I
really wanted to wear a muumuu for the next twenty weeks. I swear.
Interspersed with a few clutch academic robes, beach towels and assorted
capes. I really did. But here’s the thing – I got this new lawyer job where
I have to like, be “professional” and act in a “supervisory role” and “model
good behavior for students”[1]
and “appear in a court of law”, etc.
Which
can mean only one thing, dear readers: we have reached the grim maternity milestone
of <dun dun dun> maternity clothes shopping! Thankfully,
my parents were in town and my mother was happy to oblige (and C and my dad
were happy to get all gendered about it and go to a baseball game).
The
next few hours are something of a dizzying frenzy. Like many of these new frontiers in the land of
baby-making-conceiving-and-all-things-utero, it was quite the ethnographic
experience[2].
For
starters: did you know that maternity stores have bathrooms? BATHROOMS!
Private. Bathrooms. For. Pregnant. Ladies (andtheirmothers).
Toilet paper and everything. It’s a low bar in the fast world of retail,
people.
After
that order of business was taken care of because havetopeeallthetime, we moved on to more important matters. Specifically: FAUX BUMP[3]!
 |
| "What's that? You want me to put you on?" |
Admittedly, I’m probably a little behind the bump[4] curve
on this. But you guys – maternity stores
have faux bumps that you velcro around your burgeoning gut to simulate the
experience, fit and general ridiculousness of being 9 months pregnant.
You
walk into the dressing room and it’s just like, you know, hanging there on the back of the door, real innocent like. And
then, like a dutiful shopper without a mind of her own and under the tutelage
of the scrawny 21 year old saleswoman who is INCREDIBLY PERKY and wants to know
if-you’re-having-a-boy!-and-do-you-have-a-name!-and-is-this-the-first-grandchild!-and-we’re-all-snorting-Adderal-in-the-employee-lounge!,
you promptly put that padded-everloving-bump on and proceed to wistfully
ponder the following:
(1) It
is really, really hard to reach my shoes. Thank goodness they’re flip flops
<relief>. (And then, moments later) Well,
I guess I’ll be wearing some version of slip-on-flip-flop-flat until December.
<deep sigh>.
(2)
What’s that? Am I waddling? You think my gait has changed dramatically with the
simple addition of this enormous foam padding?
(3) I
have swallowed a beach ball.
(4) Many other women have worn this against
their bare skin. <Trying not to think about how many other women have
worn this against their bare skin...calling mother’s name in terror, begging
her to procure tank top>
So where
were we. The bump. Which I guess, more than anything, left me feeling like a 15
year old in an at risk youth after school program – like next I’d get my
lifelike doll to take home for the night, and see how you like a crying infant now! And then I would always make
my boyfriend wear a condom cause shit
just got real, we’re too young!, etc.
Or maybe that’s just a Lifetime movie I saw once.[5]
The
point is, the bump worked it’s magic and my patient and generous mother made me
try on LITERALLY EVERYTHING at Pea in the Pod. And I am now the proud of owner
of six mildly professional[6],
properly fitting, maternity getups, which will be in heavy rotation for the next twenty weeks[7].
Of course, since there are only six outfits, I will reserve Sunday as muumuu day[8].
Naturally.[9]
[1] Crap. This sounds an awful lot like
“parenting”… <backs out of room slowly>.
[2] And I’m sure that my anthropologist
readers can chime in and quibble with my use of ethnographic, reference the
Trobriander of Papua New Guinea and so forth. Seriously though, I have no idea
what I’m talking about.
[3] In related news, this is an ENTIRE
INDUSTRY. Because, umm, yes?
[4] Too easy.
[5] Speaking of which, how come the nervous
teenager in the Lifetime movie never subsequently finds out that 10 years of
birth control were a colossal waste of money and anxiety and that her best hope
of getting pregnant will be in a petri dish?
I mean seriously. That’s a missed opportunity if I ever saw one. On a
related note, I see a future in filmmaking.
[6] Dark skinny jeans are “mildly professional”,
right? RIGHT! (For the record – which I’m sure one of
you/”the man” is keeping: AG maternity jeans are basically glorified sweatpants
and I will never ever take them off, ever
again. Mostly because I have to justify just how expensive they were.)
[7] Strike that. Let’s get real and go with
30. I have a feeling I may be slow to lose this, ahem, “maternity weight.”
[8] During which time I will eat bon bons
and use
my muumuu as an oversized napkin. It will be divine.
[9] And (most) joking aside, I found Pea in
the Pod to actually, kind of, have
decent stuff. (And no, no one paid me for that mediocre endorsement - the CEO of Pea in the Pod is probably having a conniption now that her store has been mentioned in the likes of this riff-raff blog). Along with Gap maternity and
ASOS. And that wraps up my
official where-to-shop-when-pregnant user manual. <curtsy>.
