Empty Nest Mummy

I was wandering peacefully down the road this morning on the way to school, the winter sun shining on my face ……….

OK, let’s be more truthful; let’s leave the ‘alternative facts’ to Donald Trump and his merry band, and start again….

I was half-running down the road, the bitterly cold winter wind whipping at my face, bellowing to my infants to stop squabbling and to wait for me. And, mid-bellow, I had a flashback to a time pre-kids.

..To a time where I dreamed of having kids, but they hadn’t yet materialised.

And what did these dreams look like?

Well, I’d have one clean, shiny and smiley little infant on one hip, burbling away happily and showering me with loves and kisses. Meanwhile, her older sibling would sit on the (pristine) floor at my feet, gently playing with beautiful handmade wooden toys and puzzles. A discreet wicker hamper would sit in the corner of the room, ready to house the few beautifully made and educational toys when Tidy Up Time arrives.

We’d all have a lovely healthy lunch together of aspirational, middle-class food (this was a long time ago, when my imagination didn’t get beyond cherry tomatoes and spring onions; not the quinoa, halloumi and pomegranate seeds of today) which would be enjoyed and savoured by all.

Then, hands and faces washed, we’d head out in the glorious sunshine (because surely it would never rain in my beautiful future life as Perfect Mama with Perfect Cherubic Children) to play beautiful, imaginative games together.

And if there were ever any squabbles? How was that going to pan out?

Easy! I would incline my head slightly, raise one eyebrow and, quietly, yes quietly, ask them to stop squabbling as it wasn’t nice and would hurt people’s feelings.

..and happy, cooperative play would resume immediately.

In this special and magical world, there were 5 things I was NEVER going to do when the Perfect Cherubic Children came into my real world. NEVER.

Had I written them down at the time, they would have looked a little like this …

1. I will never have those awful plastic toys. And certainly not plastic toys that light up. Or sing. Or, dear God, certainly not those plastic toys that light up and sing. No, my life would remain the same, with clean white walls and clear surfaces, and just a wicker hamper of carefully selected, handmade educational wooden toys which would bring delight to all. Fast-forward to my real life now, and we have towering mountains of brightly coloured plastic shit. Some of it sings, some of it lights up and most of it really really hurts when you step on it in bare feet at night when responding to a nocturnal emergency. How on earth did we accumulate so much? And, despite numerous visits to the charity shop, how come the pile doesn’t get any smaller? And how long will it be before I get buried under this mountain of primary-coloured plastic? And how long will it take for anyone to find me?
2. I will never cut my own child’s hair. Now, perhaps I need to explain this one. (Although probably not to any of my sisters reading this who will be involuntarily shuddering by now). For reasons which go beyond lack of money, and perhaps straddle the boundary into child cruelty, our mother used to think nothing of cutting our hair herself. Particularly our fringes. She is not and was not a hairdresser. She wasn’t very good at cutting hair. In fact, she was woeful at cutting hair. Lacking skill and patience, she would cut in a straight line, step back to examine her handiwork, then move in to ‘make some adjustments’ as one side was always longer than the other. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Until just a tiny little peanut fringe remains. And a peanut fringe is a dreadful thing to have, unless you’re a peanut. I guess it’s acceptable then. There is only one benefit to a peanut fringe and that is that it’s so very short that at least it won’t be long enough to cut again for a while. And do you think I learned from the traumatic ‘Curious Incident of the Peanut Fringe’? Did I heck! When Big Boy was little, he was born with a simply delicious full-head of big boy’s hair … a proper little haircut, like a tiny little baby-sized man. He looked so delicious …. until I went at it with the scissors to ‘make some adjustments’. There are no photos documenting the utter butchering that occurred.
3. I will never bellow at my children like a fishwife shouting at a marketplace. Years ago, in the times pre-children, I was very judgemental about parents who screamed loudly at their children. Now, in my 7th year of being a mummy, my thoughts have changed somewhat. Sometimes you do just have to shout. It’s the only thing that will work. “Tarquin, darling, put Baby Seraphina down, you know she doesn’t like being picked up by her neck” versus “Oi! Put that bloody baby down before you break her neck!”. Which one do you think will remedy the problem? And ideally before poor Baby Seraphina’s neck has been stretched out to baby giraffe proportions. I rest my case!
4. I will never be one of those mummies that talks about poo all the time. Again, pre-children, I once made the mistake of sitting at a cafe table beside a group of mums of young babies. Out of the house, meeting up with friends, what did they talk about? Yes, you’ve got it: poo. Just poo. I was never going to do that. Never! Again, let’s take a look at my life now. Every day after school, I ask the children if they poo’ed. But not just that. How big was the poo? Was it hard or soft? A rock or a river? How many wipes did it take to clean it? Clearly, this poo-obsession has made its mark as Littlest Angel regularly tells me about her poo in detail. Great detail. Sometimes it looks like a croissant; sometimes a cumberland sausage; once even a snail. I just await the day when she sees the face of Donald Trump in the loo. (I can only hope that it happens at home as it could be my way of finally gaining internet stardom – surely a picture of a poo that looks like Donald Trump would go viral within minutes? I’d probably make a fortune selling t-shirts, posters and maybe even film rights.)
5. I will never ‘clean’ my child’s face with my own spit and a hanky. As with the Peanut Fringe Haircuts, my trauma over this comes from my own childhood. Our mother would regularly sidle up to us and scrub our mucky little faces ‘clean’. With her spit. Yes – spit. Yes – her spit. I’m not sure why she, and other mummies in the 70s, thought this was an appropriate or effective way of cleaning an infant. (Or indeed, of cleaning a bigger child as I’m sure she also tried it when we were teenagers.) Were there no hygiene standards in those days? Fast-forward again to now and, despite the invention of Baby Wipes, I still regularly grab whatever vaguely-absorbent paper material is to hand, spit on it and wipe my infants’ face. It’s like some weird inherited reflex action: I see a dirty face, I automatically grab for a tissue and spit on it. But, Big Boy and Littlest Angel are only 6 and 4. I’m going to stop it soon. I won’t still be daubing my own spittle all over my kids’ faces when they are in their teens. ……or perhaps that’s what my mum told herself too. “I can stop whenever I want to”.

But do I wish I had kept my promises to myself about the 5 things I would never do as a parent?

We do have too much plastic; I have butchered my own child’s hair; I bellow like a fishwife every day on the school run; I obsess about the bodily function of my infants and I ‘clean‘ their grubby little faces with my own spit like a beast.

But I don’t regret any of it. At the very least, it will give the children something to blog about when they are older – 5 Revolting Things My Mother Did When Raising Me.

And, as long as I don’t smother to death under a pile of unwanted, half-broken plastic toys first, it gives me something to look forward to in future years: I can’t wait to spit on a hanky and wipe their teenage faces – I’m planning it already!