Bad Mother's Holiday - Hilarious Summer Holiday Reading!

by Suzy K Quinn

  Head is pounding, but I don’t think I should take painkillers. Not while I’m pregnant.

  Mum says I’m being too cautious.

  ‘I knocked back aspirin like there was no tomorrow when I was expecting you and your sisters,’ said Mum. ‘And you turned out just fine.’

  On the positive side, my morning sickness is getting better so I should be heading home soon. Now Aunty Trina is here, it really is time to make a move.

  Woke up this morning to find her vigorously scrubbing plates with bleach.

  Aunty Trina and Mum are getting on well, so it looks like Trina could be staying a while. They’ve found a common topic they can agree on – how useless men are.

  Dad stays in his office room most of the day now, looking sorry for himself.

  Poked my head in this afternoon, and found Dad re-reading Lord of the Rings, an aloof, hurt expression on his bearded face.

  ‘I may not be perfect,’ Dad said, in a stiff, wounded voice. ‘But it would take a scientist to work out that remote control.’

  Afternoon

  Headache getting worse.

  Some idiot (Yorkie, I think) taught Callum to sing ‘Ten Bottles of Beer on the Wall’. Callum has ‘pimped up’ the song, changing it to ‘200 Bottles of Beer on the Wall’.

  Callum’s long serenade seemed especially heart-felt, because he has cut up a joke shop moustache and glued it over his bleached-blonde eyebrows.

  I should be working in the pub tonight, but if this headache doesn’t pass I don’t think I can manage it.

  Mum and Dad are understanding and have offered me sick pay, but there’s no way I’d take it.

  I’m dreading going back to the cottage now – not just because I’m sick and pregnant and hate the boiler, but also because there’ll be a big pile of bills at the door.

  Saturday 13th January

  Mum and Aunty Trina were up late last night, hooting and howling as they ‘sampled’ a new tequila line.

  Aunty Trina had never tried tequila before and it had an interesting effect, making her even more manic than usual.

  At midnight, Dad banged on the wall and asked Mum and Aunty Trina to keep their voices down.

  Mum shouted back that the banging would wake up the kids.

  Daisy woke up.

  Then Callum woke up.

  Brandi screeched something about an exam tomorrow.

  Then Aunty Trina started singing ‘Amazing Grace’ and wouldn’t stop.

  In the end, Mum had to fireman’s lift Aunty Trina onto the pull-out sofa.

  Aunty Trina is still on the sofa this morning with a sleep mask over her eyes. I don’t think she’ll be cleaning today, which means she’ll be double-bleaching everything tomorrow.

  Time to go home, I think.

  Sunday 14th January

  Back at the cottage.

  Big pile of bills waiting.

  The financial stress brought back my morning sickness. Read the bills, whilst throwing up in my bright-yellow toilet. I didn’t see toilet aesthetics as a priority before, but now realise this was short-sighted. When you’re clasping a 1970s toilet bowl for most of the day, you really do wish it was a nice modern white one.

  SO much still to do in the house.

  It looks okay downstairs. Quite cosy. But I need a whole new boiler system, furniture for the upstairs bedrooms, new bathroom etc., and that’s after I pay for basic things, like heating.

  Alex has offered to pay my bills, but our situation is weird enough as it is, without making it even weirder. Everything is back-to-front, and the last thing I want is to be financially supported by yet another man I don’t have a functional relationship with.

  Heated up microwave macaroni and cheese for tea but couldn’t eat it. Daisy wouldn’t eat it either, so we both had chicken nuggets and ketchup.

  While Daisy and I were eating, Alex phoned.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

  ‘Sick again,’ I told him.

  Decided to swallow my pride/vanity, re throwing up in front of Alex, and asked if he’d come and see me. Realistically, Alex will see me get big as a cow and literally shit myself during the birth. This is no time for feminine dignity.

  It occurs to me that Alex and I have missed all the usual intimacy milestones (first accidental fart or burp, first non-accidental fart or burp, admitting you’ve just been for a poo, etc.) and leapt straight into pregnancy – the most intimate act of all.

  Goodbye seductive female.

  Hello humiliating body issues.

  Alex told me it was impossible to leave London right now because he’s negotiating a very important deal – something that could save his hotels a fortune in wasted butter.

  ‘But come to London,’ Alex suggested. ‘I can have a hotel suite waiting for you, and the staff will help out with Daisy. I’ll send a driver.’

  I did some mental pregnant woman ranting: ‘Do you think I want to be shaken around for an hour in a fucking car? And what about Daisy? TWO-YEAR-OLDS LIKE ROUTINE! Do

  you think she wants a stranger looking after her? I’m throwing up every five seconds. Do you think I want a stranger watching me do THAT? I want my OWN fucking toilet.’

  Alex said he’d try and visit ASAP.

  ‘No, don’t try,’ I said. ‘Do or do not.’

  That ‘do or do not’ thing comes from Yoda in Star Wars.

  Everyone knows he’s wise.

  Monday 15th January

  John Boy phoned this morning.

  He’s asked if he can move in with me, because Aunty Trina is driving him nuts. She’s already bleached the logo off his favourite Nike joggers and won’t let him watch TV past 9pm.

  John Boy has offered to babysit and pay half the bills.

  It sounds like a workable plan. John Boy is great with Daisy and help with the bills will be awesome.

  Phoned Alex to let him know about the new arrangement. Could feel his stony displeasure down the phone line.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ I asked.

  ‘You refuse to live with me in London,’ said Alex, the words slow and hard. ‘But you’ll enter into some BBC-sitcom-house-share arrangement with a cousin who has offensive tattoos and a dubious moral outlook.’

  ‘He doesn’t have a dubious moral outlook,’ I said. ‘John Boy is one of the kindest people you could ever meet. He only ever starts fights when he’s drunk.’

  ‘Living in that backwards village.’

  ‘Great Oakley is not backwards. The deli sells those big green olives.’

  ‘They sell Cerignola olives,’ Alex sneered. ‘Any decent deli owner stocks the Castelventrano variety.’

  ‘John Boy will help pay the bills,’ I said. ‘And it’ll be an extra pair of hands around.’

  ‘I offered to pay your bills,’ Alex barked.

  ‘And I said no,’ I shouted back.

  ‘I’ve asked you to marry me, Juliette. And you still haven’t given me an answer.’

  ‘Would you have asked me if I weren’t pregnant?’

  There was a pause then. A horrible, long pause.

  Alex said, ‘Juliette –’

  But before he could say anything else, I hung up.

  Tuesday 16th January

  Nick just called. He asked if I’d remembered his mother’s birthday.

  I said there was no reason for me to remember it.

  ‘Haven’t you sent her a present?’ said Nick, sounding panicked.

  ‘Of course not,’ I replied.

  ‘Shit,’ said Nick. ‘She’ll go mental.’

  ‘Didn’t Sadie send anything?’ I asked. ‘Surely mothering you is her job now.’

  ‘Mum and Sadie aren’t getting on,’ said Nick. ‘Things have been said. Things that can never be taken back.’

  ‘What things?’ I asked.

  ‘Things about facelifts, weight gain and the overpowering nature of Chanel No.5,’ said Nick. Then he put on his world-weary ‘I just lost an audition’ voice and said: ‘Didn’t you even send so
mething from Daisy?’

  ‘It’s your job to send your mother a present from Daisy,’ I said.

  ‘But you’re the mum,’ Nick wheedled.

  Ended the call with a simple, ‘Bugger off, Nick.’

  7pm

  No morning sickness today, but SUCH a bad headache again.

  Decided to take painkillers and to hell with it, but didn’t have anything at home.

  Bundled Daisy into the car and drove to the 24-hour chemist.

  It was closed.

  On the way back, I realised Daisy had somehow got hold of my mobile phone. She was hammering it vigorously against the window.

  ‘Daisy!’ I shouted. ‘Stop it! Put the phone down.’

  But she wouldn’t stop.

  Realised Daisy has reached a new developmental milestone – selective hearing.

  When I got home, I discovered my phone speaker wouldn’t play sounds from YouTube and the torch wouldn’t turn off.

  Explained to Daisy that we couldn’t play Gangnam Style or the Hokey Cokey.

  Daisy cried.

  Asked her to be quiet.

  Then begged her to be quiet.

  In the end, I bribed Daisy to shut up with a Facetime call to Nana and Granddad – even though it was well past her bedtime.

  When the call connected, Callum’s grinning face filled the video screen. He wasn’t wearing his fake Tom Selleck eyebrows today, and look like a crazed, bald-faced alien.

  Callum tried to cheer Daisy up by singing ‘200 Bottles of Beer on the Wall’.

  SUCH a bad headache now.

  Wednesday 17th January

  Morning sickness has completely gone.

  It’s like someone flicked a switch – I don’t have even the tiniest bit of nausea.

  Phoned the hospital maternity ward, just in case.

  The duty midwife told me the usual sort of thing – pregnancy is an odd business, and there’s no rhyme or reason to anything. She asked me about dates and suggested I could be further along than I thought.

  Admitted this was a possibility.

  Then the midwife asked if I was eating healthily. Was forced to admit I’m living on Kellogg’s Rice Krispies, crisps, chips and basically anything yellow – with the exception of Heinz tomato soup.

  The midwife lectured me about eating a balanced diet ‘for baby’, but she isn’t throwing up every five minutes. If she had a toddler running around, would she honestly poach a salmon fillet and steam asparagus?

  Still. I am feeling better today, so decided it was time to get on the healthy-eating train. Ordered some healthy-ish food from the Tesco website (hummus, fruit, etc.). Impulsively added a three-year-old birthday candle to the basket. Daisy’s third birthday isn’t until October, but there was a 50p saving.

  John Boy is moving in tomorrow.

  Part of me thinks this could be a terrible mistake.

  I like my cousin, but liking and living together are two different things.

  I learned that the hard way with Nick.

  Thursday 18th January

  John Boy has moved in.

  He turned up this morning with a rucksack as tall as Callum.

  Aunty Trina was with him, dabbing teary eyes with a hanky and gabbling about cleanliness.

  When Aunty Trina finally left, John Boy unpacked his bag.

  It contained:

  A giant box of Frosties.

  Twelve tins of condensed milk.

  Ten Mars Bars.

  Three loaves of white sliced bread.

  Strawberry jam.

  Twenty tins of corned beef hash.

  Four litres of orange squash.

  Ten packs of chicken flavour Super Noodles.

  Ten beef and tomato Pot Noodles.

  Twelve cans of Stella Artois (pint sized).

  Combat trousers, army jumpers and underwear.

  A Liverpool football kit and scarf.

  A plastic Alice-band, supporting two Liverpool flags on springs.

  A Liverpool stadium snow globe.

  Various Walking Dead comics.

  Three pairs of Nike trainers (in neon yellow, hot pink and electric blue).

  As a ‘thank you for letting me move in’ present, John Boy gave me a combat knife with a ‘secret’ screw-top handle containing matches and a compass. The blade was large and sharp enough to gut a bear.

  John Boy said the knife would keep me safe, but I feel safest with the knife rolled up in bubble wrap and stored on top of the wardrobe.

  So far, John Boy has been very neat and tidy. He’s lined up his food stuffs in the cupboard and his fluorescent Nike trainers by the back door.

  Daisy is delighted to have John Boy here, because he is a ready source of orange squash and biscuits and he loves kids’ TV.

  While Daisy and John Boy were watching Paw Patrol, I overheard Daisy telling John Boy about the hideously strict diet of water, oat cakes and hummus I subject her to.

  ‘Mummy YUCKY food. Oomus. Smoke cake. BLAH!’

  Then she asked John Boy to stay ‘ever and ever’.

  Called Alex before bed, but he didn’t answer.

  Can only guess he’s still unhappy about the John Boy house move situation.

  Let him be unhappy.

  I’m not happy with him either.

  Friday 19th January

  Althea and Wolfgang visited today. Their thick, curly black hair was tied with matching leopard print scarfs, and they both wore band t-shirts: Joan Jett for Althea, Rage Against the Machine for Wolfgang.

  Wolfgang had somehow ripped the sleeves off his t-shirt. He is frighteningly strong for a two-year old. It’s a shame Althea is bringing him up a pacifist, because he could be an amazing wrestler one day.

  Althea brought me a cloth bag full of treats: herbal supplements for my pregnancy, plus an organic watercress and garlic smoothie.

  ‘I’m not sure I can drink that,’ I said, looking at the clear plastic flask of green matter. ‘I think it could bring back my morning sickness.’

  ‘Yeah, most people vom the first time they drink it,’ Althea confirmed. ‘It does taste pretty rank. But if you down this every day for the next week, you’ll build up a tolerance.’

  Thanked her and put the green matter in the fridge, promising to try it later.

  Maybe I can give it to Dad. He’s a bit like a robot when it comes to food. He can ignore the taste/texture of things if he believes in the health benefits – an example being the dense, bitter sprouted wholemeal bread he dislikes, but eats every day.

  Althea also brought us homemade carrot cake. It looked like a huge lump of red moon rock and was made with spelt flour, agave nectar, prunes and vegan margarine. She’d dusted it with probiotic powder.

  Wolfgang got really excited about the cake, lurching around and grunting, ‘CAKE, CAKE!’ when Althea removed the glass tub from her bag. He grabbed big handfuls, shovelled them into his mouth and macerated the hard, dry lumps with his large front tooth.

  Althea has done a very good job when it comes to Wolfgang’s diet. He genuinely enjoys things like prunes, cauliflower pizza and gluten/sugar-free baked goods.

  Daisy, on the other hand, intuitively senses healthy deception and refused the ‘red red stuff cake’.

  To be fair, Daisy probably lacked the dental capacity for the hard cake anyway. Althea’s baking takes a lot of chewing.

  Noticed that Wolfgang wasn’t wearing a nappy.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Althea. ‘I’m doing toilet training.’

  Althea explained it wasn’t ‘formal’ toilet training, because she didn’t want to put Wolfgang under any stress. Instead, she is ‘empowering’ Wolfgang to find ‘his own continence path’.

  As Althea discussed her baby-led method, Wolfgang shat on the floor.

  Althea cleared up the mess with a hessian cloth and said, ‘I’m used to this now. At least Wolfgang didn’t run off with the poo today.’

  There had been an incident at a handmade pottery fair apparently, where Wolfgang defecated on th
e floor and hid his poo in a handmade pot. It took Althea nearly an hour to find out which pot, during which time the cake stall ran out of vegan brownies.

  Worst of all, Althea had to buy the pot Wolfgang had defiled, and it wasn’t her style at all.

  ‘He chose this bloody awful bone porcelain thing with leaf patterns,’ Althea complained. ‘I can’t even give it away to friends. No one I know is that uncool.’

  Suggested that maybe Wolfgang needed to wear nappies a little longer.

  Althea said this would create conflicting philosophies and disempower Wolfgang.

  ‘Clearing up a bit of poo is a small price to pay for his freedom,’ she said.

  I do admire the way Althea sticks to her hippy ideals. She still goes to Latitude every year with Wolfgang in tow, eating free lentil curry from the Hari Krishna tent and sleeping in a communal wigwam.

  Told Althea about my current Alex woes – re: John Boy moving in, and his jealousy therein.

  ‘If Alex can’t get on with your family, you might as well end it now,’ said Althea.

  It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I have to admit she’s right.

  Told Althea that Alex keeps asking me to move to London. He doesn’t seem to understand that I like being near my family.

  ‘I think he’d be happy if I never saw my family again,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Althea. ‘I get that feeling too.’

  While we were examining my weird relationship with the father of my unborn child, the Tesco delivery arrived. Stupidly, I hadn’t ticked the ‘no substitutions’ box, so various out-of-stock items had been replaced.

  ‘These just get better and better,’ the man said, handing me the white paper delivery note.

  I asked for:

  Hash browns

  Heinz tomato soup

  Flash zesty lemon cleaner

  Facial cleansing pads

  A three-year-old birthday candle

  I received:

  A kilo of baking potatoes

  Sundried tomatoes

  A net bag of lemons

  Brillo pads

  A four-year-old birthday candle