality. I’m trying to keep up my end of the conversation, desperate as I am not to let this chance of a solid mum mate pass me by, but I’m only managing about four words at a time before the wheezing beats me. Maybe it’s time to take the cellophane off that post-baby Pilates DVD my mum oh-so-sweetly posted me straight after Cherry’s birth?
Nelle seems pretty happy to steer the chat anyway; I love how unapologetically forthright she is. I haven’t met anyone like that in ages, probably not since I was sitting around a highly polished boardroom table. In fact, I used to be like that. Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away…
When we reach the end of my road, we pause for a quick goodbye, the prams side by side. Cherry waves a chubby arm in Joe’s direction, dangerously close to getting a handful of his tiny foot. She must be getting hungry. At their current size ratio, she could probably finish Joe off in two mouthfuls.
‘Same time next week?’ I ask, my voice reedy with hope.
‘Nah.’ Nelle’s lips form a flat line.
‘Oh, right.’
She must see my eyes crinkle in a disappointed wince. ‘Not that I don’t want to. We’ve got this mother and baby show to get ready for. Hoping to get some more party bookings that way – christenings, baptisms, super-duper posh first birthdays. God knows we need them.’ She chews the inside of her mouth. ‘The glamorous life of a family business, eh? You get no say in it, but you’re stringing crêpe paper garlands up for the next forty years. Still, I shouldn’t complain. It keeps us in chicken nuggets and nappies.’ She rolls her eyes with a smile. ‘I’ve never asked you what you do! Give me the Stevie CV.’
I scuff my already well-scuffed trainers against my pram wheels. ‘Oh, yes. Um, PR? Public relations? I was a PR exec at a firm in London.’
Nelle’s lips form a perfect doughnut shape. ‘PR! You sly fox! A professional schmoozer in my midst and you never said a word. Don’t like to toot your own horn, eh?’
I feel my cheeks burning. If only she knew. If only I could say, ‘These says I couldn’t schmooze a garden hedge. I can’t toot about my skills.’ What skills?! I couldn’t toot a party blower, most likely.
‘Yeah, um, well…’ I just want the conversation to move on. I don’t like to admit the real state of my head to myself, let alone a new friend.
Nelle is suddenly scrutinising my face, her eyes narrowed. ‘You are just what I need.’
‘Sorry?’
‘We’ve paid all this money to have a stand at the Mother and Baby Fair at Heather Academy, to drive some sales. It’s got to pay off because it was not cheap. Because of netball and rugby practice, I’m going to be there all day with my mini assistant’ – she points at Joe – ‘while my other half does the dropping off. Besides, he couldn’t sell a ball of wool to a kitten, as much as I love him. You should come! And, Cherry! Come and be my secret weapon. Come and work your professional magic for me. Please?’
She’s got one hand gripping the handle of my pram now.
I put a hand to my red-hot face. ‘Oh… the thing is, Cherry will most likely scream the place down after five minutes. That wouldn’t make for a great experience for anyone. So, um…’
‘Nonsense! It’s a baby show – they’re not going to mind a bit of a wail. And there’ll be freebies: toys, snacks, kiddy music. She’ll love it! It’ll be like a baby Glasto for her. We could take a playpen and loads of stuff to keep them entertained. Give Mummy a chance to put her work head back on, right?’
Nelle’s smile is so completely huge and sure of itself that I uselessly work my jaw, with no protest forthcoming. No reasonable doubts could take down her conviction. And the truth is too pathetic to admit: I don’t want to come because I’m scared of talking to people.
‘Uh… sure?’
The hug that follows is brief but so strong it nearly knocks me off my feet.
‘Excellent! Oh, this is going to be a million times more fun with someone interesting along for the ride. And we’ll have cake on tap and gossip! This might just be the most fun I’ve had in months.’ She winks at me and the glow of acceptance runs over me like a hot shower, washing my nerves into the drain. Maybe it will be OK, if I’m there with Nelle. She’s got a personality big enough for the both of us, she’s never going to let things go awkward or quiet. I’ll hide behind her, if I need to, or fake a poo-splosion in Cherry that I have to run off and deal with.
‘I’ll ping the details over later, yup?’ Nelle’s eyes light up all over again. ‘And we can ask Will! Even more fun, and total arm candy to send all the mums running in our direction. They don’t need to know he’s gay. Well, now I’m buzzing! Ha! Better stop waffling and get back for the school run prep. See you soon, yes?’
I wave Nelle off and we turn down our narrow street. I think I have about three layers of emotional sweat on my forehead: nerves from wanting to make a good impression hanging out with my new mates today; utter terror at the idea of having to dig up my old work skills again and talk to people in some sort of convincing way; and then a sheen of relief that Nelle must like me or why would she invite me?
‘That’s what we’ll focus on,’ I say down to Cherry, as she works on getting her buggy book deep into her drooly mouth. ‘That Mummy has made friends, and people DO like her. That’s the important bit. The rest… we can deal with later. And something a bit more interesting to tell Daddy later, hmm? Rather than a problem with the lint tray again. If Daddy puts his phone do
wn long enough to listen, of course.’ Cherry’s faint eyebrows wrinkle. ‘Not that Daddy isn’t wonderful! Because he is!’ A stab of guilt hits me. I really shouldn’t bitch about Ted to his actual child. I might inadvertently turn her against him and raise some crazy child assassin by mistake. ‘Daddy is hardworking and gentle and kind. And he used to buy me really nice Jigsaw jumpers for Christmas, when we first met. And he knows to screen Granny’s calls sometimes when she’s being particularly mad. And… he makes a good cup of tea.’ I stick up a thumb to indicate that this really is a crucial skill in a life partner. Cherry can’t hear this too soon.
Of course, this is exactly when this morning’s mum-mum swishes my way again, bouncing down a garden path and out onto the pavement in front of me. No crazed scooter terror ahead of her now, but the same impossibly perfect hairdo and pristine outfit. She holds something up in her hand and I wonder if she’s about to wave? Maybe she was just having a bad start earlier, and wants to make amends? Maybe all mum-mums aren’t so bad?
I raise my hand in a casual wave to return the gesture, when the squeaky beep of a 4X4 unlocking goes off in my ear, sending me a good few inches in the air. She was unlocking her car. She was not waving.
As she strides past Cherry and I, effortlessly swinging the car door open and folding her gazelle legs inside, I want to rip my hand off and throw it in a privet hedge.
Nope, mum-mums really are that bad.
* * *
I’ve been so jumpy about this whole Mother and Baby Fair for the last week that I snapped Ted’s head off for putting the fabric conditioner back in the wrong spot on the shelf this morning, which then led to him muttering, ‘No need to thank me for putting on a few loads, then.’ But as he settled down to watch some rugby match or other on his smartphone, I knew he wasn’t seriously miffed. He was getting a silent Saturday all to himself, after all. Sod. Why didn’t I insist he keep Cherry and I go alone? Like all good ideas, this one has come too late. Besides, I don’t want Ted to get an inkling that I’m secretly bricking it. I may have bigged up how much Nelle begged and pleaded for me to be there, for my professional expertise to rescue her family from the gutter. As far as he’s concerned, I’m Alan Sugar in jade-green jeggings right now. And the one thing Sir Alan does not do is back down.