two] I … want …
Woman: Nicholas, if you don’t behave right now, not only will Daddy be hearing about this, but you can forget about your skiing lesson with Joshua on Saturday.
Boy: [silent for a moment, weighing up the options, screams recommencing even higher and louder than before]
Woman: [crouching down next to him] Please, Nicholas, please, darling, just calm yourself down. What it is you’d like, Nicky?
Boy: [sensing his advantage, ups the screaming again]
Woman: Calm down, darling. You know Mummy loves you. Calm down. Shall we go back to the shop to get you the little car?
Boy: [pulling back the screams a little] Ye-ea-aah – [hiccupping sob]
Woman: Alright, darling. You were very good last night, weren’t you? You only got out of bed four times! I think you deserve a nice little treat, don’t you, darling?
Wait. I’d forgotten. OH GOD I hate children.
So my mood overall was unchanged this afternoon, and when I came home. Thom saw my face and pulled me into another big hug as I walked through the door, and took me to the sofa where he sat me down and smiled at me.
Thom: Do you know what I thought today, as I tried to convince a room full of thirteen-year-olds to not show one another photos of women’s breasts while I talked about Jane Eyre?
Me: Nope.
Thom: Whether it’s now, or whether it’s in a few years: our kid is going to be brilliant.
Me: Ha! I thought the same thing today. Just before I stumbled over a woman being emotionally blackmailed by her four-year-old.
Thom: You know we don’t have to be like that, don’t you? You can pick your parenting style: we can be Aloof Edwardian Parents. Or Distant Army Parents, who only see their children once a year. Or Caveman Parents, who feed any spare kids to their pet dinosaur.
Me: That’s the Flintstones.
Thom: I hardly think the Flintstones would feed a child to a dinosaur.
Me: [silence, thinking] We could be alright as parents. Maybe.
Thom: Maybe we could. But maybe … you’re too chicken to have a baby.
Me: [laughing] If ever that ploy was going to work on me …
Thom: Kiki, we will do whatever you like. For now, I’ll make us something to eat.
I sat, and I thought. God, if we can deal with Thom’s redundancy and Dad’s heart attack and my previously-very-badly-paid-and-very-high-stress job, all while planning a wedding that took over our lives, we should be able to manage a baby. Thom’s baby. And we might just be OK parents.
Me: [calling to the kitchen] Go on, then. Let’s have a baby.
Thom: [running back in] Wooohoooo!
Me: You can’t make noises like that in a labour ward. And I’m not telling my mum.
Thom: Christ. We have to tell people about this, don’t we?
Together: Shotgun!
Me: I called it. You can tell them.
So I’m happy. But I still blame you, Paris. I don’t know how this is your fault, but it is.
TO DO:
Grow baby
Have baby
Raise baby
November’s Classic Baby
Mrs Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a Brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces. She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs Darling’s guesses.
Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.
For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr Darling was frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the edge of Mrs Darling’s bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses, while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what might, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at the beginning again.
Peter Pan
J. M. Barrie
November 2nd
I’ve spent the last two days at work doing internet searches for pregnancy, then shutting my screen off whenever somebody comes near my desk. Even Carol – our terrifying but secretly incredibly sweet senior Commissioning Editor, who, after a sordid and very exciting office affair, is now with Norman, our reserved head of accounts – has started giving me concerned looks. But I’ve discovered that the ‘classic wedding’ emails I signed up for during the wedding planning also come in a ‘Pregnancy and Babies’ version too. Which … is … something, I suppose?
What’s so strange is how much this new reality is in my thoughts all the time. I can’t put anything in my mouth without my brain suddenly doing a stop-and-search which makes me keep retching on what I’m eating, either because it might be dangerous or my tastebuds have suddenly banded together to bar certain foods. The radio plays nothing but songs about babies: Papa Don’t Preach, Hit Me Baby One More Time, pretty much anything from Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, almost any pop song ever. Adverts are saturated with babies; pregnant women are everywhere; I’ve gone over my calendar again and again with my sketchy dates to try and work out at what stage I’ll be for everything we’ve got planned. And I’ll need to avoid Susie (my sister, and mother to seven-year-old twins Edward and Lily and baby Frida) – my vocabulary has suddenly shrunk to just a few phrases: the number of times I said ‘They’re such babies/why is he being such a baby/don’t be a baby’ at work today was absurd. Did I see Alice sniggering at one of those?
November 3rd
A baby. Pregnant. I’m still not used to this. I don’t even know where to start. New clothes? A cot? Thom said: ‘Maybe go and see a doctor.’ I’m glad I’m not doing this on my own.
At the doctor’s today, I looked around the waiting room at the other patients with new, wiser eyes. What could they be here for? A teenage girl looks nervous, and plays with her phone the whole time. Pregnant? A woman with three young children looks exhausted and keeps putting her head in her hands. Number four on the way? Then my name was called, and I saw my new doctor for the first time: a black woman a couple of years older than me, standing in the doorway, resting her hip against the frame and rubbing her pregnant stomach. In her office, we each tried to make the other sit down first. She said, ‘On three?’ and I laughed and sat down.
Dr Bedford: So, how can I help you today?
Me: [suddenly nervous] I think I might be … [indicating her]
Dr Bedford: Black?
Me: No! No, not … no, I mean –
Dr Bedford: I’m just kidding, Katherine.
I like her.
Dr Bedford: You think you might be pregnant?
Me: Haha, ha. Yes, I think I’m pregnant.
Dr Bedford: And what makes you think that?
Me: I’ve missed two periods, I did four pregnancy tests in the end and they were all positive.
Dr Bedford: Just wanting to make sure?
Me: Exactly.
Dr Bedford: And how do you feel about