A Question for the Ages

Why is it that 75% of all maternity tops in existence are not long enough to cover my belly?  Are they not allegedly intended for those of us with big massive bellies?

Alas, alack, I bemoan my 1st-world dilemma of not having "enough" clothes that are "flattering enough" with which to clothe myself for the next 2 months.  Seriously, somebody should shake some sense and/or perspective into me.   But on the other hand, I will give a shout-out to my new favorite maternity T-shirts from DownEast Basics.  My friend Kristy (about to give birth to her 3rd baby) introduced me to them and I am now a fan.  They are really REALLY long and super SUPER affordable; currently they're on sale at less than $8 a pop.  The tops run really small so I recommend actually measuring yourself and looking at the size chart, and then maybe sizing up.  On the downside, they are not very high-quality knit (shocking at that price, no?) and are showing wash wear and pilling after not-too-many washings, but I think I might be overly sensitive to pilling and they would probably last you fine through one pregnancy.

Speaking of clothes, the weather has finally turned cooler and I can now dress Grace in little long-sleeved knit dresses and brightly colored leggings or tights and her tiny pink Chuck Taylors.  Ah, the joys of having a daughter and living vicariously through her clothes...  I wish I could get away with dressing like that.  No, really, toddler girls have the best clothes-- it's all bright colors and cozy knits and elastic waists.  Unless I restrain myself, the next time you see me I might look like I'm some freakishly overgrown model for the Hanna Andersson catalog.

And speaking of Grace, she is comfortably ensconced back in the bosom of her family after her time at my parents' house.  All in all, it went reasonably well.  She was a delight and a joy while awake; they played games and ate meals and visited a farm where she saw baby pigs and pet a goat and picked out a pumpkin for her very own.  At nighttime, life was a bit trickier.  She protested being put to bed somewhat but did go to sleep around her usual time.  She then woke up around midnight, apparently screaming like a banshee, from how my parents describe it.  They comforted her and she fell back to sleep, and then after 15 minutes she again awoke, yet again screaming like a pre-Christian Irish deity.  She again went back to sleep after being attended to, but when my parents heard her wake up howling AGAIN 15 minutes later, my dad dragged his pillow and blanket into her room and slept the rest of the night on the floor next to her little inflatable mattress.  My poor parents...  She was mostly peaceful the rest of the night and awoke the next morning chipper and delighted to have a day of diverting grandparently fun ahead of her, so that's good.  Grace has got a serious Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde thing going on as far as her daytime/nighttime temperament.  As I contemplate how it went, I am glad that she was so happy when awake, that she went to sleep at her bedtime, that she responded well to my parents' comforting at night, and that they all figured out how to cope.  And if I think back to my experiences in recent months with Grace sleeping in new-ish places, this really wasn't any different; it's just that I'm making my parents deal with the nighttime/new-place issues instead of doing it myself and thus I have more compunction.  I remind myself that these are my parents who love me and love Grace and are willing to inconvenience themselves and weather a little discomfort to help us; it can be hard to accept help without guilt.  It seems within the realm of possibility that a 2nd or 3rd night with them (what will likely happen when the new baby is born) will be much better as she adjusts, so here's hoping...

And what did Rob and I do?  Nothing too exciting, I rather shamefacedly admit.  We decided at the last minute that we both needed hair appointments and went to have concurrent appointments in the early evening.  It was our intention to then go out to eat somewhere afterwards, then watch a movie at home.  Well, we were thwarted by our choice of hair establishment.  We went to this Paul Mitchell school (you know, where students learning how to cut hair and whatnot practice on you) here in Dallas that we used to frequent when we lived here before.  I am somewhat ambivalent about this place (and the nearly identical one in Connecticut that I went to a few times while there) because on the one hand, it is dirt cheap and I am always quite happy with the results.  On the other hand, they are unimaginably, indescribably, painfully slow.  One time I had highlights and a haircut and I was there for over 5 hours.  Anything that involves foils will be well over 2 hours, more likely 3.  A haircut routinely pushes the 2-hour mark.  I am sympathetic-- I know they are slow because they are inexperienced, but oh the humanity...  Anyway, it was possibly not the best choice for our evening and we got out of there quite late, stomachs churning, although with chic hair and not too much the poorer.  We ended up deciding on pizza from the fun independent pizza shop close to our house, eaten while watching a movie in the living room with the volume turned up as loud as we wanted it.  (Our bedrooms are all pretty close to the living room where the entertainment stuff is, so when Grace is asleep, watching a movie tends to involve a lot of turning the volume up up up during the dialogue parts and down down down during the explosion-y/gunfire/space-fight parts; Rob finds this super annoying.)  The next morning we slept in, both of us, at the SAME TIME, until a lovely lazy hour and then cooked ourselves a big leisurely hot breakfast with coffee from the French press.  This may not sound like much to the single and/or child-free among you, but I assure you, it was bliss.  Bliss, I tell you!