Late night shopping may be retail therapy for you, but it certainly isn’t for kids!

Many of my posts tend to begin with the sentence; “Last night on my way home from work”, or at least they seem to, to me anyway. But, this time, it needs to begin with this, because I do not know where else to begin!

So, I was sat on the bus, waiting for it to set off, glancing at my watch, and rubbing the big lump that had appeared on my hand from bashing it (accidentally) on the corner of the till drawer, and patiently waiting for my digital watch to change from 29 to 30 so the driver would put his foot down and get the hell away from the hell that is the Trafford Centre.

Just before he closed the doors, on walked two girls, sporting two large earrings each, and pushing two prams. One had a tiny new-born baby who was sleeping soundly in his cosy little den, and the other was a girl, about 2 years old who was wide awake and smiley. Now, bear in mind, this was at 10:30 at night, and from a shopping centre, not from like a hospital or an emergency doctors or something, where it would kind of be acceptable at that time of night. Their buggies were laden down with shopping bags, mostly sports shop ones, so they had selfishly dragged these poor kids out late at night so that they could do a spot of shopping.

Now, I am all for taking babies out for night time walks during the early days, when no matter what you try, the child will not sleep, but this is before you’ve had a chance to establish a decent kind of routine. And, my children, to be honest, never really had a proper routine until very recently, when Alex knuckled down and instilled a strict 8pm bedtime into them, in preparation for when they start school in September. But, we would never have had them out at The Trafford Centre at night, just because of a bit of retail therapy! It’s so wrong!

As the bus set off, the little girl was wriggling and trying to get out of her pushchair, and her young mother got her out and sat her on her knee, talking to her friend using foul language in front of the child, and saying how “f*cking naughty” she was. Then the next minute, she was kissing the soft hair of the two year old and telling her she was a good girl! Talk about mixed messages! The poor child did not know whether she was coming or going!
So, the remainder of my journey was filled with the sounds of high pitched squeals, the sound of “NO! Shut up you little sh*t”, and in complete contradiction “Mummy’s little angel, good girl”!

As I got closer to home, the mum went to put the girl back in her pram, and as she fought against the child’s struggle, the child made a noise that sounded like this: “Kur”. The mother recoiled in shock, and exclaimed in horror; “she just called me a cow! I can’t believe she just called me a cow! Little sh*t! It’s because I call her a little cow sometimes, she’s got it from me! I am shocked, I can’t believe it! She called me a cow!”.

And as I got off the bus, all I could think to myself was, well really, what else did you expect? And, I felt like such a good parent.
I realised that it doesn’t matter how much money you have. It doesn’t matter how many Easter eggs you can afford to get them. It doesn’t matter that you’re not there every night, reading their stories at bed-time.
What does matter is that you are consistent, that you give them love, but discipline them when they are being naughty, but that you do not contradict yourself all the time. It also matters that children have a good night’s sleep, and you can’t afford to be selfish when you have kids. How this girl expected her child to be on her best behaviour when she’s getting her to bed at midnight each night, is beyond me. It matters that you do not call your children “cows”, because that is simply disgusting.

(Incidentally, the big lump on my hand went down, and is now replaced with a shiny bruise.)

The “Price” of fame

Last week whilst stumbling along to work on Tuesday, I noticed a ginormous queue in the Trafford Centre, but could not see the start of it, nor the end of it, and couldn’t even tell which way it was going due to people talking amongst other queuers or sat down in order to make their wait more bearable.
I thought back to my activity books as a child, and the activities I would do where I had to trace a line to take the rabbit to the carrot with my pencil, and I thought, I want to see what this carrot is. So I followed the line. I walked past such a varied mix of people, some mothers with buggies and small children, young boys and girls flirting and chattering to each other, dads on their way home from work, teenage girls in brand new Ugg boots, and whole families altogether. The queue was giving nothing away about what these people were actually queueing for. I trailed past them, my imaginary pencil in hand, and followed this line that wound up and down gold bannistered staircases, and along shiny marble floors. Past Faith Shoes, past New Look, past Selfridges, and past a lot of red coated official Trafford Centre personnel who I assume were placed there to keep some order.
Finally, the line burst into some sort of crowd, and they were outside a shop. WH Smiths to be precise. Oooh, a celebrity book signing! And yes, I was right. And not just any old celebrity, oh no. The Trafford Centre had pushed the boat out and got in the amazing Sir David Attenborough. No wonder the queue was so huge, I thought. Anyone within their right mind would want a chance to meet this amazing man who has accomplished so much, and is still doing so.

The following night, whilst stumbling to work, I noticed there was again, a huge queue, but this time it was even bigger and wider, and with more red coated people keeping order all along it.
With excitement, I, once again, followed the queue, although this time, I struggled to do so. It was too wide, and I ended up being diverted around it due to winding barriers to keep people in line (haha – gettit?).
I thought to myself, who could it possibly be tonight to top Sir David Attenborough? What person could people want to meet more than him in this country?
When I reached the bustling and throbbing WH Smith’s, I felt the crowd’s excitement, and felt a part of it, dying to know who it was. And then, there it was, the name of this person who thousands were desperate to meet. I saw the sign on the window that read this:

“Wednesday 20th February 2008 – Katie Price”.

Oh dear.