Because I Said So Read online

  BECAUSE MUMMY SAID SO

  Shari Low

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.readanima.com

  About Because Mummy Said So

  The era of the yummy mummy has finally gone and in order to celebrate this, Shari Low has taken a baby wipe to the glossy veneer of the school of perfect parenting and written Becuase I Said So to show us the truth about motherhood in all of its sleep-deprived, frazzled glory. This is a book that every experienced, new or soon-to-be parent will relate to – well, hallelujah and praise be those who worship at the temple of Febreze.

  For over a decade, Shari wrote a hugely popular weekly newspaper column documenting the ups, downs and bio-hazardous laundry baskets of family life. Because I Said So is a collection of her favourite stories of parenting, featuring superheroes in pull up pants, embarrassing mistakes, disastrous summer holidays, childhood milestones, tear-jerking nativity plays, eight bouts of chickenpox and many, many discussions that were finished with the ultimate parental sticky situation get-out clause… Because I Said So.

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About Because Mummy Said So

  Dedication

  How it began…

  2004: Toddler Spots and Burnt Pots

  Just Call Me Flo…

  To the Infirmary and Beyond

  Trick or Treat?

  The Ambush

  And the Number One Answer Is…

  Father’s Day Massacre

  Mind Your Manners

  Terror Tots

  It’s Criminal…

  2005: Porcelain Thrones and Megaphones

  Ready, Aim, Fire…

  Jamie’s Bitchin

  The Mother of All Jobs

  Excess Baggage

  The Sun is Out…

  Stick ’Em Up…

  Big Mother is Watching

  On Yer Bike

  Happy Birthday to You…

  Oh, For Flick’s Sake

  Because I Said So

  On The Third Day of Christmas…

  2006: Battling Brothers and Earth Mothers

  Oh, Brother!

  Morning Has Broken… Me!

  Lilo Lil

  Power Cut

  Boy Oh Boy…

  Away With the Fairies

  2007: Milk Breaks and Saddle-aches

  Crazed By the Bell

  Howdy Pardner

  It’s a Mother of a Thing

  I’m Dreaming of a…

  2008: Musical Toys and Domesticating Boys

  Growing Pains…

  Making Sweet Music

  The Bonnie Banks…

  The Music Man

  2009: Christmas Letters and Plans To Do Better

  Birth Plans

  MP For Motherhood

  Eye Eye

  Dear Santa

  2010: Costumes and Dodgy Tunes

  The Horn

  A Good Sport

  Jolly Japes

  Proud Mary Payback

  2011: Grooming Regimes and Holiday Schemes

  Hair Today

  This is Mum

  Costa Del Factor Fifty

  Sunny Side Up

  Monaco

  We Wish You a Sherry Christmas

  2012: Beyoncé, Kate Middleton and Judy Murray Walk Into a Playgroup…

  Broody

  Suck It Up

  Good Morning?

  Tennis Elbow

  Royal Bumps and Blue Bits

  2013: Auntie’s Tanks and Mothering Thanks

  Auntie

  Second Time Around

  Party Popper

  Love, Mum

  The Scream

  Baby Weight

  Equal Measures

  Party On

  Lucky Stars

  Teen Spirit

  2014: Good Intentions and Parenting Inventions

  Happy New Year

  Nappy Times

  The Ring

  Supermum

  Not Guilty

  Confessions of a Competitive Mum

  School’s Moving On Up

  Uniform Smugdom

  Can You… Stay Forever?

  Opening Arguments

  Tinsel and Teenagers

  2015: Mum Wages and Teenage Stages

  Paying Mum

  The Wonder Years

  Mumflu

  School of Life

  Fleeing the Nest

  All About Me

  Term Time Blues

  Spectre

  Woe Ho Ho

  The Hypocritical Oath

  2016: School Exams and Celebrity Prams

  The Parent Label

  Testing Times

  Baby Payne

  Gangsta Wrapper

  2017: Worries, Woes, and Letting Go

  The Year of No Worries

  Parent Fail

  Anatomy of a Bump

  And now… sob…

  Empty Nest

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  About Shari Low

  Also by Shari Low

  About Anima

  Copyright

  To the Low guys, John, Callan and Brad, for giving me endless disasters, dramas and laughs to write about.

  I love you all more than words…

  Now can someone go put the washing machine on.

  How it began…

  Back in 2004, when my sons, Callan and Brad, were one and three, I began writing a weekly column documenting the ups, down, and hazardous laundry baskets of family life. Now those little chicks are teenagers who are fleeing the nest, leaving behind a mother with soggy feathers (no, I wasn’t weeping tears of woe, there was something in my eye) and a collection of tales about getting it right, getting it wrong, mortifying mistakes, disastrous summer holidays, childhood milestones, Christmas catastrophes, things that made me laugh and, in the case of nativity plays and eight bouts of chickenpox, the things that made me cry.

  These are my favourite stories, spanning pregnancy, babyhood, toddlerdom, school years (when I changed their names to Low The Elder and Low The Younger to protect their privacy), and now the bit when they leave home and I adopt a veneer of stoic encouragement while wondering what to do with the empty room, the extra free time and the cash saved on the weekly food bill.

  Whether you’re pregnant for the first time, or already have a brood of adult children, I hope you’ll find something here that will make you smile and nod in recognition.

  And boys, if you’re reading this, don’t hold any of the mishaps against me. We made it to adulthood and you’re still talking to me. You turned out great. I’d do it all again. And you’ll be fine as long as you remember the lessons I taught you…

  Your mother is allowed to be embarrassing.

  Everyone has cute childhood memories that make them blush. Although most of yours do involve pants.

  And, obviously, your mamma is always right… because I said so.

  2004

  Toddler Spots and Burnt Pots

  Just Call Me Flo…

  If I were on the nightshift in the medical tent during the Crimean War, history would read very differently. Instead of Florence Nightingale, the Lady of the Lamp, it would be Shari Low, lady of the dodgy diagnostic skills, who trotted up and down the ranks, bellowing, ‘Look, if you don’t stop that moaning you’re getting nothing for your tea.’

  There’s as much chance of me winning a Carer of the Year award as there is of Victoria Beckham popping into Primark for her spring/summer wardrobe.

  On Monday, I noticed a large spot on Callan’s head. Now, at three, he’s ten years too young for puberty so I was a wee bit concerned. I showed it to assorted family members. Opinion was split between, ‘och, it’s just a plook,’ and long inhalations through pursed lips, accompanied by, ‘it looks like chickenpox.’

  Absolutely not! Callan has already had chickenpox twice so I knew it couldn’t be that.

  However, by next morning he looked like one of those cartoons, where a small child doesn’t want to go to school so he draws hundreds of spots all over his face and body with red felt-tip. The horror of it was that I knew Cal didn’t have a red felt-tip (confiscated after Bob the Builder, Scoop and Dizzy were drawn on our freshly painted bedroom wall).

  I screamed for the husband. ‘What do you think?’ I gasped in an anguished screech that suitably reflected my usual tendency towards the overdramatic. I was already imagining wild, exotic infections (ignoring the fact that the furthest afield we’ve been in the last year is Penrith) that would require at least six months of quarantine for the whole family.

  ‘Chickenpox?’ he replied with a shrug.

  ‘Absolutely not, he’s already had it twice,’ I said fretfully.

  I whisked Callan up – at arm’s length – to the doctors’ surgery, where the spotty wee soul was thoroughly examined.

  ‘Chickenpox’ was the diagnosis.

  ‘But it can’t be, he’s already had it twice,’ I protested yet again, before running him through every other possibility I could think of. There was I, every shred of medical knowledge I possessed gained from watching ER and Casualty, and I was arguing with a man of thirty years’ experience in general practice.

  ‘My dear, this is definitely chickenpox,’ he replied dryly, as he scribbled a note on Cal’s file – probably along the lines of ‘Mother is argumentative, neurotic and please put her on that special list of people we’re trying to bump to another practice.’


  So there it was. Chickenpox.

  Now, being fully aware that I was behind a steel-plated, time-alarmed, impenetrable door when God gave out the ‘empathy and sympathy for itchy ailments’ genes, I made a very special effort to summon my nursing skills.

  For the first twenty-four hours I was a model of care and concern. I cuddled him close when he cried because his friends couldn’t come to play. I patiently mashed up fruit when he couldn’t swallow anything hard because the spots were in his throat. I got up every few hours during the night to dab calamine lotion on his skin. I even slept in his arthritis-inducing-if-you’re-over-the-age-of-eight bed all night so that I was near him on the 106 occasions that he woke up moaning about the discomfort.

  On day two I cracked.

  My faulty genes and chronic sleep deprivation kicked in and I realised that I couldn’t do another day of soothing words, gentle rubs and reading How Much Do I Love You on a repetitive loop.

  I dispatched the husband to the shops for emergency rations: ten bags of chocolate buttons, Monsters Inc., Toy Story 2, Shrek, and a balaclava so that I could take Cal for walks without scaring the neighbours.

  And so we established McSpotty’s daily pattern for the rest of the week: unlimited bribery with chocolate, more television than the average couch potato gets through in a month, and a nightly walk with him dressed like an armed robber.

  Medical input from mummy? Limited to regular hugs, sympathetic smiles and a wee rub of the head every time I passed him en route to change the video.

  Last night in bed, inspired by our current situation, I told Cal the story of Florence Nightingale, explaining what a gentle and kind nurse she was, how she instinctively knew what was wrong with the sick and how best to comfort them.

  He pondered this for a few moments.

  Eventually, he spoke.

  ‘Mummy, you’re a rubbish nurse.’

  It’s the best diagnosis that’s been made in this house all week.

  To the Infirmary and Beyond

  According to my son, his name isn’t Callan Low. It’s Lightyear. Buzz Lightyear, Space Commander, sworn enemy of the evil Emperor Zurg. We just call him Buzz for short.

  From the minute the three-year-old with the vivid imagination first encountered Mr Lightyear, he’s been saving the planet on a daily basis. Since this invariably involves jumping from a great height shouting ‘To infinity and beyond’, the rest of the family live in a state of constant fear – husband and I are terrified that he’ll hurt himself, while Brad (nearly two) is terrified that his superhero brother will land on him.

  We’ve had many near tragedies since Callan became Buzz. He recently leapt from the top of a flight of stairs, accompanied by the mandatory yell of, ‘To infinity and beeeeeeeeeee…’ That was as far as he got before he landed halfway down and, by some miracle, survived with only a bruised bottom to show for the adventure.

  A few days later, he jumped into a swimming pool, uttering the same war cry. He neglected to notice that Buzz doesn’t come complete with armbands and a dinghy, and we had to fish him out before he sank like an intergalactic stone.

  But a couple of nights ago we had our biggest adventure yet. We thought our home was relatively Buzz-safe – locked doors, reinforced furniture, bouncy carpets. However, we neglected to remove a lethal weapon from the bathroom: the towel rail. Apparently, the universe was in jeopardy again and the only thing that could save it was Buzz swinging on the towel rail, before doing a triple-back summersault and ending up sprawled on the bathroom floor. Did I mention that his head struck the metal toilet roll holder on the way down? Bog roll one, Buzz Lightyear nil.

  The screams had us galloping to the bathroom and I nearly fainted at the sight. There was so much blood it looked like he’d ruptured a main artery. I turned him around to see a crater the size of a small planet on the back of his skull. Actually it was a gash about an inch long, but I was in drama/panic mode and convinced he had only minutes to live.

  We bundled a bemused Brad and a hysterical Buzz into the car and raced to the hospital.

  ‘To the infirmary and beyond…’

  Naturally, by the time we got there, Buzz was completely back to normal and, other than the red stuff oozing from his skull, looked like he didn’t have a care in the world. Apparently, space commanders have supernatural powers of recovery. Meanwhile, my heart was still thumping like a hut door in a hurricane and the fright had put me into such a state of hypertension that I sounded like I’d been sniffing helium.

  The hospital checked us in and directed us to wait in the seated area. Two hours later, it was me who was climbing the walls. Not because I was still panicking over the health of my firstborn, but because he’d made such a rapid recovery that he was chasing his wee brother (now renamed The Evil Emperor Zurg) around the room and was in danger of causing yet another injury. By the time the doctor called us in, all shreds of sympathy had vanished and I was ready to ground Buzz for the rest of his life.

  The doc examined his wound carefully. And can I just point out at this stage that not all ER doctors look like George Clooney. Not that I minded, because I had hair like a burst couch, no make-up on, was dressed in my pyjamas and covered in blood. But we definitely didn’t get George. We got that bloke from Hellraiser.

  ‘Needs a few stitches,’ he declared. No problem, I thought. A few stitches are nothing to a superhero. Then I saw the doc loading the local aesthetic into a syringe that was so huge it looked like it was designed for horses. Buzz saw it too. Who knew action figures could retreat so quickly?

  The doctor administered several jabs to the back of the head, while I tried my best to utter soothing words. As the needle went in, I did what I always do when the kids are scared, upset or sleepy – I decided to sing a song. Only my mind was blank. I couldn’t think of a single lyric except… ‘Jingle Bells’. Picture the scene. An impatient doctor trying to administer an anaesthetic to a wriggling child, while a demented mother with tears blinding her, clutches on to her son’s ears and sings ‘Jingle Bells’ at the top of her voice. In the middle of March.

  I tried to reassure my boy. ‘Almost done, baby, almost done, you’re such a brave boy, oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh…’

  Almost done? I could have run up a new set of curtains in the time it took Hellraiser to insert three stitches in my frenzied superhero’s head.

  Finally it was finished, and the doctor gladly fled the scene, leaving the lovely nurse to dress the wound. She wrapped a bandage around my warrior’s head and the minute I saw it my stomach sank. Buzz Lightyear was gone, but in his place we had Rambo.

  Thankfully, he didn’t need further treatment; although we are avoiding the local parks for fear that he’ll indulge in a spot of jungle warfare or attempt to take a parkie hostage.

  However, my recovery from the trauma has been slower and required a repeat prescription for a large bottle of plonk.

  ‘To oblivion and beyond…’

  Trick or Treat?

  ‘Mummy, I’m going to be a PUMP…’ my three-year-old, Callan, announced at full volume in the middle of the local library last week.

  I clenched my eyes shut tight in trepidation as to the inevitable infant-logic explanation that would follow. As regular readers know, Cal has an affinity for the word ‘pump’, usually applied at the most inappropriate times (i.e. meeting elderly aunties at family functions – ‘How are you, Callan?’ ‘Pump’ is the reply).

  ‘Pardon?’ I replied with as much nonchalance as I could muster, hoping that his toddler attention span had already moved on to what he wanted for his tea.

  ‘I’m going to be a PUMP… KIN,’ he proclaimed proudly.

  ‘Me too,’ piped up his two-year-old brother, Brad. Of course, Brad has no idea what he’s talking about, but just as Callan loves the word ‘pump’, Brad (aka, The Echo) automatically adds ‘Me too’ to the end of all his brother’s sentences. If Cal announced that when he grows up he’s going to be a classical pianist, change his name to Farquhar and adopt a diet of nothing but mushrooms, Brad would pipe up with the obligatory, ‘Me too’.

  But back to the library.

  ‘When?’ I asked, mystified.

  ‘At the Halloween party.’

  Oh, groan. Halloween. The day of the year that I dread even more than Valentine’s Day, my wedding anniversary and National No Moaning Day. It’s bad enough that I get forty-seven kids at the door, in various plastic masks demanding fun-size Mars bars and fifty pence for telling a joke about a chicken and a cow. But since my boys are only two and three, I thought I had a few years left yet before I had to start dealing with the pressures of costume planning and freezing my bits off as I traipse around the neighbourhood accompanied by a headless horseman and Donald Duck.