Flo came into the kitchen this evening as I was cooking tea. ‘Mum,’ she said, ‘when are we going to get my prom dress?’
I put down the potato I was peeling.
‘Your prom dress?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t think prom was until you left school?’
‘It isn’t,’ said Flo, ‘but all the best dresses get taken really early.’
‘It is a year and a half away, though,’ I said, quite reasonably I thought.
‘And then there’s transport,’ she said.
‘Transport? Can I not just give you a lift?’
‘Um, no? Last year Tabitha Green arrived in a helicopter, I don’t really think I’m going to impress anyone turning up in a ten-year-old Renault full of empty coffee cups and crisp packets.’
‘I could clean it up a bit,’ I said, ‘or Dad could take you. He has a nicer car than me.’
‘No way,’ said Flo. ‘I’m not having either of you anywhere near it. I’ll need to have a limo or something. Daniel’s dad is a farmer, so he’s coming on a JCB.’
When I left school we just signed each other’s shirts and then got drunk in the bandstand in the park on a bottle of Cinzano we’d persuaded an old man to buy us from the off-licence.
Times hopes raised at work – 1. Number of times dashed again on the rock that is my job – 1.
Leon beckoned me over to his desk this morning, looking pleased with himself. He had a press release in his hand.
‘How do you fancy having a go at something more challenging?’ he asked.
‘I would love that,’ I said, relief in my voice. Perhaps these last two months have been some sort of elaborate initiation ceremony? Maybe all of the reporters have been chuckling fondly about it over lunch, wondering how many times they can get me to write ‘conveniently located for commuters’ (i.e., you can hear the motorway from the bedroom) before I crack?
‘I’ve got a press release here from the Arts Centre,’ he said, ‘about their latest exhibition from a local group of amateur artists. It’s about 350 words at the moment, but we need it cut down to 250 to fit a space on page twelve. Are you up for the challenge?’
I said that I was and took the press release. Quite honestly, what else could I do?
I lay awake for quite a long time tonight, wondering what I’ve done with my working life.
We had six people for book group tonight, including me, which I was really pleased with for our first session. Three were parents from the Thursday group but two were people who had seen the poster in the shop – one woman called Hannah, who seemed lovely, and a guy called Sean who had an amazing beard and a rather intense stare.
We drank wine and chatted about recent reads and then I asked everyone to take a few minutes to talk about their favourite-ever books. It was really interesting to hear everyone’s choices and why they loved them. Books can have such a profound effect on lives.
When everyone had had a turn we put all the choices in a mug and pulled them out, giving us a book list for the next six months.
We’re going to be reading:
We set our next meeting for 12 December and I messaged Dylan to tell him how well it had gone and he replied, saying, ‘You’re a star, Frankie!’ with a love-heart emoji. Slightly disconcerted by the love heart. Is he trying to tell me something?
Sent WIB a copy of the message. ‘What does this mean?’ I said.
‘Ahhh,’ said Sierra, ‘the classic casual heart emoji.’
‘What’s the classic casual heart emoji?’ I wrote back.
‘I don’t know,’ said Sierra, ‘I made it up.’
‘Maybe he really loves the book choices?’ said Lou. Definitely a possibility.
‘Maybe he really loves you?’ said Sierra. Less helpful.
I think Jess has an imaginary friend. I went up to the bathroom about ten minutes after I’d put her to bed this evening and I heard her whispering in her room.
‘Is that comfy, Barney?’ she was saying. She doesn’t have any ponies named Barney as far as I know. There was a pause, presumably while Barney replied to her. ‘Tomorrow I will see if Mummy can find you a snack, but it’s bedtime now, so we have to go to sleep otherwise Mummy will shout.’
Bit harsh.
‘Don’t run off, Barney!’ she said. ‘You have to stay in here.’
Intriguing.
I was slightly concerned that an imaginary friend might be a sign of parental neglect, but Google reassured me.
‘Compared to those who don’t create them,’ said the internet, ‘children with imaginary companions tend to be less shy, engage in more laughing and smiling with peers, and do better at tasks involving imagining how someone else might think.’
Apparently, children who don’t watch much television are more likely to create an imaginary friend. Ha ha!
Jess asked today if she could have some cornflakes for Barney. I said she could and put a few into a plastic bowl and gave her a teaspoon. She gave the spoon back.
‘Don’t be silly, Mummy,’ she said, laughing, ‘Barney can’t use a spoon!’
Clearly the boundary between fantasy and reality is a blurry one.
Panicky message from Lou to WIB at teatime: ‘Emergency!’ she wrote. ‘Help!’ She used the little red siren emoji so clearly it was serious.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘Are you hurt?’
There was a pause, during which I imagined one of the twins impaled on one of those spiky railings. WhatsApp probably wouldn’t be Lou’s first thought in that scenario, but sometimes my imagination runs away with me.
‘I was just making dinner,’ she wrote, ‘and something terrible happened!’
‘What were you making?’ asked Sierra.
‘Oh, it was this new vegan recipe I found online for pizza,’ said Lou, ‘which uses cauliflower as a pizza base. It looks really good – quite a few people in the comments have said it tastes as good as regular pizza.’
I really hoped one of the twins wasn’t on a railing.
‘The terrible thing that happened, though?’ I prompted.
‘Oh yes,’ wrote Lou. ‘So, I was cooking dinner – the cauliflower pizza thing – and I sneezed. Fine. Then I sneezed again – and a little bit of wee came out!’
‘How much wee?’ asked Sierra.
‘I don’t know,’ wrote Lou, ‘I didn’t exactly have a measuring jug ready. Not enough to make a puddle on the floor or anything, but enough to mean I had to go and change my pants.’
‘Gross,’ said Sierra, not very supportively.
‘It’s not gross, Lou,’ I reassured her, ‘it’s totally normal after having babies to get leaks sometimes. It happens to me all the time. And you’ve had twins, so, you know …’
‘Yeah,’ wrote Sierra, ‘it’s probably like the Bat Cave up there.’
‘The Bat Cave?’ said Lou. ‘I don’t want my vagina to look like the Bat Cave?’
‘The secret is the strategic leg-cross,’ I said. ‘The first sneeze is manageable, but if you feel a second one coming on, just brace yourself and cross your legs. Sort of like a curtsey?’
‘Seriously? I have to cross my legs on every second sneeze for the rest of my life? This is why David left me, isn’t it? I bet Sandra doesn’t piss her pants in the kitchen.’
‘Given that he cited “chips” in the break-up, the cauliflower-based pizza would probably be more of a turn-off than the piss,’ wrote Sierra. ‘He seems like a man who appreciates carbs.’
‘But it’s so unfair,’ said Lou. ‘I did all those Kegels! I do yoga! I eat sauerkraut, for God’s sake. And for what?’
‘I didn’t know sauerkraut was good for your pelvic floor?’ I said.
‘It’s not,’ said Lou, ‘but it’s the principle of the thing. I am a Good Person. I care about my gut health. I use coconut oil. I shouldn’t be pissing myself on the kitchen floor.’
It did seem unfair. Out of the three of us, and without intimate knowledge, I would definitely have rated Lou’s vagina as the tightest. Not that anyone would likely have asked me. But in a quiz or something. Sierra always seems like she might be a bit anarchistic about being told to do pelvic floor exercises and I haven’t been on a trampoline since 2007.
Glasses of wine while cooking – 2. (Doesn’t count when drunk during food prep?) Internal crisis brought on by thoughts about how many times I have made bolognese in my entire life and how much of it I have thrown away uneaten – 1. (Big.)
Chapter One parents’ group busy again today. Dylan came up to see me as I was packing up and shuffled about for a bit, looking as though he had something he wanted to say. In the light of the love-heart emoji, it was a little bit unsettling. I really like Dylan, but I think he needs more time to get over Caitlin and I don’t want to be some kind of difficult rebound relationship. Plus, it would make using his upstairs room all the time a bit awkward, wouldn’t it?
He asked about the group and how the new job was going, and then looked like he had changed his mind about whatever it was he really wanted to say, so he went downstairs. Very odd.
I made pasta bolognese for tea tonight – Jess’s favourite. I say ‘pasta’ as a bit of a cover-all – it was meant to be spaghetti, but I didn’t realise the packet was open already and when I took it down from the cupboard it all fell out on to the kitchen floor in a rather dramatic, depressing version of pick-up sticks. I would have just picked it all up again – it gets boiled, for Christ’s sake – but Jess got into rather a flap about the ‘germs’.
She must get it from Ian as I’ve been known to drop a piece of toast, butter-side down, and just pick off any obvious bits of fluff or old sweetcorn before adding the jam. Fortunately I had about ninety-six bags of pasta in the cupboard, all with about half an inch in the bottom, so I mixed them all up together.
(Question: does someone plant these bags? I honestly can’t imagine myself making pasta and thinking, ‘Hmmm, I don’t want to overdo it on the carbs, I probably shouldn’t chuck in those last ten shells.’ Why would I deliberately leave an amount of pasta that wasn’t even enough on its own for one small person? Weird.)
Flo set the table while I dished up and Jess sang a song about a poo in a loo. We all sat down, the pasta bolognese in front of us on the table.
‘What’s this?’ asked Jess, prodding it with her fork.
‘Bolognese,’ I said. ‘You like bolognese,’ I added, more confidently than I felt. You just never really know from one minute to the next with a four-year-old.
‘Where is the pissgetty?’ she asked.
‘There isn’t any spaghetti,’ I said, ‘so we are having it a fun way today with lots of different-shaped pasta. It all tastes the same, though, it’s just more exciting like this. Like a treasure hunt.’
OK, not really much like a treasure hunt, but sometimes children just need to believe the words.
She looks sceptical.
‘Where’s the treasure?’ she asked.
‘Well, if I told you that then it wouldn’t be a treasure hunt, would it?’ I said.
She filled her fork and got it almost to her mouth.
‘It’s too hot,’ she said, and put it down again.
‘Blow on it,’ I suggested. ‘It will soon cool down.’
She lifted the fork back to her mouth and blew hard. Little pieces of tomatoey mince showered down on the table around her plate. I took a deep but quiet breath.
‘It’s still too hot,’ she said.
‘Why not try it?’ I said. ‘It should have cooled down after that lovely big blow.’
‘No, it’s too hot.’ She put her fork back down and a piece of fusilli fell off her plate and on to the floor. I ate a few mouthfuls, trying to will my shoulders into a normal, relaxed position. She tried again, but a shell fell into her lap. She made a show of picking it up and it burning her fingers.
I refilled my wine glass and took a large gulp. Flo gave me a supportive, sideways glance.
‘This is lovely,’ she said, ‘and just the right temperature. You should eat yours quick, Jess, or I’ll have it.’
We played a game of I Spy while Jess waited for her bolognese to cool down, which no one got because Jess was trying to make us guess P for ‘pissgetty’.
‘Eat your tea now,’ I said.
She took a spoonful.
‘It’s too cold,’ she said.
Jess asked me today why I was called Mummy.
‘Isn’t it confusing,’ she asked, not unreasonably, ‘that all the mummies have the same name?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I have another name too – Frankie – but you and Flo get to call me Mummy because I am your mummy.’ I didn’t feel like I’d done a great job of explaining it, to be honest. Neither did Jess.
‘But why are you my mummy?’ she asked.
‘Because I made you in my tummy,’ I said.
‘And tummy rhymes with mummy?’
‘Well, sort of.’
‘Tamsin at nursery doesn’t have a mummy,’ said Jess.
‘That’s sad for her,’ I said, not sure I was ready for a conversation about death.
‘Oh, she has a mummy,’ she said, ‘she just doesn’t call her mummy so I’m not sure if it’s the same thing.’
‘Oh, right,’ I said. ‘What does she call her?’
‘Non-Daddy,’ said Jess.
‘That’s unusual,’ I said.
‘I like you best as Mummy,’ said Jess.
‘Thanks, Non-Flo,’ I said, giving her a hug.