Buttercup says...get the fuck off my baby!

“Whoring”: A term that refers to meeting and going on ‘dates’ with other mums whom you have met through baby related websites.

I have this friend called Buttercup. She is blonde and like a little ray of Sunshine. I met Buttercup from my whoring on the internet. On the day I met Buttercup, I was really whoring it big time because I was doing two in one day.

The first time we met we got ever-so-slightly-tipsy and it’s been a great friendship ever since. I can phone her up and say “I’ve accidentally sliced off my child’s finger nails.” And she would go “Dude?” and be totally cool and non judgemental about it.

This is the e-mail she sent me this morning:

“Why is it when you have a baby, complete strangers on the bus feel the need to talk to you and touch your baby? I don't know where they have been. They could have swine flu…..? Who the hell are they? I don't touch their faces. Why should they touch my baby’s face? I want to tell them to piss off. I want to be able to say “Please don't breathe on my baby....don't even look at it, let alone touch it!”

This makes Buttercup sound completely irrational. She isn’t. She is actually one of the most relaxed ‘mums’ I know.

I can hear you thinking, “Jesus if that’s one of the most relaxed mums she knows, imagine the how bitchin’ the uptight ones are?” But we all have our down days, don’t we?

At the time Buttercup was having a down day she didn’t realise it. She was just ‘getting on with it’. She was juggling a billion things and trying to cope with being on a London bus, on one of the hottest days of the year with her cranky baby and a well meaning but totally incomprehensible Scottish woman.

“I was sweating like a bitch, exhausted from running around all day and trying to have a life by having lunch with some friends from out of town. I managed about 4 spoonfuls of food before the baby kicked up. Typical.

And so this woman is giving me unwanted advice on how to dress a baby in the heat - going on and on and on. She’s squeezing his cheeks and pressing her face up to his and breathing all over him and tickling him under his chin and telling me how hot he is. My blood started to boil and I wanted to shout at her.

“Yes, it's too damn hot. I can't understand a fucking word you are saying but I do know this. My baby is cranky for a whole host of reasons, but one of those reasons is most definitely because you are all up in his face.

In two hours time I have to get on another disgustingly hot bus, in peak-hour traffic to go do a presentation for college. In the meantime I need to collect a prescription so that my son can eat without throwing up. I need to get home, shower, feed my baby and tell my husband all the things he needs to do with the baby while I am out and hoping to god they both survive.

When I get home tonight, despite being hungry and tired, I need to start packing pack six weeks’ worth of shit because in two days I’m leaving the country with my Asian husband and mixed race son to visit relatives, some of whom have ‘race issues’.

When I have done everything and finally get into bed, I then have to get up every three hours in the night to feed my son before I start all over again tomorrow!

It may not be clear to you but I am doing my best to be a good mother. Yes, I know my baby is hot. I too can feel the searing heat. However, my baby is dressed in 100% organic, fair-trade fucking cotton which I paid through the nose for, lady. Now get the fuck off my baby!!!”

The moral of this story is: Strangers, you never really know who you are messing with so get the fuck off the baby.