March 3: Caring mother

I hate shopping. For a female, I’m very bad at it. Like a moody child, I get bored. I slouch, I yawn, I scratch bodily parts I shouldn’t – at least not in public. I have no interest in it. The only shop I like is White Stuff. The clothes fit, they last, I can just about afford them. And, most importantly, it’s a small shop. You’ve only got so much choice. And there’s never much of a queue.
I suppose that’s why the thought of popping into Mothercare is not as horrendous as it might be. It’s all in the name. It implies: 'This is the shop for you - you only need one shop, and it’s us. We’ll sort you out in one fell swoop and you’ll never have to go anywhere else ever again.'
I wasn’t making a deliberate point of going. I just saw one and stopped. I had 30 minutes. Figured I could do supermarket sweep and be out without drawing breath – or blood.
I went straight to the buggies, cornered a mousy-brown shop assistant and said: 'The only requirement is that I can take it across muddy fields with my dog.'
There’s three that fit that criteria. A red one. A brown one. And one that wasn’t in the shop but is in the brochure (not much use). I like the red one. It’s got good wheels (they can cope with fields). It’s a Phil and Teds, she says, for people who want to have more than one child as it can easily be converted into a double-buggy.
'Oh,' I say. 'I very much doubt I’ll have two children' (I don’t elaborate). But I like the wheels.
She lets me whizz it around the shop, in and out of all the cots and babygrows that I am doing my best to pretend don't exist. It is fast and light and the wheels swivel beautifully. I’m in love.
How much is it, I ask?
£364.
Oh.
Plus £20 for a rain cover.
This is Britain, I think. Surely it should come with a rain cover?
Plus £47 for a sleeping bag to keep Bump warm.
Plus £42 if you want a cocoon for when he's a newborn.
Plus £30 for a bag to hang off the handlebars to put your bits in (babies need bits, apparently, though I'm not sure what they are yet).
Plus £125 for a matching car seat if I want one.
Plus £22 for the bar that makes the matching car seat fit on the buggy base.
She looks at me without blinking.
'Do you have a car seat,' she asks innocently.
'Yes,' I say.
She’s obviously seen my type before.
She asks again.
On the third time, I divulge more information. Fatal error.
'I’m borrowing my sister's old one,' I say.
You would have thought I’d have confessed to wearing her underpants.
'Oh, we don’t recommend that. How old is it?' Her eyes narrow, a low crouch, tail-flicking, ready to pounce in the long grass.
I lie. My niece is now seven. 'Four,' I say. 'It’s four years old.'
In for the kill. 'Four! You can’t use a four-year-old car seat. The protection is made from polystyrene. Like a crash helmet, it rots, it breaks down. If you crash, the baby will have no protection and its brains will be blitzed.'
I confess I hadn’t thought of this when I'd been feeling rather smug about my free hand-me-down.
There was more. 'I take it, at least, it's a backwards facing one, is it?'
'I can't remember,' I say.
This time she glowered.
'Well, let me tell you something. If a baby faces frontwards, and you break hard, or have a crash, its neck will be thrust forward to such a degree, it will snap in several places.'
God damnit, she's won. I've not come this far for this baby to die like a battery chicken.
I pause to digest this for a moment, take a deep breath, then say: 'Tell me about car seats.'