Secret Nanny Club (9 page)

I found myself fantasising about long leisurely midday
baths with scented candles and trashy magazines. To hell with the sense of humour – if I wanted to laugh I could always hire a funny DVD. I didn’t want someone funny but I did want someone kind.

Yvonne promised she’d ask her au pair whether she
had a twin. Or failing that, any relation at all. “I pity you though,” she said after we had all analysed
A Thousand Splendid Sun
s
over a glass or two or three of wine. “Before we got our East Berliner who never smiled we had a lassie from South America who would put odd socks on our children, regularly forget to comb their hair, and leave her own dirty dishes in the sink for us to clean up after her. One day she even forgot to collect the kids from school. Total nightmare!”

“Our girl was from Scandinavia and used to walk
around in her underwear,” another lady from the book club, Heather, said with a disgruntled sniff. “I swear she did it on purpose just to tease Jimmy.”

I said nothing. I’ve met Jimmy a couple of times and
he is no oil painting. I mean, I’m sure he’s very nice and everything but he’s bald, bespectacled and pudgy. Why on earth would a young Scandinavian set her sights on him? I didn’t believe it for a minute. Honestly, some women can be far too paranoid when it comes to their other halves.

Then some of the other women joined in our discussion
on childminders and the stories became more hair-raising as more wine was consumed. I heard about one girl who left her vibrator in the family bath and another girl who regularly shaved her legs with the daddy’s good razors and destroyed them. I heard about the girl who was so hungover she threw up in the kiddies’ paddling pool, and another who set the kitchen cooker on fire while trying to light a cigarette from one of the rings.

And worse was to come. I was told about a girl who
left used sanitary towels on the bathroom floor, the girl who ‘borrowed’ condoms from her employer’s wardrobe before nights out, and another girl who watched X-rated movies on the family DVD player while the parents were out. By the time I finally arrived home to relieve my mother of the evening’s baby-sitting duties, I had convinced myself to be a stay-at-home mum. How could I possibly ever go back to full-time work and leave my pride and joy at home at the mercy of some crazy au pair?

Being a mum is tough. I don’t care if you’re single or
happily married with a wonderfully devoted husband who puts you on a pedestal and helps out with daddy duties, it is not easy for any of us. That’s why I hate mums who are just unbelievably competitive. I mean, come on, it’s not a race!

“My son is almost walking,” said a smug-looking
platinum-blonde mummy in the park the other day. Her little cherub, dressed head to toe in Ralph Lauren, was roughly the same age as mine. “What about yours?”

I looked down at John in his little pram playing
peacefully with his teddy, and I then looked back up at the woman with a sort of half-smile on my face. “Almost walking? My baby’s practically running marathons!”

She laughed.

I laughed back, a kind of hysterical high-pitched squeal. “Oh, and he’s already throwing the javelin,” I boasted. “Like, hello?”

Actually no, I didn’t say anything that obnoxious
Instead I just smiled through gritted teeth and merely congratulated the woman on her wonderful child. I also neglected to mention to her that my child wasn’t even crawling. Let her think she was the world’s best mummy if she wanted to. Mind you, I don’t know why John isn’t crawling yet. Maybe he just can’t be bothered. I leave him on the floor and he chooses just to stay in the same position.

Anyway,
it’s not a flipping race, you know. I feel like telling this to all the competitive mums out there. Haven’t they anything else to be doing other than making out their children are more advanced than other peoples’ kids? I wish I’d all the time in the world to get John walking and singing, tying his own shoelaces and shouting ‘Mummy, I love you’ from

the
rooftops. But I’m a busy woman trying to get back to work and trying to find an au-pair to help me, so my baby son will just have to develop in his own good time. Look, we all get old way too fast so why should I be pushing my child to get ahead and grow up before he’s

good
and ready? I’m already dreading the day he doesn’t want a kiss from me because he finds it too embarrassing. Apparently it’s heart-breaking the first time they push you away and say, ‘Mummy, stop!’ I’m really enjoying the fact that now I can place a big smacker on his cheek whenever I feel like it and he has no choice in the matter because he is firmly strapped to his highchair with no chance of escape.

I’ll let you in on a little guilty secret. At the moment
I’m trying like mad to train him to say ‘Mama’ before he says ‘Dada’. If his first word is ‘Dada’ I’ll see it as the ultimate betrayal. At the moment all he can say is ‘Wub’ which isn’t a word I’ve ever heard of and I don’t think it

means
anything but he says it a lot for some reason. Maybe it’s a slang word in Babyland. I, on the other hand, only ever say one word back, and that’s ‘Mama’. I say it at least a hundred times a day and point to myself in the hope that somehow I am managing to brainwash him. If he says ‘Mama’ first I’ll be the happiest parent alive and also I really think I deserve that credit after all I do for him.

You could go mad urging your children to grow up
quickly, but it’s best not to panic if there are delays en route. Here’s an interesting fact: Einstein didn’t start to speak until he was four. That gives me hope for John. Maybe he’ll be a genius and people will say, “Is that your son, the famous inventor?”

Anyway, I’m digressing here, so back to the au pair
search. At long last I’m finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, albeit a dim one. After viewing countless more CVs online where the child minding hopefuls could neither spell nor make any sense, I opened up an email attachment containing a very well-written, concise CV from an Irish girl. Her name was Bernadette (very sensible name, don’t you think?), she lived near Limerick and she was twenty-four years of age. According to her resume she’d had a couple of years of experience minding children, had worked in a nursing home as an aide and was now doing a Montessori course at night. When I read her CV I nearly cried with joy. This girl sounded like a real gem!

And she was one-hundred-per-cent Irish so she would
understand perfectly when I asked her to pick up Barry’s Tea or Heinz Baked Beans or Cadbury’s Dairy Milk or Tayto’s Cheese and Onion crisps in the supermarket. She certainly seemed to have a lot going for her. I mean, she was obviously caring (named after a saint and all that!), she had tons of experience, was studying at night (which meant she wouldn’t want to be joining me on the sofa watching TV around the clock) and she was even first aid trained. Was this my dream woman? I wanted her to move in yesterday!

When I phoned her she sounded so nice and friendly.
She was articulate, polite and almost too good to be true. I offered her the job on the spot and she in turn accepted my offer without even the slightest hesitation.
Hurrah!

She is arriving on Monday and I’m so excited. I am
going to paint her room this weekend with kind permission from my landlord, and I’m going to give her my Laura Ashley cushions that I bought on eBay for her sofa. I’ve also got her a new duvet and pillow covers to go with her curtains. They’re pink and white and very feminine. I think she’ll love living here. I have a really good feeling about this. Hopefully Bernadette will be worth the wait! Unfortunately John is still teething quite badly and my heart goes out to him. He’s having a hard time sleeping. If I have five hours solid sleep I am over the moon with joy. I don’t know what I did with my time before he came along. I can’t even remember the last time I had a lie-in. My life is passing by in a whirl of nappies, bottle feeds, heaps of laundry, Bonjela, soothers, and exhaustion.

Sometimes I feel guilty for the way I’m feeling. I
should be overjoyed to have a baby when I know there’s thousands of women out there who would dearly love one but can’t conceive but I’d love it if now and again I could have some free time. I’d relish even half an hour to myself during the day. I dream about being able to walk along the promenade in Bray without the pram for once, listening to my favourite iPod tunes. Am I a bad mother

for
craving those simple little life luxuries? Before I was a mum I wouldn’t even have considered any of those activities a treat. I mean, what on earth did I do with all my free time before Baby John came along? I can’t believe I took it all for granted. All my friends have practically disappeared. It’s like they all disappeared into a big black hole together, never to be seen again. The ones who promised to baby-sit never did, not that I blame them really. It’s no fun looking after a six-month old, especially if he isn’t even theirs. But, for example, Sally, whom I considered a very close friend before, keeps posting messages on my Facebook page telling me publicly that she misses me so much which is weird. I mean, I’ve only moved out to Bray, not the Bahamas. Bray is really only a few minutes on the DART so it’s not like I’m based in the middle of nowhere. And anyway the views from the train are fabulous when you’re coming out to Bray so it’s not a boring journey at all. I wish more people would make the effort to visit me. I mean, it’s so much easier for somebody without a pram to travel on public transport.

The first time I took Baby John on the bus I was
terrified. There is only one space on the bus for a pram so I was wondering what would happen if another mummy with one got on the bus? Then I found out that it’s first come, first served. Because I was on the bus with my pram, the driver told the mummy at the next stop that she couldn’t get on the bus with hers because I was already on the bus with mine, and I felt so guilty as I looked out the window at her crestfallen face. Especially as it had just begun to rain. But the nice thing about travelling with a pram is that most people are very decent about helping you get the

cumbersome
vehicle on and off trains and buses. Men are especially gallant about helping, and opening doors, and that kind of stuff. I think seeing a helpless mummy with a baby brings out their kind nature. Okay, I’m in the chemist’s now so I must concentrate. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of baby brain but I have an extremely bad dose of it at the moment. Even yesterday I went to the Spar shop specifically to get nappies and I came back with bread and milk and no Pampers. When I came home and discovered that I was

nappy-
less I nearly cried and had to go all the way back to the shops again. My poor aching feet didn’t thank me a jot! So now I need Bonjela for the teething, nappy-rash cream and aspirin for myself. I pay for my goods, shake my head sorrowfully when I’m asked if I have a customer loyalty card (no, because I never seem to have the time to fill out the application

form
) and then I head for home. Monday really can’t come quickly enough.

I just
cannot wait to meet the real Bernadette in person. She seems so lovely and nice and normal. I placed fresh flowers in her room today on the windowsill and they smell divine. I really hope she likes them, and that she’s not allergic to pollen or anything. Now that would be just my luck!

Tomorrow first thing I’m going to bake a cake so
when she arrives we can have tea and cake and it’ll be a nice welcome for her. I’m not going to ask her to do any chores or anything when she first arrives as I intend to allow her settle in but, hopefully, if the weather permits she can come for a nice walk with myself and John and get a feel for the area.

This evening, once John is put down in his cot, I’m
going to do something I haven’t done in a long time, and that’s watch a girlie DVD with a generous glass of red wine. Well, why wouldn’t I celebrate? It’s been the toughest six months of my life raising a baby all by myself and soon part of my life will be my own again. I haven’t been this excited since I was expecting Santa as a little girl.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I was woken up this morning, long before my alarm
clock went off, by the seagulls calling out to each other as they circled above our small apartment complex. As it was a nice and bright morning with clear skies I got up with a spring in my step, washed and dressed myself and

then
went to wake the baby. He was none too pleased about getting up so early however. John isn’t an early bird. He definitely likes a lie-on in the mornings. So many people tell me I’m lucky to have a baby who doesn’t wake at five demanding to be fed, but John is the complete opposite. He never feels like rising until at least eight and sometimes later than that. Mind you, he’s a bit of a party animal at night. He often refuses to go to sleep before ten

which
can be very annoying, especially if there’s something that I want to watch on TV. But overall he’s a good sleeper. “Come on, baby! Up you get now! This is going to be

a
very special day for us today.”