Yummy Mummies

As I step out of my Maida Vale flat at precisely 8:34 a.m. every morning (okay, sometimes earlier, and mostly a lot later), I'm almost always nearly run down by a small child in school uniform on a scooter (not the motorized kind, the kind you push off on, like a skateboard with handles), followed by an immaculately dressed mom pushing a stroller with another baby or small child on it on their way to the school near my street.  When I say "immaculately dressed", I mean immaculate.  Although they may not look like Elle Macpherson above, dropping her children off at the school gates, they sure do try their damnedest to emulate her.  And they fascinate me.

This particular morning, for example, a slim, thirty-something woman with a cropped pixie haircut reminiscent of Victoria Beckham's former style, zoomed past me on her child's scooter, with her son in a regulatory green school blazer standing on the said scooter, with a look of what could only be described as pure delight on her face.  She wore four inch espadrille wedges and a pair of perfectly cut Seven jeans (that's 7 for All Mankind for all you non-fashionistas out there), and a crisp navy v-neck tee, one foot balanced precariously on the scooter and the other manicured foot pushing off with the wedges as her child shouted with laughter.  Passing two other parents taking their children to school, she waved with one hand and said hello.

In Edgewood, Washington, we have affluent soccer moms:  they drive mini-vans Range Rovers (or Escalades),  go to the same nail salons, and are the first to sign up their houses with pools for the end-of-the-year soccer BBQ parties.  They go to the same churches and purchase 1.5 Coach bags every month or so, (or whenever their husbands get paid).  They go on trips to Cabo, Mexico with their neighbors, Tammy and Paul, and make a trip down to LV (that's Las Vegas, not Louis Vuitton) three times a year with their other neighbors, Pam and Todd.

In London, and, I suppose, in other major cities in neighborhoods such as mine, we have "yummy mummies" - those who happily (and personally) send their children off to school every morning in Seven jeans and Balenciaga handbags then somehow find the time to get their nails done at Tillie's on Warwick Avenue and lunch in Ladbroke Grove.  Yesterday, I stood and openly gawked at a woman in full running gear, pounding the pavement - with one hand on a stroller, running at a speed of, oh, 7 or 8 miles per hour. 

Where are the dowdy moms?  You know, the ones who look like ... moms?  No, these women are fragrant with Chloe and Dior when I pass them, their hair tossing with blow-out perfection - they don't look a day older than 32 and obviously have a personal trainer, nanny, maid, and personal assistant to plan their lives for them.  I seriously do not get it.

But their children look happy, and it's always so cute to see their little helmeted heads zoom off to school each day as I make my way to the tube station.  

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