Mosey Jones - The Mumpreneur Diaries - Business, Babies or Bust - One Mother of a Year

I can see why I would spend four hours a day being transported in worse conditions than a veal calf if I was producing groundbreaking work. Somehow, whiling away the hours fiddling about on Facebook doesn’t quite measure up. I’m particularly puzzled by applications that allow you to buy your friends a virtual gin and tonic – the point of which is what, precisely?

Boredom drives me to poke old friends, the online equivalent of drunk dialling and a similarly bad idea. Most can’t fathom why you’ve chosen now to get in touch, and very few are genuinely pleased to hear from you. I instantly discover that the class geek from school has a varied and thrilling life doing something in security in Africa and several of the lumpier girls are now go-getting businesswomen with expensively highlighted hair and apple-cheeked kids, dressed courtesy of Mini Boden. My offspring isn’t so much apple-cheeked as banana-haired since most of his breakfast this morning wound up on his head.

Finding one of my old classmates on Friends Reunited, I decide I should refer to her as SuperScot. She is one of those people who seem effortlessly successful. I count myself lucky that I only get to see her once every ten years at school reunions. She’s the one you fret about seeing because the fabulous media career you’ve been so proud of moments before seems kind of hollow and futile now as she radiates home-spun contentment and you look about as deep as a puddle.

She has already popped out three children and now makes bijou, one-off children’s clothes for a local retailer. Her picture on Friends Reunited (looking at these is another exercise in self-flagellation should you ever need to cement your feelings of inadequacy) shows a relaxed, smiling woman, obviously in control of her life, her kids and her career. At home in her own skin. I often feel like a distant cousin who’s overstayed her welcome in mine.

So I poke and then stare at the office calendar in the same way a schoolkid gazes at the clock willing 3 pm – or, in my case, 16 November – to come.

Boy One comes tripping downstairs for breakfast and shouts: ‘Lisa, can I have raisins?’ I am not Lisa. She is the Very Capable Childminder. He has taken to calling me by Very Capable Childminder’s name, which tells you something about the amount of quality time we spend together.

He has already started calling her his ‘second mummy’. I’m beginning to suspect, on the basis of last year’s showing (home-made card, complete failure on behalf of the Husband to pamper, spoil or generally remember the event he swore blind in the labour ward never, ever to forget), she gets the better deal on Mother’s Day too. Of course I am genuinely, hugely glad and pathetically grateful to the fates that I chose such a lovely person to look after my son, one who makes him feel so at home when I’m at work, but I would infinitely prefer to be the one doing the home-feeling-making, at least once in a while.

Feelings of inadequacy aren’t helped about 15 minutes later when I make Boy One cry in the rush to get out of the door to catch trains, win bread, etc. I may be overreacting a tad. Following the ‘carrot/stick’ parenting philosophy, I tell him: ‘If you don’t get a move on right now I’ll smack you so hard your teeth’ll rattle.’ This is a little more stick than carrot. That and the lack of oxygen from the massive baby pressing on my lungs leaves me more than a little tetchy. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that this wouldn’t happen if the office Nazis let me work from home.

At this juncture I would like to point out to social services that the most he ever gets is a tap on the hand and any rattling of teeth is the sound of them falling out after sweetie bribery. I’m a model of modern parenting, me.

My boss, the Editrix, takes me aside today and announces that she’s proudly secured me a pay rise. Perhaps the daily grind isn’t so bad, maybe that commute is bearable after all.

Five hundred quid a year. A raise of five hundred poxy quid for someone, and I quote, ‘with your level of experience and longevity in the job’. They say that when you have an epiphany, there really is a blinding flash of light. Well, I have one of those right now. Either that or it’s a migraine brought on by the sheer, gobsmacking tight-fistedness of it all. Admittedly it’s not her fault – the budget on our magazine is tighter than a gnat’s wotsit – but being blameless still doesn’t get Mr Waitrose paid.

It’s just not worth it. When people mutter that it’s not worth it, they’re usually having a bit of a bad week. Nothing a few pints and a lie-in can’t fix. But for me it really, really isn’t worth it. My travel and childcare costs have together gone up by more than £500 in the last year alone. It is getting perilously close to the point where I’m paying the company for the pleasure of seeing my son two days a week.

Enough’s enough. I’ve decided that when I go on maternity leave next week it will be the last time I darken their doors. I’ll have my baby, spend a few months floating about in a postnatal glow (I’m not thinking about the extra 2 stone of baby weight and leaking bosoms at this point) and then set up a modest little enterprise from the kitchen table, children playing at my feet. We aren’t exactly rich but the Husband’s salary can just about stretch to providing the serious money for the boring bills such as mortgage and gas. My little bit on the side could cover the Ocado orders, Boden binges and a (very frugal) trip to the Alps once a year. At least, that’s the plan.

My thirty-fourth birthday. Because of my bloated state and the fact that I’m finding it very hard to give a monkeys about anything other than my swollen feet, I’ve given up every attempt to get to work on time. I decide that, as I’m about as much use as a chocolate teapot at work these days, I’ll be forgiven a quick(ish, very ish) saunter down Oxford Street to do some window-shopping. Of course, fingering the credit card in my pocket, it’s not long before I’m leaving Boots with a couple of new eyeshadows and a splash of perfume. At least they fit.

I daydream about this time next year when I’ll be able to take myself off for a birthday shopping treat at any time of day and I won’t even shout at myself for being late back from lunch. Of course, I will be the only person to put money into the birthday envelope, and therefore I will in fact be paying for my own birthday present but that’s a small detail. It’s the last week at work, hopefully for ever, and the countdown has begun in earnest.

But that little voice is still peeping at the back of my head: ‘You’ve got a good job. It pays well.’ (The little voice at this point is lying out of its arse.) So I do a deal with myself. I’ll go it alone, but I won’t tell anyone, not yet. That way, if I have to crawl back to my desk in 12 months with my tail between my legs when it all goes pear-shaped, no one will be any the wiser.

But Boy One called me ‘Lisa’ three more times over the weekend and announced, ‘When can I go back to see Lisa? Mummy’s boring …’. So I am praying I don’t have to go back – besides, this baby has crocked my back and crawling is so bad for the knees.

Payday! And also my last official day in the office. I’ve managed to wangle the last couple of weeks ‘working from home’ (trans: ‘diving for the mute button on the telly every time the phone rings’) because I’m getting bored of the publisher following me round the office with a bucket just in case I ‘pop’. What does she think I am, a ruddy balloon?