Julie Jay: Once Baby Shark starts playing on a loop anything can happen

Unlike Leonardo DiCaprio, age is something which is not at the top of my list when it comes to priorities, least of all when choosing toys

Comedian Julie Jay. Picture: Domnick Walsh

Julie Jay

COMEDIAN

Ted turned the big zero two this week. The darling husband (DH) is away filming something, so we make do with a small gathering, a shop-bought cake, party poppers, and popcorn. The theme is ‘things that pop’, and I get my dad Gon Gon to press pause on

Pointless

for 10 minutes to come party with us. 

Mother and son are on antibiotics, so the chances of this blowing up into an all-nighter are minimal but still, once Baby Shark starts playing on a loop, anything can happen.

We wear party hats, and I present Ted with a toy cash register in the hope he can channel his mammy circa 2000 vibes (shout out to Garvey’s in Dingle, where I was a till operator during the summer months… I’m pretty sure I still owe them money). I try to help Ted count his money but much like the Revenue, he snatches the notes out of my hand quicker than you can say ‘PRSI tax’.

I buy Ted an easel which he plays with for 5.8 seconds before discarding the magnets to one side like Leonardo DiCaprio discards women when they hit 25. (On that note, this week, I have enjoyed people holding up Leo’s rumoured dalliance with 27-year-old mum Gigi Hadid as an example of Leo moving away from type: The woman is a blonde-haired supermodel, so hardly that much of a deviation.)

The day before our crazy birthday party (it’s a wonder the guards weren’t called on round three of Incy Wincy Spider — things were getting raucous), I go to the toy shop to choose Ted’s gift. 

This week, I have enjoyed people holding up Leonardo Di Caprio’s rumoured dalliance with 27-year-old mum Gigi Hadid as an example of Leo moving away from type

I disregard the age suggestion for toys, laugh in the face of the three-plus range, and scoff at the early learning section. Early learning? Ted could teach the class, I tell myself. 

I exit the toy store proudly with an easel with magnetic numbers and letters under my oxter and a sense of outlandishly wild expectations for my son under the other.

Unlike DiCaprio, age is not at the top of my list when it comes to priorities, least of all when choosing toys. Yes, when choosing Ted’s birthday gift, age is just a number until I get home and assemble the easel and Ted starts using the letter ‘I’ as a toothpick. 

I remove all the skinny letters quicker than you can say ‘choking hazard’, and the number ones also have to go. Ridding Ted of certain items ‘for his own good’ gives me ‘1960s Irish censor’ vibes but we plough on because this house is officially a Mammy State. 

Ted soon forgets the easel and instead, we discover the joy of hiding inside the box it came in.

Age is at the forefront of most women’s minds. We give ourselves deadlines based on societal expectations, and the pressure of meeting these imaginary milestones is crushing. 

As a single woman in my early 30s, I suppressed my yearning to have kids by reminding myself if I didn’t meet anyone by 32 it was over because that is what the media had led me to believe.

Meeting DH later in life and having Ted is all the more special because I thought the opportunity to do so had passed. 

The moral of the story is not to allow yourself to be crushed by pressures which have zero grounding in reality.

Over the summer, a young doctor asked me if Rihanna was still alive and commented how his mother had herself been a massive Britney fan as he took my bloods. (The latter comment hurt more than the needle.) It emerged that he was born in 1995 and I immediately grew concerned they had let a TY student loose on me as work experience.

In the corner of the doctor’s office sat an easel. My teen doctor is giving me serious Dr Doogie Howser vibes and he informs me the kids love it and that it was his favourite toy, which he would remember because, let’s face it, it was fairly recent. He still likes to use the magnets to make words, he tells me, just for fun.

Age is just a number, he says, and then he immediately contradicts himself by asking me my age. A lady never tells, I say, which is a weird response to give a doctor because they can take your date of birth and work back. (If they can’t, you really should get a new doctor. Preferably one that’s over 18.)

I realise then, mortified, that I have accidentally given Ted’s birthdate, not my own, which makes sense because it was the first day of my new life as a mammy, and so in a way, it is the most important day of all.

Dr Dougie leaves the room momentarily and when left alone with the easel, I ponder what word to compose with the multi-coloured magnets. Only one will do, and I carefully take the letters T-E-D because it is the word carved into my heart at all times.

When Dr Dougie returns we both chuckle as we note that I have given Ted’s date of birth, not my own.

“What am I like,” I say, laughing.

“Next thing you’ll be telling me that’s your pin code,” Dr Dougie jokes.

Note to self: I need to change my pin code.