Loodle-noodle

There must be something wrong with me. I've been a Mum for 14 months (to the day), so you'd think when I stumbled upon what was, quite literally, Yummy Mummy porn - a kids-centric, organic cafe in Dulwich Park, that virtually had its own Bugaboo parking lot out front, you'd think I'd be over the moon. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't I? 

Well, no. It was all a bit too Yummy Mummy, right down to the special children's menu, the special kiddie playzone, and the special sectioned off half of the cafe for all the very special little Dulwich babies and toddlers hanging out there. Not forgetting their special Mums. 

I think the problem was - and this really isn't the green-eyed monster talking - that sectioned off bit. This was one Mum that took umbrage at the sign delineating the equally special non-Mum zone. Somehow I still can't quite handle the parent apartheid that seems to come with the Mummy turf. Not that I haven't cringed at the sight of little Bertie or Flora tearing round a restaurant come Saturday lunchtime because his (full-time working) parents lack the authority to control him, but I resent how every Mum gets tarred with the same brush. 

Which was why we avoided the cafe, delicious as the meals looked, and will another time stick to the likes of the extremely-kid unfriendly Pho, a Vietnamese mini noodle chain that is our top London pick for somewhere to eat. It could hardly be less set up for kids: the food is spicy, the music loud, the cafe cramped, and there's nowhere to ditch the buggy, but it's all the more fun for all that. More to the point, Louis adores it. He's already a regular. This was him on his second visit, slurping noodles like a pro. (Really, though, he's just practising for his Lady and the Tramp moment with Sophie.)