A Stressful Week Ahead

After a lovely quiet bank holiday weekend, I now have a stressful week to face. First and foremost the older two kids go back to school tomorrow, but the whole thing is intensified by the fact that this will be eleven year old son's first day at secondary school. There is an air about him of being on death row. I am contending with this, combined with the other big event tomorrow (WHY did I book it in on the same day??) which is our last meeting with the venue manager, at which we tie up all loose ends and finalise all details of our wedding before the big day in (stab of nervousness) less than five weeks' time.

None of the kids' new school uniform has yet been named, lovely fiance and I are unable to agree on a main course and vital questions keep coming to me at random moments, such as the need to find out how many highchairs the hotel possesses for our army of child guests. The randomness of these thoughts makes me nervous, as I just know I am bound to forget an important detail. And I know I must be fully organised as lovely fiance cannot be relied upon to take control of the venue meeting, except possibly as regards the menu on the day (the suggested meal is Beef Wellington, but lovely fiance detests mushrooms and it seems they are a vital ingredient of this dish. When our best man suggested he 'just scrape off the filling', lovely fiance pointed out that 'it is my wedding day and I will not be doing any scraping'. We cannot agree whether a wedding menu should be chosen because it includes dishes you like yourselves as the couple to be married, or whether you should pick crowd-pleasers).

However, I think I was coping admirably with all these things, maintaining a calm mummy exterior, until that one final thing pushed me over the edge into snarling fishwife mode. What is this thing? Quite simple. In the thick of all the organising and planning I find I have forgotten to buy more baby wipes at the weekly shop last Friday. When do I discover this fact? When the small one is lying on the changing mat with nappy half-off. I am at that point where I have gone too far to just reseal the nappy tapes until I can go and find some alternative cleaning materials. I have no choice but to tackle the nappy at that moment. I use the last remaining wipe in the pack, thinking as I do that I might be able to perform the whole job using just one instead of my normal handful and wondering about the associated money I could save by doing this at every nappy change! Of course this proves to be completely wishful thinking. The small one had picked the worst moment to produce a particularly resilient nappy. Holding her down with one hand I scrabble through the basket of baby paraphernalia we keep in the bathroom with the other, in search of cotton wool, stray wipes, anything, but to no avail. I try hollering for lovely fiance, first in a mild voice, then with gathering momentum as the small one decides it might be a fun plan to see how far down her body she can get her hands. Without an answer I raise my voice to a level which might even have sent the next door neighbour scuttling for baby wipes, should he possess a pack. But to no avail.

To cut a long story short, when hoarse from yelling for any member of my family to assist without success (I spend half my life with one or other of my older kids invading my personal space but when a moment arrives when I need their help, both seem to inexplicably disappear), I eventually wrap the small one's lower body in a towel, which depending on the aftermath I will either wash or bin, and decamp to the kitchen where I am able to mock up baby changing kit using kitchen towels and water. The small one remains remarkably well-behaved throughout this, obviously tuned in to the fact that Mummy is at breaking point and one wrong move could send her over the edge.

Crisis over I add a visit to the supermarket to my 'To Do' list and face up to the rest of my stresses, which are all still there. I cannot help wondering how on earth previous generations coped before the invention of the baby wipe, but resolve not to question my mother about this as I feel the answer when delivered in her inimitable style may well challenge my already shaky belief in my own parental ability. I will content myself instead with buying in a sufficient stockpile of wipes to service a whole gang of babies for the next six years.