Next up: Jeans with an elastic waistband.

March 16, 2010 · Filed under home sweet home, me me me, the way I see it · Tagged

A month or so ago, Aura and I were rattling around the latest sale at Kohl’s. Painfully aware that my delicate underthings had lately been looking more threadbare than delicate, I directed Aura to follow me to the lingerie department, where I was determined I would find at least a couple of new bras. 

As I’ve mentioned before, Aura is rather smitten with the idea of bras. Having been informed that she herself will not be able to wear a bra for another 10 or 12 or forever years, she took it upon herself to help me locate one. While I rifled through the underwires, Aura disappeared momentarily, soon popping back with an armful of ruffles and lace and hot pink. I’m telling you, if kindergarten doesn’t work out, I’m shipping her off to those stripper conventions in Vegas and calling her a really short salesperson. She’ll be in heaven, helping Candi/Bambi/Diamond find rhinestone-studded bras to match their g-strings.   

Aura would also feel at home in Frederick's of Hollywood.

After more fruitless searching, I gave up, dragging a reluctant Aura away from the Maidenform racks. On my way out of the department, I noticed packs of Hanes underwear on sale. Normally I’m loyal to Calvin Klein underwear, but desperate times called for desperate measures. I tossed a package labeled “low-rise” something into the cart, too intent on making sure Aura hadn’t stashed a Wonderbra on her person to actually read the package. 

When I got home, I didn’t give more than a fleeting glance to the new underwear as I threw them into the washer. I do remember thinking they looked a little…larger than I would expect. But I chalked that up to 100% cotton and the need to adjust for dryer shrinkage. That Hanes, I thought admiringly. Now there’s a company that thinks of EVERYTHING. 

And then I slipped on a pair. At first, I was just confused, thinking that perhaps I had put a leg through the waist hole? Was wearing them inside out? Had accidentally sewn two together? Then it dawned on me: These were briefs. Unlike the low-rise bikinis I typically wear, or the very occasional thong I don when dressing up to go somewhere without coloring placemats, these underpants were BIG. Like cover-your-stomach-and-some-of-your-hips-and-maybe-a-third-of-your-thigh big. 

So kind of like this. But without Lady Gaga, and bigger.

I really want to say that I hated them right away. Eeeeeeeehhhhhh. Hear that? That’s the sound of me trying to say that.  

But I can’t. And you know why? I LOVE THEM. No, I don’t wear them during the day, when someone might see them peek over the waistband of my jeans or possibly get caught on the hem of my jacket. However, when I change for the evening, slipping on my old sweats and tying back my hair, you better believe I reach for a pair of these babies.  

Such support! Such coverage! Such…stretchability! I tell you, I am a better, entirely more agreeable person wearing these—God help me—briefs. If Adam wants to go out and buy a bottle of rum that costs as much as a small sovereign nation? Sure! A charity telemarketer calls for a donation? Why not? Hell, when I’m wearing these suckers I’m apt to agree to support ALL of PBS’s New England stations, that annoying WordWorld and Antiques Roadshow be damned.  

Big underwear has changed my life. In fact, it reminds me of a story Adam once told me about a coworker named Radu, who hailed from Romania but moved to the United States when he was about 30 years old. Every day at lunch time, Radu would go out and buy himself a big, steaming bowl of clam chowder. This went on for months and months. Finally, Adam asked him why he never bought anything else for lunch. And so Radu explained: “For 30 years, I never knew about clam chowder. Now that I know, I cannot waste any time.”  

I TOTALLY GET WHAT HE MEANT.

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Also, someone should have told me that I have chubby knees.

March 13, 2010 · Filed under me me me, parenthood · Tagged , ,

Look what we finally got around to purchasing:

Yes indeedy, a floor mirror. This purchase was actually a pretty big deal for us, considering that Adam and I have been cohabitating for almost 11 years and have never owned a full-length mirror. Well, technically, that’s not quite true. The first place we rented came with a full-length mirror on the back of a closet door, but there was no light in the closet and the mirror had a ripple distortion thing going on. So if you wanted to check your outfit, you had to bring a flashlight and then convince yourself that you didn’t really have three breasts. We didn’t use it that much, except during parties, when we were like, “FRIENDS! STEP INTO THIS HERE CLOSET AND COUNT HOW MANY BREASTS YOU HAVE!” It was similar to a chummy game of Clue or Monopoly, except more psychologically scarring.

Barring that particular mirror, we never had another full-length. If I needed to check my pants or shoes before leaving the house, I would stand tiptoe in front of the bureau mirror. But mostly I just hoped for the best and then squinted really hard at my reflection in elevator doors or store windows. Grocery-store windows always worked fairly well, though I’d often have to contort my body to keep the Sale! posters from getting in the way. And even then it seemed like “THIS WEEK ONLY! RIB EYE ROAST $3.99 PER POUND!” always prevented a really accurate glimpse of my waist.

Which, if I’m being frank, was the point. I don’t like looking at my reflection all that much. And if I do get too good a look, then I immediately find something lacking, whether it’s the width of my thighs or the shape of my lips or myriad other issues. I’ve always been this way with photos of myself, too. It was only recently that I realized this little phobia now involves someone other than just me.

“Mommy, why don’t you let Daddy take more pictures of you?” Aura asked during a family outing a few weeks ago, as I was ducking away from Adam and the camera.

“Oh, well, I don’t always like the way I look when I see the pictures,” I replied.

Then it struck me. A lot more comments like that might lead to a lot less of this:

I don’t know if being dissatisfied with your own appearance is the result of too many supermodels in magazines, or a misunderstanding of modesty, or simply a hallmark of being a woman. But in this household, it has to stop, or at least start to stop. I may not be able to guarantee that Aura will always be as carefree and content with her appearance as she is now at three years old, but I damn well have to try.

Step 1:

Thank God for baby steps.

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Honestly, if you’re that ugly, you really should be extinct.

March 10, 2010 · Filed under field trip follies, the way I see it · Tagged , ,

Aura and I went to the Museum of Science today, nipping into the dinosaur room about an hour into our visit. After one minute of standing and staring at a giant Triceratops skeleton, I found that I just couldn’t lie to myself any longer.  “I’m seriously starting to doubt this dinosaur thing,” I whispered conspiratorially to Aura.

And I really am. I’m sure there is a veritable legion of five-year-old boys out there who would happily correct me or at least shin-kick me into obeisance, but honestly, I’m not sure I could be convinced. I mean, just look at those things:

I know, I know. There is evidence, and there are fossils, and yes, scientists think dinosaurs lived on all continents and came in varying sizes and met a bad end by asteroid, yada yada yada snore. But STILL. We don’t really know, right? It’s not like they left behind these wildly revealing dinosaur diaries or scratched out some cave drawings with their little Mesozoic claws. Basically, some men back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries found some bones, got out some Victorian-era Crazy Glue, and went to town. It was kind of like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition except that Ty Pennington was a paleontologist and instead of a new house there was a new creature. YES, IT WAS JUST LIKE THAT. DO NOT DOUBT MY POP-CULTURE PREHISTORIC ANALOGIES.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t just like that. However, I remain skeptical of a field of study in which there exist so many may haves and probably dids. The freakin’ explanation cards in the museum even admit to the uncertainties. For example! It turns out that no one really knows why the Triceratops had that frill thing on the back of its head. Some think it was for mating purposes, others for defense, still others for temperature regulation. No one suggests the theory that the frill was meant to draw attention away from the BUTT UGLY HORNS, but I might as well go ahead and float it.

So what is it about kids and dinosaurs? I wouldn’t say Aura is necessarily overwhelmed by the idea of dinosaurs, but she’ll sit in front of a dinosaur fossil or the show Dinosaur Train for, oh, any-amount-of-time longer than I ever will. In my mind, there are so many others things that should intrigue a child, like magnets or ladybugs or electricity or UNICORNS, for God’s sake. Every time I see a kid playing with a toy dinosaur, I want to sneak over and replace it with something like a Donny Osmond or William Shatner action figure. Yes, yes, the dinosaurs were around 160 million years before that unlucky, asteroid-lit night. But Shatner? Now THAT guy has real staying power.

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