One Size Or Else

I am feeling pretty cute today in my new maternity t-shirt. I’m wearing the Blue Violet one, which is very little Blue but plenty of Violet, and the purpley wonder of it is like a promise of all the lighthearted goodness of spring: fluffy squirrels and tender flowers and flocks of storks. After months of pigment-dyed men’s shirts, one in dark blue, one in dark green, the girly purple color keeps surprising me in the mirror. I put on some blush this morning, because it seemed like perhaps I was female after all.

Something I approve of about this shirt is that it comes in a nice range of sizes. I have had the impression, sometimes, that a woman is allowed to be fat or pregnant, but not both. It is the same with height: you may be fat or you may be tall, but you may not be both. If you are fat and tall and pregnant, woe to you, you freak of nature, and how on earth did you manage to get yourself pregnant anyway?

See, now there I have gone from happy to crabby in maybe four seconds total. Clothes-shopping can do that to me, and in fact memories of clothes-shopping can do it. In this case there is also a piggyback memory of my mother-in-law saying that women in any of those predicaments should simply make their own clothes. She said it in a shrill voice, and it is one of the many areas of life in which she can’t understand why I don’t do things her way, and I don’t understand why she doesn’t shut up about it since clearly I’m not going to. And so you see, this is a labyrinth of crabbiness, and I think we should back away from the entrance, don’t you?

Let’s go instead into the labyrinth of cuteness:

couch

5 thoughts on “One Size Or Else

  1. desperate housewife

    They are super cute. They remind me a lot of my own cutey patootey, what with the blond hair and intent expressions.
    Also, I am envying your maternity clothes, because I really like wearing them and am nowhere near needing to yet. I think last time I didn’t really need to until six months along, but I started wearing them at about four months. And then this cruel older woman asked me, “Are you SURE you’re pregnant; you’re still not showing!”

    Reply
  2. Mommy Daisy

    Oh, thank you for this post. I am a plus-size lady, and I was before, during and after my pregnancy. But I adored wearing maternity clothes. I felt really good about my body while I was pregnant (big or not). I did lose weight with my pregnancy, though, so I was feeling pretty good anyway. (Unfortunately by now I’ve gained it all back.) Anyway, thanks for that. Your twins are super cute too!

    Sorry that I’ve been lurking here for a while. I’m posting now, and I’m going to try my hand at my own blog. Maybe you’ll check it out sometime. Thanks.

    Oh and to Desperate Housewife – wear those maternity clothes with pride. I started wearing some early when I was pregnant. I liked that they fit looser than my regular clothes, and having looser clothes seemed to help with the morning (all-day) sickness. It won’t matter what people think anyway. They’ll just know that you are truely pregnant. Otherwise, why would you wear the clothes! Geesh, people are strange.

    Reply
  3. Doing my best

    Oh the CUTENESS!!! The two sweet, coordinating babies on a wee baby seat and those baby toes and tiny, black patent leather shoes!!! The CUTENESS!! This trip down memory lane is not helping with the trying-to-get-over-no-more-babies problem, but I just enjoy your writing so much that I can’t stop!

    Reply
  4. Doing my best

    Oh, yes, and the rest of the post (sorry, I was momentarily blinded by THE CUTENESS!!): I did have to wonder what I was supposed to do once the XL maternity stuff no longer fit…I didn’t notice many clothes in any size after that. Really, I’m the only person who might need maternity clothes bigger than that?

    Reply

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