Confessions of a First-Time Mum by Poppy Dolan
Confessions of a First-Time Mum by Poppy Dolan
Hi All!
Today is my stop on the Confessions of a First-Time Mum blog tour and I’m here today to tell you all about this book!
About the Book
Stevie’s life has changed beyond recognition since having her first baby.
Stevie loves being a mum, but between the isolation and being vomited on five times a day, she really wishes she had someone to talk to.
With husband Ted working hard to keep the family afloat, Stevie really doesn’t want to burden him with her feelings. Turning to the internet, Stevie starts the anonymous First-Time Mum blog and blasts the rose-tinted glasses of parenthood right off her readers.
In the real world, Stevie meets the formidable Nelle and gorgeous Will, along with their own little treasures, and starts to realise that being a ‘perfect mum’ isn’t everything. But when the secret blog goes viral, Stevie must make some tough choices about who she wants to be, and whether she’s ready for the world to know the truth…
A perfect laugh-out-loud read for fans of The Unmumsy Mum, Gill Sims and Emma Robinson.
Extract
Blog post 3.12am
Baby Groups: Not for the Faint-Hearted. Or the Wet-Haired.
Baby groups: a soft, cosy haven for the new mum, right? A place to meet likeminded mum friends, take a load off for forty-five minutes, bond with your baby and come away with a new affinity for parental life and strengthened mum skills. Yes?
Um.
No.
Maybe I’ve just been to the wrong groups. Maybe I was so mental from lack of sleep that I wandered into Aggressive Negotiating for Women 101 and that explains all the blank stares I get in return for my nervous grin. No one moves a bag from a chair for me, and the little cliques in corners move closer together, whispering and nodding. Their whispers make me very self-conscious about my wet hair, baggy leggings and Big Baby’s general whiff of curdled milk.
So I always end up with the chair right next to the person taking the class, further distancing me from the others as Super Swot and putting me right in the line of sight when everyone starts singing and clapping, and I am completely lost mid-verse of ‘Three White Mice’. (I swear, once a class leader turned to me, interrupting the song, and snapped: ‘We don’t say ‘blind’ any more! It’s offensive!’ as if I was scrawling graffiti on the RNIB building.) Big Baby does not dig the tunes and quickly builds up a head of steam into a major meltdown. The class leader will take this as a moment to cheerfully demonstrate some distraction techniques for When Baby is Crying: flying her around like a plane, pretending to drop her down with a lunge, blowing raspberries in her face. And Big Baby demonstrates that she is a baby that will not fall for that crap, thank you very much, her face getting redder and sweatier with each failed method.
The eye rolls spread round the room like a grumpy Mexican wave. No one else’s baby is this angry. No one else’s baby is ruining it. No one else came dressed like they were going to service a boiler.
The shame and the noise get too much. There’s only so much polite smiling I can do when underneath my face my head is awash with tears and panic and despair. And so each time we bolt, the sound of Big Baby’s shouts trailing me out of the community centre, behind the high street and back to the car park.
So, all in all, a great day out and totally worth £6.50 a time!
Is it just me? Have you been to a class that hasn’t been a minefield of social codes and ear-drum splits? Actually, don’t tell me if you have because that would just confirm that it’s ME who’s the incompetent one here.
Stay strong, stay well fed.
Love,
First-Time Mum x
About the Author
Poppy Dolan is in her mid thirties and lives in Berkshire with her husband. She’s a near-obsessive baker and a keen crafter, so on a typical weekend can be found moving between the haberdashery and kitchenware floors of a department store, adding to her birthday wish list. She has written three novels: The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp, There’s More to Life than Cupcakes and most recently The Bluebell Bunting Society. The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp made it into the Amazon top 100 bestseller chart, so clearly someone other than her mum must have read it. She’s currently working on her fourth novel – it’s about friends, siblings and crafty things – and drinking far too much tea.You can get in touch with Poppy on Twitter @poppydwriter and on Facebook at PoppyDolanBooks. She doesn’t bite. Unless you are a dark chocolate digestive.
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