How not to get married

Getting married.  It’s a daunting prospect. No – not because I have absolutely no idea what we are going to talk about for the next 70 or so years.  But because you can be pretty near certain that everyone at the ceremony – absolutely everyone – would love to see a real life cock up...  Am I being paranoid? Not at all. 

At public speaking classes they tell you that your audience is really on your side – that watching someone fuck up a much-prepared speech or performance is nearly as painful for the audience as it is for the performer .... that your public are willing you to succeed.  And there is a certain amount of truth in this.  Watching someone royally humiliate themselves is painful.  But it is the sort of pain we relish. We positively seek it out. Sure it makes us squirm, it may even trigger a wave of genuine sympathy. But, just like we love watching a good tragedy, so do we revel in a real life displays of public humiliation. And what better chance to humiliate yourself than by turning up to your own wedding DRUNK. Too awful to be true? Think again. I did it.

A small and humble family affair? Yes. A calm, composed bride? No.  

What really upsets me is not the fact that I was rendered pretty much incapable of receiving Joe’s wedding vows with a straight face, nor the fact that I gurned pretty much the whole way through the ceremony, but the fact that there is photographic evidence of every single gurn.  My wedding album will portray not an elegant charm of a bride, but a frilled-up pisshead. Dressed to impress and pissed of my face. 

And, I don’t care what anyone says, the photos are what count.  Yes I enjoyed myself, yes I was convinced I was elegance incarnate, but that all means jack shit if the photos are bad. And they are bad.

I have a photo face.. its the expression I distort my face into whenever a camera is pointed in my direction. It is the face I have developed for just these sorts of occasions – for weddings, for birthdays, for walking past the tourists at Trafalgar square. If there’s a camera anywhere near me, chances are i will be pulling my camera face. I plump my lips up a bit, I narrow my eyes in the hopes of creating the illusion of two almonds, I  tilt my head slightly backwards in order to avoid multiple chins, and last but not least - if my facial muscles allow, I  also try to fashion something resembling a smile. My camera face is the product of many years of anguish at the photographic evidence of the far from perfect assemblage of flesh that is my face. It is something I have developed on the off-chance that I will one day have an acquaintance who knows me only through my photos. So that my ancestors – when compiling some sort of an album in tribute to my life – will think I had only one chin, plump lips, and pleasing almond shaped eyes  - instead of the thin lipped droopy eyed truth. Ridiculous. But true.

I only wish I had known that my camera face is not as it should be when I am totally bladdered.  Our self appointed wedding photographer (AKA Mike) had the pleasure of taking many photos of drunken gurning bride – what an accolade.

If this sounds all a bit down-cast, here are some of the wedding highlights:

1.       The groom.  He is lovely. Although he did ply me with alchohol before the ceremony and then somehow manage to regain total sobriety just in time to show me up as the unstable member of the partnership.

2.       No huge family rows. At least not from my side of the family (the sane side.)

3.       My dress...  Altghough come to think of it, my dress also managed to show me up, being all pretty and lacey and tiny-er than I. But unlike the groom I forgave it. I love the dress. Too much.  So much that right now if one were to look in my fridge, there one would find it - well protected from pesky moths.. who also love the dress too much. (The very same little bastards who loved my wedding shawl so much that they muched their way through it but days before the wedding .)

4.       Es was lovely and cute in her little dress. And she didnt poo once. Result.

How I met my match

Babies cant swim, and they cant dance, but don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security.  They are smart...

So busy have I been making plans about how to maintain control once Esme is walking, talking, answering back, and so on, that it altogether slipped my attention that I have already lost it.

Pre-Esme, if you had asked me what sort of mental faculties were required to outsmart a sane adult human being (like me),  my response would have made reference to
a) the ability to understand language,
b) the possession of some sort of concepts, and
c) the ability to engage in reasoning. 

(So for instance, say that child X wanted to develop a means of resisting parent Y's sleep-encouraging gestures.  In order to develop a realiable method to ensure that they were never put to bed in the day time - say - they would need  (at the very least) to have the concept ‘being put to bed’ (which arguably requires some linguistic competence). They would also need to understand the simple argument ‘If I cry I wont be put to bed, I don’t want to be put to bed, therefore I will cry’.)

 I now know that no such mental faculties are required. 

Esme cannot yet talk (hardly surprising as she is only 9 months) and Im as good as certain that she lacks the ability to engage in abstract reasoning. (We are pretty much on top of bum-shuffling, but inferences and deductions are not yet in our repertoire.)  However she definitely knows how to outsmart me.... Much to my dismay,  mid-day naps are now a thing of the past.

Babies operate according to simple principles of conditioning.  Rewarded behaviour is repeated. When put to bed, Esme cries. I take her out of bed, she rewards me by ceasing to scream. I am conditioned. Next time she cries, I repeat in search of my reward. A vicious cycle.  That is all that is required to get the better of me.  PHD or no PHD I am no better than the dogs and monkeys - I cant resist a reward. And this reward is more valuable than you might imagine. ..

I have spent the last 26 years learning how to conduct myself in public in such a way as to avoid provoking anger, hostility, resentment, blame and so on. It has taken that long. But I now have it down to a fine art. I am pleased to say that even the subtler rules of etiquette now feature in my personal code of conduct. Not only do I refrain from eating on public transport, I also know to walk at a reasonable speed in the ‘walking aisle’ of escalator traffic, and so on. The learning process was - as it is for everyone – a hard and gruelling task. But one that was worthwhile in light of the payoff- the chance to live in virtual anonymity. Bliss.  But for the females among us this bliss is short-lived. Anonymity is hard to maintain - on a train say, or in a cafe – when there is a distinct smell of poo coming from your general vicinity. Top this off with a small human strapped to your front - one who is busy screaming in the faces of those around you, and -like it or not - the limelight is yours.  Babies are not concerned with blending in. Keeping a low profile is not among their lists of priorities. Yes they are cute, and chubby and yummm... but they are not discreet. 

Not being one to enjoy the spot-light, I will jump on any chance I have of restoring peace. I would do practically anything. Whether it is lifting Es out of the buggy, sugary cakes, a dummy,  – she wants it she gets it. Its that simple. The reward is too tempting. I just cant resist.

I live in hope that I will one day learn  if not to appreciate then atleast to ignore  the attention of strangers. I live in hope that one day control will again be mine ....

My approach to parenting - hot tips...

My approach to motherhood is what is widely known as ‘the crazy approach’. It is based on the following model of brain development: the more I talk to Esme, the bigger (and more complex) her brain will be.  With no upper limit. (Of course I know there is an upper limit. I’m not literally crazy. For example, I know that talking to her in her sleep wont help improve her IQ– or at least not much anyway. And I am sure there is a maximum number of hours of chit chat per day, beyond which any more talk does not make any difference to her future chances of Nobel Lauriature.  But as I don’t know what the crucial number of hours is - as I don’t know where the limit lies - I hedge my bets by talking to her pretty much all day. Every day.)  

Dont get me wrong, the crazy approach to motherhood has its benefits.  Well only one really: if Esme never learns to talk - if she never gets past ‘baba, mama’ - I can be sure (and I mean absolutely certain) that I am not to blame.  But it has some major drawbacks too. The main one being BOREDOM. For me, for her, for the cat, for the man next to us on the park bench and for pretty much anyone who has anything to do with us. I have of course been stuck with my own internal dialogue my whole life ( or at least since I had an internal dialogue) but it is a beast best kept caged. It is much, much worse out in the open. Believe me. And all day every day? That is too much for anyone to stomach – even me. Just to give you a taster, a normal morning will go something like this ‘let’s go upstairs now, one two three...’ , ‘now Im changing your nappy’, ‘now Im eating my breakfast ,.yumm’ ... and so on. Of course I don’t have any other internal dialogues to compare it to, (If I did I would really be in trouble..) but Im pretty sure that this one is a little on the dull side.

Until recently, I was content in the belief that these unfortunate upshots of the crazy approach were a well kept secret. Known only to me and baby. It turns out I was wrong. It turns out that I am absolutely radiant with loneliness and boredom. So much so, that with no prompting from me (absolutely none), my friend, in an episode of altruism, saw fit to set me up on a blind date with another mother. I already have a whole two mum friends. Nice ones.  Yet this morning I found myself shuffling off to a blind date was with my friend’s friend.  Otherwise known as Laura.  Mum-extraordinaire. 

 The chances are, that you haven’t been on blind-mum-date yourself. So let me fill you in. They tend to begin with an episode of coo-ing at each other’s respective babies. There is (of course) an element of comparison going on behind the coo-s, but this is well hidden behind exclamations of ‘isnt he cute’, ‘What lovely eyes’ and so on.  (A word of caution: If any of you pre-baby readers think yourselves too level headed and well-grounded for coo-ing, think again. So did I.  Then I had Esme, and realized that the coo is an integral and unavoidable feature of post-labour life (as if there were any other sort..).  Nowadays, I often find it rather hard to contain my coo. I find myself  Lambasting unsuspecting babies in the street with an unexpected ‘arent you sweeet’. Coo-ing tourettes – it’s no joke. )   As Coo’s were returned in Esme’s direction, it seemed things were on the right track.  But Es had other plans...

The best way to alienate a future mum-friend is with a display of parenting incompetence. And mine was glorious. Spilt milk and a screaming baby were topped off with a wholly unnatural smile as I attempted to continue the chitchat among the mayhem.... (These episodes are not uncommon in my life. Pre-baby I imagined I would be a mother like you see on the pampers adverts, serene,fulfilled, with beaming baby in tow. Like an ad from the 1950’s, my days would be filled with happy hours in the park - playing with a cherub-like baby on a gingham red and white picnic mat. With a bottle of coke. i thought i might even get a dog just to complete the picture. And an old fashioned picnic basket..never happened )

Laura did her best to help me as I gathered my stuff together to make my shame-faced exit. Passing me the bottle she inquired as to the whereabouts of the lid. There was no lid.

That was my third mum-date. Humiliation. Defeat.

Baby Swimming

Baby Swimming

Another day, another bout of misplaced optimism. Today I took Es to “baby-swimming”.

 We started off with an awkward conversation at the help desk. One of the benefits of having a small human strapped on to your chest is that you can pretty much predict the chit chat that is going to come your way in the course of any day. As a result, you develop a stock of mildly amusing retorts upon which you can rely to make conversations glide seamlessly by. To ‘what a lovely baby’ you reply ‘well, we think so ...but then we would (chortle chortle).’ To ‘what a lovely pram’ you reply ‘Oh for a moment I thought you were going to say ‘what a lovely baby’!’ (chortle chortle) and so on. Gone are the days of mulling over what you really should have said to stranger X. Now you can do all the mulling in advance.

But this particular conversation was not aimed at me. Es is big for her age.  I mean huge. A Godzilla of the baby world. This has the unfortunate side effect of making adults and juniors alike talk to her as if she is much older than she really is.... and of making Es appear a little slow off the mark. It took a good minute for the cashier to realize that Es didn’t understand a single thing she was saying to her, and that Es had no plans of waving goodbye any time soon. If it hadn’t been so awkward I would have found a little pleasure in watching the penny drop.  As things went, I put Esme’s blank stare down to shyness, and hurried off to the giant pool of chlorine and baby wee I was about to immerse myself in.

The  really funny thing about baby swimming groups is that they invariably have - as their official ambition - the goal of getting your baby to swim under water. Of course no baby ever accomplishes this, but some get dunked and manage to emerge without crying – and this is what we parents mean by ‘swimming under water’.  Those babies who accomplish this feat are heralded as achievers and lavished with praise.  And those who do not are consoled – their parents told to give it time.  Forgive me if I am wrong, but this ambition is misguided at best. It is the sort of bizarre ritual you would expect to find in the pages of a history text book – a tale to gawk at - of an ancient and brutal civisation. ‘Baby-Dunking’. And yet here I was, as close to sane as I have ever been, pushing my cherished baby under the water.  Why? Because Sally, our instructor - the all powerful oversee-er of the leisure pool -  told me to. Because I had paid £4 for this class, and I was going to get my monies worth... (If baby-dunking was on the menu, so be it...) Because it is baby-swimming-group culture. I was not going to be the one to embarass myself by going against the grain – I would be bumping into these parents on and off for the next ten years or so and I did not want to be known as the chicken. Nor was I going to lead a small revolution against Sally’s tyrannical rein.

Es got dunked.  She cried. I was consoled and feigned disappointment at my baby's ‘failure’.

That was baby-swimming.  Try it if you dare, but dont expect the front crawl.

Baby Dancing

Baby dancing is no where near as much fun as it sounds. Babies (for those of you who arent acquianted with any) cant dance, and no number of 40 minute classes is going to change that. So dont get your hopes up.

The class is run by an etherial long-legged spindly creature whose life's dancing ambtions obviously lie outside baby-dance-training for under 18 month olds.. We began by sitting in a circle, as is the way with all good organized fun, barefoot. I was relieved to be informed by our coach that this was to be an informal class.  (thank god I hadnt signed up for the formal baby dance lessons - whatever they might be.)  There was a lot of twirling around the room with my ton-weight child.  And lots of smiling at other mothers,   pretending to be at ease with 'free-style' dancing. The thought had struck me that I could very well free-style for free, at home, ... but that wouldnt help keep craziness at bay - which is of course the whole point of mother-baby groups.  Be it 'baby-dancing', 'baby-sensory', 'rhyme-time', each is really a thinly veiled lonely hearts meeting.

Then we returned to the circle, and were each given a feather. Ours was yellow, which was nice, but it it was  the tiniest most scrawniest feather I have ever seen. We did some tickeling with the feather, and I made a funny high pitched squealing noise - half in the hopes of keeping Es entertained, but also just because it seemed appropriate.  That is the really strange thing about baby-groups. They have a whole new social code all of their own - one which you wont know about until you go along and try it out for yourself.  (I not sure exactly what the code is yet, but I am certain that tickeling your baby with a feather without making some sort of squeal, or 'oooh' as well to show your enthusiasm for the task in hand, would be a violation of it.) Surely no where else on earth are such high pitched cooing noises part of social etiquette.

That was baby dancing.

Thought for the day: must stop high pitched squealing. Es does not find it entertaining. In fact so used to my high pitched squealing is she, that she now finds my everyday'adult' voice amusing. Im serious, if I try to talk to another adult human being (which is an infrequently nowadays - believe me), she looks at me and grin a big gummy grin, as if to say - who are you kidding we all know you are a squealing ideot.  Joe tells me idiot is spelt with an 'I' not an 'E' . Thank god for my editor.

Just realized it might be worth inluding a note to explain my choice of web address. It is cute - yes - but I havent chosen it for this reason alone. My preferred choice was the-baby-treadmill, but that was taken. No big surprise there. As far as things go, a merrygo round seemed like the second best metaphor for my life at present.  No I dont run round in circles all day on a hobby horse. Rather my days are characterized by repetition. There is no getting away from it, there are 7 nappies to be changed each day, three meals to be administered, 100 or so squeals to be made,  and so on - you get the picture.
And anyway merrgo-round-baby does sound CUTE.