Julie Jay: If you hang around a smoking section long enough you’ll eventually get the shift

Pic: iStock

An armistice has been reached, and Ted and I are back to being honeymooners, just in time for the most romantic day of the year.

Recently, somebody asked me how Fred (aka Darling Husband) and I initially met, and it got me thinking about where it all began, a time pre-babies, pre-nups, and pre-mortgage approval.

I am walking evidence that as a non-smoker if you hang around a smoking section long enough you’ll eventually get the shift.

I first met Fred in a Cork bar, though I knew him to see because he was a well-known head on the Irish comedy scene and also I had been a fan of the iconic Spar ads in which he featured.

I had been single for a long time, and though I wanted to be a mammy, I didn’t let myself believe it might happen. When I met Fred, having kids was on the cards very early on, but nothing prepares you for the emotions that come with it.

Of course, being a parent is to experience a type of love you never knew existed. If Ted is in the room I find it hard to focus on anything else. Everything orbits around him. At the risk of sounding like that semi-creepy Aerosmith song from that Ben Affleck astronaut film, my favourite moment every morning is looking at his little face while he is sleeping.

Yesterday, watching his little face as he slumbered in the morning light, a quote from my English teacher days sprang to mind: ‘But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Ted is the sun.’

I can’t remember if it was Shakespeare or Aerosmith who coined the line but either way what poetry.
Unfortunately, so overcome was I with maternal grá I had inadvertently uttered these words aloud, thereby awakening the child, who quite rightfully looked at me as if I was a few plastic plates short of a picnic basket, and told me in no uncertain terms to get myself together.

After breakfast I decided to kill an hour by ostensibly baking Daddy some Valentine’s biscuits.

I say ostensibly, because Fred is away at the moment and there is little chance these biscuits are making it to Valentine’s Day.

Still it’s the thought that counts and, much like secondary schools up and down the country, I feel it’s no harm in running a mock exam before the big day.

As anyone who has ever attempted baking with a toddler will know, it’s not quite as idyllic as you would hope. When we get to the flour stage Ted is standing up on a chair covered in so much white powder he looks like an extra in Narcos.

Producing the butter, Ted practically loses his mind (he loves butter, so much so that I have, on more than one occasion, found Ted-sized bite marks on a slab of Kerrygold I have left unattended). I eventually prise the butter out of his hands and convince him to allow me to work some butter into our mix.

We throw in a few raisins (some landing in mammy’s hair, an occupational hazard), cut the mixture into heart shapes, and voilá ... I am Nigella Lawson.

I would love to say we spend the oven time cleaning but instead I sit on a chair and survey the wreckage, wondering why I didn’t just purchase a packet of toffee pops, tell Fred they were hand-baked, and save myself from the carnage.

When our biscuits emerge though, Ted and I are pretty pleased with ourselves. It takes every ounce of our mutual resolve to let them cool on the wire tray, and when the time comes they do not disappoint.

Ted bites in. ‘Mmmmmm,’ comes his five-star review, and I cannot help but concur. We polish off most of our biscuits but “save a couple for Daddy”, which of course means save for Mammy after Ted goes to bed.

That night as I tuck him in, Ted asks for some butter. I say no but tell him he can bring a toy to bed. He chooses his little red tractor. As I pull the sheets up around him he hugs his toy tight. “Mammy, I love it,” he says, and I kiss him and tell him I love him to the Moon and back (it’s our sign-off every night).

“I love you to the Moon Mammy,” Ted responds, and my insides turn to mush, like the bowl in our Goodnight Moon book, always our bedtime book of choice.

For years I hung around smoking sections in a bid to get the shift, drove to Galway for lunch dates and even, in one desperate move, briefly joined a tag rugby team (all those broken fingers!). But the best love to come was the love that came from this tiny person.

Yes, getting to love him means eating biscuits in secret after he goes to bed and yes, 26 hours later, I
am still pulling raisins out of my hair.

All of this though is a small price to pay for my little man, who I love more than anything in the world, as much as he loves butter, which, as it turns out, is a lot.