The Mumpreneur Diaries: Business, Babies or Bust - One Mother of a Year

Thursday 8 November 2007

My boss, the Editrix, takes me aside today and announces that she’s proudly secured me a pay rise. Perhaps the daily grind isn’t so bad, maybe that commute is bearable after all.

Five hundred quid a year. A raise of five hundred poxy quid for someone, and I quote, ‘with your level of experience and longevity in the job’. They say that when you have an epiphany, there really is a blinding flash of light. Well, I have one of those right now. Either that or it’s a migraine brought on by the sheer, gobsmacking tight-fistedness of it all. Admittedly it’s not her fault – the budget on our magazine is tighter than a gnat’s wotsit – but being blameless still doesn’t get Mr Waitrose paid.

It’s just not worth it. When people mutter that it’s not worth it, they’re usually having a bit of a bad week. Nothing a few pints and a lie-in can’t fix. But for me it really, really isn’t worth it. My travel and childcare costs have together gone up by more than £500 in the last year alone. It is getting perilously close to the point where I’m paying the company for the pleasure of seeing my son two days a week.

Enough’s enough. I’ve decided that when I go on maternity leave next week it will be the last time I darken their doors. I’ll have my baby, spend a few months floating about in a postnatal glow (I’m not thinking about the extra 2 stone of baby weight and leaking bosoms at this point) and then set up a modest little enterprise from the kitchen table, children playing at my feet. We aren’t exactly rich but the Husband’s salary can just about stretch to providing the serious money for the boring bills such as mortgage and gas. My little bit on the side could cover the Ocado orders, Boden binges and a (very frugal) trip to the Alps once a year. At least, that’s the plan.

Wednesday 14 November 2007

My thirty-fourth birthday. Because of my bloated state and the fact that I’m finding it very hard to give a monkeys about anything other than my swollen feet, I’ve given up every attempt to get to work on time. I decide that, as I’m about as much use as a chocolate teapot at work these days, I’ll be forgiven a quick(ish, very ish) saunter down Oxford Street to do some window-shopping. Of course, fingering the credit card in my pocket, it’s not long before I’m leaving Boots with a couple of new eyeshadows and a splash of perfume. At least they fit.

I daydream about this time next year when I’ll be able to take myself off for a birthday shopping treat at any time of day and I won’t even shout at myself for being late back from lunch. Of course, I will be the only person to put money into the birthday envelope, and therefore I will in fact be paying for my own birthday present but that’s a small detail. It’s the last week at work, hopefully for ever, and the countdown has begun in earnest.

But that little voice is still peeping at the back of my head: ‘You’ve got a good job. It pays well.’ (The little voice at this point is lying out of its arse.) So I do a deal with myself. I’ll go it alone, but I won’t tell anyone, not yet. That way, if I have to crawl back to my desk in 12 months with my tail between my legs when it all goes pear-shaped, no one will be any the wiser.

But Boy One called me ‘Lisa’ three more times over the weekend and announced, ‘When can I go back to see Lisa? Mummy’s boring…’. So I am praying I don’t have to go back – besides, this baby has crocked my back and crawling is so bad for the knees.

Friday 16 November 2007

Payday! And also my last official day in the office. I’ve managed to wangle the last couple of weeks ‘working from home’ (trans: ‘diving for the mute button on the telly every time the phone rings’) because I’m getting bored of the publisher following me round the office with a bucket just in case I ‘pop’. What does she think I am, a ruddy balloon?

In a way, I love my job. I’ve been at it for six years so it would have been a little dense to stay if I didn’t like it a bit. And the people I work with are a good bunch. But bitching about the size of a starlet’s boobs and knowing there are three Pret A Mangers within 500 yards don’t make up for seeing your own flesh and blood for less than an hour a day, and none of it in natural light.

When 5 pm rolls around I can’t be happier. Time for the dreaded leaving party, admittedly, but it means I’m on the home straight. Some cake for me, warm fizzy wine from Marks for them (and for me too, but don’t tell). My esteemed colleagues’ faces say it all: ‘You’re escaping. You’re getting a year off with mid-afternoon wine, Columbo reruns and no tube delays. We hate you.’ But their faces also say: ‘We know you can’t escape us. You’ll be back. Twelve months will fly by and you’ll be paying a fiver for a ham sarnie again. You can’t run for ever.’

Do you know what? I’m beginning to think I can.

Chapter 1 Born Again (#ulink_6d7a4423-28eb-5aa1-8183-3959294a8bc8)

Sunday 20 January 2008

Baby, meet world. World, meet baby.

We bring Boy Two home at 2 am this morning after a mere seven hours in hospital. I think it’s something of an achievement that the midwife is so happy to shoo us off home barely two hours after the birth. The Husband is less pleased as he sees his Star Wars DVD marathon evaporate, to be replaced by the carrying of many cups of tea and biscuits (essential for Mummy’s milk) and by telephone/email duty.

My sister and her boyfriend came down from London yesterday on the off-chance that something might happen. By 7 pm I was having contractions three minutes apart while simultaneously trying to teach my desperately undomesticated sibling how to make sauce for Boy One’s cauliflower cheese.

‘How will I know when the sauce is thick enough?’

‘When it starts getting lumpy again. Chuck in a splash of milk and take it off the heatnnnnngggHHHHHHH!’

‘And when do I add the cheese?’

‘When all the luuuUUUUUuumps are gone.’

‘Are you OK?’

‘Just having a baby, otherwise fi-uuuuuhhhhhh!’

‘Shouldn’t you call the hospital to see if you need to go in?’

‘Mmmmppfffffffffffffffffffffffff!’

Now I’m lying in our bed at 3 am with our new 8 lb scrap of humanity snortling away between us. His 35 lb, three-year-old brother is snoring just as loudly in his bed, which has been transplanted to the foot of ours from next door, where he’d been ousted by my own sibling combo. Too knackered to sleep I watch the baby snooze. He is the image of his father, who is also out for the count (why are men never too exhausted to catch 40 winks?). All of a sudden I feel quite grown up, quite…responsible. With one child you can almost get away with pretending it was a bit of an accident, or that you aren’t really a parent, you’re just playing at mummies and daddies. I find myself trying out the phrase ‘my children’ to see how it fits. Sounds big. Sounds fun. Sounds expensive. Bugger.

Monday 21 January 2008

No rest for the wicked, or even just the slightly naughty. I decided weeks before his birth that Boy Two was going to integrate seamlessly into the Jones household. Just because there was a newborn kicking around, it was no excuse to take life slowly. I can therefore only assume that it is some kind of post-partum insanity that leads me to book a skiing holiday for when he will be barely five weeks old.

I don’t think the travelling itself will cause the headaches, even though we have also decided to tackle most of Europe by train, with the out-laws in tow. It is how to decide on a name, register the baby, get a photograph that doesn’t make him look like an alien and get the passport back in time to catch the 7.15 am from St Pancras on 8 March.

We had settled on a name halfway through the pregnancy, but now he is out I’m not sure Boy Two really suits it. I don’t have a great history with naming things. In my lifetime I’ve owned three cats so far. They’ve all been pedigree Burmese and came ready-equipped with fancy monikers, such as Aduihbu Buttermilk Dennis, which didn’t really trip off the tongue when I was rattling a bowl of Kibbles and bellowing the name into the garden at sunset. More shouty names were required.

The first kitty was a Chocolate Burmese, the naming of which, I felt, was a no-brainer. That would be Cadbury, then. But my sisters also got a chocolate and named that one the far snappier, simpler, cattier Wispa. Unfortunately Cadbury had an argument with a car and lost. Her successors were twins: the aforementioned Buttermilk was a Yellow Burmese and his brother was a Blue (which is actually grey) with a similarly mental name. I swiftly renamed them Little Leo and Ichabod (no, neither do I), respectively. When it became clear that these were as crap as the pedigree titles, they sort of renamed themselves by being skinny – Weeman, and fat – Fatso. And I’ve spent the past six years working with words in the branding industry. Boy Two was stuffed from the start.

But whether or not Boy Two’s name will dog him for the rest of his life is immaterial. We have four days to register him, get the certificate and get it off to the passport office. There is no time for creativity. I also need an official passport photo. The passport office doesn’t like ultrasound pictures – it’s really hard to get a foetus to smile for the camera.

The nice man at Jessops lies Boy Two on a white marshmallow and takes the pics. I’ve been fretting about how you get a baby to look straight at the camera with a neutral expression, but as newborns spend much of their time trying to focus on their own noses, the photographer says the passport office tends to overlook it.

Tuesday 5 February 2008

Whether it is sleep deprivation or a heady cocktail of hormones and my first G&T in many, many months, I’ve hit a period of manic activity that mixes Stepford wife with Superwoman. Largely, I’m not much of a success as either but I have my moments. Much to Boy One’s delight, I rocked the Shrove Tuesday pancakes with every topping conceivable, the favourite being chocolate and melty cheese. Together. The crepe fiesta is to celebrate getting all of his unused and grown-out-of toys and clothes into bags and into the attic. For a brief moment I surveyed the feng shui’d, decluttered, picture-perfect home before dragging out all the baby stuff I’d jammed under our bed for Boy Two, thus returning the house to its normal, chaotic state. I believe it is generously termed ‘lived in’.

In a rare example of foresightedness I have also just hotfooted it down to the local ‘paint your own pottery’ place to immortalise Boy Two’s feet in Dutch Blue paint on a variety of mugs and plates – bijou presents for friends and family. That’s Christmas 2008 sorted. Mind you, if I don’t break these by spring 2008 it’ll be a ruddy miracle.

Returning home with blue-footed children, I resurrect my old website that proudly proclaims: ‘Make and Do for Fathers’ Day 2007!’ in 56 point sans serif. Some time ago I published a moderately successful book which, every year, gets a bit of a push around Mother’s Day. With the sacred date looming once more, I didn’t want to get Googled and be caught with my virtual knickers down. Some quick updates later and becausemumknowsbest.com can face her public with pride.

All this before teatime and on three hours’ sleep. Move over Maggie Thatcher, eat your heart out Nicola Horlick.

(#ulink_53acbc1d-fbf9-5ae6-b2cd-09af452ba4e0)

Wednesday 6 February 2008

Boy One didn’t sleep through the night until he was at least two years old. But the quid pro quo was that he was a serious napper during the day. I could usually rely on a good four hours to myself during his first year, and about two during his second. So, the rings under my eyes rivalled Saturn’s but I still had the chance to knock together the odd magazine article or enjoy Diagnosis Murder uninterrupted. Thankfully it looks like Boy Two is going the same way. When the midwife turns up to stick a scalpel in my newborn baby’s foot – babies spend a significant amount of time in the early days doubling as pin cushions – Boy Two just sleeps on through. It bodes well for enough peace and quiet to make proper business phone calls without being rumbled as a sick-covered zombie.

And it looks like I might be needing second son’s good nature sooner than I thought. The Husband’s work situation is never totally safe and, even though he has until June on his contract, it can take months to find a new job. Faced with the prospect of a five month-old baby and no money, I decide that perhaps I ought to dip my toe in the old work water and just see what floats by. After all, it’s good to keep the mental stimulation going and a little light typing couldn’t hurt. Besides, even though my ultimate aim is to quit the rat race, it doesn’t mean I won’t need to earn some money. Only I want to do it on my terms.

So it is that a mere 17 days after the birth, I get back in touch with my freelance contacts to see if there is any work in the offing. It’s not exactly the business empire I’d entertained during those last, tedious days in the office but I don’t really have the energy for a full-blown attack of the Richard Bransons right now. But surely I can scrape together a few hundred words about potty training. And emails hide the reality of hungry newborn howling and cracked nipples. Still, the magazine’s deputy editor sounds a bit shocked to hear from me:

RE: BACK IN THE SADDLE

Message: Am amazed to hear from you so soon…

Reply: Everything’s pretty much back in the old routine!

Message: Are you really feeling up to writing again?