Because I Said So, page 2
But apparently Callan had other ideas. It turns out that, not only is there a fancy dress party in his nursery tomorrow, but his friends have also filled his head with the joyous rewards of venturing out on Halloween.
It’s one of those defining tests of motherhood, isn’t it?
Surely, if I were a dedicated, creative earth mother, then I would spend hours with my sewing machine, running up a costume masterpiece that could be forever preserved in in a glass display case at the Museum of Modern Art. Or perhaps I’d take the consumer route and blow a weekly wage on an authentic Goofy suit.
Does the fact that I’m tempted to cut a sheet in half, rip holes in the middle and tell them that they’re ghosts make me a maternal washout?
I decided to tackle the problem head on. If they had to do the whole dressing up thing, then pumpkins were out of the question – I don’t have anything remotely pumpkin-like that can be adapted to outerwear for infants. The only thing in our house that’s round and orange is my face after a dodgy fake-tan session.
‘Is there anything else you’d like to dress up as?’ I asked hopefully.
‘A Power Ranger,’ was the enthusiastic answer.
‘Me too,’ agreed The Echo.
Damn. I don’t keep a stock of fluorescent jumpsuits and crash helmets in primary colours.
‘Anything else?’
‘Batman,’ was the next suggestion.
‘Me too,’ said The Echo.
Nope, last time I checked I didn’t have a stockpile of black balaclavas, capes or 100-denier tights.
I was getting desperate.
‘Anything else?’
His wee face lit up in a flash of inspiration.
‘I could be a mummy!’ he announced triumphantly.
‘Me too.’
At last we were getting somewhere. I was sure I had a box of crepe bandages lurking in the cupboard of miscellaneous plasters, cotton buds and out-of-date bottles of Tixylix that masquerades as our first aid kit. Granted they’re ones left over from husband’s footballing injuries, so they’re a bit worn around the edges and stink of vapour rub, but they’d do.
‘Great idea,’ I congratulated him. ‘You’d be just like the scary mummy in Scooby Doo.’
‘No, not that kind of mummy. A real mummy. With a baby and a pram.’
‘Me too.’
My heart sank. We’re all for dispelling gender stereotypes, but I was all out of small ‘mummy’ clothes, all out of babies, and all out of prams.
It took some deft negotiation, but we eventually came to an agreement. So on Sunday night, if you open the door to two wee ghosts and a deranged-looking blonde, be generous with the Mars bars. It’ll be worth it. I know a great joke about a chicken and a cow.
The Ambush
Newsflash – I’ve decided that those so-called ‘superwomen’ who claim that they can easily combine motherhood with a career are lying through their teeth. I seem to permanently tread a middle ground somewhere between calamity and chaos.
On Friday, I had an early morning meeting scheduled with a big-shot Hollywood agent to discuss plans to get my new novel adapted for film or television. It sounds very glam, but honestly it’s not. I had the same meeting after I’d finished my previous three books and none of them ever made it to the silver screen. It’ll all go pear-shaped and I’ll be down to my last tenner again by the end of the month.
But still, you’ve got to try.
And desperate, hopeless optimist that I am, I keep trying.
Every now and then I get my very best business suit out of the depths of the ironing basket, pile on the slap, dust off my briefcase and go act like I’m a professional, cosmopolitan woman who is in control of her life, her career and her future.
The morning was planned like a military operation. Unfortunately, I forgot to let Corporal Callan (aged three) and Brigadier Brad (two) in on the strategy for the assault.
Husband was taking the kids out for the morning, so the plan was that he would drop me off for my meeting at nine o’clock and then collect me afterwards.
I set the alarm early to ensure I was up and organised before the boys. By seven o’clock I had blow-dried hair, a pressed suit and my agenda firmly focused in my mind.
Then it all went to pants. Literally.
Callan has been toilet-trained for months now, but he’s not quite mastered the night-time toilet trips yet so he wears those much-advertised ‘pull-up pants’ at night. And, no, they don’t make him want to do a conga with his pals, jump up and down with glee or dance around the room in just his knickers.
However, his life had been made complete the day before when we discovered the designer pull-up pant equivalent of Armani or Versace – pants with Buzz Lightyear on the front and back of them. He was beside himself with joy. Me, a little less so, because Cal’s obsession with Buzz Lightyear has so far resulted in a compulsion to spontaneously jump from a great height shouting ‘To infinity and beyond’, two split lips, a dislocated elbow, suspected concussion and more bruising than Rocky at the end of ten rounds.
Anyway, he could barely sleep with excitement due to the new superhero addition to his night-time attire, and was still clutching the waistband when I went to wake him the next morning.
He immediately spotted that something was different. Jeans and stained T-shirt mum had been replaced by chic, suited, lipstick’d mum. Only one person could have accomplished this transformation. He gazed down at his pants in wonderment – it was amazing what Buzz Lightyear could do in just one shift.
I scooped both boys out of bed and deposited them at the breakfast table, holding them carefully in the under-arm position so that no snot or any other fluid could find its way from them to my smart togs.
With one eye on the clock, I airplane’d and choochoo’d their breakfast into them. So far so good. We were just about on schedule, with no surprises, minimal resistance (but Mum, I hate cornflakes, I want pizza for breakfast), and no casualties.
Then I was ambushed. By Buzz Lightyear.
I asked Callan to get undressed while I threw on Brad’s clothes.
‘Eh, nope.’
I paused, confused.
‘What pet?’
‘I’m not taking off my Buzz pants.’
‘Come on honey, Mummy’s in a big hurry today, you have to get ready to go.’
‘Nope. Not taking off my Buzz pants.’
Hell. The enemy was engaged, and it was a five-inch-tall action figure with a space helmet and a jaw like David Coulthard.
It was an unanticipated hitch in the battle plan. I checked the clock. I had two choices: surrender, let him keep the pants on and make my meeting in the grown-up world on time, or face the challenge and risk being trounced.
I made a split-second decision, based on years of experience at the front line. As all parents know, once you get them out of nappies there’s no going back. Weakness is fatal and likely to result in a return to lugging extra-large boxes of Pampers back from Asda and a twenty-pound-a-week dent in the shopping budget. I had to stick to my guns. Besides, he’d had the pants on all night and they were sagging down to his knees.
The way forward was clear: Buzz was coming off and nothing would deter me from my mission. Except, that is, a three-year-old boy who bolted to the bathroom like his Buzz-clad buttocks were on fire. And, of course, proceeded to lock the door.
We tried everything to get him out: bribery (new Scooby Doo video), blackmail (if you don’t come out we’re giving all your worldly goods to your wee brother) and coercion (come on, babe, show Buzz Lightyear how to open the door like a big boy). Twenty minutes, a husband who can burst a dodgy lock, and several tantrums (mostly mine) later, we finally broke through enemy lines. Buzz was cornered on two fronts, and eventually defeated, leaving only one furious wee boy who probably won’t talk to his parents again until he hits puberty and needs pocket money. But, hey… for every pants debacle, there’s a positive. Compared to the savage, danger-fraught minefield that is motherhood, breaking in to the movie industry should be a doddle.
And the Number One Answer Is…
In a recent survey, 100 people were asked to list the things that irritate them most, and the winner was… stupid bloody surveys that ask people to list things.
Have scientists, the government and women’s magazines got nothing better to do with their time than ask inane questions? Isn’t there an ozone layer that needs patching up? Don’t hospitals need some attention? Schools needing new books? Well, maybe, but first we’ll just run off a potentially world-changing questionnaire asking 3,000 people what biscuit they like to dunk in their tea.
Now, usually I avoid surveys as I would, say, the bubonic plague or boob tubes, but this week there was one poll that genuinely intrigued and excited me. No, it wasn’t the results of the survey that revealed that one in five blokes fake their orgasms (eh, I have questions) and that fifty-eight per cent of women do a Meg Ryan Special at the crucial moment.
Nor was I particularly interested in the result of another poll that concluded Britons spend an average of £169,000 during their lives on job costs like travel and lunches. Unless, of course, you’re an MP, in which case you claim double that back.
I was even less impressed with the research done by a team at the University of St Andrews that revealed that women are just as grateful for cheap trinkets as they are for expensive diamonds, just as long as the gift is given with thought and love. Fab. Now as long as the love of your life dons a lopsided grin and recites a poem, he can palm you off with a genuine tin-plated, diamante love-heart ring from the Everything-For-A-Pound shop.
The study that did tweak my radar, however, was the survey of 25,000 seven- to eleven-year-olds that found more than half reckoned their mums could do anything. Yes, us marvellous matriarchs beat off stiff competition in the superhero stakes from icons like Superman, Spiderman and whoever invented Play-Doh.
In second place came fathers, their popularity increased no doubt by the young boys who took part in the survey and were impressed by dad’s ability to multitask. My dearly beloved has an admirable ability to listen to me talking while simultaneously rolling his eyeballs to heaven.
And in third place came Harry Potter, that wee smug bloke who, unlike us mums, has to enlist the help of a wooden stick and a brainy (female) sidekick to conquer the impossible.
At two and three-quarters and four, my boys are below the age threshold for the survey, but I decided to boost my ever-flailing ego by checking that they concurred with the results.
‘Boys, do you think Mummy can do anything in the whole wide world?’ I asked with my sweetest, most grovelling grin. And, okay, I’ll admit that the two packets of chocolate buttons I was dangling from each hand might have swayed them just slightly.
Still, they looked at each other hesitantly, in the manner of crime suspects who feared they were being lured into a trap by a master interrogator. After checking the escape routes and realising they were cornered, they nodded tentatively.
I should have stopped there, but come on… I’m a mother who doesn’t get out much, I’m permanently knackered and dishevelled and I haven’t had a cigarette now for nearly three weeks – I’m a real-life desperate housewife who’ll clutch at any straw going for validation and appreciation.
‘So what special things can I do then?’ I cajoled, still piling on the saccharine with a fork-lift.
‘Give magic kisses,’ interjected Brad (almost three), referring to the cure for all ailments short of contagious diseases or anything relating to the bottom.
‘That’s right, sweetheart… and what else?’
‘You can sing when you’re upside down,’ Cal (four) exclaimed, his eyes never straying from the Buttons.
Yeah, Madonna eat your heart out. You might be bendy but I can belt out a catchy tune when I’m standing on my head. Although there is usually a bottle or two of full-strength Lambrusco involved in the preparation of that particular death-defying feat.
‘And you can make the bell ring when dinner’s ready.’
And that, I fear, is the reason us mums came out on top. Our tiny offspring still have the naiveté of youth and the unconditional love for their mothers that convinces them that the eardrum-shattering racket produced by the dangerous combination of a woman who can’t cook, a tray of chicken dinosaurs, an oven and a smoke alarm is a little piece of magic. Harry Potter, eat your heart out.
Father’s Day Massacre
I always knew my family was unique. Last Sunday, we managed to disprove three commonly held theories: not all dads enjoy Father’s Day, not all family days out are fun events, and not all mothers like shopping.
It started at the crack of dawn, when Callan jumped on husband’s head brandishing a home-made card and asking if it was time for the cake yet. He hasn’t quite mastered the differences between Father’s Day, birthdays and Christmas. As far as he’s concerned, if there are cards they come swiftly followed by an iced sponge in the shape of Santa or Bob the Builder.
As husband wiped the sleep from his eyes and waited expectantly for the usual parcel of socks and beer, I announced that this year his present was to be something much more special than a hastily wrapped token of our love and affection – we were going on a family day out to the shops where he could pick anything he wanted. As long as it cost less than twenty quid or could be purchased using the Argos vouchers I had left over from Christmas. A day out with the family? I think he’d have preferred a dozen Budweiser, but he put a brave face on it.
He didn’t realise that I had an ulterior motive: I needed to indulge in a spot of panic-buying for myself. With two toddlers and a chronic lack of babysitters, my shopping sprees normally consist of me lying on the couch with a coffee, a Kit Kat and the Next Directory, but this was an emergency – I’d been invited to a posh lunch the next day and had just discovered that my ‘smart functions’ suit would no longer button up.
We trotted off to the nearest mall, where I diverted us into the first ladies’ fashion shop we encountered. ‘Just a quick look,’ I promised, scanning the room for something that screamed ‘suitable for posh lunch’. I spied a gorgeous suit and was flicking along the rail looking for my size (it’s normally at the very back and labelled ‘super-stretchy’), when I heard a strange clicking noise behind me. Husband had run off in one direction chasing Brad (two) and had momentarily taken his eye off Callan. Cal had seized the opportunity to ram his trainer-clad feet into a pair of kitten heels and was strutting supermodel-style across the shop, much to the horror of the assistants. I was mortified. I de-shoed him, bought the suit and vacated the premises before they made us pay for the footwear or called security.
I should have stopped there. But I’m a woman. I’m programmed with a gene that compels me to check every other store within a mile radius to ensure there isn’t something nicer than the thing I’ve just bought. And, besides, I needed a new bra to go under the suit. After two hours and a full-scale reconnaissance of every store in the centre, husband had the demeanour of a man on death row. Every time he suggested calling it a day I reminded him petulantly that we were only there in the first place to buy him a present. If I were in a Marvel comic, ‘moan deflection’ would be one of my superpowers.
On the way for a lunch stop, Callan spotted a golfing event that had been set up in the atrium, allowing kids to hit a few balls into a net. ‘Can I have a shot, please?’ he demanded. The ‘please’ did it. ‘After lunch,’ I promised. The minute the last morsel was cleared from our plates, he took off like a whippet. Naturally, I panicked and gave chase, hobbling along on blistered feet shouting, ‘Stop that boy’ to the bemused passers-by. By the time we caught up with him he was clutching a putter and teeing off. I was almost touched by the sweetness of it – until he realised that the putter looked quite like a Star Wars Lightsaber, adopted the posture of Luke Skywalker and thumped his wee brother.
‘Look, forget my present, let’s just go,’ husband demanded over Brad’s screams. ‘Absolutely not,’ I replied, steering him in the direction of those electrical shops that have lots of man-type gadgets. Fast forward two hours, husband still hadn’t seen anything he wanted and I’d cunningly manoeuvred us into Markie’s underwear department. It was chaos. None of the bras were in size order and the rails were so low that I had to squat as I rummaged for one that would fit. By this time, one of my sons whom I’ll refrain from naming, was wearing a rosebud-pink bra on his head with the cups over his ears shouting, ‘Look Mummy, I’m a Fimble.’
‘There are a million bras here, how difficult can this be?’ husband demanded in impatient tones.
I didn’t have time to explain the complexities of gravity-defying underwear construction, because in a fit of boredom Brad suddenly launched himself at my squatting form, sending me sprawling across the floor. Another moment of dignity. Another swift exit.
I never did get my bra. Husband never did get his present. And I think the kids’ faces are probably now on wanted posters in the shopping centre’s security office.
‘Do me a favour,’ husband asked when we finally poured ourselves into the car. ‘Next year, just buy me socks and beer.’
Mind Your Manners
In the fourteenth century, an erudite gentleman by the name of William of Wykeham, coined the proverb ‘Manners maketh man’. Impressed? I always knew that O Level history would come in handy.
Anyway, the truth of the saying does disturb me somewhat because, if manners are an intrinsic component of maturity, then I’m in danger of raising the Low equivalent of an episode of Men Behaving Badly.
