Look! I took your advice! I feel like a kid turning up on the first day of school. But I’m sure it will be fun. Thanks for giving me the push I needed xx
She sends a photo looking in through the window at the comfy chairs, bookshelves and display heaving with cakes.
Erin replies immediately.Hurrah! Good luck, sis, I’m sure it will be great xx
Kate pauses in case her mum is going to reply too – she’s usually pretty quick – but when nothing comes through, she returns her phone to her pocket and pushes open the café door. The group she is looking for are immediately recognisable by the platoon of prams.
Once she’s ordered at the counter, the women in the group look up and smile warmly, beckoning her over without her needing to say she is here for their group.
‘Is this the Tired Mums Club?’
‘Do you need to ask?’ laughs one woman, gesturing to her large coffee cup. ‘This coffee has three shots in it.’
The women are dressed in an array of tracksuits, leggings and jeans that Kate suspects hold secret elastic waistbands just like hers. There are messy buns and tired smiles, white patches on shoulders, large cups of coffee and plates piled with baked goods.
Even if it took the well-meaning interference of her mother to get her here, Kate is suddenly glad that she came.
‘Welcome,’ the woman adds. ‘It’s always nice to see a new face. I hope you don’t mind that we meet pretty early, but we’ve all been up for hours already, right?’
Kate can hear the exhaustion behind the woman’s laugh and immediately feels at ease. After months of feeling as if she’s existing in a different time zone to her friends who don’t have children, here are women who also know what it’s like to begintheir day in the early hours. For the day never to really end, in fact.
‘So, what’s your name?’
‘Kate,’ she replies as she lowers herself into a chair. It’s Rosie’s first time in a café and she looks a little startled as she gazes about, taking it all in. After three months spent mostly on the sofa, Kate feels the same way.
The woman next to her holds her own baby up in front of her chest, lifting up one of his hands as though he’s waving. ‘Hello, Kate,’ she says in an icing-sugar-sweet voice directed at Rosie. ‘I’m Theo.’
‘This is Jacob,’ says the woman to her right, smiling and placing her hand protectively on the head of her baby, who is dressed in blue dungarees and a yellow T-shirt.
Before Kate can chip in, the other mothers introduce their babies; there’s Mabel (big blue eyes, snotty nose), Jackson (mop of black hair, sticky-out ears) and Charlie and Ivy (twins). The babies are all bigger and older than Rosie, but Kate has no idea how old exactly. Surely she shouldknowthese things now she’s a mother?
‘Um, sorry. My baby’s actually called Rosie. I’m Kate. I didn’t realise we were doing baby introductions first.’
‘Oh, that’s OK!’ says Theo’s mum brightly. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Kate, welcome to our group. I’m Lexi. Most of us met through our NCT class, but we decided to open it up to whoever wants to come along. How old is little Rosie?’
‘Three months.’
Kate wonders if the other women are going to introducethemselves, but it seems that the moment for name-sharing has passed.
‘Oh!’ lets out Mabel’s mum further down the table and Kate watches her go gooey, holding her own older baby a little tighter to her. ‘So, you’re still in the lovely newborn bubble. I’d give anything to have that time again.’
‘I miss it too,’ says Jackson’s mum. ‘Although I don’t miss the lack of sleep. How is Theo sleeping now, by the way, Lexi? Has the sleep training worked?’
Lexi sighs and begins to talk in detail about the sleep training plan, before the conversation moves seamlessly onto an update about the babies’ bowel movements. Kate wonders how their children would feel if they knew the way their mothers are sharing the most intimate details of their lives like this. And yet she understands it too. That need to talk about the things that so consume every waking (and half-waking) moment but that feel too dull or too desperate to share with anyone else. A desire to look around and anxiously check,Am I doing this right?
Kate sways more vigorously as Rosie starts to grizzle. With one hand, she devours a millionaire shortbread, crumbs raining down on Rosie’s hair, which Kate brushes away surreptitiously. As she listens to the other women’s stories about teething and nappy rash, a pressure builds inside her until she feels as though she’s going to burst.
‘Do you ever feel like you might have made a huge mistake?’
Frowns dart across faces and Kate’s cheeks grow hot with embarrassment. Oh. She must have said the words out loud. She knows immediately that what she’s just said is awful, theone thing you’re never supposed to think, let alone actuallysay, once you become a mother.
Lexi frowns, tilting her head slightly. ‘What do you mean? Like when you realise you’ve bought the wrong size nappies or have done the poppers on the Babygro up wrong? I accidentally poured orange juice on my Weetabix the other day, I was so exhausted!’
The other mothers look on expectantly, waiting for Kate’s reply. She thought that coming here would help her feel less alone, but these women clearly don’t know what she’s talking about. And she immediately knows why.Because they are good mothers,says the voice in her head, the voice that has been talking to her incessantly over these past few months.
‘Yeah, just like that.’
‘Don’t worry,’ says Mabel’s mother kindly, resting a hand on the table close to Kate’s. ‘We’re only human. We’re bound to make tons of little mistakes.’
