Looked at the Mooncup for a bit. Jess came into the bathroom and looked confused.
‘What’s that, Mummy?’ she asked.
‘It’s a Mooncup,’ I said, not sure where else I could go with it right now.
‘A moo cup?’ she said. Not looking any less confused to be honest. ‘A cup for cows?’
‘No, it’s for people,’ I said.
‘A cup for people? Like a tiny wine glass?’
I said yes just because I couldn’t face explaining. That will definitely come back to bite me.
Renewed Mooncup efforts tonight after doing some video-based research into folding methods. Managed to get it in and it felt OK. Sat down. It did not feel OK. The video did say ‘some women may find they need to trim the stem’ but at no point did it say ‘the stem will feel like someone is operating you on a stick like some kind of grotesque, olden-days puppet.’
Wrestled it out again. Trimmed stem. Much better.
Peppermint creams to get over trauma of having to explain Mooncup to nursery staff – 5. Number of times I went up and down the stairs to Jess at bedtime because she ‘felt sick’ – 3,247,813 (felt like).
Millie asked if she could have a quick word when I arrived to pick up Jess at lunchtime. Jess was busy finishing a painting so Millie took me into the office.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,’ she said, looking like it was something to worry about, ‘only we overheard Jess saying something rather odd to Tabitha in the home corner and we thought it was worth flagging.’
I hoped it wasn’t more RuPaul’s Drag Race references. She’s started saying ‘not today, Satan’ when I tell her it’s bedtime.
‘They were making a pretend dinner together,’ explained Millie, ‘and Tabitha was setting the table. Jess told her to pick small glasses for the wine and said, “My Mummy has a special glass for small wine and she puts it in her bottom.” Obviously, we were a little concerned.’
I considered pretending to faint just to give me a minute to get over the embarrassment but then had a flashback to the performance of Snow White I starred in, aged nine. That bloody thing still haunts me. The audience openly laughed when I took a bite of the poisoned apple and swooned, knocking over a dwarf in the process. The dwarf fell into Scott Thompson, who was dressed as a tree, and Mr Lewis had to come on stage and stand him up again.
Instead, I was forced to tell her about my misjudged explanation of the Mooncup, which I don’t think went very far to reassure her, if I’m honest. I looked at my watch, remembered I don’t wear a watch, mumbled something about an optician’s appointment, and retrieved Jess as quickly as possible, my face burning.
Put the TV on for Jess when we got home and went and hid in the bathroom to get over the nursery shame. Ate quite a few of the peppermint creams I have hidden in an empty box of haemorrhoid cream for emergencies.
Royal wedding day!
If ever there was an excuse to pop open the prosecco at eleven in the morning, then a royal wedding is it. Jess put on the crown she’d made at nursery as soon as she got up and even Flo seemed quite interested. I don’t think it hurts that the royal bride is also a Hollywood actress.
We all went over to Sierra’s house, as it basically looks like a wedding venue already, in time for all the preliminaries and to eat smoked salmon and mini cucumber sandwiches ahead of having to concentrate on important things like what the guests are wearing and trying to lip read what Harry and William are saying to each other as they wait for Meghan.
The smaller children got bored after about ten minutes – Jess seemed surprised that the whole thing wasn’t animated. I think she was expecting a Disney wedding, so finding out that it was real people and not a musical was something of a disappointment for her.
I enjoyed myself very much, though. Very lovely drinking prosecco, celebrating monarchy, eating crisps, etc., with friends.
Period started today. I was ready for it, though, Mooncup poised for deployment. I almost chickened out because of feeling a teeny bit queasy after wedding celebrations, but I thought about what Meghan would want me to do and I feel like she’d be rooting for the Mooncup.
Slight issue later in the day with the emptying side of things, which didn’t go quite as smoothly as putting it in. I managed to get hold of the end of it OK, with a small amount of birthing-style bearing down, but I think it’s best not to talk out loud about what happened next. Eventually managed to get myself and the Mooncup cleaned up. I think I’ll try emptying it in the shower tomorrow.