HerFamily.ie contributor, Sharyn Hayden has written a book. You know, along with being a stand-up comedian, presenter, actress, mother to two kids and a dog and creating and running the brilliant website RaisingIreland.com, she’s written a book.
We’re feeling impressed and exhausted in equal measure. Sharyn lives in Dublin with her husband, Alan (AKA ‘Ass Monkey’) and children. Her weakness is Meanies crisps combined with grated cheddar in a white roll with butter for lunch. Fact.
All week we will have exclusive extracts from Sharyn’s hilarious literary tour de force, I Forgot To Take My Pill! – An honest Diary of a First-time Mum. Chapters with intriguing titles like “Daisy trumps willy” and “Snatch to the wind” will be winging their way to you all week.
In today’s chapter Sharyn gets “The Goo” and Ass Monkey goes along for the ride…
Chapter 3: Buggy Ninja
It was while visiting my younger brother and his pregnant wife in the UK one November that I got ‘The Goo’, and it took me completely by surprise. My intention was really only to see how their Bump was progressing and make sure my brother was being a helpful gent to his wife.
I have three brothers and they’re mostly all excellent men, but it is the job of the older sister to make sure they are treating their ladies as they should be treated. Just as it is my brothers’ job to take hurling sticks ’round the house of any guy that is treating their sister badly.
Yep, that’s us Haydens. We’re like the Sibling Mafia. We fight with each other all the time but we’re fiercely protective of each other. Basically, we should live in The Bronx and Ben Affleck should be our neighbour.
This trip was important, too, because no one in our family had ever expected a baby before. It was our family’s first and we were all just a teeny tiny bit over-excited about the prospect of the new addition. We took it all VERY seriously; my mother and I even took up knitting for the first time in several years for both of us and happily bestowed mismatched and unevenly shaped baby cardigans and booties on the future parents.
The big bummer was that my brother had moved to Leeds some years previously, and that’s where this new baby would be born. We were all stuck in Dublin being excited about the imminent arrival via Skype, which sucked (Although I’m pretty sure Shane and Claire were only too relieved to have a bit of distance between them and us mentallers).
There was shopping to be done in Harrogate the weekend I visited: baby shopping. The three of us trundled off to Mothercare to have a look at buggies. A wonderful sales assistant lady instantly came to help us and offer some demonstrations as to how their fantastic range worked. I will never forget watching Shane and Claire’s faces as the look of utter horror and confusion ultimately engulfed them during the demo.
And they weren’t alone – my face was doing its ‘What The Fuck?!’ routine too. If you have ever seen a ninja move, perhaps scaling a series of ten-foot walls and rooftops in an effort to escape the scene of a crime, you might have a visual on the speed that this sales assistant operated.
She flicked buggies up and down, gadget on, gadget off, parasol up, parasol down, drinking cup holder on, drinking cup holder off, with pram, with detachable car seat, music on, seatbelts tightened, three wheel, four wheel, different colours – reds, blues, Disney themed – at such great speed that all of our heads were spinning.
How the hell were they supposed to pick the right one, I wondered? How were they supposed to know exactly what the best thing to do was?
Clearly, I was no expert, but I had taken public transport for many, many years, and during that time, had seen several mothers and fathers struggling to get on the bus or train with kids, bags and contraptions that ferried the kids around. I even had a kid shoved in my direction to hold once or twice, when a buggy was being particularly awkward.
These memories came flooding back as I stood, stunned, in Mothercare and thought to ask the only important question I could think of:
‘Em, where are the, you know, one-handed buggies please?’
My brother and his wife diverted their attentions to stare blankly at me. Claire, presumably, because she was still stunned from the Ninja Buggy Demo and Shane in that sibling ‘Oh fuck off with your annoying questions, sis’, kind of way.
The sales assistant looked nervous, and I’m fairly certain, did a quick head-to-toe body scan to make sure my extremities were still all in order before asking, ‘I’m not sure what you mean?’
Shane was pleading with me with his forehead at this point, all crinkled up in a ‘Don’t take the piss’ furrow. I ignored him, as a big sis usually does.
‘Say for example, Claire has her baby on one hip and is holding on tight. Now she needs to open the car boot to get her little bag of shopping from Morrisons in, before folding the buggy and putting that in the boot before getting baby into the car seat inside. Where are the buggies that can be easily folded and opened up again with her one free hand?’
Another silence, but not on our side this time. The sales assistant looked gutted to be faced with such a reasonable question, stuttered around her non-answer and I left my brother there to bask in my brilliance as I strutted off to have a look at some other items that I could buy for Christmas presents.
There were a few other babies in my life at the time as some friends had been busy reproducing. I lay my hands on reindeer-styled onesies with cute furry bottoms and the tiniest snowman booties you have ever seen, and something strange happened in my womb. It did a… a kind of flip. Fobbing it off as probably due to the dodgy pub lunch I’d just had, I ignored it.
Popping over to the Early Learning section, I went on the hunt for a few educational toys for the older kids in my life. I mean, Play-Doh wouldn’t make my lunch come back up, would it? As I attempted to select some very practical art sets, I was disabled by something in the corner of my eye: glitter. My favourite thing.
Inner drag queen engaged, I was rooted to the spot as my gaze sought out the source of this magical, twinkling matter. Before I knew what was happening my eyes landed at the kiddie clothes rail. I wasn’t quick enough to turn away and would never undo my seeing it: a tiny, beautiful, glittery pink and purple fairy princess dress.
And right there, right in the middle of Mothercare in Harrogate, Leeds, I started crying. And I actually could not stop myself.
I whipped out the phone and texted my boyfriend of a couple of years, the very handsome, and appropriately nicknamed, Ass Monkey (you’ll see why when you see a photo of him, honestly).
Me: Hiya. Having a great time, weather is shite but it is winter after all. I was wondering if you might be in the market to impregnate me when I get back?
Ass Monkey: Yeah, ok, cool.
Me: ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS????
Ass Monkey: Yeah, why the hell not?
Me: *Throws Pill In Bin* Love you xxx
When I returned to Ireland, the ‘Great Freeze of 2010’ was just upon us. The weather was so bad that businesses closed down, snow socks sales for car tyres went through the roof, and ‘that’ guy slipped on the ice and was featured on the nine o’clock RTÉ news before becoming a YouTube sensation.
The country was at a veritable standstill. Neither Ass Monkey nor I could get to work and erm, had to stay indoors a lot, keeping each other, you know, warm.
Christmas came around and we partied like rock stars, as was our way. I have this romantic idea of Christmas being my favourite time of the year ever, but with caveats attached. It is only perfect to me so long as nobody tries to wreck it with fights (which they usually do), and the Christmas tree isn’t attacked by a dancing drunken uncle (Every. Single. Year).
But Christmas 2010 was a particularly good one, I remember. We spent Christmas Eve drinking with my brothers in various bars in my hometown of Rush. My sis-in-law Claire was with us, though heavily pregnant at that point, so probably hated us but was in great spirits.
Ass Monkey and I popped off home on Christmas Eve with our Santa Bags (my amazing mother still gives us bags for the end of our beds every year) and finished off the cooking and baking for Christmas dinner (One of the great things about Ass Monkey is that he’s a wicked cook – I can actually burn soup – and he had elected to put Christmas dinner together that year. It. Was. Amazing).
On Stephen’s Day, we always go to Ass Monkey’s family and hang out with all the nieces and nephews and the millions of dogs that are running around. They’re a big dog family and that year, we had our own little puppy Pearl to add to the chaos.
She rewarded our inclusion of her with shitting and pissing all over the floors in every room, and we spent most of the day running around after her so that none of the kids would end up sticking their fingers (or faces) in it.
I cannot and will not, tell a word of a lie when I say that I probably drank the guts of a bottle of Bacardi between that day and night. We stayed over – no doubt because we absolutely had no chance of making it home by our own devices – and couldn’t function for days afterwards. We completely destroyed ourselves.
On New Year’s Eve, I had this weird thought: Shouldn’t I have had my period by now?
Which was followed by: Oh my fucking jaysus!
I ran to the pharmacy for a pregnancy test, brought it home to do that thing you do when you buy a pregnancy test and there it was: positive.
On New Year’s Eve 2010, Ass Monkey and I discovered that we’d made a baby. Just like that. Bob’s your uncle and Fanny’s your aunt.
Sharyn Hayden’s book I Forgot to Take my Pill is available to order on Amazon.
