Lauren
I hate Past Me who didn’t try and go back to sleep at five.
I’m crashing so hard right now. It hurts to blink, like I’ve accidentally used a sandpit as eyedrops. Woody shrieks across the living room and ripples of fury unfurl through my body.
Stupid Past Me, thinking weeping in the kitchen was a better idea than sleeping.
Stupid Past Me for thinking it was a good idea to have a baby.
Stupid Past Me for thinking I’d be a good mother.
Stupid Past Me for marrying my stupid fucking husband.
Woody shrieks again, this time in pain. In the time I dared take a long blink, he’s toppled over from where he’d been cruising along the coffee table.
‘Shit.’ I rush over and his little hands reach for me as I scoop him up. I feel this deep, nourishing thrill at being so needed, and then instantly suffocated by it too. ‘You’re OK, buddy,’ I tell him. ‘Did you go ouch? Poor thing.’ He wipes snot onto my shoulder as his cries subside. ‘You know?’ I say, switching out of Motherese into an adult voice. ‘If you were having your morning nap right now, you wouldn’t have hurt yourself, would you? Have you considered that, Woody? Napping when you’re supposed to?’
Recovered, he grunts and twists out of my arms. I release him and watch as he heads straight back to cruising along the coffee table again. I lower my tired body to the carpet so I can catch him when he inevitably topples. ‘You know what else?’ I ask him in my adult voice as he grabs for my mug of tea. I swipe it out of reach even though it’s cold by now. Tea is always cold these days. ‘Daddy’s supposed to be taking you this morning, isn’t he? I’m supposed to be having a little break . But where is Daddy? He needed a poo, didn’t he. He needed another epic shit.’
Woody turns back and cackles like I’ve told a joke and I check the time on my phone. 8.05am. Tristan ‘quickly needed the bathroom’ over half an hour ago. Every morning, I’m surprised he’s got any shit left to shit out when he so thoroughly empties himself when he’s supposed to be helping with Woody. It’s also surprising how these indulgently long shits aren’t necessary on the days he’s in the office, as I can’t imagine his boss allowing him to leave an important meeting for a 30-minute dump. It’s also weird how BBC Sport and Reddit have such a laxative effect on Tristan and therefore need to be read while on the toilet, you know, for medical reasons. A familiar pulse of rage speeds up in my heart. I’m supposed to get some time to myself this morning as I’m taking Woody all day while he gets to watch the tennis. They talk so much about weaponised incompetence in men, but I swear weaponised incontinence is the bigger feminist issue.
‘I can’t believe you’re making me feel guilty for having an actual shit,’ Tristan said, aghast, when I tried bringing this up before. ‘What do you want me to do, ? Crap my pants in the name of equality? A literal dirty protest for feminism?’
He made it seem so unreasonable that I apologised. I even wondered, briefly, if I was abusive? I mean, who doesn’t let their husband go to the toilet when they need it? It’s just... well . . . I have to shit too. And, when I’m alone with Woody all day, I can’t look at memes as I do so. In fact, I have to restrain Woody in the BabyBjorn chair and sing ‘Blink Blink Little Green Frog’ manically to him, all while defecating. Or I give myself stomach cramps holding it in until Woody naps, which only lasts twenty minutes anyway. Those are my options. A private poo while the baby sleeps, or crying into a cup of tea on the sofa. Pick your luxury, Mama. Choice feminism rules!
Oh God, I’m being unhappy again, aren’t I?
Why am I so determinedly unhappy, all the time? When I’m supposed to be enjoying every precious moment, that goes so quickly, they grow up so fast, you ’ ll miss it when it ’ s over.
Tristan finally emerges from the bathroom, phone in his hand, and, bless him, he looks shattered. Even after a half-hour break. Eyes red raw, his shirt not tucked in properly. He hovers on the threshold of our living room and visibly steels himself, before inhaling energy and bursting into a grin.
‘Woody mate?’ he says, his accent still so twangy Australian after all these years. ‘Are you cruisin’ buddy?’
Woody chuckles in delight at his newfound skill and gives Tristan a giant one-toothed grin. Tristan opens his arms wide. ‘Come here bubba. Show me those chubby frog-legs.’
I watch Woody hurl himself towards my husband, giggling like his open arms are Disney Land, and my heart warms as they hug.
This is what having a family is about, I remind myself. For this feeling. Right now. It’s worth it. It is. It has to be . . .
Tristan yawns and holds Woody out to me. ‘Wanna hug Mummy, now, do you, squirt?’
I’m an even more tantalising option, and Woody cackles as he approaches. My back hurts and I’m so exhausted but I can’t really say, ‘ No, I don’t want him. ’ So, I push through and smile as my baby thwacks himself into my chest.
Tristan and I end up sitting with our legs out, the bare soles of our feet touching, as Woody stumbles clumsily between us, naked apart from his nappy. I feel my husband’s skin against mine and realise this is the most we’ve touched in weeks. I take in his red raw eyes again, the purple bruises of bags under them, the skin that sags around what used to be a good jawline. He’s fucked too. Not as fucked as me, but still beyond capacity.
You do not fully know your partner until you ’ ve had a baby with them.
I remember a faceless older woman saying this to me at a publishing Christmas party. She’d commented on my new engagement ring, and I droned on about how happy I was to have found Tristan and what a good father he’d be when the time comes.
‘Hmm,’ was her reply. And I remember thinking that was rude. ‘You think you’ll know what they’ll be like as parents, but kids break people. You don’t know what you’re both like under torture conditions.’
‘Torture conditions?’
I laughed it off at the time and made an excuse to go refill my glass, my nose wrinkling as I walked away. Now I see this lady for the seer she was.
Woody falls on his bottom between us. And, though his nappy cushions the impact, he starts wailing. Tristan scoops him up for a cuddle and nods at me.
‘Right, Mummy. This is all under control. Go shower and get ready. We’re all good here, aren’t we, sport?’
‘Thank you,’ I say, standing up to get dressed.
Thank you for letting me fulfil a basic life function.
But my gratitude wanes when I hear the Bluey theme tune before I even reach our bedroom. I clench the door frame. We’ve agreed Woody’s only allowed ten minutes of screen time a day until he’s two. That equates to two episodes of Bluey. And Tristan’s using one up to make his life easier when I didn’t use up any Bluey during his 30-minute shit. I only get one episode of Bluey today and . . . Breathe, . . . Stop seeing it as a competition. Tristan is your husband, not your enemy. I turn on the shower and check my phone while I wait for the water to warm up. The DM lays there, still unread. They’ll block me the moment they see it. They always do. Then I’ll have to set up another burner account.
The hot water is a sanctuary, even though it’s sweltering outside. I turn it up as much as I can stand and watch the glass door turn to steam, before I slide down and sit with my knees up, back against the tiles. I hold out my palms and make tiny ponds that I release and re-fill, release and re-fill. I still remember my first shower after the birth. I wept as I staggered into the shitty cubicle in the shitty maternity ward of the shitty hospital, washing the dried gore from my skin, watching my deflated stomach hang down, no longer carrying a baby with me. I had only five minutes before Woody howled from his plastic container – me able to discern his cries from the other babies already. But it was the first five minutes I’d been alone in nine months. We were separate now. Untethered. I’d held my stomach and grieved and celebrated this tiny piece of aloneness in the hot water. And, still, now, today, I relish in this slice of me-ness. I stand, lather up, give my hair a long overdue wash. Try to look forward to today rather than dread how much it’s going to mess up Woody’s non-existent schedule. The girls back together again. Women who have known and loved me for so long. It may jumpstart me out of this swamp – remind me who I am a bit.
My optimism, however, gets strangled when I emerge dripping and stand naked in front of my wardrobe. The former clothes from my former life hang there taunting me. It’s been nine months and none of them fit yet – both literally and emotionally. They’re so bright and cheerful and jarring and go in at the waist, because, in the Before Times, I used to have one of those. I remember, on my first date with Tristan, telling him I worked in Children’s Publishing, and he’d laughed and said, ‘Of course you do. I assumed it was that or kids TV.’ It wasn’t a requirement of the job, of course, to dress as brightly as the picture books I commissioned, but I loved wearing a rainbow wardrobe of novelty prints. Dresses covered with hot air balloons, neon jeans, ’50s skirts splattered with giant banana prints – all counter-balanced with grown-up makeup. A perfect red lip, a perfect winged eyeliner, a perfect ponytail high on my head. Every day was A Look. My fashion choices used to bring me such joy, and now they hang, lifeless, in front of me. The metaphor is so obvious it’s written somewhere in someone’s GCSE English coursework.
These clothes don ’ t fit anymore because I am not this person anymore.
I will never fit back into these clothes again because I can never be that woman again.
When could I ever have a perfect red lip again? Woody would be a raspberry of kisses by 5am. Me too, as his favourite thing to do is jam his chubby fingers into my mouth, yanking the side of my lip like he’s fishing for me with a hook. And all my old outfits look strange and unfinished without heavy makeup – like a person who’s taken their glasses off.
Cool Mum taunts me in the reflection, twirling to showcase her returned figure, clad in her pre-baby clothes. Like everyone who worked in publishing, I’d read the Cool Girl rant in Gone Girl and had an epiphany. But I’d outgrown comparing myself to a Cool Girl, and, since having Woody, now ruin my self-esteem with this fictional ‘Cool Mum’. Well, I say ‘fictional’ – every fucking mumfluencer online seems to fit the part, literally.
Cool Mum bounces back after having a baby. Wow, where did this six pack come from? It ’ s just from perfectly breastfeeding easily, with no issues, and pushing my designer pram up the hill. Sometimes I use the baby as arm weights, lol. I exercise because it’s time for myself. I get up at 5am to work out before the baby’s up. Why lie sobbing on the carpet as your me-time when you could be doing burpees?
I sigh and hoick out my slightly stained navy maternity dress. Everything maternity is navy. When you become a mother, your life becomes navy. Practical. Invisible. Inoffensive.
I shrug it on, catching sight of the angry scar spliced across my stomach and the way my skin hangs over it like a dilapidated shelf. A scar that still feels numb to touch. My tummy still looks at least three months pregnant. I wonder what the other Little Women will wear today. Nicki – some funky pregnancy dungarees, rather than the standard floaty, 70 quid dress from Seraphine, because Nicki will want to prove she’s not a ‘typical mum’.
Yeah, Nicki, I used to think that too, but I’ve worn my hair in a gross topknot for over 200 days straight.
Steffi will showcase her amazing Peloton body in some understated sleek something-or-other from a shop I’ve never heard of in East London, where they only sell twelve items of clothing.
And Charlotte will be wearing one of her typical Anne Boleyn headbands paired with some great dress you can never buy as she’s so tiny she can shop in the kids’ section.
I twist in the mirror and groan at every part of me that droops. What are they going to think when they see me? You know what, fuck it. I’m going to put some lipstick on.
Tristan wolf-whistles when I re-enter the living room. I’ve managed to shower, wash my hair, dry it, get dressed and apply lipstick in a shorter amount of time than his morning dump. Woody’s lying on his stomach, sucking our old TV remote that we gave him to stop him sucking our current one, while Tristan sits next to him on the floor, re-reading the ‘bespoke sleep schedule’ we received yesterday from the expensive consultant.
‘Have you seen this?’ he says, flicking at the print out. ‘This bit here, about the morning nap?’ He adopts the dulcet tone of Sammy – the lady we hired out of desperation last week. She spoke like The Talking Clock. ‘If your baby wakes from this nap before nine thirty, ask him to re-settle.’ He raises both eyebrows. ‘What the fuck does that mean? How do I ask a nine month old to settle? “Hey, Woody, mate. Do you kindly mind resettling now and going back to sleep please?” Is that what we’re doing wrong, we’re not asking?’
I laugh but the joke is too expensive to be funny. That piece of paper he’s holding cost ￡200 and was basically the last of my maternity leave fund. ‘I think, by “asking” she means, leaving him to cry a bit,’ I say, settling myself down next to them. My dress crumples but nobody will notice. It’s navy. That’s the point of navy. I chew on my lip. ‘You know? Like you wouldn’t let us do last night.’
‘And you’re happy letting our baby scream himself to sleep, are you?’
I shrug. ‘At least then he’ll be asleep.’
Tristan gives me one of the looks he’s given me many times since we reproduced. The I-never-knew-this-side-of-you horrified look.
Cool Mum gets a look from her partner, but a I-cant-believe-you’re-such-a-natural-mother look.
‘Honestly, . No. I’d rather be knackered than let him cry.’
I ’ m more knackered than you, I snap silently. I do all the feeding back to sleep. I didn’t sleep the first four months of pregnancy due to my nausea, and I didn’t sleep the last three months due to being such a giant blimp. And I breastfeed, so I do all the night wakes. I am so much more knackered than you will ever know, and now you’re not letting me mend the thing that will stop me being such a weeping, disgusting, exhausted husk of a person. Why won’t you let me fix this?
‘It’s not going to work unless we’re both willing to do what’s required,’ I tell him, my voice so much calmer than my inner monologue.
‘And you’re OK with letting Woody cry, are you?’
I watch our baby cram half the dummy TV remote down his gullet. ‘No,’ I say. ‘But I also know things can’t go on like this.’
‘He’ll grow out of it.’
‘We’ve paid for her and everything. It’s worth a try.’
Tristan stands, leaving the schedule on the floor. ‘Are you looking forward to later?’ he asks, super breezy. If we’re ever on the verge of arguing, Tristan always stands and changes the topic. Sometimes I’m grateful – other times, like now, I feel like he may as well slap his hand over my mouth.
‘Yeah, I guess,’ I swallow. ‘I’m nervous about Woody’s naps. He’s only slept twenty minutes today. He must be knackered.’
‘He doesn’t look knackered.’ Tristan heads over to the kitchen area and grabs the loaf of bread to make himself a sandwich. The man, I swear, eats about twelve sandwiches a day. He tells me one of the best things about England is how readily available sandwiches are – apparently they’re not a thing in Australia. ‘People think Aussies come to London for the culture, or because it’s so close to the rest of Europe, but, no, it’s really for Pret,’ Tristan tells anyone as his party joke. How he’s still so skinny I’ll never know. I wish he could’ve been the pregnant one, like a seahorse. Tristan would’ve lost his baby weight within an hour postpartum.
‘I’m hoping he’ll sleep on the way there. He hates the car seat though.’
Tristan slaps cheese onto buttered bread .
‘It will be nice though, won’t it? Seeing the girls?’ He says, ignoring my anxiety.
I roll my eyes and absentmindedly stroke Woody’s back. ‘I’m looking forward to catching up with Steffi on the drive. It will be so nice to talk about work. Work! Not, freakin’ baby weaning recipes on the NCT WhatsApp. Organic courgette muffins made from coconut flour I ground myself Anna. ’
‘You’re always so mean about Anna.’
‘She said the hardest part of pregnancy was the maternity bras not being sexy enough.’
‘I thought you were angry at Steffi anyway?’ Tristan ignores my dig. He always defends NCT Anna. Anna ‘seems great’. Anna is definitely a Cool Mum. Her baby slept through at four months – ‘I didn’t even do anything. It just happened, sorry.’
I sigh. ‘I’m not angry at Steffi. I just found that article she posted a bit insensitive.’
‘The child free one . . . I know.’ Tristan doesn’t roll his eyes, but I sense him yawn inwardly. I’ve complained non-stop since Steffi posted it alongside the caption, ‘ Finally someone is saying it – whoop ’ . I read the linked article at 4am and felt so wounded by it I’m surprised there wasn’t blood on my phone.
‘I just still can’t believe that’s what she thinks of me.’ He sighs and takes a bite of his bread, speaking through his mouth. ‘We’ve gone through this. It’s not about you. It’s about Steffi. How she feels, about her life choices.’
My blood starts itching as I think about it again. ‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean she has to judge mine.’
‘She’s not . . .’ he sighs again and swallows with his eyes to the ceiling. ‘We’ve been through this.’ He puts his snack down and comes over and squeezes my shoulders. That’s the most affection I get from him these days – shoulder squeezes, like it’s the closest he can get to physically shaking me until his old wife reappears. ‘She’s a good friend,’ he says. ‘You love these women and they love you. You’ve not seen them in ages. It will be good for you. You’re going to have an amazing time today. And you look gorgeous.’ He plants a kiss on my lips then, sticks his tongue in, turning it into a jokey snog.
‘Tristan,’ I squeal, delighted. A joke snog is still a snog. I’ll take it. He mock hits my arse too, before retrieving his sandwich and demolishing half of it with one giant chomp. I look from him over to Woody on the floor who’s essentially swallowing the dummy remote like a cobra, and get another glow at the magic of genetics. I wish these moments of it feeling ‘worth it’ were longer, less tiny and less fleeting, but they’re here sometimes. Bursts to get me through. And he’s right about Steffi. Her posting that article is about her, not me. What did it say again? I’ve hate-read it so many times I can basically recite it.
‘ How come it ’ s OK that my friends are always late now? When did having children make their time more important than mine? ’
And . . .
‘ One of my mum friends posts links about the climate crisis, and then, the next day, posts a smug scan announcing the birth of her THIRD baby. Can she not do the math? And I ’ M the selfish one, for being child-free, am I? ’
Does Steffi really believe that I think she’s selfish? Have I been that shit since having Woody? I don’t have time to think she’s selfish.
There’s a doink as Woody chucks the remote to the floor. He twists up onto his arms, spots me, his face arranging into the biggest smile of delight. It’s like having a super fan with you at all times, having a baby. One that literally regularly shits themselves they’re so excited to see you. He crawls towards me, panting with excitement about meeting my arms. He collides with my legs, uses me to pull himself up.
‘Hey darling. Oh Woody, no . . . not my hair . . . ouch . . . that hurts Mummy. No, not my mouth . . . no . . . no . . . Tristan? . . . no Woody . . . oh . . .’
And, just like that, Woody pokes his fingers in and out of my mouth, smearing my perfect red lip right across my cheek .