Confessions of a Single (Irish!) Mother

by Marisa Mackle

  ‘..once,’ I swiftly concluded my mother’s sentence. ‘Now, please shut up!’

  CONFIRMATION

  Speaking of parties, it’s Confirmation season right now. Yes, it’s in full swing. You probably wouldn’t know that if you didn’t have children of a certain age, but the reason I know it is because the lady down the road has been planning her son’s Confirmation party for months now. Every time I go to post a letter I find myself bumping into her and being bombarded with all the details.

  The family has hired out a few tables in a very upmarket restaurant. ‘It’s very low-key,’ the lady explained to me. ‘I mean for his Holy Communion, we hired out the entire restaurant. ‘

  It all sounds very grand. The family are having a champagne reception before the dinner, and they are having about sixty guests. Incidentally I haven’t actually heard where the actual Confirmation Mass is being held or anything.

  ‘I am so stressed,’ the lady told me. ‘I’m trying to figure out who will sit where. Maybe I should have place names like at our wedding. I mean, both myself and my husband will have members of our families there, as well as our work colleagues and a lovely couple we met on holidays.’

  As I stood there, trying to look interested, I cast my mind back to my own Confirmation. I remember going to some unassuming restaurant with my parents and sisters. I certainly know that people didn’t jet in from all corners of the world for the celebrations.

  This lady, however, is not the only person I know stressing out about a Confirmation. A woman in the tennis club recently told me that she is catering for a hundred people, and that she is hiring out a marquee for the day. Seriously!

  ‘Well, we just have so many friends, she explained. ‘We’ve been to so many parties recently it’s about time we invited people around to ours.’

  ‘And what about your daughter? Will she be having any friends over for the Confirmation party?’

  ‘Well, of course she’ll be allowed a couple of friends too,’ the woman said, looking surprised at the question. ‘After all, it’s her big day!’

  Right.

  THE TIRESOME THREES

  The Troublesome Twos have gone. Less tantrums and ‘no’ is no longer my son’s favourite word. He even says ‘yes’ now and then – truly, music to my ears! I had expected the Tiresome Threes to follow, but no, he is like an angel child, even helping to tidy away his toys before bed. He is so cute now that it almost makes me think I’d like another one.

  I always said I’d have just one child. For the experience. Never a particularly maternal individual, I thought I’d get a cat first, and after a few years I thought it would be more fun having a child – after all, besides putting a little collar on a cat there’s not much you can do by way of dressing him up! When I became pregnant I was so delighted. I envisaged many afternoons shopping with my mommy friends and their babies. In my little fantasy world, the washing just got done all by itself, and I would spend the afternoons strolling around the park in the sunshine, pausing occasionally to take photos of my little cherub. Of course, life isn’t a fairy tale and the first year of my son’s existence still remains a fog of chores, with me wondering if my baby brain (I sometimes even forgot Gary’s name when people asked me!) would ever get back to normal.

  Now I no longer have a baby, but a little friend. We have meaningful conversations about cartoon characters and animals, we hang out at the play centre around the corner and we even go shopping, although shopping for toy tanks, JCBs, and tractors isn’t as much fun as I’d imagine shopping for dolls’ houses is. The other day I looked around his bedroom. It was still a baby room with bunnies and teddies as well as a changing unit, and it contained all the baby stuff that Gary no longer needs.

  ‘I think I’ll do up his room,’ I told my father. ‘I might get him a car bed and make it into a real little boy’s room.’

  He agreed with me. ‘Get rid of the baby stuff,’ he said. ‘What’s the point of keeping it? You’ll never need it again.’

  And he was right, I acknowledged ruefully. I’ll never have another one. So I rang a charity shop but they said they don’t take second-hand baby stuff because of safety regulations. Then I put an ad on the Internet advertising it as free to take away. A young foreign couple arrived the following morning, all excited, and took everything off my hands. I waved good-bye with a sigh of relief tinged with sadness, as all Gary’s baby stuff turned the corner never to be seen again. Then again, it was very nice going back into my home and seeing all the space I’d forgotten I had. I mean, baby stuff takes up a ridiculous amount of room. And now that I’m in a de-cluttering mood, I’m looking at the treadmill that I got to help lose all the baby weight. It hasn’t lived up to its promise. I think that big imposing machine that takes up half my living room will be next to get its marching orders!

  PARTY ADVICE

  The party is looming. The invitations have been sent for my son’s third birthday party and just over half of the invitees have RSVP’d. I have no idea whether the others are coming, but I have bought in enough food and drink to feed and water a small army. The clown has been booked and all the good furniture and china has been locked away safely. I am praying that the weather is nice, and that it’s not raining so that at least half the kids can be banished to the garden if needs be. I have also arranged for our rather boisterous dog to be minded by a neighbour in case he might get overcome by excitement and give one of the tiny party goers a friendly nip on the leg. Am I calm? Am I heck? Some of my friends think I’m stark raving mad to invite twenty odd kids around to mine. ‘You should go to a play centre,’ one insisted. ‘Then they can run around all they like and not break anything.’ I wish she hadn’t said that. Now I have visions of reckless three-year olds arriving armed with baseball bats so they can smash everything in sight. I am having nightmares about being ganged up on by tiny terrors. I am breaking into a sweat imagining the whole thing. Then again, why exactly am I worrying? Come on, it’s ridiculous! The party is only going to be on for two hours. Two hours! And I have friends helping so it’s not like it’s going to be me against them, is it? And if the worst comes to the worst I can lock myself away in the bathroom and count the minutes until their parents collect them again. I am joking about that last part of course. I mean, even I wouldn’t do something so cowardly!

  I think I could do without all the scaremongering though. I mean you do hear the worst stories! I remember when I was a teenager hearing about a party where the parents were away and the TV got stolen. But we’re not talking about teens here – just harmless tots. Nonetheless people are still making me feel nervous.

  ‘My son was at a party last week where all the children were crying,’ an earnest friend told me. ‘And one poor little fellow even fell off the climbing frame and broke his leg.’

  ‘He what!’

  ‘Yes, the mother had to bring him straight to A&E. It was a disaster!’

  Okay, I had factored in slight falls. After all, children of that age to fall as they tumble around but I certainly hadn’t been thinking of broken limbs! I am beginning to have sleepless nights now. I am wondering should I pretend to have a contagious disease and call the whole thing off. Then again, why am I fretting so much? I was an air hostess for goodness sake! I had to help take a couple of hundred drunks fly to Ibiza on a Friday night when I worked in the airline. I had to calm down crazy passengers half way across the Atlantic! I had to cope with people vomiting into sick bags and handing them to me! Surely if I could do that I can do absolutely anything!

  THE BIG DAY

  So I survived! Well, just about. The longest two hours of life came to an end last Saturday at 5.00pm when my son Gary’s third birthday party wrapped up. Tony, aka Janey Mack, the colourful clown, had packed up his suitcase, and waved good-bye, the kids (yes, all nineteen of them!) had been safely given back to their rightful owners, and I finally sat down and poured myself a most welcome glass of wine.

  A week later I still look back and think, how on
earth did I manage that? My ears are still ringing – who knew that such little people made such big noise? Before the party started I had no idea how many kids were coming. A quarter of people had RSVP’d, three quarters had not. The magician who was also a clown – a wonderful chap that I had found on the Internet – had asked me how many were coming. I told him that I was probably expecting about twelve to fifteen kids. As it was mid-term I thought a lot of people would be away. Then I reckoned that some kids would be sick (there’s an awful lot of flu and colds going around right now!) so I thought my estimation would be just about right.

  But no, I got more than I bargained for. You see, some parents dropped off more kids than they were supposed to. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ some said, giving me a kind of cheeky smile as they dropped off their child and his brother/sister/cousin/whatever and skipped off down the driveway without so much as a backwards glance. Hey, I thought I was organising a kiddie party, not running a pop-up crèche! But who can blame them? If I was a mother of two or more I’d probably do anything to get a couple of hours to myself on a Saturday afternoon. Anyway, I’d bought in enough treats and sweets to feed an entire playground of kids so a few extra tots thrown in wasn’t going to make too much difference. Of course no party is completely without drama, and one little boy had an angry fit when I took the nicely-wrapped present from his hands to give to my own son. It was quite funny actually, because my Gary doesn’t really like giving presents either, preferring to think that all presents belong to him! I actually don’t know what I would have done without my family though. My sister, Tara, was on pond watch to make sure nobody jumped in; Dad was on knife watch in the kitchen, ensuring that nobody opened any presses and helped themselves to anything sharp, and Mum was in the playroom making sure everyone was fed and watered. As for me? I spent most of the time taking kids to the toilet and drying tears after somebody took somebody else’s balloon or started missing their mum. I was so tired afterwards I needed to sleep for about three days. I now have renewed respect for anybody who works in a kindergarten. When I was younger I thought that it would be such a lovely job working with kids all day. But I’m glad I chose to write instead. Believe me, it’s a lot easier on the ears!

  PLAY SCHOOL

  How is the crèche working out? People wonder. How does it compare to say, hiring a child minder? Well, I suppose it depends on the individual child minder and the crèche. If you have a child minder who smokes, has the TV on all day and throws packets of sweets at your tot to keep him quiet while she chats on the phone, then maybe a crèche is a better option. It can be costly, but wonderful for social development. Three months ago when my son Gary started play school, aged just two years and nine months, he had few words, and I could barely understand his baby babbling. Now he and I have full conversations! If you, like myself, only have one child, he is in danger of thinking he is the king of the universe, because in a way he is. In the crèche Gary is taught to share and to interact with others.

  But a downside to the crèche is the fact that my son always seems to be sick. Ever since he started at the crèche three months ago he has been sick for almost the entire time. Then he passes all his germs on to me. People did warn me that this would happen. Kids under the age of three in a crèche pick up everything as they haven’t built up their immune system yet. But it does break my heart to see Gary’s eyes watering, his nose running and hear his constant coughing. We’ve been to the GP four times already this winter, my house is like an oven in a bid to get him better, but he is still poorly. Right now he has an ear infection and a high temperature. He can’t go back to the crèche in case he infects other kids and he and I are at home spluttering, sneezing and wheezing!

  We are both on antibiotics and Gary is waking up every two hours and then waking me up. Oh the joys! Having said all that, I am looking forward to when he gets better and can go back to play school again. I usually take him on the bus with his Thomas the Tank Engine school bag and he is all excited and full of self-importance as he strides into class and greets everyone. He has made friends with a couple of the other boys, and the play school owner has even suggested that Gary has a soft spot for one of the little girls, which of course, my son has refused to confirm! I just wish I didn’t feel constantly guilty about the fact that he’s always catching infections. A fussy eater at the best of times, when he’s under the weather, he sometimes refuses point blank to eat anything.

  I told a friend of mine who called around the other day, that Gary and myself have been sick for the past few weeks. She assured me that it is normal for a child to pick up everything once they start play school and that when he starts real school he won’t be as sick as children who have not attended play school. ‘I think boys get sicker than girls anyway,’ she added.

  ‘Like man flu?’

  ‘That’s right. Man flu. They tend to start early.’

  BROKE MUMMY

  Who wants to be a millionaire? Well, that would be me. And quite a lot of people I can imagine. The only problem is that I’m not very lucky. Apart from winning a few quid on a scratch card a decade ago, and getting a basket of fruit in a raffle, I haven’t ever won anything worth boasting about. So a few years ago I thought I would try something other than buying lotto tickets. Now, I haven’t a note in my head so winning the X Factor or landing a record deal was definitely not an option. I thought of all those millionaires in Hollywood, but I was also realistic enough to know that most people who head to LA with a suitcase full of dreams, spend more time waiting tables than acting. And besides, I didn’t fancy having to become a size zero to get a part. My options were running out until I read an article about a man called Frank McCourt who had become a millionaire on the back of his book ‘Angela’s Ashes’.

  I wondered if I could also write a book. Back in school I was hopeless at most things. I couldn’t care how many legs a cockroach had and let the science teacher know it, I didn’t give a hot how many fjords there were in Norway or who what date the battle of the Boyne was won. I had a sick note for most of my schooldays when it came to PE (anything from the flu to stomach cramps to a sore tooth, it didn’t matter as long as I wasn’t out in the cold running around a hockey pitch!) so I was never going to be an Olympic medallist getting huge sponsorship from watch companies and energy drinks. But the one thing I could do was put a pen to paper and make up a little story. I had no idea if I was any good, and once I had a teacher who used to shout ‘next!’ when I was half way through reading my essay out loud, which as you can imagine did absolutely zilch to boost my confidence! But out of all the subjects I did at school English was the one I was the least worst at.

  So I was a flight attendant around the time Frank McCourt’s ‘Angela’s Ashes’ was making huge waves, and I thought that I would write a book just like that. I sat down and took out my A4 copy book, and with a pen I wrote Chapter One as the heading. I was so excited at the thought of writing my book. I imagined being on TV and on the radio with people asking me all about my great book. I imagined film deals, book signings and the paparazzi hiding out in my garden. The only problem with the book was that I’d have to sit down and write the damn thing.

  The book that I wrote was very depressing but that was a deliberate ploy on my part. I knew that alcoholism and violence and tears sold very well, and I thought that if I wrote a totally miserable book that it would sell very well all over the world.

  As I wrote I imagined the three-month cruise I was planning to take with my earnings. I dreamed of spa treatments, and also a cottage that I was going to buy beside a river where I could find inspiration. As I usually had to check in at the airport every day at 5:00am, I would set my alarm for 3:00 am so I could write for a half hour every day before work. My book was written in just under a year.

  I paid a typist to type it up as I didn’t know how to do it myself. And then I sent it off to different agents and publishers. I imagined I’d have a very tough decision when they all came back to me looking to publish the book im
mediately. I reckoned I’d have to hold an auction and sell to the highest bidder. Therefore you can imagine my complete and utter shock when I was rejected. Not once, not twice but almost fifty times! I couldn’t believe they didn’t love my utterly dreadful book. Of course I didn’t think it was dreadful then. Now I do.

  My biggest lesson was not to write the book I thought that publishers would like and started writing the type of books I enjoyed. It paid off and my first book, ‘Mr Right for the Night’ went to number one in Ireland. Was I a millionaire? Was I heck? I worked out that for all the hours I had put into writing the book, compared to what I earned, I had been working for a good deal less than the minimum wage. I’m still writing. I’m on book seventeen now. And I’m still dreaming of going on a cruise one day.

  DISCO FEVER

  I went disco dancing the other evening. The music was great, the atmosphere electric, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. But then unfortunately a fight broke out and two people had to be prised apart for the sake of peace. There’s always one, I thought, as I took my son Gary’s hand, led him off the dance floor and explained to him that there were enough balloons to go around and there was absolutely no need to try and steal one from another toddler. But overall the disco was fun. The last time I had gone dancing in Old Belvedere rugby club was so long ago I can barely remember it. However I do recall somebody saying to me towards the end of the night, ‘Marisa, I think I’ve just seen your dad out in the foyer!’

  You can imagine my horror. What on earth was he doing there? Whatsmore, he had even brought the dog on the lead! Who in God’s name would want their parents at the disco, never mind the family dog? Mind you, fast forward a great number of years, and now I am a mother taking my son to his first disco in the very same place. I had read about this under 5s disco on the internet and was all excited. Gary is a good dancer and an all-round cool dude. I knew he’d just love dressing up and impressing the ladies. Old Belvo is just around the corner from us, so even though the weather was atrocious last Thursday we braved the elements and got down to the club. Gary was wearing skinny jeans and black leather jacket and I was wearing the same. There were no bouncers on the door, and nobody asked for ID. The bar was shut but you could buy snacks and tea or coffee.