Chapter 2 #2
I don’t want to avoid eye contact, it seems extra cold and mean especially when she is so ridiculously cute, but I also know that even at such a tender age that child can wrap me around her ridiculously small and beautiful little finger.
And the first weapon in her armoury just happens to be that heart-melting gaze.
Strange as it sounds, I was more able to enforce the strictness that is necessary for survival in early motherhood when it was my own children.
Perhaps that was because they were twins and really, when I think about it, it’s a miracle any of us got out of it alive.
Or maybe it’s just that being a granny brings with it the privilege of being able to lavish our attention on our grandbabies without having to worry too much about the consequences.
It is something Niamh and I have cherished much more than we ever thought possible – and certainly more than we thought possible when our two still very young offspring had hit us with the big surprise that they were to become parents.
It had been quite the drama at the time, but now none of us can imagine life without her.
Adam and Jodie are managing well – both still technically living separately but spending all their free time together in their little family bubble.
They have been incredibly sensible and mature about it all.
They certainly have more sense in their heads than I did when I became a mother, and I had been almost a decade older.
No, if anything it is Niamh and I are who are likely to be too lax with this little one, because she is just so exceptionally adorable and we have both fallen head over heels in love with her. I still need some shut-eye though.
‘It really is time to go to sleep,’ I coo back at her, daring to make eye contact, much to her delight. ‘Babies need their sleep so they can grow up big and strong and able to take on the world, and you, my dote, are going to take on the world.’
She grins back at me, waving her clenched fists and wriggling as if desperate to make sure I know this is playtime and very much not sleepy time.
‘Your mummy and daddy will have my guts for garters if I undo any of their sleepy time practices,’ I whisper in a sing-song voice, even though I know at Clara’s age any attempts at forming a sleep routine are probably largely pointless.
I, however, have a busy day ahead and really could do with being well rested.
There will be a slow start, at least, but once Clara is back in the bosom of her loving family, I will be taking my mother and her elderly neighbour/partner-in-crime Mrs Bishop to Asda to do their big shop.
I have tried to convince them both that grocery deliveries are very handy, but they won’t have a bar of it.
‘I like to feel the weight of my food before I buy it,’ my mother said at the weekend, holding her two hands in front of her chest, mimicking weighing up the difference between two turnips, or two melons, and not – as it looked – her boobs.
‘I hear they send you all the stuff that’s on the way out,’ Mrs Bishop said.
‘A bit like ourselves then,’ my mother said with a cackle.
I simply glared. Jokes about my mother one day shuffling off this mortal coil are very strictly verboten. She is well aware of this. It is a touchy subject, and always has been. But it became the touchiest of all subjects after my father had the audacity to die two years ago.
‘It comes to us all,’ she said, with a small smile and a shrug in lieu of an apology.
‘No, Mother. No. It does not. It does not come to you, so less of that talk. I’ll take you to Asda every day of your life if it keeps you here. Weigh that fruit and veg. Feel for ripeness. Sniff it, or lick it for all I care. Just remember that you are not on your way out.’
Yes, there was a hint of hysteria in my voice as I spoke but it’s only because I meant it.
So, this weekly run up the road to the big Asda in Strabane in County Tyrone has become firmly ingrained in my consciousness as a life-saving activity. I dare not miss it.
And once we are back, I have to finish off the article I am writing for Northern People magazine about our inaugural Fabulous Forties meeting and try to use my creative flare to ensure it sounds way more successful than it actually was.
It’s coming up to one year since I wrote my first column for the magazine, and one year since I decided to try and find my raison d’être again.
I need this article to zing. It needs my full attention.
The club needs my attention. I need to get people not only talking about it, but coming along to it.
I’ve already sent out an SOS message to Laura, Niamh and Deirdre – as well as to anyone else I could think of – looking for ideas to try to rope more people in.
One of our initial plans was that the group would provide back-up for those of us who want to try new things but are too scared to do it alone.
Maybe using this approach means we could piggyback off another group’s existing success?
It’s a bit cheeky but it might just work.
If anyone ever gets back to me, or if my own brain kicks in with a fresh idea.
Standing up, I start to pace around my room doing the gentle bob-and-rock that still seems to come naturally to me.
I shush, and coo, and try not to trip over Daniel, who has joined me to pace around my bed and back again.
I think the swaying is as much to comfort me as it is Clara, but I know my real focus has to be on getting her back to sleep.
Preferably sooner rather than later, so I can get some sleep myself.
I dare not make eye contact again, knowing that the key to settling a baby is to show no weakness. I can sense her stare though. Can feel the wriggle of her little limbs as she tries to play and have fun. I cannot give in. I must stay strong.
‘Time for sleep, baby girl,’ I say in my best, most soothing voice. ‘It’s a school night.’