Nobody puts baby in the corner...

Some nice folk in TV land got in touch with me about this here blog. How flattering, I know. Turns out that the very talented comedienne Sharon Horgan is doing a show about Mothers and they wanted to check me out so to speak. A lovely enthusiastic bubbly blonde researcher was dispatched pronto to shove a camera in front of me and ask me lots of questions. I know this method well. This is done to save time and money. The big wig producer types can then see how 'camera friendly' you are, and whether or not you give good story. Sadly my story wasn't deemed extreme enough - unlike the uber super mum who is 26 with 5 kids who she home schools while baking organic cookies and also flexing her Tracy Anderson sized bod. I'm just a regular crummymummy, a bit of a lush, with a perhaps unhealthy crush or two on embryonic boys - such as Riggins and Puck. (If you don't know who they are, then that is because you are not a saddo like me or a teenage girl). Nothing too exciting here they thought.

They'd be wrong.

I am fairly extreme - I swear. So extreme in fact that I partake in a casual spot of Latino Bambino to keep my buttocks pert. Haven't you heard of this latest craze? Oh that's right - you have a life. A friend let me in on the latest yummymummy hangout in North London - a plush glossy baby shop with eye wateringly bright objects for sale at eye watering prices, a cafe and an exercise room all under one roof - called Huggle. Yes, Huggle. Sounds like something Gwynnie would Goop about if she wasn't so damn busy with Glee and Oscar frocks and all that 'madness.' (Her words, not mine).

Every time I say the name a little bit of sick rises in my mouth. Anyway, I have a dear friend who was my 'paint the town red' buddy, as well as my 'ring for advice on anything and she will give it - no sugar coating required' buddy too. At 40, having always declared she never wanted kids, she has just popped out her first baby. (he really did pop out as well - she hired a Doula birthing partner who she projected managed her birth with). She is only person who, when she rang me to tell me she was preggers I replied 'fuck off!' instead of the usual 'wonderful, brilliant, blah blah...' Anyway to keep ourselves sane we meet up every two weeks to do something child friendly - but more importantly Mummy friendly - and we try to vary these activities to make each one a new experience - all in a similar anti military yummy mummy fashion. Other mothers tend to bring us out in hives - the kind who only talk about babies and poo and teething and seem to have pushed out their personalities along with the placenta.

So today I took her deep into the jungle of posh uber Mums at *swallows hard* Huggle for a Latino Bamabino class. For a mere £10 (then you have to book a course of 6) you strap on your child and shake your booty. Lots of mambo and shaking your maracas and hip wiggling. Cue smug looks of Mothers with swishy ponytails and big sparklers dripping off their hands as they congratulated themselves in finding something so clever that Mummy and baby can both enjoy. The only Mother who spoke to me said 'who have we here?' and nodded at Sproglette - which was nice of her, granted, but why not ask my name first? After all - I can speak. The teacher - a scrawny heavily made up dancer who looked like the west end had spat her out years ago, clapped along but looked slightly tired of the whole thing. A tin pot ghetto blaster pumped out the sounds and several Mothers filmed themselves boogying. Filmed themselves - why?? Thank god my mate had done her pelvic floor exercises or she might have peed herself from laughing. It was hideous. Sproglette looked bemused at best, mainly disgruntled. My breasts struggled to contain themselves and my feet went in opposite directions to the rest of the mancengo mammmas.

The other Mums took it very seriously - this was proper exercise before their long lunches and browsing in the shop that featured Jessica Alba favoured nappy bags. Good god, when did Mothering become a status symbol? This shop even sold designer dummy holding bags! I've seen it all... So we shook our thang for about 45 mins in a sauna hot room with a bright orange rubber floor. Then there was a mad scramble for the door (seeing as I'd nearly had buggy parking rage with a Japanese woman on the way in, I was taking no prisoners on my way out) as the women charged out to see who could drop out a nipple first. Post breast feeding they packed up their Harrods bags (who needs so much stuff?) and designer handbags and dashed off talking about nannies, and poo and how hil-ar-i-ous it was that their baby slept through the class because clearly that means it is a genius, while my mate and I just stood back mouths agape. There sure is money in those social climbing Mummy hills. Now if the TV cameras had grabbed a few seconds of baby lambada for the bored-desperate-to prove-themselves-more-money-than-sense-Mothers-of-North-West-London they'd have had tv gold for sure.