I don’t often wear dresses … normally my wide and varied wardrobe consists of baggy trousers and loose tops, in the summer linen trousers and loose tops … I have lumpy bumpy knees and where other people have nicely turned ankles, I have sturdy calf muscles that seem to go all the way to my heels.
But … from time to time when I have a meeting or the sun is shining I can be seen out in a frock (I love that word) or a pair of shorts, today was a frock day.
It was sunny when I woke, I pottered about sorting Hope out for the day and then remembered I had a meeting. I couldn’t find any linen trousers that weren’t fashionably crumpled, so I was compelled to look further into the mountain of clothes waiting to be hung up / folded away. As I rummaged a brown dress fell out. I’d bought it back in January when I did the BBC TV programme but in the end chose another one which covered my knees better and toned down the breastfeedingly large ample bosom. I’ve lost a bit of weight since then (chasing a toddler around is the best weight reduction regime ever) and somehow in the sunshine it felt right to wear my new Noa Noa dress. I reminds me of something out of the movie ‘Land Girls’, kind of sandy brown with little flowers on, I have a new brown and sparkly pair of Fitflop flipflops (so comfy) that went nicely. I even put make up on.
Granby looked a little confused when I wafted down the stairs in a look-at-me-in-my-smart-going-to-a-meeting outfit and told me I had a label showing before carrying on with her toast.
I dropped Hope off with one of her incredible child minders and headed to my meeting at a wonderful local Italian coffee shop, the bloke behind the counter smiled at me and then did a double take when he realised the normally scruffy mummy looked a tad closer to yummy, and put a heart in the foam in the top of my latte.
Meeting happened, all good, came home, worked, worked, worked and then dashed to pick Hopey up.
I knocked on the door, pattering of small feet … door opened, “Yay Mummy”, my heart sang.
My friend the child minder looked me up and down somewhat suspiciously in a, “you don’t normally look like that” kind of a way and we stood and chatted about Hope’s day, bouncing on the “jumpoline”, playing with her friends and eating chicken and stuffing for lunch.
It was then, with the door still open onto the street behind me, that Hope suddenly ran over and hugged my legs. “Ohhhhh Mummy, legs”, she said knowingly, and she lifted up my dress all the way above her head and shouted, “Yay, Mummy’s knickers” really loudly as she revealed my great big old greying maternity pants to the world (don’t be judgemental, they’re really comfy).
Before I could push the dress back down she started pulling on the waistband of the knickers to try and climb up under my dress to reach the aforementioned breastfeedingly ample bosom for some milky, having been without for nearly 8 hours.
At that point her hand got caught in the front of the knicker elastic and her poor childminder only avoided seeing my very hirsute nether region by dint of the fact that she had turned to pick up Hope’s changing bag.
I yanked my dress down, pushed Hope away and hobbled, with my knickers on the brink of descending to my ankles, back to the car.
We got home and Hope ran in to greet her Grandmother shouting, “Mummy wearing knickers, funny Mummy” and chortling to herself. She came back to me, instructed me, in a very imperious voice, to go to “the room” (the sitting room) for “Hopey milky”, I meekly followed her instructions and we had a big cuddle and she enjoyed a snuggly warm milky feast. When I stood up afterwards she dived under my dress again and shouted, “Mummy bottom” with great glee.
The first thing I did tonight after she fell asleep was to find my swirly patterned baggy trousers for tomorrow. If I’m going to wear a dress again any time soon I need to buy some better under garb and visit a waxing emporium, just incase!
