by Suzy K Quinn
Little Callum said, ‘What does fuck up mean?’
Alex announced he had a meeting in London, and marched off to his vintage MG.
Zach lingered for a bit, asking Laura how she was finding studying in London.
When he finally left, Brandi teased Laura about how girly she got around Zach.
‘Oooo Zachary Dalton. You are just tooo dishy. Will you take me round the world on your yacht?’
I laughed along. It was SO true.
Then Brandi teased me about fancying Alex when I was at school.
I told her to shut up.
Tuesday January 6th
The trouble with motherhood is you’re expected to:
Be slim, attractive, and fashionably dressed, with a brightly coloured designer baby bag covered in little forest animals.
Have a perfect IKEA home with quirky little child-friendly details, like a colourful chalkboard stuck on the fridge and designer robot toys.
Be an all-natural, organic earth mother and not use any nasty plastic Tupperware with chemicals in it, only buy organic vegetables, breastfeed, have a drug-free birth, etc. BUT at the same time …
Be a super-clean chemical spray freak with hygienic clean surfaces and floors at all times, plus wash your hands ten times a day.
All this AND get out of the house without mysterious white stains all over you.
How do women do it?
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t swap being with Daisy. But sometimes a tiny break would be nice.
To be fair, Nick did suggest taking it in turns at night. The trouble is, I’m the only one who can get Daisy to sleep. I think it’s because Nick’s an actor – he’s just too exciting. I’ve told him a million times that song and dance routines won’t help Daisy relax, but he never listens.
Wednesday January 7th
Poor little Daisy had a cold last night.
She woke up every two hours, all snuffly.
I was so worried I couldn’t sleep – I just lay next to her, checking she was still breathing.
I know I should nap today, but I just can’t seem to nod off. Plus I’ve nearly cracked level 50 on Candy Crush Saga.
5pm
Sooooooo tired. But can’t sleep.
8pm
Daisy has woken up.
She’s making all these cute little noises.
11pm
Daisy still awake! Desperately looking for sleep apps on my phone.
11.30pm
Found an app that makes hairdryer noises. Seems to have done the trick. Daisy asleep. My turn now, thank goodness.
Thursday January 8th
3am
Daisy just woke up!
Nick was sound asleep, so I phoned Mum in sleep-deprived tears.
Mum said, ‘The Duffy family have never been good sleepers. Remember Brandi? She used to suicide dive out of the cot.’
I broke down, sobbing, ‘Why doesn’t she have an off switch? Why are there no answers?’
Mum said, ‘Feeling confused is what motherhood is all about.’
Then I remembered the iPhone app that makes hairdryer noises.
I shouted, ‘I need my phone, Mum. I can’t find it! I’ve lost my phone!’
Mum pointed out that I was holding my phone.
I am so sleep-deprived!
Then Dad came on the line and suggested I put cinnamon in Daisy’s milk.
I sobbed that I didn’t have any sodding cinnamon.
Mum said she’d drive over with some. Then she remembered she’d lost the car keys.
While she was looking for them (and arguing with dad), Daisy fell asleep.
SO tired.
4am
Can’t sleep! Keep thinking that Daisy will wake up any minute.
5am
Still can’t sleep.
6am
Daisy just woke up.
Thank God for Nick – he’s giving her milk and singing ‘Food Glorious Food’ from Oliver!
Friday January 9th
Needed to research good-value (cheap) buffet food for the wedding, so Mum stopped by to help with Daisy this morning.
Helen would have gone mad if she’d seen me checking the Aldi, Lidl and Iceland websites. She wants Nick and I to have a three-course wedding breakfast in some fancy hotel. But a wedding is about love, not frills.
Anyway, once the reception gets going, I’m sure Helen will be as glad of a sausage roll as anyone.
This is a new beginning for Nick and I. A commitment to family life. We should celebrate with fun and laughter, not some formal silk-tablecloth nonsense.
When Mum arrived, she’d bought me some bits from the wholesale supermarket: 2000 teabags, five litres of washing up liquid and a lemon torte that said ‘serves 50’.
The torte wouldn’t fit in the fridge, so Mum cut us a big slice each for ‘elevenses’, then sawed up the rest and filled every fridge shelf and half the freezer.
After that, she showed me how to clean the toilet with her ‘Wonder Woman technique’ (squirting half a bottle of bleach over everything and blasting it off with the shower), threw Daisy around and sang ‘YMCA’ with all the hand movements.
Quite a few passersby stared through the big glass window at her dancing, but Mum never cares what people think. If she did, she wouldn’t wear leopard and zebra prints at the same time.
Before she left, Mum asked if I had a spare feather boa. She and her old school friends are dressing up in ’70s clothes to watch the Mamma Mia musical.
Mum absolutely can’t wait. She’s already ordered silver platform boots from eBay.
Saturday January 10th
January sales shopping with Laura and Brandi today.
We stopped for coffee at Barnes and Noble – skinny decaf for me, espresso for Laura and a big frothy whipped strawberry thing for Brandi (bloody twenty-one-year-olds – Brandi is skinny as anything and eats exactly what she likes).
Then we looked at books (well, Laura and I did. Brandi browsed magazines, then moaned that book shops were BORING).
I browsed the diet section. I used to think diets were bullshit, but that’s before I had a baby. Really would like to lose a bit of weight before the wedding.
There were so many diet books to choose from:
Fat Around the Middle (But I’m fat everywhere!)
The 5:2 Diet (Can’t starve myself two days a week, I might pass out when I’m carrying Daisy upstairs or something.)
The Atkins Diet (There’s that bad breath rumour …)
Weight Watchers (Sarah Ferguson did it and, without sounding horrible, she’s still fat.)
The Slow Carb Diet (Ugh, who likes beans?)
Bought the Food Guru book in the end.
Healthy, sensible eating. No fads or false promises. But you could lose ten pounds in a week …
Sunday January 11th
Went to Regent’s Park with Althea and baby Wolfgang today.
Wolfgang is twelve months old, but he looks much older. He has one menacing front tooth and can snap a bundle of twenty coffee stirrers in half.
I love Althea. She’s the most laid-back parent I know. Not many first-time mums would drive their baby around on a moped.
Althea lives in a big, rambling Victorian house in Bethnal Green. It’s worth a fortune, but you’d never guess because Althea has decorated it in what she calls, ‘kindergarten fusion style’.
Her artistic vision is lost on me, though – all I see is a lot of sprayed silver egg boxes and Wolfgang’s handprints.
Today, Althea wore her big Afghan coat, Jackie O shades and bright red cowboy boots. Her curly gypsy hair was tied with a fluorescent yellow ribbon.
Althea’s laugh is just brilliant. It could break plates. She sort of goes, ‘Nah, nah, nah!’ and shows all her teeth.
From some angles, Althea looks a tiny bit like a frog. But a pretty one. With a temper.
Wolfgang was dressed in a little blue mod suit. God knows where Althea found that. It gave him a slightly sinister ‘Brigh
ton Rock’ air – especially when he was pulling kids off the roundabout.
When Wolfgang bit one of the other children, Althea laughed and said, ‘Aw, bless him. He’s having such fun.’
Then she tried to put him in his sling, but Wolfgang clung onto the roundabout and neither of us could budge him. Eventually, Althea lured him away with beef jerky.
I told her about my diet, but Althea shouted about diets being sexist crap.
She said, ‘You were a measly size twelve. Now you’re a measly size sixteen. I weigh far more than you and I don’t care. The universe made us all perfect. So get over it.’
I said Nick had finally set a date for the wedding.
Althea barked, ‘So fucking what? He’s no bloody prize pigeon is he? Has he got himself a decent job yet? He should be crawling over broken glass to marry a girl like you.’
I told Althea about me and Nick’s meal on New Year’s Eve and asked if she thought it was anything to worry about.
She said, ‘That he drank six bottles of beer in two hours?’
I said, ‘No. That we couldn’t agree on anything about the wedding.’
She said, ‘You’re different. So you’re bound to want different things.’
I said, ‘They say opposites attract.’
Althea said, ‘Hmm.’
Monday January 12th
Bought all the stuff for the Food Guru diet.
The Food Guru guy says you can’t put a price on health. But you can. It’s about two hundred quid.
Bought stuff like steak, salmon, asparagus, and a load of things I’ve never heard of like chia seeds and psyllium husk.
Dad took me to the supermarket because he’s the only one who can work Daisy’s car seat.
He was such a proud granddad, telling any shopper who’d listen Daisy’s age, birth weight and toilet habits.
Tuesday January 13th
10am
So far today I have eaten:
Two boiled eggs (no toast or anything – wheat is the work of the devil).
A handful of nuts.
Celery with pumpkin seed butter.
11am
Must be lunchtime by now?! I’m going to eat my own leg if I don’t have lunch soon.
Awww lovely Daisy. So adorable.
People say I post too many pictures of her on Facebook, but Nick posts way more. Over 500 at last count. His wall is just a long stream of him holding Daisy in different poses.
11.30am
Cooked stir-fry without any soy sauce or flavour of any kind.
Ate it.
Nick’s mum came in just as I was washing up and sniffed the air with distaste.
She said, ‘Smells like some horrible Chinese restaurant in here.’
I told her I was on a healthy diet.
She blinked at me with her manic blue eyes and said, ‘Good for you, darling. In time for the wedding?’
I said no – I was losing weight because lap-dancing has child-friendly hours and good rates of pay.
Helen didn’t laugh.
Often, she makes me think of a raven bobbing its nasty head around the insides of an animal.
When she smiles she looks like Mr Punch.
I asked Helen if she’d put on any weight after Nick was born.
She stroked her bony hips in skinny black jeans, pulled her cashmere cardigan around her bony ribs and said, ‘No, I lost weight actually. The whole experience was so traumatic.’
Then she frowned at a tiny fingerprint on the kitchen cupboard and polished it with a tea towel.
The trouble with living in a posh executive apartment is everything is so shiny. Shiny stuff shows up everything. I fried an egg once. Never again.
Helen asked me what Mum would wear to the wedding.
I said probably something ten years too young for her.
Helen blinked frantically and said, ‘Please persuade her to wear something tasteful. Maybe with a shawl? For the pictures …’
I had a good laugh about that. My mother! In a shawl! I suppose Helen can dream.
The idea of anyone persuading Mum to wear something that isn’t skintight is hilarious.
Mum face-timed me earlier to show off her ’70s Mamma Mia outfit. It would have made Christina Aguilera blush.
Quite sweet really – Mum is SO excited about seeing her old friends. They only get together once a year. I just hope the theatre knows what it’s letting itself in for.
Wednesday January 14th
Nick’s got a job up north again. He’s playing a road sweeper in Coronation Street.
He has one line: ‘That always happens if you eat too much chicken pie.’
So I’m staying at Mum and Dad’s for a few days.
Nick got all stressed, worrying about what to wear. I reassured him that he’s still good-looking and that no – he doesn’t look his age (35).
Thursday January 15th
At Mum and Dad’s pub today, in my old bedroom.
Mum still makes up the bottom bunk with my Fraggle Rock duvet, which secretly I quite like.
Daisy sleeps next to me in the travel cot, which I can never get the hang of putting up. It always collapses on me like a knock-kneed giraffe.
HORRIBLE thing happened with Callum this morning.
Brandi and I were in the pub living room upstairs, when suddenly Callum’s Darth Vader costume caught on fire.
His black cape was literally a ball of flame.
I managed to throw Callum to the ground and roll on top of him while holding Daisy aloft in the other hand.
I thought I was crap at yoga, but it turns out I’m pretty bendy in an emergency.
Brandi was quick too. She shook up a bottle of Coca-Cola and used it like a fire extinguisher.
Some of my longer curls got burned (my hair needed a trim anyway), but luckily Callum was just fine.
We both shouted at Callum for the next half an hour. It turns out he’d found an old lighter in the pub garden.
Brandi was really upset with herself for letting Callum get the lighter. But it wasn’t her fault. Callum had hidden it under his Darth Vader armour.
Everyone says I worry too much, but today proves you can’t be too careful. There’s danger everywhere.
Friday January 16th
Back in London.
Daisy would NOT nap today. She always gets stressed when Helen is round.
I spent twenty minutes rocking and shaking her, swaying back and forth, humming ‘Like a Virgin’ and making sea noises in her ear.
Helen kept popping her head into the bedroom, asking if I ‘had everything under control’. So I kept having to start all the shushing and rocking all over again.
The worst part was, I couldn’t even tell Helen to go away because Daisy had nearly nodded off.
When Daisy finally fell asleep, Helen nagged me about the wedding.
She said, ‘I’m still not certain about having it at the village church. I mean … are you sure you wouldn’t prefer it in London? The pictures will look so much better.’
I said if she thought the church would look bad, maybe we should have the pictures in Mum and Dad’s pub garden.
Helen’s eyes bulged, and she spluttered, ‘Plastic GNOMES!’
Ha ha ha!
When Helen finally left, I was exhausted and starving.
There was no chocolate in the fridge, so I raided the cupboards.
Found a load of stuff from my (failed) attempt to make Laura a birthday cake.
Ate glace cherries, hundreds and thousands and trifle fingers. And half a pot of cake frosting.
I figured that Daisy needed a happy mother with high energy levels.
Dieting isn’t easy when you have a baby.
Anyway. I’m not that fat.
Nick came back late, but happy. He’s been offered a part – James Dean in a made-for-tv movie called, ‘Dead Stars on Mars’.
I have to say, Nick thoroughly deserves that role. He spent hours googling 1950s hairstyles before the audition.
7pm
Daisy has a fever!
I am so worried.
I can’t get hold of Nick, and there’s no way I can bother Mum tonight. She has her Mamma Mia thing.
Dad’s running the pub, Brandi has Callum and Laura has classroom training tomorrow.
I am totally alone and terrified.
Why does Nick never answer his phone when I need him?
Called NHS direct, and they told me to ‘keep an eye on her’. As if I’d do anything else! My eyes are glued to her.
8pm
Daisy’s temperature is even higher! I can’t take her to accident and emergency on a Saturday night – it will be full of shouting drunk people.
Will try NHS direct again.
8.30pm
NHS direct refused to send a doctor. They said it wasn’t serious until Daisy’s temperature goes over 100 Fahrenheit.
Not serious? She is boiling hot!
9pm
Mum just phoned from the theatre. She had a ‘sixth sense’ that I needed help.
I said I was fine. Then I burst into tears and admitted Daisy was ill.
Mum said she’d get a taxi straight over, but I told her not to ruin her night.
Nick will be home soon.
9.30pm
Mum just turned up in platform boots and a feather boa. It was so nice to see her that I cried.
I said, ‘What about your night out?’
She said, ‘Abba can wait. My little girl needs me.’
10.30pm
Thank god!
Daisy’s temperature is back to normal. Mum’s insisting on staying until Nick gets home.
12am
Nick just got back. He found me, Mum and Daisy asleep on the sofa.
He’s going to stay up all night now and take Daisy’s temperature every hour. Just in case.
Sunday January 18th
Daisy’s fine today.
Nick and I took her to the emergency doctor anyway, just in case. We had to wait with a load of nervous-looking teenage girls, all wanting the morning-after pill.