323

I’m ill. The baby is sat up pulling out all of my record collection. Luckily that shelf is mostly records from my childhood such as 5star, she is currently dribbling all over a Richard Pryor album that I didn’t even know I owned. It wouldn’t matter if it was a prized rare JAZZMAN 7 inch, I can’t move, my head feels like it has been under the wheels of a bus. I can’t move. My head is stuffed up, my throat is sore, and I have a sty I look like one of Liam Gallagher’s ex wives, blond and rough. The baby is chewing on my record bag, I should really stop her, but hey maybe its helping her teeth pierce through the gum… No one tells you the teeth take ages to grow out once they first appear. I thought the appearing through the gum was the tedious bit, but it’s been 3 weeks and still one tooth is only half way out of the gum. It looks like she has abit of cottage cheese permantly stuck in her mouth. She just put her fingers in the vhs player, I said “no” in a firm voice but no instead she laughs and giggles so cutely and says something like “gugggugg” obviously delighted to have got any response from me this morning at all. Okay now she has my stone roses EP out, I’ve gotta get up and put the records back. Oh by the way -the baby is standing and crawling! It all happened in about 2 days, she went from a sitting baby at 8 months, to this moving independent child! I was trying to write an article in a mad rush, ignoring her giggling, I looked up to see what was delighting her so much and there she was holding onto the side of my record box smiling and looking so proud of herself! See! Working does not go with mothering! I almost missed out on her first standing! Well that’s it now, the game is up as my dad said. I now have to have eyes in the back of my head. No more just leaving stuff on the coffee table such as cups of tea or important bills, they are now quite grabbable by the baby and highly desired objects. Anything she has not seen before is a highly desired object. If I put her early learning centre £20 toy on the table next to a wooden spoon she’d go all guns out to get the spoon if she hadn’t seen or chewed on that before. The crawling is funny. It’s not quite how I imagined. Its very slow and she stops every foot to sit up, look around the room, probably looking for snipers and checking her ammo. Satisfied she continues until her object of desire is within reach, no futon sofa bed or any amount of cushions will get in her way; she will have that wooden spoon! Wish she’d do something useful and put the kettle and make me a lemsip…

322

Things that annoy me about being a parent. Many people think your life has ended now you’re a parent. They don’t call anymore. Pavements are not designed for buggies. People park on the pavement so you have to push the buggy into the road, then back onto the pavement. Lifts where there have a spoken announcement ‘ground floor’ thus waking the sleeping baby. Churchill square mall. The fact that you now have to get in a lift to go to Mother care. I now boycott it. That’ll learn them. I’m sure they miss my custom. . Er what else do I hate? I hate smocks! I’m not pregnant anymore, I don’t want to look pregnant! Why are all the clothes in every shop designed like big frilly tents? When I was pregnant it was the other way round. Right who else…ahh young shop assistants in TOPSHOP who think that mothers with buggies should not be allowed into fashion clothing stores and certainly not their changing rooms. They look at you like your 80 years old and say things like “maybe you should try bootcut jeans? They might flatter your shape better.” As they stand there casually looking good in just a T shirt and skinny jeans. (We called them drainpipe jeans in my day…. Personally I think only 9 year old look good in skinny jeans. Saying that I have 3 pairs I don’t wear…some are the ones I bought from Topshop maternity! Skinny jeans for pregnant women, they looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care I was pregnant it was my job to look ridiculous my ex said to me the other week, “can I ask you something?” I said “what?” sitting down preparing myself for something big, this sounded serious. Was it about money? Access? Looking at me seriously he said “Do you think I’d suit skinny jeans?” !?! Today some kids flyering outside HSBC didn’t offer me a flyer…. That says it all doesn’t it? They thought nahhh she looks past clubbing… Felt like shouting, “Didn’t wanna go anyway!”… Probably some wrung out drum n bass night or a retro back to the old skool house night, I should have gone up to them and said “I remember when these tunes came out the first time!” And what’s all this ‘new rave’ rubbish? New rave? Its not new is it; it’s just the same, big bright horrible colours in big baggy t-shirts with dumb writing on. Neon colours and plastic jewel doesn’t make it new. The only thing new about the new rave scene is that the kids don’t know what old rave was.
I don’t even know what I’m talking about, what kind of music is ‘New rave’; maybe I’ll look new rave up in itunes. Hang on a minute. Hmmm it’s quite good, its just bands like the Klaxons and the Gossip err apparently. You can’t google youth though can you? I’m not down with the scenes, I’m googling them. I’m old.

321

Malone gets her fingers bitten whilst watching Jeremy Kyle…

For the last 9 months I’ve been blaming every wingey bit of behaviour from my baby on teething. Little did I know. That was not teething. That was her personality. Well no That was wind tiredness or hunger. Now I know what teething is. It’s when my otherwise content baby goes from smiling and playing happily with a empty tissue box (well I call it a development toy, you call it a tissue box) to suddenly screaming and then back to staring at Jeremy Kyle on ITV like nothing happened. Maybe she’s sick of daytime TV and its nowt to do with teething. Maybe she just can’t stand Jeremy Kyle, a lot of people can’t y’know. I like the show because it makes me feel posh compared to the people on there, I think things like ‘Jesus at least I’m not like them’. I really must stop blaspheming. I went into a church the other day looking for a baby class ( I was abit lost) and asked “where’ St Mary Magdaelenes?” The man at St Peter’s kindly looked up the address for me in the Yellow pages, realising I was no where near the place I should have been, and embarrassed I said leaving “god knows what I’m doing here!” He looked at me with eyes that said “Yes god knows my lost child”. Anyhoo… Here’s some of my favourite Jeremy Kyle-ism’s, “ If you stopped smoking cannabis all day long and got a job maybe you’d be able to be a proper dad to your son and he wouldn’t be out mugging grannies!” or “What kind of mother sells her daughter marijuana and sleeps with her boyfriend?! That’s it walk off the show you’re a coward woman!” Ha ha ha.. His show makes out we are a nation of weed smoking, knife yielding, mother hating, pastey grey looking, Primark wearing KFC eaters. Does everyone hate their mother? I know quite a few people who do. I think my own mother let all her own fears and emotions out on me that were all about her own life. She kinda used me as an emotional pin board and talked to me more as a mate than a mother. I called her by her first name never mum. I wonder if this is was quite central to our problems and society’s. Perhaps we shouldn’t be treating our kids like our friends, but actually be parents, perhaps the friends bit can be saved until they are grown up. I wonder if trying to be your child’s best friend, they lose respect for you, whilst perhaps you gain a buddy perhaps you lose the ability to discipline your child and also load too much onto their evolving emotional brains. Is it because we all want to be liked so much we let our kids get away with murder? Or does it just make our lives easier in the short run but harder in the long run….? Like giving the baby Calpol for teething… instead of just letting her bite on my fingers or a carrot to break the gum and bring out the teeth er quicker but more painfully? Hmmmm. Where’s that Calpol….

319

The baby has had her first pedicure. I am not happy about it. I was down the beach with friends, and friends of friends, when I suddenly had to run home for a few mins to deal with an urgent matter that needed to be dealt with, um in the bathroom. When I returned, literally like 8 minutes later, my angelic baby girl now has red toenails! I am mortified! All I can think is of the chemicals going into her porus little membranes! She could have been allergic to it as well as wheat! How am I going to get it off? Using more chemicals! Grrrr. I’d left her with my friend, and it was her friend who I’ve never met before who cajoled my friend into painting the baby’s nails, so I felt unable to say how annoyed I am as I’ve only just met her. She’s an 8 months old baby for god sake, you don’t put chemicals near them! And to cap it off my baby sucks her own toes, she might ingest the varnish, (I know cute – she’s going to be a yoga teacher I think),! I wonder if I am being over the top…. I am being a neurotic mother? Or is it okay for me to be peed off? If it was me, I would have asked before I did that, but then I don’t think I would have wanted to taint a beautiful baby’s weeny toenails. I’m surprised they just didn’t go the whole hog and pierce her ears and dress her in a Reebok sweat suit.. I would have asked if I felt that it was a good idea. I would not have just done it. Thing is, it was a hot Sunday afternoon, I imagine everyone had had a few drinkies, they probably wern’t thinking. I forget because I am not drinking in the day. You can’t drink in the afternoon when you are looking after a baby single-handedly. Y’know in case you flake after one magners… which I usually do… baby bedtime with an afternoon hangover is no fun…. I was so looking forward to summer with the baby thought it would be fun fun and sun, but now I’m worried I’m just gonna be always having to get home to do baby stuff whilst others are drinking and sunbathing. I tried to take baby on the beach, I even bought her a SPF 50 sun tent for her to sit in, but she wanted to lounge outside with us, and of course she wanted the one thing I didn’t want her to put in her mouth…pebbles. Unfortunately the beach is full of the little blighters…it’s blummin made of them. Perhaps for once though it is actually better than sand…. I wonder what would happen if she ate sand… She’s teething and eating everything and anything at the moment, she chews on my phone, my bracelet and of course her favourite- the TV remote control. Still no sign of her first tooth….I’m scared… will it be awful? Will she scream all night as the first tooth pierces through her gums? Hopefully it will just appear suddenly and painlessly with a free toothbrush and some Colgate. Ah well I’m sure it won’t be as bad as trying to take nail varnish off a toenail with a moving surface area of 3mm x 3mm…..

318

I’m not looking forward to summer… because it means my neighbours will open their windows… Not the neighbours above me, I love them, I ring them asking what tune is playing and can they turn it up. No I mean the others. They have a dog. Say no more I hear you say. Not just any dog but a little yippy dog. It comes out to the patio area below my baby’s bedroom to do its toilet, yips loudly usually as I’m just trying to settle her to sleep. The first day they moved in, the first thing I knew I had new neighbours, was this barking dog.... Hours it barked, not a deep loud bark, more a squealing yip. I looked out of my bedroom window and saw a few feet below me in their patio, (you know what these Brighton conversation flats are like) a scrawny little terrier dog. It was the height of summer, 80 degrees; they’d left it no water that I could see. My initial thoughts of throwing it some poisoned steak dissipated into feeling sorry for it. Poor thing. I’m not a dog lover; I don’t see the point of owning a pet. Maybe if I lived in 17th century rural Wales, on a farm maybe I’d get it then. But in a basement flat in Brighton in the naughties, I figure if you need companionship make friends. Seems to me people have pets because pets have to love you, unlike other relationships which require effort. Pets love unconditionally and don’t answer back, a vast improvement on kids and partners! Everything about pets annoys me, the very fact that they will always need feeding and faeces dealing with. At least with kids you know one day they will grow out of all that. What if one day my child wants a cat or dog? Anyway the neighbours eventually came back from watching the world cup, and let him in. Ahh peace. They then had to throw a party to celebrate moving in, spending the whole night on the patio below my room, talking crap, chain smoking fags all of which drift up and into my bedroom (only feet away). It’s summer so we all have our windows open; I get up eventually shouting, “Shut up you selfish bleeping bleep’s”. I didn’t actually say bleep, I used real swear words that started with f and yes the big C. I didn’t care it was 3am, I was 9 months pregnant, I didn’t want to inhale their fag smoke or listen to their shite anymore. I couldn’t go out partying anymore Jesus why should anyone else? Oh and if that wasn’t enough they then had to christen every room, in a way that couples do when they move into a new place. Well so legend goes. Every day for months they’d ‘christen’ the bedroom, okay they’re not christening anymore they’re just rubbing my face in it now. Doing it twice a day every day and not just at bedtime like good law abiding Christians, doing it in the daytime! Gawd. If I can hear them doing that, then I guess they can hear me fart and sing out of tune. Great. Can’t wait for summer….

316 - This week, Molly’s article comes with a warning; the word ‘period’ and also the word ‘poo’ is mentioned. So anyone of a weak dispition or just too damn ‘Alpha’ should turn the page now.


Okay so before I had a baby these are the things no –one told me about having babies which I think anyone about to have a baby or considering getting up the duff should know. Number one is that pregnancy is susposed to be 9 months in duration, but is in fact 40 weeks long, this is more like 10 months, as only 5% of babies are delivered on their due date. It’s a blummin long time not to have a good piss up or go horse riding. Ahem…Okay maybe not the horse riding but I defiantely missed dancing like an idiot in nightclubs when I was pregnant. And to cap it off since I’ve had the baby all the bars stay open late with these new laws so no one goes dancing anymore in nightclubs, but to be honest after a day with the baby, I flake our after a few hours of drinking and talking shit in bars. Anyhoo the second thing no one tells you about this parent malarkey is that after the birth of the baby you have to give birth to a human organ called the placenta! I didn’t actually as I had a ceaearaen. Instead mine was removed by a complete stranger who I’ll never meet again, but they did offer it to me to take home if I desired, like some sort of doggy bag. So thoughtful! Some people eat theirs or use it as fertiliser. Okay I’m spirtiutal hippy type, but I’m not down with that. I don’t care how nutritious it is and how it fed my baby for 9 well actually 10 months. Call me old fashioned but I just don’t want to eat my own organs. The third thing no one tells you ladies about baby making is (and this is one of the very few bonuses of parenting so read it and leap), is that some women often don’t get a period for over a year after having a baby! A whole year! Something to do with hormones. I got mine after 3 months. I was cheated. Number four is that children don’t come with teeth, they have to have them pierce through their gums and this displeases them. Displeased babies are not fun. But the real clanger is that teething goes on to til your child is two or three years old! Hopefully it won’t be constant. My baby still has no teeth so I actually don’t know what I’m talking about. Perhaps it will be fine. Perhaps perhaps perhaps. Number five is that your lovely baby’s unoffensive newborn poos start to smell just like an adults once they start eating solids. So keep them on a milk diet until they got to college, it will save on loo paper too.

Six is that complete strangers now have a right to come up to you and speak to you on the bus/train saying things like “wow haven’t you got your figure back?” “she hasn’t got your eyes has she?” “Is she a boy?” I would recommend replying thanks her name is Esmerelda” or “Chilli pepper” just to hear them say “oh that’s a nice name dear” and watch them lie through their godamn teeth.

318 - Malone gets unwanted attention near the toilets….

“I wish that was my baby, you tell your man when you get home tonight, how lucky he is yeah?” Okayeeee. “I like your trainers” he says touching his black eye, “they’re fakes” I reply getting up to walk towards the doors of the train. It’s not my stop but these guys are bugging me now. “Just say if we intimidating you and we’ll go” The boy drops his beer, looks up sheepishly; “we’re a bit pissed y’know”. Rocking the baby back and forth I say, “Well as long as you’re happy”. “You girl could make me a lot happier.” Yuck.

If I weren’t standing there with my baby trying to get her to have a lunchtime nap, if I had been on my own I would have walked away. But I was trapped, as Great Britain likes to build trains,where you can’t actually push a buggy or a wheelchair down the aisle of the train, instead they prefer to store us second class citizens next to the toilets on the train, therefore becoming the butt of all pissed idiots requiring the toilet but finding it not in working order. “I need to piss man, I need to piss”. He pisses near the toilets. “I wouldn’t walk over there lady”. Thanks. “So how come you going to Brighton?” He says, I think about telling him to do one, but I can’t work out if they alright and just pissed. Or if they are actually nasty pieces of work up to something, ignoring them isn’t an option so I play bored mum trying to get her baby to sleep and hope they will go away. I just can’t relax. I’ve just been up the allergy clinic in London, found out the baby has a rare wheat allergy, not just an intolerance where it makes you bloated, but an actual allergy like people have to nuts. I’m tired I want to relax, not have to keep my guard up the whole journey. Luckily the baby is being good, even taking a long nap whilst I am being hassled by these fools. “well I live in Brighton” I say rocking the buggy hoping she’s asleep now and his loud slurring won’t wake her. Rubbing his black eye, he says. “Is it! Did you move to get away from trouble?” “I moved from London to get a better quality of life”, standing up he says “innit to get way from trouble”. “Where’d you get your black eye?” I ask trying to look motherly and not er urban in my black skinny jeans and Nike air Jordan’s… “I wanted a one on one fight but they all come for me with tools man, but no worries man get kidnapped tonight in Brixton”. I read the paper, watch TV and teenagers are being killed everywhere with ‘tools’. What happened to just a good ole head butt or a severe kicking? Kids these days are just lazy, they can’t even beat someone up without using a tool to do it.
I blame Sony playstations, ‘mr muscle kitchen cleaner’, and remote controls, in my day you had to walk 6ft to turn the TV channel over! We knew about hard work…ahem… The boys notice another girl (one without a pram) and move on, but I hear one of the say “mate you’ve more chance with the one with baby”.