Year 1, Day 224

Unless you have a personal chef, a workout guru that wakes you up at 4am, and genes of a supermodel, you are probably carrying around a few extra pounds of "baby weight" as a mother of a toddler. Not to mention the fact that, even if it was a minimal amount of weight, it was completely redistributed to places you didn't think could even be characterized as "fat" (like one's wrists or knees). 

I spoke to a friend this morning, and was completely on board with her, when she described her inability to put ANYTHING from her wardrobe together. She was clearly describing MY life as she spoke about her morning struggle . . putting on a pair of pants that didn't fit right, throwing on a shirt that clearly didn't "go", and topping it all off with an old fleece to hide everything awful.  She stated that she "never looked as stylish as when [she] was pregnant." I thought to myself - EXACTLY! I know the feeling. How bellyband/elastic waistbands can make you look sexy is completely beyond me, but they did! The prints on all the dresses and shirts, somehow, miraculously camouflaged, yet beautifully accentuated, the right curves. I know our mothers never had maternity clothes like we did. I'm sure they suffered in retroprint Moo Moos and tried to feel pretty while their feet swelled like sausages in their platforms.

Here we are:  blessed with beautiful clothes of our time and showered with compliments . . .until we give birth. And then, as a mom, you go from looking stylish and "glowing" with your pregnancy aura, to looking like a frumpy 8th grader that just returned from gym class . . .