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Hayes House Pages

Saturday 12 June 2010

Yummy Mummies

Why is it that my bed is the warmest and comfiest place to be at 6.29am on Monday morning just before the alarm clock starts screaming its head off, whereas the night before, when I need to sleep, it’s the most hostile environment on earth? It’s cold, lumpy, hard, and it contains a duvet-hogging man who is the ringmaster of the all-snoring, all-flatulating circus.

As I lay in the darkness willing myself to sleep, the LCD display on my bedside clock taunts me. It may be the only visible thing in the room; a gentle red glow that is deceivingly comforting. Make no mistake though, the clock is evil. With every glance in its direction it gloats at me that in less than five hours it will, at a crucial moment, catapult me out of my blissful Johnny Depp dream using a sound akin to a robotic cockatiel, causing me a mild heart attack.

If I’m lucky, by 8.50am, I’ll have successfully dressed, groomed and fed our four zombie-like children and made it to the school yard without losing one of them on the way there. After very little sleep I’m scruffy, aggravated, and dragging several uncooperative children along with me. So why does every other woman in the schoolyard look as though they’ve just stepped off the cover of Vogue? A “Yummy Mummy” is the new fashionable thing to be, anyone who knows me would find that prospect hilarious.

I’m filled with admiration for these women. How do they do it? There just isn’t the time on frenzied school mornings in our house to apply make-up, do something Nicky Clarke-like to my hair, choose a knock-out outfit, and don killer boots. Between yelling at the girls, dressing Charlie, and removing toothpaste from ear holes I’m lucky if I manage to shove a banana clip through my hair, let alone brush it! I’m just not prepared to get up an hour earlier; that’s an hour’s sleep I’d lose. I’m already at the mercy of the ringmaster and the shrieking clock.

I seriously believe anyway, that no amount of make-up, no matter how expertly applied could make me look remotely human before midday. I also know that the effort would be wasted as it would inevitably slide off my face as I speed-march the kids to school, sweating profusely. Either that or my foundation, and all it supports, would be battered like the Norwegian coastline by anything from fine drizzle to torrential rain.

I once straightened my hair before leaving for school. By the time we reached the end of our street my freshly straightened hair was whipped around my head by the autumn wind creating a lovely bird's nest effect, nicely finished it with a few stray twigs and leaves. I can only conclude that the women in our school yard must use hairspray created by nuclear physicists.

Yummy Mummy my arse!

3 comments:

  1. Ahh..... ever noticed that you don't see ME on school mornings anymore? That's because I have perfected the following strategy 'Park Close. Unleash Children From Car. (if absolutely necessary, walk across road with them but do not enter school yard.) Avoid Eye Contact With Fresh Faced Glamour Mums. Turn Back To Car. Drive Home. Unload Unwashed Unmade Self And (very occasionally) Pyjama'd Infants. Wait Till Midday Naps For Showering And Self-Maintainance.'

    See? Don't have to show my face till 3.15 then! Sleep vs Nice Makeup and Hair - no competition in my book.

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  2. I knew there was a reason I should learn to drive. I find that sending Stig is equally effective though, apart from the occasions when he can't take them, which produces absolute panic because I've forgotten how to get them and me ready in the space of an hour.

    No competition in my book either esther but you have the added advantage of looking fabulous no matter what you do, that makes you one of THEM in my book HA!

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  3. i avoid school yard at all costs. im in my gym kit at drop off in the morning and i do loook decent at hometime but refuse to wait on the yard. i wait in the car until the bell goes.
    mandy

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