All For A Bra

8am It’s the first day of day care for 2013. I try not to whistle as I sign The Curly Mop into her day care room. Baldy Baby is chewing on my keys. Everyone seems happy. (It won’t last).

8.05am I take Baldy Baby to her day care room and place her on the mat next to a little boy wearing mauve pants. Baldy looks at me as I sidle away but doesn’t seem too perturbed. I think she is more interested in the mauve pants as she keeps swiping at them. The carer asks me if I completed the three page ‘daily routine’ form. I give her a blank look: what form? I am given another and I bend awkwardly over a baby sized table filling it out.

8.20am I attempt to leave Baldy and she erupts with indignity. The carers push me out the door assuring me she will be fine. As I drive away, the feeling of elation I had all Christmas at the proposal of day care starting, is gone. I head to the shops with an ache in my stomach.

9.30am Standing in the food court I debate between the ‘healthy’ salad roll and the ‘yummy’ fast food chicken roll (hey, I’ve been awake since before 5am, it’s practically lunchtime). Despite my better judgement I choose the salad, and within two minutes of unwrapping it I am back at the counter complaining about the wet soggy wrap and the brown and dried out lettuce. The replacement they give me isn’t any better and I end up tossing most of it away. I knew I should have gone to Red Rooster.

10am I am standing, mortified, in the change rooms in Myer as a professional bra fitter pokes and prods and explains why my breasts look lumpy and ugly. She had originally not wanted to fit me at all because I had technically only stopped breast feeding a week ago. They recommend at least eight weeks before fitting a bra as your boobs will shrink even more (oh good). I practically grabbed her by the shirt and hissed ‘you don’t get it! This is my only child-free day. I haven’t had a new bra in six years.’ I keep checking my phone compulsively, convinced that day care will call any minute. It’s not until I walk out of the shop that I realise I wasn’t in Myer at all. I was at DJs. Doh.

10.30 I am searching for a new dress to wear to a friend’s wedding next week. I have very specific requirements. You might call me fussy. Or delusional. I make a pact with myself to go into every women’s clothing shop in Karrinyup. That’s about 346 shops. I go into the ‘young people’ shops and the ‘old people’ shops. I go into the ones that sell silver and gold lame leggings

And even the shop that sold metallic hotpants.

I didn’t find squat.

I did however find the Bombshell’s pre-primary teacher and we had a nice chat about how much it sucks trying to find clothes. Of course, neither of us actually used the word ‘sucks’.

11.30pm Digging through my handbag looking for a tissue, I find the form I was given last year at day care. I also find a pair of knickers (not mine), a squashed rice bubble bar that expired in August last year and a Baci. I eat the Baci. I decide to keep the rice bubble bar ‘just in case’.

12.30pm I am back in the car. I have bought one bra, no dress and yet have four bags of other random crap I neither need nor want. I am my own worst enemy.

1pm Tootling down Hay Street in Subiaco, the universe decides to open up a car bay right outside the row of fashionable dress shops. I take the hint. The first shop doesn’t stock maxi-dresses (the only length I wear), the second shop doesn’t stock anything over size 14, the third one doesn’t stock anything less than $800 and the last one doesn’t stock anything with a back. And even I, with my dubious style, will draw the line at wearing a bra with a backless dress.

1.30pm I am sitting in the car scoffing a burger. I do not believe in making the same mistake twice. I begin to relax. Obviously Baldy Baby is having an absolute ball.

1.40pm The phone rings. I am being summoned to collect Baldy Baby.

2.00pm I walk through the door at day care. Baldy is sitting on the mat with the other babies. She is playing, sort of, in between sobs. Deep, rasping sobs that start way down in her diaphragm and erupt in a little sigh. Her face is wet with tears and when she sees me, she pushes me away with one hand and pulls me to her with the other. When I pick her up and cover her with kisses, apologising repeatedly, she grips me with her little fists and gives me a toothy grin through the tears. She turns to the room and waves bye bye. I can take a hint.

2.10pm I go to check on the Curly Mop, not enjoying the prospect of having to come back a third time that day. But she, like all her little friends, is asleep on her mattress. She is on her tummy, her bottom sticking up in the air. I decide not to wake her, thereby sentencing myself to a third drive to day care for the day. Did I mention it was 40 degrees?

3.30pm After pushing Baldy around in a trolley through the grocery store, ignoring stares by well-meaning people at her somewhat unorthodox and very unladylike posture, I am now home, and she is asleep in her cot. I look longingly at my computer, my fingers twitching, but I make myself unpack the shopping and load the dishwasher before easing myself into my chair and starting this blog. Two minutes later I hear the Bombshell banging on the front door, home from her holiday with her grandparents.

5.00pm We are back in the car going to day care. Again.

8.30pm The kids are in bed, asleep with any luck. I finally get to sit down again at my computer. My husband is watching Nigella on the TV. I bet she doesn’t have to wait six years for a new bra.