The Bewildered Housewife

Another failed attempt at clothes shopping has me in a tizzy.  It is difficult to navigate authentic individual style when surrounded by nubile 18-year-olds gracefully sliding into their size 1 duds.

I, on the other hand, go home and squeeze myself into my size 4 jeans that are becoming a bit too snug for comfort.  At 3 months pregnant, I am desperately trying to get every ounce of wear out of my girl clothes before having to eventually purchase a throng of tent-like contraptions to fit my expanding physique.  This is foreign territory.  All my life, I’ve been the one with no butt, narrow hips and a small chest – but no more!  Soon my husband will be able to hang a jacket on my rear, while I keep miscalculating doorways to wind up with bruised hipbones.  I am not exactly sure what a huge ass has to do with gestating a fetus, but whatever.  These are sacrifices a woman makes to become a mother, at least until she gives birth and hits the gym obsessively.

There is a whole breed of Moms who never seem to outwardly struggle with these things.  Everything about the process of becoming a mother is TABOO, especially the issue of pregnancy weight.  You can recognize these ladies by the way they are picked up and blown away every time a breeze kicks up, all due to trading prenatal vitamins for celery sticks and wheatgrass once the little one has been lifted out of their womb.  They step out of their Porche Cayenne, unsnap the infant car seat and walk away on their cell phone as the Guatemalan nanny takes over - who, by the way, hasn’t seen her own children in 10 months, but sends them every meager cent she is bestowed by the Anorexic Miss.  Think I’m exaggerating?  Last week, parking lot, Trader Joe’s.

There are other favorite taboos among this calculated breed of Breeders, such as ‘birth’ and ‘nursing’.  Nursing doesn’t usually happen with this crowd, because nursing mothers will normally hold onto those last 5-10 pounds as energy reserves.  And these mothers know it.  Bring on the formula, ladies!  Besides, nursing huuuuuuurts the poor dears, and they have done quite enough bringing their child into the difficult world without, god forbid, having to FEED it, too. 

These ladies like to get it in, get it cooked, and get it out – preferably during a c-section scheduled two weeks early, so as to avoid gaining those last couple of pesky pounds.  Don’t get me wrong; I am not against C-sections if they are necessary.  But not wanting to get sweaty, not wanting to retain a little more fluid, and, my favorite, just growing impatient while that selfish little fetus decides when it’s ready to come out – the nerve of that child! – don’t constitute “necessity” to me.  If it seems judgemental, it is.  That’s why it’s my blog, not yours.

My mother-in-law, before I recently tossed her to her own wolves, was trying to convince me that I simply MUST have a c-section.  Because that is what you do.  You whip out your calendar and decide when it’s convenient to thrust this child into the world, and dammit it’s going to obey you from the get-go.  When I scoffed at the idea, she amended her argument, saying that my “narrow hips” would necessitate a c-section then.  I explained to her that nature takes care of that, and was met with the best version of a raised eyebrow she can muster with all that Botox.  Nature is so barbaric!

Clearly, I need a nap.