Note to future mothers: everything they tell you about breastfeeding is pretty much a big fat fib. It’s NOT easier than bottle feeding, it’s NOT easy to always be busting out your boobs in public places, the pain does NOT disappear within a day or so, and one most certainly does NOT shed mad pounds as if the kid were some kind of live mini liposuction machine, slurping the cellulite right out of your mammary glands. Or maybe these things do happen, but only to those god-awful perfect people who have no cavities or traffic tickets and whose infants sleep through the night at, like, six days old. We all know I'm not one of them because four months into the infant game, I’m as baby-weighty as ever. I dropped about 20 pounds my first week home from the hospital but not much since. I still have about 15 more to get to my pre-baby weight (and about 30 to get to my ideal weight, which, let’s face it, is not going to happen in this lifetime or the next.)
I had big ideas that my fat was just going to peel away after Scarlett was born, week by week revealing my dream body in plenty of time for our Hawaii trip…but um, now that it’s only seven weeks from now, I’d better give up on that idea. I also was determined not to buy new clothes until I was a sight more svelte—I got gift certificates for Christmas, and have been hoarding them in anticipation of a skinny shopping spree. However, after a recent I-have-nothing-to-WEAR-I-mean-NOTHING-no-Honey-I-cannot-wear-THAT-and-YES-I-DO-look-fat-oh-GOD-can-you-PLEASE-GET-OUT-OF-HERE-and-STOP-LOOKING-AT-ME!!! breakdown (see previous post), I had to revise my hard line on the no-shopping thing. I decided that indulging in some fat clothes would be less destructive to my overall mental state than trying to prepare to attend RSA in my tatty, misshapen maternity clothes.
Luckily Kohl’s was having a sale today. Call it tacky and suburban-y, but I have recently found Kohl’s a mighty good place to shop. It’s got great nice-casual stuff and I find the sizing doesn’t make me want to write complaint letters to the designers (“How can you possibly call THIS a size 11? When you say that, do you mean it’s for an 11-year old who eats, what, 11 calories a day??”) Or at least it didn’t pre-baby. But there will be no more odd sizes for me, folks, now or (I fear) ever. I stubbornly made a half-hearted pass at the junior’s section today, but the dressing room revealed what my mind refused to acknowledge; I’m a Misses now, undoubtedly. I belong now to the world of what my friend EmilyPie refers to as Mature Woman shorts which come, uncomfortably, to my waist, not my belly button.
It’s the end of an era, long in coming, but the end none the same. The Junior in me is really gone. She has ascended to some Purgatory of Past Crystals to join my earlier permutations, the Crystals who waitresses and partied and roadtripped, who had roommates and heartbreaks and hangovers, who met guys in bars, who loved her a good hip-hop dance club and grinding on a solid rum-and-diet buzz in the haze of a smoke machine, who could move cities on a whim, change her entire life in a moment because there was never anything real to hold her down.
Correspondingly, I find my tastes evolving; suddenly, the Mature Woman clothes—shirts that don’t need to be tugged down, pants that aren’t a squidge too tight—rather appeal. I’m embarrassingly thrilled with the monstrous stack of Mature Woman clothes I came home with (sale + $100 gift certificate + opening Kohl’s card means I only spend $108 on FOURTEEN items!)
What is happening here? Will this sea change continue until all that makes me young has slipped away, and I am really this—a responsibility-laden mother, a wife, a boring graduate student, almost 30 (well, 29 in 11 more days), with ever-increasing grey hairs, the beginnings of lines around her eyes, and thyroid disease?
I am thinking of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which I have always loved:
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
But, perhaps a slightly different version:
I grow old...I grow old...
My belly fat is grossly rolled.
Shall I pluck my grey hairs? Must I count calories?
I shall wear Mature Woman clothes which cover my boobies.
I have heard the hot guys catcall "Baby, do me, please..."
I know they do not catcall at me.
I have seen them eyeing girls who stay eighteen
While I go unnoticed, no longer passionate and lean
Now matronly, no more a sexy thing.
We have lingered too long in the memory
Of twenty-one-hood, days partying on the town...
Till maturity catches us, and we settle down.
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6 comments:
You can only imagine I have sooo much to say on this blog...for several reasons, some that I won't be able to post here. But two being I have a 1 year old and the second being...I'm almost 30 also (well 29 in 10 days). I have the pleasure of forgetting about it frequently though given that mother's day and ram's birthday also fall in this month as well, but while I was unpacking, I took out some clothes that I haven't worn in over a year and half, but feels like a century and a half ago. Strangely I am hanging on to my size 26 jeans...even though I really only fit into a size 26 about 4 months of my entire life and that was when I lived off nuts and other selective bird seed. And breastfeeding...all these fantasies about how you burn so much calories is complete BS, because you can't work out, otherwise you lose the fat in your body which helps produce your milk supply. It is only recommended that you lose 1 pound per week while breastfeeding btw. Crap, this has become a pure rant. Sorry I used up all your comment space to rant. I should have used my own blog space for a rant this long. When do you leave for Seattle?
this post is awesome.. so funny and sweet. i'm glad you are dressing like a cool mature mom. not cute when moms dress like they are 14, and you got such a good deal. I love that store.. many a while t-shirt from the big K.
Crystal, you crack me up. It is sad to leave a clothing size/favorite store behind when you no longer fit the requirements. I gave up juniors in high school. I also was accused of dressing like a soccer mom in seventh grade so what does that tell you. Fashion has never been my thing.
Great post! I haven't worn juniors' clothes in years (actually, it seems a lot longer than it's been, but it's been since Ali's been, y'know, here on the outside...so three years). I've always had some hips, which makes juniors' pants impossible. Now, I'm finally to the point where I barely even glance at that section.
Ah yes, saying goodbye to the juniors section. I must admit, I was one of those freaks who melted away while breast feeding, but after having Kevin, I couldn't return to the teen-y clothes I used to wear, maybe just because I felt like I needed to look like a mom. Now I live vicariously through my younger and much thinner sister. By the way, you look fantastic - no juniors clothes necessary.
Oh girl.. LOL This is to funny!
I to love Kohls. Last year when I opened up my card I have been a sucker to all of their sales and special discounts for even more off at the register, if you put it on your Kohls charge... ahhh yes.
I tell you what, I believed all that crap to, about losing all this weight when I started breastfeeding... Your are so right, big. fat. lie!
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