A Coupla Things

So I was down at Southcenter this week, doing a little maternity clothes shopping at Old Navy and Target. May I just say that Target's Liz Lange maternity clothes ROCK - they are so cute and stylish and don't make me feel like a bargain basement pregnant lady. Old Navy was a little bit frumped out and rag-tag, but I should mention that it looked like they were about to set out a bunch of new merchandise (staff were very busy unpacking boxes) on the day I was there, so we'll see.

I have an issue with most maternity jeans. I do not understand how so many of them can be this "demi-panel" and get away with it. Can women actually wear this without their pants falling down every time they bend over or sit? I cannot. Call me Grandma, but I just love the "full panel," over-the-belly stuff. It gives the pants something to hold onto when my waist goes away. The other advantage is that when you wear the over-the-belly panels, you don't have nasty elastic lines showing under your clothes at your mid-belly (or, your "demi-belly"). I'm all about smooth silhouettes. If I'm going to have a big, beautiful belly, I want people to look at that and think about what a gorgeous pregnant woman I am. I do not want them to wonder what tricks are going on under my fabulous maternity tunic. The whole demi-panel thing sucks because all of the stylish choices in maternity jeans are made with this kind of panel. It's like the industry thinks that if you're going for the full panel, you've completely given up on style. Not so! Au contraire!

I ended up buying a pair of full-panel jeans online at oldnavymaternity.com. They're okay - your basic boot-cut antique wash. Ho-hum. I was hoping for a dark wash, straight leg style, so I could look a little less suburban. But when you're only shelling out $24.95 or so for jeans (and also when you're shopping at Southcenter shopping center in Tukwila), you're kind of in the suburban pickings zone, I realize. Liz Lange didn't even offer any full panel jeans styles, so I got what I could get.

All of this is to get to the following point: They are opening a Nordstrom Rack at Southcenter tomorrow!!!! Hooray!! I was driving by all of that new construction that's going in on my way to Old Navy, and I almost had an accident when I saw the Nordstrom Rack sign, shining like a beacon in the distance. I drove around and around, trying to get through the construction fences to catch a glimpse of the new mecca, but when I finally got in and parked in the crispy new parking lot, the store was, alas, still not open. I hauled my daughter up to the front window and peered inside, trying to see if they had a children's department, if they had women's dresses, anything. But it was pretty hard to see past the stacks of boxes and racks of hangers. Now back in the day I would have been there, in my car, at 6:30am with a cup of coffee and a piece of blueberry coffee cake, listening to the radio, and waiting with all the other die-hards for the place to open up tomorrow morning at 7:45am. I would probably have even skipped work for such an event (I was definitely known to do such things - especially when the Rack had their annual small designer shoe event, for sizes 5-6 only. Although I never have been a match for those tiny-footed, tough-as-nails Asian fashion mavens). This time I'll bide my time, however. It's just not worth it anymore. I don't want to say that having my daughter along takes most of the joy out of shopping for me, but I'll say it anyway. It sucks. She starts howling and lashing out the minute she catches a whiff of the leather and the fluorescent lights, and won't stop until we're back on the highway toward home. No fun. Now I shop like a madwoman, whipping through racks and picking out things that look vaguely attractive, throwing them in my cart. And forget about trying anything on, though I was lucky enough to have this opportunity for about six minutes the other day at Target, thanks to the popcorn they so ingeniously sell at the front. I swear to God, I would pay $10 for a little bag of that popcorn, just to get the peace that comes from slipping a few items over my head and taking a more-than cursory look at my appearance in the mirror once in a while.

So that's a major event in fashion for those of us who live on the South-West side. The other thing I wanted to note is that there is a new maternity shop on California Ave., south side of the Junction, close to that C&P Coffee place. It's called On The Way Maternity, and I checked it out the other day, too. They don't seem to have a website yet, but their address is 5446 California Ave SW, Seattle 98136, phone (206)938-2229. They have some nice things - they carry Olian and some other bigger higher-end maternity brands, but they also have a lot of brands I've never heard of and some really cute ideas. Most of their stuff looked to be between about $40-100, so more expensive than I would pay for most maternity things, but definitely lower prices than A Pea in the Pod (racket!) or Village Maternity. I appreciated that they carry a number of maternity swimsuits, even though it's not swimsuit season, so you know you always have a place to go if you're going on vacation or need something for swim lessons.

That's all for now. Happy shopping, pregnant ladies!

Showing

I just got off the phone with my educational loans people, asking for a forbearance. Finally. I've been nervous about starting this, because I'm not sure that I want to let go of my 3-year grace period just yet. I'm a big hoarder - you should see my basement. I've got enough canned tomatoes, soup, pasta and tonic water to survive if the big one hits and we somehow manage to live through it. We might be unable to use electricity or plumbing, but if we've got a can opener and maybe some gin, we're in great shape.

Anyway, the payments are getting to be too much for our single-income family, so it's the right thing to do now. I also cancelled our New York Times subscription today, because it's very expensive and generally serves only as extra weight in our recycle bin at the end of the week. I loved the idea of getting the NY Times every weekend - curling up with a cup of coffee and the Magazine or the Book Review, hours and hours of blissful quiet and peace stretched before me, but come on. Are you kidding me? That was in another life, and hopefully in a life somewhere far in the future, when there are no children running around here on a Sunday morning trying to stick their fingers in light sockets and screaming, "Cinderella, on! Cinderella, on!" Good-bye, highbrow intellectual me. Hello, Survival Mama. Stained, tattered Mama who now showers every other OTHER day and uses moisturizer and deodorant as an afterthought.

I realized the other day, fighting the crowds at an outlet mall to buy my daughter some new fall clothes at Carter's, that I am far more concerned with what she is wearing and the state of HER clothes than with my own. Before I had kids, when I would dream about life with kids, I would always picture myself as one of those very together mommies, with nary a wrinkle or a stain on my tailored wool pants and silk blouse, and though it would be a challenge sometimes, I would always wear at least just a little bit of makeup to brighten up my face. Fast-forward to reality: most days I hang around in my bathrobe, mascara smudged under my eyes from last night, until an hour in the day I prefer not to mention, hoping for a window of opportunity in which to bathe myself before putting on a new pair of underwear. My other issue with getting dressed these days is my in-between waistline. My regular pants don't quite fit me anymore, but maternity pants look ridiculous - like I'm trying to "look" pregnant. I almost forgot about this schleppy-sloppy time of pregnancy, where mostly you just look like you haven't been taking care of yourself. It doesn't help that I reach for the same old black yoga pants almost every single day, just as soon as I step out of my bathrobe.

What's been a trip is that my tummy is really sticking out much sooner this time. I had convinced myself that I was really just behind on my situps, and I really needed to start drinking my coffee without two heaping teaspoons of sugar and a hefty pour of half and half each morning, but some good friends plus a random old woman in my workout class at the Y pointed out to me that indeed, I was "showing" (the old lady said it was either that or I was just really putting on the pounds. I told her she was very lucky that I was pregnant, or I would have had to strangle her with a resistance band). Note to reader: Just because you are old and/or have been around the block a time or two, that does not give you the right to approach random people and ask, "Are you pregnant?" What the hell is wrong with you! I swear it seems sometimes like people never had a mother - at least a mother that taught them anything about how to act.

The other thing that people have said to me so far this time that has been annoying is, "Another one? Already?" As if I have not waited the requisite time of _____ (insert random time period here) and have, most irresponsibly, disrupted some code of child-spacing. My daughter is almost 20 months now. That means that when this baby is born, she will be almost 27 months old. It's not like I got pregnant right away, and the second one will be born before the first one can even walk! Good Lord. It's hard not to get freaked out by what people say, though, especially since there are no certainties around the whole child-bearing/child-rearing thing. Surely if I lived in another community, people would be saying, "Well, what took you so long?" I have to remember that what my husband and I are doing is right for us, and stake my confidence on that.

That brings me to something that is constantly on my mind; the whole thing about staying at home and not being out there working, using my law degree to the greatest extent possible. I used to really worry about it, most of all because when our daughter was born, the amount of time I was going to take "off" kept changing the older she got - my husband and I hadn't really hammered it out as much as we should have. And money kept getting tighter and tighter (it still is). But the more I stayed home with her, the more I knew that this was what I should be doing - what made me the happiest. I also knew that going to work and being away from her was going to make me very, very sad. I do not know a single other woman who was an attorney and had a baby and now stays home full-time. That is a bit disconcerting - it makes me feel sometimes as if I am not following the "right" track for a female attorney, and that somehow I will never find my way back on again. But I have faith that this experience, while taking me out of legal practice for a while, will make me an even better attorney - more well-rounded, perhaps - and one who is not bitter for having "missed out" on these formative years. My hope is that I will be more than ready to go back to work when the time comes. Fresh and optimistic. Certainly, I want my children to see me take my education and use it to make a difference out there in the world, and contribute to the household income to boot. I also want them to see that I am committed to them, and that nothing is more important than the time I got to spend with them when they were small.

Life is much less complicated these days for me. It is also much less glamorous, a little softer around the edges, a lot more raw. I talk about poop now with all kinds of people and don't even give it a second thought. I sing "B-I-N-G-O" right out loud with my daughter and show her my bellybutton when she shows me hers - I don't care who's around. It is very rare that I get flustered or embarrassed around other people now, or that I fail to say what I really think, without my voice shaking so much. I don't get bogged down, stressed out by what I think people are thinking of me or what they actually mean by what they say. I live rich in the knowledge that nothing else really matters, when it comes right down to it. Nothing but my family. I will work hard to support and promote that, and the rest is just bullshit. I would want to hire someone like me.

Thinking about shorts

The weather in Seattle has been hot, and apparently it's only going to get hotter this week. Which brings on a multitude of emotions for me. It's swell that the heat has finally come to our fair, green city. I get so sick of freezing in my house in May (my husband refuses to turn on the heat - he says, "Put on a sweater!" Aaagh! Is this something - some kind of fear-of-heater-usage chip - programmed into all men? My father is the same way), so my body is glad it's warm. I love going to the wading pool with my daughter, and splashing around with her and watching the absolute delight take over her entire being to be in the water playing with the other kids. I even love showing a little shoulder, and a little tanned, freckled decolletage if the feeling is right. But I am not so fond of the notion that we must be outside all the time in the nice weather, and I have a love-hate relationship with that American summertime clothing obsession . . . shorts.

I am an indoor cat, for the most part. I'll gladly attend a picnic or two during the summer months, though I do get a bit aggravated about hosting one myself (what is this need for packing up food in containers, on ice, carting it all to a park or other windy, hot, insect-filled locale, and eating off of precarious, soggy paper plates, all just to pack it all up again and unpack it at home?!). I'll have you for dinner in my dining room anytime you like. You can eat the food off of my dishes at my table, and I'll clear the table for you and wash the dishes with my soap and water that I have here at the house. That sounds very pleasant to me, and like excitement enough for one evening - even a summer evening. I admit that I would rather read a book or do a Sudoku or crossword puzzle or drink a Maker's Mark in my pajamas in the house than bring it all outside. If I had a beach house in Hawaii or the Turks & Caicos, sure - I'd be out on the beach every day and living in a bikini and probably even set my dinner table on the outside patio and invest in one of those giant bug-zapping machines. But living in Seattle, I get used to (and very comfortable with) staying indoors and building my indoor nest.

I'll get to the shorts thing. I lived in Europe for a year or so while in college, and for another couple of months some years later. I lived in Spain. And if there's one thing that identifies an American tourist quicker than some idiot shouting at a waiter that they want butter for their bread, it's shorts. Now, I am a snob in my own right but I'm not some kind of girl who's spent a few months in Europe and now I have a silly Madonna/Gwynneth Paltrow accent and I must have a cappucino every day for breakfast. No. I have worn shorts before and I am wearing them right now, for heaven's sake. I just think that the Europeans must be onto something for having universally and repeatedly rejected this clothing item. I heard the What Not to Wear ladies on Oprah one day confirming this out loud. They said, essentially, "Don't wear shorts, ladies," to many boos and gasps from the Oprah audience. They're right. Shorts look terrible. You all look terrible in your shorts, especially you ladies in the Oprah audience. I look terrible right now in my shorts. I bought short shorts because I have short legs and thought that the short shorts would make them look longer. What they do is highlight my gigantic, once-athletic, now wobbly thighs and bunch up in the area just under my na-na because that's where my thighs rub together (an area I call the "chub-rub" zone), so they end up looking like an adult diaper. Terrible. I've tried mid-thigh shorts and "walking" (knee-length) shorts, and none of them are right. And yet summer after summer, you'll find me at the Old Navy register, shelling out my $19.99 for the dream of looking perfect and summery/sporty in shorts. The problem with shorts is most definitely some kind of problem of physics. There is not enough weight to shorts, or not enough fabric, or not enough of either, so that your chubby parts of your legs grab onto the fabric and pull it up. This happens between your legs (as with my aforementioned adult diaper phenomena), or at the intersection of your abdomen and thighs, creating a huge exaggerated crotch look, or (perhaps worst of all) between your butt cheeks, so that it looks like your bottom is "eating" the shorts. Usually, it's a combination of all three effects.

I don't know why this is a love/hate problem for me. I pretty much just hate shorts. But every year as I said, I seem to get sucked into the excitement, and then I am very, very sorry. This is a difficult fashion dilemma. European women somehow manage to live without shorts - they wear skirts and long pants and dresses and always look cool and comfortable. I wear skirts sometimes, but that's not really the answer for a stay-at-home mom. I like to get down on the floor and spread my legs if I want and roll around with my daughter. And jeans are too hot for this time of year. Oh - P.S. I think capri pants suck, too - they have all the same problems as shorts and cut me mid-calf, which is suicide for the short-legged woman (though of course I own a pair of these as well - aargh!). Then there are pants that come in lovely "summer-weight" fabrics like linen. Linen is a really great fabric to wear if you are a mannequin in a temperature-controlled department store. Or a European woman. But for those of us who sit in the car or go to the bathroom or have lunch, linen is a big no-no. So for now, I am stuck.

Can I just say that the other big fashion problem I have this time of year is footwear. I refuse to go in for all the Crocs and Keen sandals. Those things are just silly. Yes, Seattle, I've said it. This is why I must remain anonymous. Just as I'll say that Birkenstocks are silly and have no flattering qualities. Really. However, I am at this point in my life where I really do need to wear something somewhat comfortable, as most of the time I am chasing a toddler around and can't be tiptoeing through the sawdust at the playground on three-inch heels. I wear these black Dansko sandals that I got a few years ago when we went to Italy for our honeymoon. They have a chunky, thick sole which gives me some height and have a lot of straps to them so I can imagine that they look a little bit sexy. They are passable, and I wear them every . . . single . . . day. They do scream "comfort sandal," though, so I'm currently looking for a new best summer shoe friend. I love the Donald J. Pliners, but I don't have $180 to spend right now on some sandals and no one seems to want to put a new pair on ebay for $30, so I'll continue to pine. And wear my short shorts and flip-flops inside my cozy house, contemplating how those damned European women do it.