Confessions of a Single (Irish!) Mother Page 9
I have to admit that I’m a real Christmas fanatic. The tree always goes up in November. I think this might be a rebellious backlash from my childhood when Dad always used to buy the Christmas tree for half price from a man at the local garage. Maybe I felt so hard done by all those years, that now I drag it the season out for as long as possible. I’m not one of those grinches, tut tutting when the shops start playing Jingle Bells. On the contrary, you’ll probably find me dancing in the supermarket aisles with joy.
But it pains me when I hear people complaining about the recession and how there’ll be no Christmas in their home this Christmas. I think they forget that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ, not about how many presents you can amass or how much free drink you can scoff at the Christmas party.
Of course I like getting presents myself, and I’m not averse to a few Baileys on Christmas day, but the main thing for me is the Mass and the beautiful singing of the choir. Christmas doesn’t have to be expensive. This weekend I brought my son to see Santa at a shopping centre. It was free and Santa said hello to baby Gary and we got a picture. There was no gimmicky present but that didn’t matter. The happy face on my son said it all. He was so excited.
There are lots of ways to celebrate Christmas without spending much money. You can make Christmas decorations from colourful magazines, you can teach your children carols, and you can go and visit the crib outside the Mansion House.
When I was a child my dad’s factory in Northern Ireland was burned to the ground and he lost all his money. They were very tough time. I knew we hadn’t much money as a family so I didn’t expect anything for Christmas. But I also knew Santa had money and was very generous so I wrote him a letter asking for a surprise. My mother kept asking me what Santa was getting me but I wouldn’t tell her. ‘I want it to be a surprise for the whole family,’ I insisted.
God love the poor woman, but she spent weeks trying to prise the information out of me and eventually found out I wanted an Etch-a-sketch. I don’t know how Santa managed to buy something for everyone in our family that year and he probably went without a couple of things himself to make sure we were happy, but Christmas Day was a very happy one. The following year I got a cassette. I remember it clearly. I found it in a sock at the end of my bed. It was Elvis’s Greatest Hits and I was over the moon. My sister got a second-hand bike, yes, a second-hand bike because with all the millions of children in the world, Santa can’t always get his hands on something brand new.
It upset me the other day to hear women on a TV debate saying that kids shouldn’t get second-hand toys for Christmas. Well, lady, it sure is better than nothing. And most kids won’t even know the difference. And I was seriously flabbergasted at the viewer who phoned in moaning that there would be no Christmas in her house this year because three of her five children wanted laptops and she couldn’t afford them. What? I got my first laptop at the age of twenty-nine and I saved long and hard for it. My mother is in her sixties and has never had one. Have these people never heard of sharing? It’s about time children and their parents realised what the word Christmas is really all about. So happy, eh, November!
WEIGHT WATCHING!
I’m watching my weight at the moment. Yes, it’s coming up to Christmas and I want to fit into a sexy little party dress that I bought a few years ago. I’m terrified that by the time I fit into it, it’ll have gone completely out of fashion. So as I said, I’m watching the weight carefully. Mind you, I’d rather watch a good film any day though because watching weight is oh so dreary.
They say that if you’re serious about losing weight you should write down everything you eat. I tried that the other day but then I ran out of paper. Anyway it seemed like an awful effort. When somebody on a train casually offers you a Malteser, you have to whip out your notebook and write down Malteser (x1) before you forget. And then you have to try and work out the calories of a single Malteser with your pocket calculator. It kind of takes the pleasure out of spontaneity.
Watching weight can make you dreadfully irritable because once you’re on a diet all you can think about is food. You resent other people being able to enjoy their grub. You envy people who drink real coke instead of the diet version. I’d love to be able to order a Jack Daniels and Coke instead of saying, ‘now, make sure it’s DIET!’ Honest to goodness, it’s hilarious when you see other people doing this. When I worked in a bar, most female customers would insist on the diet drinks with their whiskey or vodka or whatever. I felt like saying to them, ‘listen lady, if you want to lose weight, order a sparkling water.’
Anyway the other morning, myself and the little fellow went to the Tefal Greaseless spoon café. I was enticed in by the promise of a full hearty Irish breakfast without the usual fat. And I went a bit mad, ordering everything, even greaseless chips! Now of course, I know if I was serious about losing weight I would have had a black coffee, a grilled tomato and mushroom, and sat there with a scowl watching everyone else happily tucking in.
The brekkie went well. Luckily nobody noticed my date eating his sausages with his hands. Nor did they notice him wipe his hands on Mummy’s skirt straight afterwards. And if anybody noticed him flinging a half-eaten chip onto somebody else’s table, they were too polite to comment. It’s amazing what you can get away with when you’re knee-high!
Actually, even though Gary is very cute and everything, I blame him for me not being skinny. Like, the other day we were in the supermarket we spotted some selection boxes. Now a couple of years ago, pre-baby, I wouldn’t have dreamed of putting a selection box in the trolley. I mean, a single, manless woman in her thirties would not seriously contemplating eating a selection box all by herself, would she? But now I have Gary as an excuse to fill my trolley with anything from Kinder eggs to Jelly tots.
‘Would you like a selection box, son?’ I said in a very loud voice just in case anyone passing by would think I was a greedy glut. ‘Oh look! There’s a nice picture at the back for you to colour in. What fun!’
The selection box went into the trolley and that evening in front of the fire I excitedly opened it. Not since I was a child have I been so excited ripping something open. Gary and I shared the selection box, which really means that he had one item and I had the other six items. Oh I’d forgotten how much I loved Curly Wurlys!
Mind you, the thought of writing down all those items in a notebook afterwards took most of the good out of my feast. I felt like an Irish Bridget Jones. Calories: 7,500. Exercise: Brief walk to shop to buy selection box.
Still, a girl has to have some treats. When I was skinny my diary for the day would have probably read something like: Calories: 292. Cigarettes: 20
Misery factor: 100%
SINGLE MUMS NOT WECOME!
Single mothers do not get invited to dinner parties. And that’s not such a bad thing. Dinner parties are usually made up of couples, and single women upset the seating arrangements. I don’t think many single women mind too much about not being invited to dinner parties. For a start, single women tend to watch their weight and it’s very hard to just pick at a dinner party.
There’s no such thing as a free dinner so being invited to a dinner party can be a costly affair if you’re a single mum. You have to bring along a decent bottle of wine. Don’t kid yourself by thinking your hosts won’t notice if you bring along the only bottle of plonk. They will. Then you need to dress up, get your hair done, pay for taxis there and back and book a babysitter for a night.
Now, while you don’t mind forking out a bit for a treat with the girls where you’ll be guaranteed a laugh and a good old gossip at least, spending this amount of money to sit with four couples who secretly feel a bit sorry for you and your ‘situation’ is a real pain. So you can imagine my horror when I was invited to one such party recently.
It was a party given by an old pal. I like her but her husband is dull to say the least. He works in IT. It’s very hard to have conversations with people in IT unless you’re in IT yourself. I r
emember I once told him I was having problems with my laptop to which he replied, ‘I don’t know anything about laptops because I work in corporate IT. Oh. Oh right. Well, that was the beginning and the end of the conversation. The thought of spending a whole evening seated beside him was giving me sleepless nights. I mean, you can’t phone the hostess in advance and say, ‘I hope you don’t mind this little request of mine, but is there any way I could sit beside someone, anyone, besides your husband?’
Anyway, I had a plan. I was going to tell the hosts that, by coincidence, I also had a hen on that night and I’d have to leave early – around ten-ish, to get into town. I figured that if I could leave early I’d be back in time to catch the second half of the Late, Late and able to let the babysitter go home early. But, the hostess, when I phoned her, said it was such a pity that I wouldn’t be able to stay longer.
‘Such a pity,’ I agreed. ‘But my (imaginary) friend would never forgive me for not turning up to her hen.’
‘We have this great guy for you to meet.’
My heart sank like a stone. Why do the words ‘a great guy for you’ always instil such terror in me?
So I went to the party early. I reckoned if I went early I could leave even early. Their kids were pleased with the sweets I brought so that was one hurdle out of the way. The host checked my bottle of wine (costing more than a tenner in Aldi) and gave an approving nod. Phew.
‘Am I first?’
‘Yes,’ said my friend, kissing the air on either side of me. ‘It’s a pity everyone couldn’t be as punctual as yourself.’
I began to feel guilty about my planned escaped for later on. ‘Now, listen,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t really want to be paired off with this great guy. I’m sure he is great and everything but you know, I’m not ready for a relationship right now.’
The hostess assured me that there would be no match-making involved. ‘Roger is newly divorced himself,’ she said. ‘We thought you two could cheer each other up.’
For frig’s sake!
Roger arrived. Not my type at all. Twice my age, very loud and far too enthusiastic. And as the wine flowed, I wondered had Paul the Octopus, been brought back to life. When the clock struck ten I rose so quickly I nearly knocked over the dinner table. So sorry, everyone. Wish I could stay.
Thank goodness for imaginary hen nights!
TAKING ON THE BULLIES!
Every man, woman and child will experience bullying at some stage at their life. They may suffer at the hands of another child, a teacher, a sibling, a neighbour, a workmate or a mother-in-law. There are adult bullies driving cars and hooting their horns unnecessarily on the roads, there are bullies who push past you in queues, and bullies who try and hassle you for money at ATM machines. There are varying degrees of bullying, most of it annoying but not serious. However sometimes it’s so severe that it causes people to take their own lives.
As a mother of a little boy I worry that one day he will be intimidated by somebody bigger and stronger and I won’t be there to protect him.
Boys in playgrounds can be quite violent. Little girls are inclined to bitch and bully each other verbally, whereas little boys are more likely to use their fists to win a point.
My own first memory of being bullied in school was when I borrowed a pen from a classmate and then lost it. For about a week her older sister used to stand outside the classroom door waiting for me at going home time. She would make various threats, telling me what she was going to do to me if I couldn’t find her sister’s pen.
As an adult looking back on this ‘reign of terror’ it seems so trivial, yet I remember being paralysed by fear whenever I saw this girl and used to go to great lengths to avoid her, even thinking up of ways which I could get out of going to school. One night my mother heard me sobbing in my room. My pillow was drenched with tears. I told her what was wrong, and she assured me that a new pen could be bought for the girl. I think she also had a few words with the head nun about the incident. Needless to say the bullying stopped immediately afterwards.
I never expected my Gary to be bullied before he was two, but last week in the park, a boy of the same age walked up to him with a chocolate lolly. He proceeded to eat the lolly in front of Gary and then, when he was finished, he handed my son the dirty stick. I was furious. ‘What a horrible, little brat,’ I thought, dragging Gary away. It was the first time I felt overly protective of my boy. Usually the toddlers in the park all get along and, indeed, one little girl always gives my son a hug when she sees him. But not all toddlers are cute and some already show the signs of being a future bully. Of course, when I looked around for the little bully’s mother, I couldn’t find her. Eventually I spotted a woman sitting on a bench nearby with a phone in one hand and a cigarette in another. Clearly she couldn’t even be bothered supervising her kid.
Next weekend is Halloween where children will dress up and try and scare each other in the name of good fun. But for some children, even after the masks come off, they will be afraid, because somebody somewhere is bullying them. The best thing to do with bullying is to nip it in the bud as soon as possible. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets. Talk to your kids. Find out who their friends are. Ask them if there is a child they don’t like and why. Children often won’t tell you if somebody is bullying them so it’s up to you as a parent to get it out of them. Make sure the teacher and school heads are aware of troublemakers at the first instance. Bullies usually target several children. It is up to the school to sort it out with the bully’s parents. There is no point confronting the bully’s parents yourself because more than likely they will deny everything because their son or daughter ‘would never do anything like that. It’s the mid-term break. This is time for you to talk to your kids. Use it wisely.
A MANNY NANNY?
An Irish bar man sent me his CV to me the other day. And no, I hadn’t advertised for my own personal bar man in case you were wondering. Although when you think about it, it’d be quite nice to have a professional bartender pour you a nice vodka and coke at the end of a stressful day at the office would be quite nice, wouldn’t it? In fact I had advertised for a nanny because our old one left last week. After a year with us, baby Gary ’s second ‘Mummy’ left us to go travelling in Australia. There were plenty of tears as she waved her good-bye from the gate. Poor little Gary was hysterical until I produced a packet of Jaffa cakes and then he immediately forgot how upset he was.
After she’d sailed out of our lives, I then had the daunting task of sorting through various CVs to find somebody new. Now I know you shouldn’t judge a book by a cover but the truth is everybody does. The same goes for human appearances which is why I always insist on a photo along with a CV. Unlike other mummies who may have a husband or a partner with a wandering eye at home, I have neither. I’m single so I don’t particularly mind if my nanny is more beautiful or has a better figure than me. However, what I do want is a friendly face because I feel that somebody with a friendly face will smile a lot at my son.
Apart from the bartender who claimed to have no childcare experience but ‘wouldn’t mind giving it a go’, I got plenty of CVs. It’s a real sign of the times when you get more Irish nannies applying for the job than any other nationality. Believe me, this wasn’t the case even a year ago! But some of the applicant photos looked like criminal mug shots. Why would somebody wanting to work with children not even smile for a photo! The photo that made me laugh the most was one of a Dublin lass wearing a tank top and a mini, clutching a bottle of Smirnoff Ice and leaning against the sink in what looked like the Ladies of a nightclub. I wondered if this was her idea of a joke. Then there was the CV with the two girls wearing identical eyebrow rings. Oddly enough they stated in their CV that they didn’t mind if they weren’t paid just as long as they could be together. Honest to goodness!
Of course I had a very definite type in mind. A, the nanny would be female, and B, she would be quiet as I’m a writer and living with somebody loud would be my idea of hell.
I wanted to make sure we found a good match. Hiring a nanny is not the easiest thing in the world because this person is not just an employee. She lives with you, comes on holidays with you and puts your baby to bed most nights. She spends more time with you than any family member or friend. The last thing you want is to open your home and your life to somebody who isn’t going to fit in.
One girl seemed fine on paper and looked normal enough in her photo. But during the interview all she wanted to know about was her time off and she made it very clear that she didn’t want to be exploited. She never even asked to see the child! I was beginning to lose hope when a lovely blonde Dutch girl turned up. She was well-dressed and immaculately turned out. The first thing she did was give my son a hug. He fell for her and so did I. She moved in with us the following afternoon. Unlike the bartender, she doesn’t know how to mix a cocktail. In fact she doesn’t even drink. But she plays with Gary all day long and when I’m writing in the room next door I can hear him laughing out loud. It seems my boy has found his Miss Right!
MUMMIES AND COUPONS
Modern mummies never have enough money. Unlike our grandmothers who used to darn the family socks and regularly cut out coupons, living economically does not come so easily to us. My idea of saving the socks is not throwing them out every few weeks. That’s what I used to do. Every now and then I’d put the whole lot in the bin and replace them with new ones. Now I wash the socks and dry them and put them back in the drawer. Mind you, I can’t ever see the day where I take out a sock and start working on it diligently with a needle and thread. And I can’t ever see myself fussing at the top of the cheque-out queue with discount tokens for the groceries.
My granny lived through two wars. Her kitchen was always stacked with non-perishable goods such as tins of fruit. I presume that was because she feared the arrival of another war. She never wore her good shoes at home. She had slippers for walking around the house and the good shoes were kept in a box and were routinely brought to the cobblers when in need of maintenance. She never cooked without an apron. That was to save her clothes. I, on the other hand, don’t wear an apron and can’t think of a single friend who does. The only time I ever wore an apron was when I was an air hostess dishing out hot breakfasts. In my grandmother’s house there was no fancy tinned food for the dog and as far as I remember he was happy enough with left-overs from the dinner. I don’t ever recall him going to a beauty parlour either. He was washed down with soap and a bucket whether he liked it or not.