Hi! <Waves>


17 June 2015

Visiting the Mum-Kingdom

I have a day off work (yay!).

Mrs. Amazing asks if I want to take BabyBoy1 to his singalong-play-eat-biscuits-toy-slober thingy: PeekaBiscuit. (There’s a nearby swimming club called ‘Floaters’... I shit you not) (Ha ha)

Normally I'm at work and miss all this stuff.
Mrs. Amazing is happy too as she will be left in the house alone for an hour.

They can be fun these things, he loves showing Dad stuff he does, I get some quality Dad-Son time, there’s free biscuits and tea. Win win.

‘Do help yourself to choccy biscuits’
<fills pockets with biscuits and then shoves three in mouth>
Ta <spits biscuit crumbs everywhere>

Mrs. Amazing has drawn me a map of how to get there. It’s only 3 mins walk away.
But my look of utter confusion when she points out of the window and track record of getting lost, make the map a good idea. She marks some big trees on the map for me. She might be taking the piss slightly, but the tree landmarks are handy.

I eventually find my way to PeekaBiscuit and am faced with getting the buggy up the awkward ‘upstairs double doors’ Mrs. Amazing warned me about.
7 years I've been driving a buggy and I know backwards through doors is best (for me). Saves on all that leaning forward and stretching, banging the door with the buggy and swearing and shouting, and then breaking the door a little and the buggy. Never looks good. Gives the right wrong impression.
Backwards is way easier. It’s just dragging stuff through doors. Easy. I can do that.

The main downside is that you can’t do a full S.A.S. room sweep as you walk in, but then again where on earth would I be taking BabyBoy1 that I need to be doing S.A.S. room sweeps as I arrive? Childless friends houses Nowhere.

So as I back through the doors I don't see what I am walking into at all. 
I turn round to face the room and I know I'm not in Kansas any more…

Toto: Woof woof (No shit bitch)

You ever been in a ‘local’ British pub? You know the ones, you walk in and everyone just stops and stares at you as though they want to kill and or eat you (Kind of like ’Cheers’, but the opposite… ‘Boos’ or ‘Piss’offs’).

Mr. Sting you're on...

Now imagine that horrible, chilling, desperate feeling of being an unwanted stranger, but instead of drunken locals, eating peanuts - It's tired, pissed off, SOBER Mums holding babies, twenty of them.

As I glance round I can tell a few hate me already.

I am intruding on their sanctuary. This is part of the Mum-Kingdom, a place where Mums can be together and get through an hour of child care with each other, supporting and understanding each others problems and worries. A small oasis in their day. With biscuits.

I change that. I ruin it. I break the spell. I shatter the illusion with a big ol’ sledgehammer, just by existing. Damn my molecular construct.

I remind the Mums of their previous lives, when they were free. Where they could do what they wanted, when they wanted. Where they could have lunch with their friends, and then just get drunk until tomorrow, or shop. I remind them that they could be at work, being all grown up, talking to grown ups, solving problems, and drinking hot cups of tea.

A magical place work where there’s no nappies, wet wipes are called cloths, tantrums get you locked up or fired, and you only get to see puke in the evening. 
Seeing any body else’s poo is forbidden.

I am Bill Gates in the Rugby team, I am decaf tea anywhere, I am Westlife being added to the got some vague talent rock 'n' Roll hall of fame… I am utterly out of place.

And worse of all: I am here voluntarily and smiling.
I'd hate me too.

I am just planning to run away and hide in the park for an hour (Mrs. Amazing will never know) when I see a Mum I know. A friend of Mrs. Amazing's that I know well enough to name. I even know her child's name. Bloody brilliant!
Don’t say anything dumb.

I run over to her and hug her, weeping for joy walk over and say hi.
The other Mum's, the ones glaring, tutting, patting steel pipes, holding shivs, cracking their knuckles, eye balling me, see me engage one of their own in conversation. It’s a tense moment.

(Their eyes burn into my soul and make me hate myself… More so...)

‘Oh hiya’ my saviour says and the signal is sent out. I am known, not a (total) nutter.

The frowns go, the pipes disappear, the nut crackers are hidden, and for the next hour or so, I get to visit the Mum-Kingdom…
