Friday, June 18, 2010

HALP

Suggestions needed:

I have a class reunion coming up soon. I will still be nursing Emmy then, so that extra ten or fifteen pounds will still be hanging around, mocking me. Also, my belly skin has not regained its tautness yet (will it ever?), so everything is just lumpy and weird. And guess what EVERY SINGLE DRESS IN EXISTENCE is made out of? Rayon. Rayon, which might as well be made of thousands of tiny neon signs flashing, "FAT ROLL HERE FAT ROLL HERE FAT ROLL HERE!"

I went to Target last week to find a shirt for a wedding shower. Everything is made for really skinny women. Skinny women with great arms and no cellulite. I'm not plus-size, and I'm not skinny. I look like a woman who just hand two babies and is trying to work the weight off but hasn't quite succeeded. Folks, I am by no means obsessed with my weight, but that doesn't mean I want to expose my upper arms and thighs to the piercing gaze of former classmates who have somehow not gained a pound in the last ten years.


Emmy has learned to roll over. Not quite on purpose yet. I lay her on her back, and she gets really interested in something next to her, and before you know it, oops! I'm on my stomach! Waaaaaah! Or I lay her on her stomach, and she knows that sometimes if she thrashes about wildly enough, the world eventually rights itself, and she is comfortable again, but doesn't know exactly how it happens.

Wednesday I went out to fiddle with the lawnmower and came back in to find her face-down on our scratchy carpet, thumb in mouth, sound asleep. When she was a newborn, she gave us a lot more trouble learning to sleep through the night than Grace did, but now I think I could hang her by her toes from the ceiling fan, and she'd doze off within ten minutes. I don't even know how they share the same DNA.


Cat is, I think, on her last legs. Maybe. I don't know much about cats. But she's been listless and weird this last week. She was *wheezing over in the corner the other night, and the pangs of sympathy and worry for her shocked me. It was a bit alarming, this tiny bit of empathy for a creature I've always found annoying and far too hairy. And now when she meows, it sounds hoarse, like a little old lady who's been smoking for 70 years.

She doesn't seem truly miserable, just lethargic and whiny. I do hope if she's near the end, that it's quick. I don't like her, she doesn't like me, but still, nothing kills me more than animals in pain.

*It was very brief. If she'd kept it up, I wouldn't be quite so meh about it. But it was also definitely not a hairball noise.


We have crazy thunderstorms due any minute. I'm hoping a tornado comes through and destroys our house, but miraculously spares me and the girls and the computers and piano. Then we would get to build a bigger house with all-new materials. I already have plans. First item: a cement porch that will not attract anywhere near as many spiders and crawling horrors as the one we now have. Our porch now is wooden and up off the ground. I don't even want to know what's in there, or I'd probably never go out the front door again. I'd just out one of our windows. Which would be bad because our house is built on an incline, and all of our windows are several feet off the ground. Plus, that would be awkward with a car seat and a toddler.


Naptime is over. Sigh. Time to wake the beasts.

5 comments:

  1. Sorry about the dress! Not sure what to suggest, although there are bands you can wear around your stomach, I think. I've never tried one, not sure how effective they are. I really like these dresses/skirts that are sort of a slip-like underlayer and then a flowered but see-through layer on top, sort of filmy and not too close-fitting.

    I hope things go okay with Cat. :( She sounds like when my roommate's kitten had RPV, except, of course, she was a kitten, so it was particularly sad.

    And congrats on the good sleeper!

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  2. Well, my other problem is that I'm broad-shouldered, short-waisted and large-hipped. It's not as goofy as it sounds, really, but the problem is that they don't make clothing cut to my bizarre proportions. I look about 20 pounds heavier than I really am in clothing that doesn't fit right. I can't believe I was so hung up on how curveless I was in high school (I wasn't, not really--I just didn't look like Dolly Parton). :) Stupid, silly girl.

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  3. How tall are you?

    I'm 5'1" and generally sounds like we're in the same boat (hourglass looking at the front with large shoulders, but looking from the side, pear shape with the bulging leftover belly).

    I've done yoyo weight for quite a while and when I'm "up" I find that suit material works pretty well on me (perhaps just because it's lined, but it also isn't clingy. I hate that clingy stretch cotton material just as much as rayon, by the way. Those really adorable, but super soft flimsy t-shirts? make me barf at myself.

    Anyway, have you thought about a skirt and top? Or a pants outfit?

    Lately I've been spending a lot of time on unique-vintage.com lusting after the 40s dresses. They wouldn't look the same on me as the models, and not exactly in my budget (nor likely to be even with the new job) but the point is a lot of the 40s stuff is cut in a way that's flattering to my (our?) body shape. Perhaps looking at faux-vintage stuff would give you some ideas?

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  4. I have a large concrete patio and spiders coming out the wazoo. Good luck on the dress shopping!

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  5. Ugh, we used to have the crazy spider problem! When we first moved into our house, it had been vacant for at least a year, and the spiders had taken up residence *everywhere* outside. Like, across the front door everywhere. *shudders* Thank goodness for the garage door opener... I hope your adventures in concrete patio-ing work better!

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