Mama Malone
Malone wonders why she’s feeling broody
Everybody I knew when I had my baby is now having his or her second baby. In fact, they all gave birth ages ago and I’ve only visited their first child. It’s different when it’s their first – you want to congratulate them. On the second, I just feel sorry for them and think it’s best I get out the way ‘til I can help in a useful way _– perhaps chat to their kids about their university one day?
Perhaps it’s cos I’m not really a huge fan of newborn babies. Or that I don’t feel like I fit in, as the ‘single mother friend’ in their concrete family. It makes me feel even more single, and I feel like there’s not much to pitch in on the conversation: “I got lashed up this weekend, how about you? Oh.” I try to remember what it was like with a new baby, but it’s a horrible cloud of delirium involving a lot of custard creams and trips to Boots to buy everything they had – every day. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have to do it all again.
One must be so blasé by the second baby. When you have the first baby, you jump every time they cry, I imagine by your second child you can’t even hear it. “Darling, the baby is crying,” you say, while struggling to get the toddler into the car seat/coat/boots. “Oh, is it?” I can’t imagine what it must be like having to juggle a toddler and a baby. It probably makes one a better parent, learning to prioritise those battles with the toddler!
“One is wonderful. Perfect. As she grows it gets easier, and I can still have a life”
I really should visit more of my friends with their new babies. But newborn babies don’t do much, do they? They don’t even smile. Not ‘til three months. They can’t even look you in the eye! They sort of stare above one’s head in a daze. OK, so this is how I felt, until the other day… I, me – Mrs Unbroody – had a moment or even a few moments of broodiness. I know! Me! Mrs “mychild’sfatherleftmewhenIwaspregnanti’mneverdoingitagain”!
I felt an emotion I had heard of, but not really experienced: a yearning for a child! And yet I already have a child! Since having her I never understood why anyone would want more than one! One is wonderful. Perfect. As she grows, it gets easier, and I can still have a life. Why do it all again? Then I had that feeling.The broody feeling.
I wonder if it’s because my daughter is turning into a real person now; babyhood is so far away, yet sometimes she wants to be held like a baby – a very long baby, telling me off for holding her wrong. With my head I know that my body is doing its biological evolution thing, but hmm, I think I’d better not visit any more friends with new babies. A newborn would seriously ruin my social life.
