Taking the family lobster for a walk

Today I took Mr Pie for a long, long walk to Gladstone Park - it's in a whole different borough, and when I say 'walk' I mean Pie sat all snuggly in the buggy and I pushed him the whole darned way there and back. It was bitterly cold: usually I love nose-nipping, hand-chapping days but today as I raced along homeward trying to ignore little Pie's cries (he was freezing cold) I felt bitter.

It's a peculiar mini-hell, pushing a bawling infant away from you while simultaneously gripping the buggy handlebar like a lifeline and reminding yourself, perversely, that you only made the outing for the baby's sake. Because babies need fresh air, so say the folk, and in general it's good for the sanity of their entourage too. Just sometimes it can look to passersby as if a mentalist is taking their angry pet monkey for a punishing drive in a mini open-top 4x4. Just for the hell of it.

But who cares what people think? If I gave a monkey's I'd be taking Mr Pie to a safe, warm dance 'n' sing session somewhere over in (West) Hampstead, like that agressive woman I saw in the advert for Gymboree today.

"I have very modern ideas on parenting," she said (her baby daughter sitting there in some sort of Edwardian frock) "and quite clear ideas on how I want her to develop." (I bet she's already made-up the spreadsheets for the five-year plan.) "I do lots of activities and things with her... so she'll be a confident, happy and secure person." (Death-ray smile to camera).

It brought on flashbacks of the Alpha-mum in the NCT group we attended, all L'Oreal locks and iron will. As usual, it made me feel guilty that I've never really aspired to bring Mr Pie up as any of these things. It's not that I don't wish them for him, it's just that I think it's wrong to sublimate my desire to forget my own traumatic upbringing into a career plan for the life of Pie.