Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

Adrift in a sea of gloop

Katy gazes at the sea of cold green pasta stretching out before her and turns to give me a look that seems to say: "You must be joking if you think I'm eating this". She looks worried, unsure she'll be able to prevail, that maternal force majeure will compel her to perform the hideous task of swallowing this nastiness down.

Katy prefers her food orange (sweet potato, carrot, squash all top favourites), or beige (apple puree, "pairritch") - and she's indicated in no uncertain terms that both are more palatable warm. She'll tolerate spaghetti bolognaise in small quantities or a pink Petit Filou. Avocado - both the wrong colour and temperature - is a no-no.

Inside the pasta sea small fluorescent monsters are swimming. One has a long black hair wrapped around a tentacle. My stomach turns. But another little baby grabs at the baby-sized serving spoon adrift in the pasta and pushes at it. The fun begins. Katy holds back a while longer, watches and then finally starts to copy, relief visible on her face that this is just another bit of grown-up silliness she can laugh along with at no cost to herself.

The Mucky Munchkins class works on the basis that they let babies smear themselves in as much pasta, gloop and non-toxic paint as they want, then someone else clears it all up afterwards. When they say mucky, they ain't lying. Next to the pasta is a washing-up bowl filled near the brim with what looks to be vomit - a substance I've had enough experience with already this week, thank you very much - again peopled with monsters. Mess is what we're here for, I have to keep reminding myself.

I've been trying to kid myself we're doing this entirely for Katy, but the truth is that after starting back to work two days a week or so in January I've been lonely and out of sorts on the days I do look after her. However little I have in common with the other mums here, Mucky Munchkins is at least some kind of landmark we can organise the day around, an escape from the long, formless slump of home life, with the promise of some adult conversation.

So here we are, Katy covered in yellow porridge in a room at the local library, me twittering nervously about whether she can eat the gloop in safety. We move on to finger paintings, with me encouraging Katy to daub cut-out shamrock (a nod to St Patrick's Day next week) and rainbow shapes.

Come the end of the class, I want to find the shapes she "painted" and pick up a rainbow that looks like it might have been hers. Another mother clears her throat. It's clear I'm about commit some solecism. It turns out to be the work of her offspring, or so she says. "We're taking that home to show Daddy, aren't we?" I'm no longer sure which painting is ours. Bless them, but the babies haven't yet discovered a distinctive style and one besmeared shamrock looks very much like another.

Briefly, I consider forgetting the paintings and keeping Katy's vest as our memento of the morning - installation art for infants, if you like - since it's got more paint on it than any of the paintings. Nah. Too bizarre. Then I spot a shamrock that looks like it might be ours. Phew.

The woman running the classes wants to take it from me to lay it out to dry with the others but after my run-in with the other mum I'm taking no chances and hug it to me protectively. This might not be top-end office politics, but on the mums-and-babies circuit you do get a few opportunities to stretch yourself. I wrap the shamrock, lopsided from undried lumps of orange paint, in a binliner and pop it in my rucksack.

Posted 09 March 2007 18:18

Daughter Play Playgroup Work

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