First day of Year 10 for Flo. She has been outwardly calm about it, but I know she has been getting nervous over the last couple of weeks so I got up extra early and made her good-luck pancakes for breakfast with smiley faces made out of strawberries.
‘Mum, you’re so lame,’ she said when she came downstairs and into the kitchen, but she was smiling. I don’t mind being lame in that way.
Jess is back to her usual routine at nursery. We need to keep her place open for when I land my dream job (ha!) and we have her vouchers, anyway. They said they could be flexible if we need to change hours. I applied for a job at Dorset County Council that’s part-time and term time only, so there should only be about another one million other women applying for that one.
Had a nice little Tinder chat with Kier. He works half his week as a drama teacher and the other half as a therapist. I’ve always thought that I could probably do with some therapy, so perhaps this way I could get it at the same time as having someone buy me dinner?
I arrived at the dog rescue centre twenty minutes early and sat in the car eating a Mars Bar (for interview energy). I scrolled through Instagram for inspirational dog accounts. Got distracted by @simple_dorset_life making a late-summer salad with courgetini and nasturtium flowers.
Caption read: ‘The convenience of a supermarket is great, but why would you choose to spend hours in the aisles when we have nature’s bounty on our doorstep? Nasturtiums don’t even charge delivery! #flowersasfood #rawdiet #insideandout’.
Christ.
I was caught slightly off guard when I went into the interview room and noticed a dog sitting in the corner of the room. It wasn’t in a basket or a bed or anything, it was literally just standing there, watching … like it might have come down from head office to oversee the interview process and feed back to senior management.
I wasn’t sure what to do – should I pet it? It was a bit funny-looking. I didn’t want to seem unprofessional by cooing over a dog when I was meant to be answering questions about membership databases and social media marketing, so I concentrated on the human members of the interview panel.
I thought it went well – I gave a great little talk about the use of dog-related hashtags and one of the panel seemed to especially like my use of the phrase ‘crowd-sourced content’ (i.e., getting people to send you pictures of their own dogs to save you work).
They called at teatime to let me know I didn’t get it. Lesson: always pet the dog.
Totally misjudged the tone at the interior shop interview. When the owner asked me about appraisals and what I would expect from her as my manager in terms of support I said, ‘Jaffa Cakes?’
It was only meant to be a joke.
They phoned me half an hour after I left. No staff discount for Lou.
Did some job-hunting online this morning. About 93 per cent of the available jobs on the site I looked at seemed to be for cleaners or support workers, neither of which I feel able to do as I am 1) rubbish at cleaning 2) not terribly supportive. I sent an email to a local wedding venue who are looking for a Wedding and Events Coordinator and applied to be the ‘Social Media and Marketing Recruitment Officer’ at the local NHS trust. I think I was being a bit over-ambitious with that one, plus it’s full-time, but I’m getting a bit desperate now. I quite fancied being a Laboratory Assistant, but that’s only because I imagined myself in a white coat, examining evidence for Sherlock. It only pays £7.50 an hour, so probably much less glam than it sounds in my head.
I was intrigued by the ad for a ‘Loving Dog Sitter’ but I think we know my success rate when it comes to dog-based roles.
I picked up three pairs of Flo’s dirty socks from around the house this morning. One on the sofa, one in the bathroom and one by the front door. (Why?) What is it about teenagers and socks? I put socks on in the morning and take them off at night. Teenagers seem to randomly shed theirs at intervals, wherever they happen to be, like a snake skin. The front door pair were particularly baffling – surely this would be exactly the place you’d want to put socks on?
I’ve noticed, too, that Flo has been spending a lot of time on her phone this week and smiling to herself. Not that I think smiling in itself is a suspicious behaviour, but when you’re fourteen it stands out sometimes. Maybe she has a boyfriend? God!
Jess had wanted the following at her birthday party:
Jess actually got:
I got:
Very satisfactory.
I asked Kier what his favourite biscuit was this evening.
‘I do love a good Jaffa Cake,’ he said, ‘although are they strictly a biscuit?’
I told him about the whole botched interview thing and he said that if he owned an interiors shop he would definitely take me on me as his retail store colleague.
I had my favourite kind of period pains today – a pressure in my lower back, as though I’m trying to hold one of those kilogram weights from the old school science labs inside my rectum. It’s a rather disconcerting sensation as you essentially spend the whole day feeling like you might be about to poo your pants at any moment – and what successful woman about town doesn’t want that?
Of course, what you really need when you’re feeling like your insides are being scraped out with a wonky spatula is to go to a fairground. I find the whole ‘cup and saucer’ experience really adds to the vibe.
God.
The posters for the ‘fun fair’ – oxymoron right there – had been strategically slapped up around town at child-eye level, in the all the places most likely to engage small children/piss off parents – e.g., outside primary schools, in the car park at nursery, on the noticeboard near the crisps at Micro Soft – and to stop Jess banging on about it every single time she saw it I had promised that we would go for her birthday. It was about three weeks away at the time, far enough in the future for it to seem like a less-pressing issue than ‘would Jess go to sleep and leave me enough time to fit in two episodes of Gilmore Girls and at least one large glass of wine?’
Thankfully, Flo understands the joy of periods now, so I was able to bribe her to go on all the rides with Jess on the promise of three sets of false eyelashes.
On reflection, Jess could probably have done without the candyfloss, especially as there was a bit of a breeze getting up at that point, but I improvised a hairband with one of my socks and, as long as you didn’t look at me below the ankle, I think we got away with it.
We were on our way out, having successfully diverted Jess’s gaze from the Hook a Duck (three pounds!), and I was starting to relax. Big mistake. The balloon man sensed my weakness and pounced.
‘Bumper balloons!’ he yelled in my face (it felt like). ‘Hours of fun!’
For whom, exactly, I wondered?
‘Can I have a bumper balloon, Mummy?’ asked Jess, jiggling about excitedly.
‘No,’ I said, ‘we’ve spent enough money and we don’t have room for such a big balloon.’ It was one of those giant round ones with an elastic handle that you can punch backwards and forwards.
‘We can keep it in my room,’ she said, ‘there’s space for it there.’ She was bouncing up and down now. The sock fell out of her hair and I scooped it up. The balloon man looked at it, then down at my feet.
‘Only £4,’ said the balloon man helpfully.
‘Only £4, Mummy!’ said Jess, with no concept of the fact that I could buy an entire bottle of wine in Aldi for £4.
‘Oh, what a shame!’ I said, ‘I only have £2 left, never mind.’ I took her hand, ready to walk away.
‘Ah well,’ said the balloon man, ‘it’s nearly the end of the day, I can let you have it for two.’ And he pulled the biggest balloon out of the bunch in his hand, gave it to Jess and smiled at me.
What an utter bastard.
Spent most of the day trying to stop Jess hitting her giant balloon around the house with a plastic golf club. Man, those things really ricochet, don’t they?
Whenever I tried to take away either the golf club or the balloon and suggest that she might like to do something different for a while, like perhaps some Peppa Pig colouring sheets or lying down quietly thinking about life, she started screeching and hitting the balloon even more ferociously than she already was. My choices seemed to be a) listen to Jess howling or b) accept the fact that everything I own would soon be smashed into a million pieces.
To be honest, I wasn’t feeling either as a relaxing Sunday vibe. Before I had children I imagined my Sundays more like this:
10 a.m.: Small child climbs sleepily into my king-sized bed, rubbing her eyes and looking up at me adorably. ‘Mummy, you’re so pretty!’ she says, like she can hardly believe it. Colin Firth offers to get up and make me coffee and bring me the papers.
10.30: I read about world events (in the fantasy I care about world events and am very knowledgeable about politics) while Colin Firth passes me small, freshly baked pastries at intervals. Small child quietly reads Anne of Green Gables.
You get the idea.
(Question: why does Colin Firth only sound sexy if you call him ‘Colin Firth’, as though that’s his first name? When we are married, I will have to use his full name at all times. ‘Oh, this is my husband, Colin Firth.’ ‘Colin Firth, darling, would you mind passing my prosecco?’, etc, etc.)
Had a ‘no’ from the wedding venue. ‘Loving Dog Sitter’ job looking increasingly tempting.
Flo is still glued to her phone. I tried, casually, to get a look over her shoulder this evening as I came into the living room. Just in the name of internet safety, you understand, nothing creepy. Internet safety is important you know. At least, that’s what I told myself when I spent all that time researching apps and trying to set up parental controls on all of our various devices. I don’t know what it is about getting old that makes technology seem so much more complicated, but I felt as though I didn’t even know what half the words meant when I was doing that. I almost called Jess in to help, but I thought that would rather defeat the point – like getting a toddler to unscrew a childproof bottle of Calpol for you.
‘What are you doing, Mum?’ said Flo, clutching her phone to her chest. Apparently I hadn’t been as stealthy as I thought.
‘Oh, nothing,’ I said, super casually. ‘I was about to make a cup of tea and just wondered if you wanted one?’
‘And you thought you’d find out by trying to look at my phone?’ she said.
‘It caught my eye, that’s all,’ I said sitting down on the sofa and switching on the television. Flo stared at me.
‘I thought you were making a cup of tea?’ she asked. Damn. Caught out.
The editor of the Dorset Echo, Leon, called me this morning about the Editorial Assistant job, which I had actually forgotten about. (Hopefully that didn’t come across in our chat.) He asked me, theoretically, how soon I’d be able to start. Apparently, they had someone leave very unexpectedly and are in a rush to fill the role. This could be perfect for me – a desperate employer is exactly what I need. I said I could start as soon as they wanted.
I’m going for an interview tomorrow afternoon.
The first question Leon asked me when I arrived for my interview at the Echo today was ‘did you write your CV yourself?’ This seemed a bit of an odd question to me – who else would have written it? Was he implying that perhaps it looked more like Jess had done it?
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘is there a problem with it?’
‘Not at all,’ said Leon, ‘it’s just very nicely laid out, so I wondered if you’d had it professionally done.’
An excellent start. Clearly the bar here is set very low. Leon asked me a few questions about previous jobs and told me a bit about the role.
‘It’s three days a week,’ he said, ‘Monday to Wednesday. The paper comes out on Thursday, so our deadline is midday on Wednesday.’ He explained that my role would be supporting the editorial team – typing things up, getting content on to the website, that sort of thing. It didn’t sound exactly thrilling but beggars and choosers and all that. Plus, surely working in a newsroom would be exciting, wouldn’t it? Even if you weren’t doing the reporting?
After the interview I was left on my own to do a short test. I had to read through a mocked-up newspaper article and pick out all the spelling and grammar mistakes. They were all pretty obvious there/their type errors, so I’d feel pretty ashamed, given my English degree, if I didn’t get full marks on that one.
They’re going to give me a call tomorrow. I’ve arranged to have dinner with Kier next Wednesday to celebrate/commiserate the job accordingly.
When I put Jess to bed tonight I could hear Flo in her room, talking to someone on FaceTime. New boyfriend, maybe? Not sure how best to approach it. I don’t want to just ignore it because I want her to know I care, but also want to respect her privacy and not jump to conclusions. Decided to ask WIB for advice.
‘I think Flo might have a boyfriend,’ I wrote.
‘Ooh, really?’ replied Sierra. ‘Has she started reading poetry and listening to Joni Mitchell?’
‘I’m not sure that’s what modern teenagers do when they get boyfriends,’ I said. ‘I think it’s all about eyeliner and Snapchat filters, nowadays. They spend hours agonising over being “left on read” and who liked whose pictures.’
‘What’s left on read?’ asked Lou.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, ‘but I heard it in a song, so it’s definitely a thing.’
I got the job!
I start on Monday. It’s really soon but it will at least minimise the amount of time I spend worrying about what to wear and whether or not I’m going to make a fool of myself by not knowing anything about politics.
I’ve managed to reorganise hours at nursery to that Jess does a full day on Tuesday and up to 3 p.m. on Monday. Sierra is going to pick her up and give her tea on a Monday and Ian will be in charge of Wednesdays as usual, so it should all work out OK. It means Flo has to let herself in after school two days a week and be by herself for a couple of hours, but as long as I leave the remote controls somewhere visible I doubt she’ll even realise I’m not there.
Jess refused her dinner tonight. She said the cucumber was ‘too spicy’.
I’m totally done with Jess’s fussy eating. I can barely get her to eat anything at the moment, let alone anything with a fake semblance of nutrition. I don’t understand how she actually stays alive, sometimes. How does she not keel over with exhaustion?
I made myself feel worse by googling some sample menus for three-year-olds. Something like this is apparently what I should be aiming for:
Breakfast: One slice wholegrain toast with sliced egg and tomatoes. Glass of semi-skimmed milk.
Snack: Half a cup of blueberries and a plain yogurt plus water.
Lunch: Bean and rice soup and a small wholemeal roll. Carrot and celery sticks plus a tablespoon of hummus for dipping. Glass of semi-skimmed milk.
Snack: Apple slices, thinly spread with nut butter.
Dinner: Wholewheat pasta with olive oil, fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and basil plus steamed green beans.
Snack: Cottage cheese with fresh pineapple.
There is just so much to talk about in this menu that I don’t even know where to start. Firstly – soup? Who gives a three-year-old soup? Jess can barely eat a cheese sandwich without dropping it or getting it in her hair. Soup takes some serious spoon skills, surely?
Steamed green beans?
Cottage cheese? Can you even imagine?
I decided to keep a food diary for Jess tomorrow so I can compare.
Food diary, Jess:
Breakfast: Toast and Marmite – inside circle of the toast only, so that when you put the four pieces together there is just a round section missing from the middle. Yogurt – half in mouth, half on floor.
Snack: Mini box of raisins. (I also gave her a banana but she sat on most of it.)
Lunch: Roast chicken, one roast potato, about twenty peas, six bits of carrot. (Had to be rinsed and re-plated as I stupidly poured gravy on everything.) Strawberries and cream.
Snack: Cup of dry cereal while she played ponies. Much of it fed to ponies. Two Jaffa Cakes. (Her mother’s daughter.)
Tea: Half a cheese and cucumber sandwich, initially rejected because it was in squares and not triangles.
Snack: Apple – carried around for about an hour and nibbled extensively but essentially the same size at the end as when it started.