In Defense of the Mom Uniform

I have never been comfortably fashionable, except for those few years at Carolina where I gleefully embraced Chapel Hill student fashions: Polo shirts, sorority t-shirts, designer jeans, ribbon belts, Rainbows, North Face, and don't forget your Longchamps tote! Yes, I was a sheep! It was the best.

Two years ago, I was still schlepping across and up town with a fresh blowout and a clean wrap dress. One year ago, I was lucky if I got a shower a couple of times a week, I discovered dry shampoo, and every outfit selection involved the following thought process: "Can I access my boobs in this? Yes? Wear it. No? Can't wear it. Also, do I have to wear pants? Ugh, I really don't want to put on pants."

Lately, I have found myself struggling daily with what to wear. I now work for a 20-month-old on the steamy Manhattan sidewalks, not in an air-conditioned office with moderately rational people, so wrap dresses are impractical in baby gym and music classes, and I no longer have to access my boobs all the time, thank goodness. Winter was a little bit easier because of jeans, but now that it's hot, what is a fashion-challenged mom to do? I have had this discussion with a few other moms and I have been reluctant about this, but it's time to face the facts.

Athleisure is where it's at. You know. T-shirts and yoga capris.

It's the shit. It's the only solution. It doesn't look great, but damn it, it's practical, it's comfortable, and you don't feel bad when your kid wipes her tater tot hands on it and then draws on you. It's why nearly every mom pushing a stroller is wearing it. Maybe she's been to the gym, maybe she's going to the gym. Who cares? She probably isn't, and I fully support her, like the sports bra she's likely wearing.

Do I do yoga in my yoga pants? Absolutely not. I wouldn't dream of it. Mostly just because I hate yoga, but if you want to do yoga in your yoga pants, you go right ahead. I am happy for you!

I tried, really I did. I tried wearing the cute things I used to wear that made me feel like a better, less sloppy person.

I tried wearing skirts and dresses. You know what happened when I wore skirts? I flashed everyone while chasing my kid, and not just when the wind would blow up the hem on the street. Or I would go to pick up the kid and her foot would catch on the hem and the skirt would come up with her. This happened every single time. It just isn't practical when you're chasing a kid on a playground, climbing on equipment with them, sitting on the floor and standing back up, sitting on the floor and standing back up, and so on and so forth for 14 hours.

I tried wearing real bras. You know what happened when I wore real bras? My kid would pull on my shirt and reveal whatever was underneath - usually going so far as to say, "BOOBIES! All gone." I am not sure why she says "all gone" when referring to my boobies. She could be talking about the long-gone milk but she could also just be talking about the boobies themselves, mere shadows of their former selves. Whatever, at least she's using word phrases.

I tried wearing cute shorts. Just kidding, I haven't tried that. If you have found cute shorts that don't ride up your ass, you have found a f*cking unicorn chupacabra and you deserve my congratulations. Tell me in the comments where you found them because I am also looking for a f*cking unicorn chupacabra. How cool/scary would that be, btw?

We have come a long way, ladies. Moms who came before me figured this out a long time ago, but not that long. I'm finally embracing this reality rather than viewing it as "letting myself go." Centuries of clothed motherhood have culminated in this very moment. The evolution of fashion has taken us from crinoline to yoga capris, from powdered wigs to high ponies. My daughter is well cared-for, and I haven't flashed anyone in the process.

If Marie Antoinette were alive today, she would first look down her nose on the modern mom uniform, and then she would say, "Sacre bleu! What was I thinking all those years? I used to hate it when little Marie Therese would wipe her chubby camembert hands all over my fancy lace skirt, and then when little Louis grabs at my wig, it is just the worst. I wish they had had yoga capris in the 1700s. But, I wish a lot of things."

Marie Antoinette with Marie Therese and Louis,
flitting about Versailles by the Temple of Love,
clearly wishing she were in yoga pants and a t-shirt.

No-Bake Handprint Valentines

I love hand-made Valentines, and forcing my kid to craft. And I really love combining the two.

I posted my latest craft on Facebook the other day and there were a lot of people interested in it, so I thought I would help them out with a guide. The pin I used from Pinterest as inspiration was a link to nowhere, and I was too lazy to investigate it further, so I winged it (wung it?). I only have years of glue stick experience as my sherpa. This whole craft took 15-20 minutes, most of which is cutting out little fingers.

What you need:

At least three 8.5 x 11 sheets of white cardstock (or other thicker paper), red cardstock, a gluestick, a pen or pencil, scissors, and words of choice printed on regular computer paper (OR printed on cardstock if your printer can handle it - mine couldn't). For the record, I used the song “All I Want Is You” by Barry Louis Polisar printed in courier font, and cut and pasted over and over until it took up the whole page. You could also use a poem or a book excerpt – anything you want!

Not pictured: 1 child.

Step 1:

Strap child into an apparatus that limits thrashing and distract her with TV’s warming glow. Trace one hand onto cardstock. Unless your kid has drastically asymmetrical hands, you should only need to get one. The first time I did this I was only able to get a thumb and part of a forefinger because Katherine was dramatically throwing herself around and screaming.  Doesn’t she know I’m going to treasure this memory forever? I tried again later and I was able to mark where her fingers began and ended, and from there I could connect the dots. Another Facebook poster suggested making stencils out of paint handprints, which is also a good idea. Whatever works for you and your squirming child!

What's Dora doing? Oh, that is SO interesting. Tell me more.

Yo, I need that back.

Step 2:

Once you have a drawing of at least one hand, cut it out to make a stencil. Then flip the stencil over and trace it to cut out the 2^nd hand. You don’t really need 2 stencils but it helps.

Step 3:

Arrange hand stencils onto cardstock how you’d like them to appear. Remember that you will be flipping them over later, so if it’s a really big deal to you that the left hand is on top in the final product, make sure the right hand is on top for this step. Anyway, then you trace them. You’ll want them to be mindful of the margins on your word sheet, so keep the hands kind of in the middle.

Step 4:

Cut the hands out. This would probably be better with a cutting knife, but I’m not that dedicated to storing craft supplies in my 1-BR apartment, so I just used fabric scissors because they are very sharp and small, and able to cut around those little fingertips more easily. This wasn’t pretty and there was a bit of tearing, and surely there’s a better way. You can’t use a thinner paper that would be less likely to tear, because you want it to hide the words on the underlay.

Step 5: 

Paste the word sheet onto a plain sheet of cardstock to give it some weight. Alternately, you could just print your words directly onto cardstock and avoid this step, but my printer couldn’t handle that.

Step 6:

Work quickly and glue-stick the back of the hand cut-out page - the side with your ink marks from tracing. Flipping it over at this point hides most of the cutting imperfections as well. Glue the top of each fingertip and around the bottoms of the hands. Then line it up on your word sheet and smooth it all out. You can carefully glue each of these corners on the cut-outs so they lie down flat.

Step 7:

Cut your hearts out of red cardstock and paste them on the palms. I cut these free-hand to give them a more homemade feel.

Step 8:

I added some of my terrible handwriting and a black wood gallery frame with a white mat and it looks so much better in the frame because the glass really flattens it all out making for a nice finish.

If you do this craft too, please send me a picture and let us know what words you chose as your underlay!

Turbulence

Always eager to cross something masochistic off my bucket list, I took Katherine by plane on my own to visit family in North Carolina last week.  It was sort of like knowing you have to get a root canal at your next dental appointment: the anticipation is probably worse than the event itself, but unfortunately there were no pain meds involved in this case.

Getting to the airport, checking in, and going through security with an infant was surprisingly pain-free.  Curiously, staff at LaGuardia were much more helpful and friendly than at the Charlotte airport, where Southern hospitality failed me.  Don't be fooled: New Yorkers are actually a very friendly people.  Just don't cross them.

The painful parts of infant airline travel are really centralized on the plane itself.  Katherine, for those of you who don't know her, abhors being held by someone who is sitting still.  And really, besides hijacking, what is there to do on a plane other than be required to sit still for the duration?  She wanted to stand on my bladder, lean this way, lean that way, turn upside down, look over there, smile at that stranger, and eventually, get angry that she was sitting still.  

She eventually fell asleep in my arms, and I wanted to keep her sleeping there until we landed, but the urge to pee became more overwhelming with every passing minute, thanks to Katherine's earlier bladder stomping.  "Are we descending?  I can wait.  Maybe I can't.  If I move she will wake up.  Did I just feel us start to descend?  No, maybe not.  Why didn't I look into getting those astronaut diapers for myself, like that crazy lady who drove non-stop for hours to stalk that one guy... no, I can hold it.  No I can't.  But I can't move... Okay, I'm doing it."

Naturally, as soon as I stood up, the plane started shaking and I swayed around like the drunk sorority girl I once was.  I figured it would pass quickly so I didn't sit back down.  The plane shook violently the whole time I was in the bathroom, changing Katherine carefully, praying she didn't hit her head on the wall.  I also can't tell you how many times during a regular day I tell myself, "Thank God I'm wearing yoga pants right now," but this was definitely one of those times, because I managed to successfully pee while holding an infant in a violently shaking airplane bathroom and hike up my yoga pants without the hassle of zippers and buttons.  

When we finally emerged, both of us dry and injury-free, I expected a vigilant flight attendant to rush over with a drink, a smile, a warm towelette, a pat on the back and a hand to carry something.  What I actually really wanted was a Cool Runnings-level slow clap from the other passengers, but unfortunately, I could only cheer for myself in my head, and head to the finish line.

Crafts with Katherine

Before you go thinking that I actually seem like I have my s*** together if I am able to pull this off while caring for a high maintenance infant, note that it didn't occur to me to do this until the day before Valentine's Day, and I didn't make most of them until the day after.  I thought about making Easter eggs instead and just being really ahead of the game, but I chose instead to be behind the game for Valentine's Day!

It occurred to me that since Katherine was born, we don't have any hand prints or foot prints of hers of any kind, neither ink nor fossil, and I truly regret that we don't have anything like that from her newborn days.  So I decided I needed to commemorate their current size as soon as possible because they will never be this small again.  I also just really love handmade gifts for Valentine's Day, and am always searching for my next potential Pinterest fail.  

I used a tried-and-true recipe for keepsake dough, although I felt like I just personally discovered fire: equal parts flour and salt, mix in water until it's a workable dough.  1 cup of flour + 1 cup of salt + 2/3 cup water made enough for 3 hearts.

Shape the dough into your desired holiday representative object, and mash your baby's hand right in there.  This was the hardest part and I have no photo evidence of it happening because it was hard enough with one person, more doable with two people but we would need a third person to photograph it.  This took a few tries when I was on my own because if I could get Katherine's hand relaxed and flat, I could mash it into the dough but then she wanted to feel it and squish it all up.  It felt like squishy fun, so who can blame her?  So I had to start over a few times.

Baked hand prints!

Using a silicone baking sheet liner was a good call for this project, although I have to wonder why Crate & Barrel's silicone liners don't fit perfectly with their own cookie sheets?  Fail.

I baked them at 200 for 4 hours and let them cool, then painted with acrylic paint and voila!  Happy Valentine's Day, Dad!

I used Chanel suit colors instead of traditional Valentine's colors.

Derrick says he's putting it on his desk at work, and even if that means IN his desk at work, I am still really touched.  

Grands and Great-Grands, you'll get yours ... soon.  Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

Feeling All of the Things

Katherine Mae Preston was born on Friday the 13th of September, 2013 at 4:34 PM, weighing 6 lbs, 11 oz, measuring 19.5 inches long, and she is the single greatest human being ever to have existed.

The many faces of Katherine Preston.

The first of many pictures together.

I had no idea it was possible to love another person this much.  Don't get me wrong, I love Derrick and all, but I don't spend time worrying about him ever being lonely, or getting his feelings hurt one day, or waking up at all hours, worried, wondering whether or not he's breathing at night (because I hear him loud and clear).

I didn't feel this way at first.  I loved Katherine as soon as she made her appearance, of course, but it was more of a carnal "I must take care of you and keep you alive" love, but many notches above a house plant.  When she turned three months old, I finally felt all the cupcakes and rainbows and puppy dogs and ice creams about her, but didn't even realize I felt it until she turned four months old.  Maybe it has something to do with sleep deprivation over the course of the first 12 weeks of a baby's life - I managed to sleep, on average, for two non-consecutive hours per day, sometimes only getting 20 minutes of sleep in 24 hours.  I don't think I was capable of feeling anything towards anyone during that time.  Especially because of the full-body-numbing Percocets.

My previous post was written the day before I was induced.  We took a cab up to Mt. Sinai in the middle of the night, checked in, got a wonderful room with a wonderful nurse, and 15 hours later, I was being rushed into the OR for an emergency C-section.  I made peace with it on the ride in.  It really was a fine experience because all I had to do was lie there and look up at the dreamy Mt. Sinai anesthesiologist, and try to keep down all the apple juice I had guzzled during my labor.  I don't know what my deal was; my doctor said I could drink apple juice during labor and I thought, apple juice sounds so refreshing and delicious!  So I drank tons of it and why not?  FYI: the catheter is the best part of the whole deal.  More on this at a later date.  (The delivery story, not the catheter.  I pretty much wrote all there is to write about that).

We named Katherine after my great-grandmother, Catherine, and her middle name comes from Derrick's great-grandmother.  I switched the C to a K because KMP was a better monogram than CMP.  Yes, I'm serious.  We loved the idea of using family names, but there is a real dearth of usable girl names on both our sides (sorry, family members no longer with us, looking down from heaven and reading my blog: Bertha, Samanther, Dixie Lee, etc.).  We love the name Katherine and we didn't know we would be calling her by the full formal name until it was revealed that Derrick is a Kit and Kat person, I'm a Kate and Katie person.  When her face started fattening up, Derrick started calling her "Potato Head" which evolved into "Tater Head," and now she also goes by "Tater."

The past (almost) 5 months have flown by, but I do feel like I was in the hospital eons ago.

I have three New Year's resolutions:

1. Now that I have figured Katherine out a little more, I want to get her out and about, doing fun things every week like music class and baby yoga (go ahead, take your "SMH, NYC" moment here). Check, done!

2. I want to attempt to do my own housekeeping.  Check-ish - depends on what your standards are.

3. To update CiB with any sort of frequency.  I have so many thoughts on pumping/breastfeeding, because little did I know, those things have consumed my entire life, and other such topics, and I just never feel like I can really go there on Facebook.  A couple days ago I was harping on people who write status updates about potty training their kids and how completely terrible I think that is, and I'm sure no one on Facebook wants to read about my adventures in pumping.  Unless you're one of my loyal followers, in which case, I'm 100% sure you do.

My special snowflake on January 13, 2014.