Welcome to Baby Brain, a space where I - Charlotte, hi! - write about my life as a mother of three small children - Poppet (m, 4 years), Pickle (m, 2 years) and Peach (f, 5 months.) Those are not their real names. These are real stories from our days.
When Poppet was five weeks old, I took him to his first baby class. Set in a small room within the foyer of the local soft play, the baby sensory session we attended was lively yet intimate, welcoming yet horrifying - a nonsensically monumental event in my early mothering journey that left me somewhat traumatised for several reasons, which I will now divulge.
Reason number one: No-one warned me prior to attending that the etiquette at such events is to remove one’s shoes. As such, I turned up with a hole at the tip of my tights that I then spent the entire session attempting to conceal, for fear that anyone in the room saw that I had toes and decided I was a terrible mother because of it
Reason number two: The class leader waved a flashing light in my face that, she informed me pointedly, my son should now be tracking with his eyes. He was not tracking the flashing light with his eyes, leading me to think, “there’s something wrong with my baby, it’s all my fault that there’s something wrong with my baby, they all think I’m a terrible mother and someone is going to come in here any minute to take him away”
Reason number three: All of the other mums were better at being mums than I was, and they were almost definitely going to re-home Poppet thanks to my sheer incompetence (why yes I did have postnatal depression, what made you think to ask?)
Reason number four: They made us do the Hokey Cokey.
If you grew up in England in the 90’s, it’s likely you know the The Hokey Cokey. An 80’s pop classic with semi ancient origins, The Hokey Cokey was once a mainstay of kid’s club discos set in the Spanish isles, grandparent’s birthday parties and aunty’s weddings. What I didn’t realise when dancing to this absolute banger between the ages of 2 and 10 was that it would become woven into the fabric of my life long after I had transitioned into adulthood, haunting me on average twice a week from the age of thirty onward.
Arriving home from that first class, my husband asked how it had gone. “They had us do The Hokey Cokey,” I said, miserably, staring into my son's non-tracking eyes, frantically whispering that “it doesn’t matter if your eyes don't track, mummy will take care of you I love you please be OK.” I said the same thing to a long distance mum friend - about the song, not the eyes. “Yes, they do that,” she mused, confirming my suspicion that already-mothers don’t fully disclose the truth of life in motherland to not-yet-mothers, for fear of scaring them off.
(SECRET SOCIETY! SECRET SOCIETY!)
I didn’t go back to that first baby class, though the experience is seared into my brain, and I can picture the faces of everyone in that room bar the class leader who was wrong, by the way, babies don’t track light until they’re 3 months old. (God BARB*, get your facts straight you swine.)
*Not her real name
With all of this in mind, you might think that I would hate The Hokey Cokey. It’s a logical assumption and, honestly, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a small part of me that does. That part is overpowered by the part that loves it, though, and here is why: During a recent kid’s dance class, The Hokey Cokey played (obviously.) All of the parents were expected to get involved, and so up I stood - Peach snoozing in her carrier on my chest - and, with one boy in each hand, went full pelt at the song Spotify would list as my most played, if Spotify was tracking my life offline. As I tried to style out shaking the wrong leg all about, I looked down to find Pickle gazing up at me with such pure, unbridled adoration on his face that I felt almost winded. ‘This is our song now,’ I thought, gazing back at him, my affection for it unwavering even when, the next day, I tried to join in with his rousing rendition from the top of the stairs only to be immediately shut down (he finds it absolutely horrifying when we involve ourselves in such things - “NOOOO not YOU singing, just ME” - I’m really not sure why.)
It has been four and a half years since I was indoctrinated into the The Hokey Cokey as a mothering tool, and I think - thanks to Pickle - it might be my new favourite song. Which is yet another thing I just did not see coming.
What I actually listen to on Spotify, since it’s come up
Honestly? Rewatch podcasts, almost exclusively. As I said to a friend recently “it’s like watching TV when I don’t have time to watch TV.” She looked bemused, but you get it. You’re smart.
My top four rewatch podcasts:
Tales From Wisteria Lane - a Desperate Housewives rewatch hosted by ‘the boyfriends,’ a charming gay couple I want to be friends with.
Enemy In Paris - an Emily In Paris hate watch podcast, with a catchy theme tune, that gives me a reason to keep watching Emily In Paris beyond “yeah I’m not sure, it’s awful but I can’t stop?”
Office Ladies - it’s Pam and Angela from The Office talking about The Office, I don’t think I need to say more than that.
The Rewatcher - a Buffy The Vampire Slayer rewatch pod that is so good I can literally see the scenes play out in my head when they’re described. A bit sweary, so one I need headphones for when the kids are around, but otherwise top notch.
Please do share any rewatch podcasts you’re listening to, I’ve recently caught up on all of these and am afraid I’ll soon have to listen to myself think.
And, finally, some articles I’ve enjoyed as of late
on her relationship with her mother on toddler bedtime struggles on teens and mental health on why you should think twice about holding a stranger’s baby on a bus on the loss of a child on pigeons and lonelinessAnd a short poem by
Until next time 💃🏼
You brought horrid memories I'd buried of Hokey Cokey at a hideous baby music group. To be in the room I had to get triplets out of their buggy, carry them upstairs unaided, then enjoy the inane session. It was horrifying. We stayed home played with our own basket of musical instruments and skipped leg-in leg-out action!
Thanks for the share and shout out Charlotte. I appreciate that!
I wonder if this is the same as the Hokey Pokey in the US? “You put your left arm in, you put your left arm out…”