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, 6 months.) Those are not their real names. These are real stories from our days.
I took Poppet to the local market to buy a peach the other day. He's still reading James And The Giant Peach with his dad, and every so often will update me on what's happening in the story. "Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge got smushed by the peach", for example, while I’m cleaning him up in the bathroom, or "the ladybird got annoyed" while we're out for a walk (out of context, this second one raised some questions). I promised he could try the food of his story one morning when we were riding solo¹ and so, after his swimming lesson by way of hot chocolate, off we went to the fruit stand. There, I asked the nice grower man (farmer? grocer?) if he had a peach.
“Do you have a peach?” I said.
"Ah well they're out of season aren’t they," he replied, kindly assuming I'd have a clue what grows when rather than having no idea how much of nature works, which is the god’s honest truth of the matter. "We do have plums?"
“The season for peaches grown in (the) UK is typically from June to September, with peak season in August” - Fresh Farm Deliveries
You learn something new every day.
Although at the time I was puzzled by his suggestion, I now know that despite plums being an entirely different colour to peaches they are, according to Google, of the same ‘prunus genus,’ making it an understandable alternative to offer. Still, I explained, it would be unsuitable in this case due to the book connection and, now feeling awkward about both my lack of interest in this gentleman’s plums and his lack of interest in my son’s bedtime routine, I contemplated the rest of his offering. It was whilst desperately wondering how obvious it would be if we were to leave in the direction of the supermarket’s out of season produce that I saw it: *the apple.*
Vibrant red and with a shine that suggested shoe polish, *the apple* was a thing of beauty. So eye catching was it, in amongst the leafy greens and the giant heads of cabbage,² that I literally couldn’t look away. ‘I’ve seen this apple before,’ I thought, enchanted by its glow, ‘didn’t a young woman with seven husband’s wind up in a glass coffin thanks to one of these?’
She did, her name was Snow White, I hear she’s now doing quite well.
Powerless to resist the call of the apple and choosing to ignore the voice in my head questioning whether a witch had poisoned it for personal gain, I bought one for Poppet and we walked home, him pleased as punch with his shiny Red Delicious, me asking repeatedly if it was ‘good’ and ‘juicy’ and all manner of words that amount to ‘are you going to let me have a bite or am I not being obvious enough?’
I was not, dear reader, being obvious enough. The taste remains a mystery to this day.
Sat on the sofa at my in laws under a sleeping Peach³ - my daughter, not the fruit, imagine - many days later, I started to tell my husband about this apple. I’d just explained that I might embark on a new mission to learn to wink like Lucille Bluth, the mother in Arrested Development who could close each eye independently without disturbing the rest of her face. I had started demonstrating how far my imitation of said wink had come - which wasn’t very far at all - closing one eye at a time whilst attempting to keep my other features completely static when “that seems like a good use of your time,” my husband - sarcastic bastard that he is - quipped, prompting me to pivot to the aforementioned conversation on *the apple.* Recounting all that I have said above, with the addition of “it looked like a toffee apple but it wasn’t a toffee apple, can you believe?” I expected at least a mildly interested response from the man that had once loved me enough to marry me but didn’t now love me enough to humour my quest to be the next Lucille, instead finding my words met with an incredulous "maybe the wink isn't such a bad thought.”
Rude, I know. I’ve already filed for divorce.*
(*I haven’t, we’re fine, don’t tell my kids I said that they’ll only worry.)
As I find my bosom once again being used for a pillow, I also find that I don’t know how to put an end to this stream of consciousness, going round in circles as I am about the apple and the wink and the merits of contact napping which I haven’t, I’ll admit, conveyed at all, in the same manner as they rounded my head during the Easter weekend incident that almost (but not at all really) ended my marriage. So I’ll do so simply by saying that contact napping is a wonderful pastime that grows baby's brains, but is a better idea when you have entertainment to hand, lest the person you find yourself sat with rejects your offer of riveting conversation about apples and your new primary goal in life to imitate an actress that died in 2021 (god rest your soul, Jessica Walters, may your memory live on in my eyelids.)
If you need me, I’ll be working on my wink, without my husband, who has lost his front row seat to my genius.
*Closes one eye, powers down in order to concentrate fully.*
We’ll let ourselves out when we're done.
¹ I realised whilst proofing this post that I’d claimed Poppet and I were out alone. We weren’t. Peach is with me 24 hours a day to the point that I no longer, apparently, include her in head counts. Talk about a dyadic relationship.
² 12th May 2023, an excerpt from something I wrote the last time I documented a visit to this very same fruit stand: We did not leave with - despite the desperate cries of my two year old - a red cabbage that was bigger than a toddler's torso. ("Eat it, mummy!" he shouted desperately, as I wheeled him over to pay for the selection of fruit acquired for the task in hand, his unwavering faith in me hiding the truth in plain sight - that even if I had bought it, I'd have had no idea what to do with it.)
³ We always contact nap, but usually in a babywearing situation. I forgot my carrier over the Easter weekend and so spent many an hour under a sleeping baby as my mind went wild. It was a ride.
Three things from this week
1/ I took the children out this week whilst wearing my ballet flats. Once a staple in my wardrobe, these thin soled monstrosities are a footwear I now rarely entertain, and as such the lack of socks required when adorning them wasn’t at the forefront of my mind. Not until, that is, I remembered that I needed socks for soft play. After two hours (!) in the local library - where Pickle got very excited when the ladies initiated the Hokey Cokey during their rhyme time session “the HOKEY COKEY mummy! COME OOON!” (in a music class this morning he actually requested it, we are now part of the problem) - we were en route to the play of soft when I glanced at my feet and saw that they were naked within their outer sheath. Luckily we were next to a supermarket, where I was able to begrudgingly drop £8 on a two pack of bamboo Pretty Polly socks. Long story short I love them and they were worth every penny. 10/10 will wear again.
2/ I spotted this DVD in Cancer Research. I have never seen anything that looks so awful, and have never wished I owned a DVD player more so that I could indulge in a viewing. I can’t find this anywhere online and am desperate to see it so if anyone knows where I can treat myself to a screening, please do share.
Fun fact: This film had a £900,000 budget. It took just £602 on its opening weekend. You’d be mortified.
3/ Checking whether Biscoff biscuits are dairy free (Poppet is on an elimination diet by recommendation of both a GP and a nutritionist) I happened across this delightful little graphic on the Lotus website. It made me happy. I hope it makes you happy, too.
Until next time 😉
Utterly charming! So happy you have found you!
Charlotte! What a delightful read ❤️ I felt like I was right there with you. Also 100000% to ditching the ballet flats as a mom with tired feet and a tremendous need to socks.