Plastic not-so-fantastic

You know you’re getting old when you stand around pondering botox with the other mums at a kids’ birthday party. As I have prior knowledge of the botox experience, I was the centre of attention. It all started with a “botox splint” the plastic surgeon recommended when I wanted a pregnancy-induced granuloma thingy removed from my forehead. The “botox splint” was to freeze the muscles in my forehead and reduce movement-related scarring during the healing period. It’s a giddy feeling to be told you need botox for medical reasons rather than vanity ones. Takes all the guilt out of it. As I lay on the table being pin-cushioned, I suggested they might as well jab between my eyebrows while they were at it. Five hundred bucks later … The weird thing about botox, which I didn’t realise, is that it takes a week to 10 days to kick in. I woke up every morning to peer in the mirror and jiggle my eyebrows like a mad woman until one day I suddenly couldn’t anymore. It felt a bit weird to have a frozen forehead, but I looked very serene and relaxed, even while seething with stress and insecurity on the inside (you could probably still see it in my eyes if you looked closely enough). When I went back to the plastic surgeon to get my stitches out, he offered to make me his human guinea pig and provide lots more free botox, plus some fillers thrown in. I didn’t tell Husband, because Husband doesn’t agree with botox. He wouldn’t agree with fillers either, if he knew what they were. Husband will be very cross when he reads this blog tonight. I turned up at the consulting rooms and was subjected to an hour of sheer torture. I’m not so good with needles, especially big ones thrust right down close to your cheek and jawbones so the filler stuff stays in position longer. I went out to dinner that night with the school mums feeling like I’d been bashed around the head by Mike Tyson. Was it worth it? Well, Husband didn’t spot anything different about me. A beauty editor swore I looked brilliant, but it’s her job to notice stuff like that. I possibly looked slightly younger and more evenly facially aligned. Will I be going back for more? No, not even if it’s free. Hurts too much and requires topping up too often. I do sometimes fantasise about actual plastic surgery to correct my eye bags and basset hound cheeks, but I’m not sure how I’d hide the bandages and black eyes from Husband. I might have to resort to really tight ponytails instead. I tested one out in the bathroom mirror yesterday and, while my eyes looked a little stretched and weird, my cheeks looked fabulous. P.S. Another way you know you’re getting old is when you turn up at 9.45pm to a girls’ night out and the girls have already gone home to bed. But that’s another story …

TONIGHT’S MENU: Homemade pork sausage rolls (for the Sprogs) and homemade beef sausage rolls (for the non-Muslim pork-objecting Husband) with veg.