On Yummy Mummies

When do I get to be a yummy mummy?

Over the weekend, Tiger and I went to an engagement party for a dear friend. Also in attendance were several other school friends, the same age as I am, with little ones of a similar vintage to Tiger.

They were all immaculately turned out, with fancy dresses, impeccable makeup, hair that looked like it belonged in Pantene commercials.

Their babies were dressed in what looked like Laura Ashley and had clean faces and beatific smiles.

My baby had dirt on her face and rusk on her trousers and drool from here to Christmas.

And I ...

I'm pretty sure I had rusk on me too. And the distinct whiff of baby vomit after a small Tiger Incident. I was in mismatched, ill-fitting clothes (after finding that NOTHING FIT that morning. NOTHING). My hair is in dire need of a cut. I did my makeup in approximately five seconds, in the half-dark, before running out the door.

Now, before I go on, I want to say two things:

1. I like my baby having dirt on her face and rusk on her trousers. And, by the way, also HORSE HAIR on all of her clothes because she was riding a horse before the party. Yes that IS just how she rolls.
2. This post is not a trawl-for-compliments. I'm not writing it so you'll say, "Oh, but WE think you are beautiful, Cackle Mummy". I just take it for granted my friends think that about me, as I do about them. I think ALL of my friends are the most amazingly gorgeous people on the planet. We are one big "no YOU'RE beautiful" loveathon. None of that is in question. This isn't about beauty. It's about yumminess. And yumminess is ...

• Awesome makeup
• Designer clothes
• Super sleek hair
• No bags under eyes
• No vomit on clothes
• No dirt anywhere in the vicinity of baby. 

On all of these points, I fail. Most days, I leave the house and am halfway up the road before I have the horrible thought, "Did I check the mirror before I left, or at any point today?"

Usually, the answer is "no". Usually, I have no idea what my hair is doing, or if I have banana on my face or any kind of baby bodily secretion on my clothes. And I'm pretty sure this laissez faire attitude towards grooming is acceptable when one is the mum of a one-month-old, but Tiger is NEARLY TEN MONTHS and I still look, in the words of Grandma V, like I've been dragged through a blackberry bush backwards.

When do I get to start looking like Elle Macpherson, dressed for school pickup in designer skinny jeans and sexy boots?

When do I get to NOT look like a homeless person, upon whom child services may be called at any moment?

And, most puzzlingly, WHY DID ALL OF THE OTHER GIRLS LOOK LIKE MODELS WHEN I LOOK LIKE A LESS WELL-GROOMED YAHOO SERIOUS?

What do they have that I don't?

And why, oh WHY do I even care?

Because, the thing is, Tiger doesn't. She thinks I'm awesome at one in the morning when my hair resembles a pomeranian who's been stuck in a wind tunnel for the past six months.

And that should be enough, right?

Because, until she's a teenager and thinks everything I do is utterly mortifying, she thinks I'm a yummy mummy just as I am.

And stuff it. That IS enough. That's just lovely.*

~ Love, Miss Cackle x

* But one day I would like to wake up looking like Elle Macpherson just a little bit. Or at least have her boots.