Jennifer’s

The other morning Isabella took one glance at me and loudly proclaimed, “Oh, Mommy.¬† You have a big, fat tummy!”¬† Of course, when pressed she was able to identify the source of the big, fat tummy:¬† “It’s because you have a baby brother in your tummy.¬† He’s so cute!”¬†

At 7 1/2 months pregnant I suppose I do, indeed, have a rather large, protruding gut.  I am still very comfortable, can exercise, and am still able to wear non-maternity shirts (sizing up is key), so I am always caught a tad off -guard when someone remarks about the fact that I am finally really showing or I catch a glimpse in the mirror at the burgeoning baby growth.  Sadly, I must admit I am larger than I think I am or feel I am.  

This has never been made more clear to me than on a recent lunch trip to Quiznos.¬† I ordered a small sandwich, but the guy behind the counter took one look at my gut and¬†tried the fine art¬†of the up-sell .¬† “Well…we actually have three sizes of sandwiches: small, regular, and large.”¬† To which I replied, “True, but I want the small, please.”¬† His retort: “The small is only about this big” as he held out his fingers to give me a visual just in case I was totally clueless about the minuscule sandwich with which I was going to try to satisfy my big, fat tummy.¬† I, obviously, stuck to my guns about the sandwich size, but when I sat down to eat I realized so had the sandwich boy: he gave me the regular size version of what I ordered, which was, just as I knew it would be, way too much food for me, pregnant or otherwise.

And so finally, here are some pictures of the aforementioned big, fat tummy.  Sadly, these pics taken with my iPhone (in my classroom) are the first official belly shots of this pregnancy.  The Woolseys are dealing with A LOT of stuff right now, which is really a poor excuse for not taking photos but alas it is what it is.

(Cardigan: Loft; Shirt: Loft; Skinny jeans: Gap maternity; Shoes: Gap kids)

Twenty-six weeks in, here are the ten things I cannot live without:

1.  Gap maternity skinny jeans:

2.  Gap maternity easy straight jeans:

3.  Gap leggings:

4.  Steve Madden booties: (these are not quite the pair I own, but close enough)

5.  Too Faced Natural Eye Shadow Collection:

6.  Asics Gel-3010:

7.¬† Palmer’s Lotion: no stretch marks yet, fingers crossed!

8.  Origins Make a Difference moisturizer: my face was coming off in layers before I started using this cream day and night!

9.  Origins Clean Energy: again, used to combat the dry, dry skin I have this time around!

10.  John Frieda Root Awakening Health Infusing Shampoo and Conditioner:

My weekend was really a series of events meant to keep me from cleaning:

1) Sleeping in.

2) Shopping.

3)  Movie viewing.

4) Playing with Isabella (toys, books, walks, park, ducks, etc.)

5) Running.

6) Computing (I checked out a laptop through my department at school and oh what a joy to type away while watching Isabella play.)

7) PLAYING GUITAR HERO!¬†(no, we weren’t stoned¬†or drunk)¬†I am not really a video game person, but a recent trip to the Apple store resulted in Brian coming home with a version for PC’s and Mac’s (way, way cheaper than buying a Wii and the game.¬† Plus, since Brian has an enormous Mac it’s just as good as playing it on a TV/game system).¬† After one fabulously horrible attempt I was hooked.¬† I am really quite bad at the game, but it is like a train wreck:¬† I cannot stop playing.¬† Brian and I are thinking about buying another game pack from Apple because we need two guitars so we can both play instead of glaring at one another while the other “hogs” the game. (let me clarify this point: Brian has been on the computer playing every chance he gets.¬† In fact, he got up early on our extra day off just¬†so he could have some time before I got up and wanted to play.¬†¬†Even after I’d¬†been up for about an hour¬†he refused to¬†let me¬†so much as look at the guitar, let alone¬†touch it, so we really need two guitars in order to save our marriage!)

I am a major fan of dresses and wear them so frequently that recently a student asked me if I only wore skirts and dresses because of my religion.¬† I said, “Yes” to which he asked what religion.¬† I responded, “Fashion!”

But seriously, I have always liked dresses, unfortunate ninth grade fashion whim aside.¬† My mom was a huge fan of dressing my sister and I in dresses we deemed “spinners” because when we twirled the skirt part of the dress would spin out around our little legs…nothing delighted us more than bringing home a new dress and saying to our dad, “Look; it’s a spinner!”

I didn’t wear a lot of dresses past elementary school, though, because it wasn’t considered cool during the latter part of the ’80’s and into the Seattle grunge influenced early ’90’s.¬† (Both deplorable times in fashion history, mind you).¬†

I also stopped wearing dresses about the eighth month of my pregnancy because I was large enough that by the time the material stretched around my enormous gut it was about ten feet away from skimming my legs.  I did not need to feel anymore like a whale.

Now that I’ve lost the pregnancy lbs I am back to my impassioned love for the dress.¬† I am, of course, a major fan of the LBD (little black dress) and channel Audrey every time I don mine and my set of pearls!¬† (I just need the gloves!)

There are so many beautiful dresses out there right now; I couldn’t possibly post them all here.¬† However, I have mulled through some of my favorite sites and found these lovelies for you lovelies to enjoy!

From Banana Republic:

From Gap:

From JCrew:

From Lulus:

From Macy’s:

From Nordstrom:

From Target:

Click on the images for a larger view!

My BFF called the other night with a bit of a fashion emergency. In about a week she is headed to LA for a weekend full of wedding related events. One said event will find her brunching at THE IVY!!!! Yes, the very IVY where the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson, John Travolta, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez and other celebrities can be found trying to enjoy free publicity lunch.

At first Bri was thinking a dress for the brunch, but The Ivy has a more casual vibe going on so she has scaled back from an Oscar worthy gown to one that is more subtle and far less sequined! She’s already purchased appropriate eyewear so that the glare of her own greatness will not blind the paparazzi as they take shot after shot after mistaking her for the next IT girl!

Bri asked if I had any ideas and I said I would do some research and get back with her. She has a gift card and coupons to Macy’s, and since times are hard all over, I have limited my searching to their website.

Below are the looks:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

 Loading ...

Listen, I have never been one who struts confidently into the swimsuit section of (insert store name) and snatches up a pile of suits I know will look good on me. Rather, my experience is one of resignation as I search through rack after rack hoping to find a suit that does not scream I want all of the attention and so I’ve squeezed myself into something no reasonable person could actually do anything remotely close to water, waves, concrete, the sun or moving ones arms and legs to actually move through the water in. Nor do I want to be the person who looks like she just time traveled from 1920.

Every year I get the same horrid feeling come May for I know summer vacation is just around the corner and I am going to need some kind of suit since apparently a t-shirt and shorts are really only acceptable at church camp, which doesn’t even really make sense, because if the whole point of donning actual clothes is to prevent the opposite sex from seeing the female form then having a t-shirt plastered against the skin does nothing but incite the imagination perhaps even more so than a conservative one-piece bathing suit would.

If I were willing to plop down some bank I could probably find a decent suit that would last a couple years, thereby saving myself the annual torture and mental abuse associated with seeing myself in a bathing suit in the aptly lit fitting room mirror. (Do they have to enhance every?????? grotesque feature? Isn’t the point to make me want to buy the swimsuit? Then make me look 6′ tall; make every muscle look taut and sculpted. Don’t make me look like, well, like me.) Instead, I usually opt for a cheap bathing suit because who really wants to spend money to look bad on purpose? By the end of the summer the suit is usually sun faded and held together by mere threads.

The search is made no less complicated this year by the fact that I had a baby almost nine months ago. Heidi Klum I am not! I actually weigh less than I did pre-Izzy. I say that not to boast, but simply to say that the number on the scale means nothing. IT MEANS NOTHING! I weigh less because I am in awful shape compared to the shape I was in before Isabella. While my arms are definitely tighter due to lugging a little one around, everything else is wiggling and jiggling in ways it has not in years. And while I have never had a six pack, my gut is definitely the bane of my existence right now. I escaped the pregnancy without stretch marks, thank heavens, but I think I am left with a little bit of a panch that was not there before. No amount of sit-ups seem to scare off this little bump, which has made trying on suits an exercise in self-mutilation.

Further complicating the perfect swimsuit search is the fact that I am short (5′4″) and short torsoed, which makes me in a one piece look whalesque. I just don’t have the proportions to carry a one-piece and have it do me any justice. But, I am also very self-conscious right now and a two piece makes me feel like I am advertising what nine months of carrying a child and then another nine months of mediocre exercise will do to a body. And while that look may help boost the confidence of other pool goers, I don’t plan on letting my pain benefit another, thank you very much!

I know there are “shaping” suits such as this gem on Land’s End’s website:

No problem identifying a Slender Suit® woman at the beach. She walks boldly, happy that what nature gave her is being shown to its best advantage. And what may not be her best attributes, she knows, have still been presented in the very best way.

Right, because this makes the “best” of all that is not, coming or going:

Or how about this lingerie inspired piece:

We’re all searching for a swimsuit that inspires confidence. And with its slimming Slendertex¬Æ fabric and princess-seamed silhouette, this suit is at the head of the class.

Lovely; I’ve always thought wearing a negligee to the beach would be a great idea.

Or how about:

Who couldn’t use a little extra confidence on the beach???????

And really, who couldn’t? The good news is this sexy little bottom will cover your Depends, too! Confident and Discreet: You are ready to hit the beach!

So tell me, where do you go for your swim suit needs?

Before Brian and I met, and his eyes were opened to the finer things in life, he was a HUGE Wal-Mart fan. Given his domicile’s close proximity to said establishment, it was not uncommon for him to make several trips a day for various necessities and impulse purchases.

I grew up in a medium size Midwestern town that did not even get a Wal-Mart until I was well into high school. Our one stop (cheap) shopping locals were Hills or K Mart (don’t even get me started on those blue light specials and sub sandwiches my Uncle Bill used to rave over), so when I left for college and discovered a little place called TARGET I assumed I had died and gone to discount retail heaven.

Now, of course, I had been to a Wal-Mart and even a Target before leaving for university (it’s not like I lived in Appalachia), but the closest Wal-Mart was about twenty minutes away and the nearest Target was about an hour away. Plus, Wal-Mart never seemed to really do it for me. In my experience, they are usually dim, dingy, and full of red-necks come to spend their weekly government check on cheap Nascar stadium seats, coolers and tobacco. (I speak of course, of the old-school Wal-Marts; certainly, the SUPER Wal-Marts are much, much nicer…but you still feel a little dirty when there and like you should have brought your Uncle Cletus along.)

Target, on the other hand, seemed far less dirty (although, I have been in some nasty Target’s in my day. What is up with that foul stench outside the Arrowhead Target? Seriously, it must have a Hobo Power of at least 50. In the words of Adam Carolla, it smells as if a cat ate nothing but blue cheese and is defecating on a white-hot hibachi grill.) And while they certainly are a discount retailer like Wal-Mart, Target has done a better job of masking the cheap behind stylish ads, packaging and promotions. (Is it the shiny red everywhere or is it the guest designers who make me, the average American, feel as if she too can have a slice of high fashion?) You just feel a little classier when you are buying toiletries, underwear, and cheap, but fashionable, accessories at Target.

Plus, nearly every Wal-Mart I’ve been in has Freak Show potential, where as Target customers wouldn’t dare to air their dirty laundry for all the other shoppers to hear. You would never hear this in Target: “Mom, how come you always beat my butt in Wal-Mart?” “I don’t; I beat your ass at home, too.” For shame! You cannot sully the aisles with such talk. When I am purchasing my Thomas O’Brien household wares I certainly don’t want to be reminded of such pedestrian things as child abuse.

Nor would you witness a Bobblehead come to life nod away, with his buck teeth protruding five inches from his mouth, as the cashier explains that the previous customer got a great deal on a new cable box because it was deeply discounted and had a coupon. A Target customer would be savvy enough to know the reason or to at least not nod around as if purchased from a novelty shop. He wouldn’t need to inquire about a cable box because he would be far too intellectual to watch TV; instead, he is busy reading Eat, Pray, Love and pretending to like it.

At Target they employ the elderly; their older employees are in great shape, friendly and full of life. Contrastingly, Wal-Mart’s older folks seems as if they have just been dropped off from the Geriatric Ward and that they are merely working there in hopes of getting a discount on a Sam’s Choice casket. They hobble around, sit in motorized carts, and look just this side of death. On a recent Wal-Mart trip, (I was with Brian) to a store that is only slighter grosser than the Wal-Mart in Spencer, IN, we saw a cashier who was clearly on her way to meet her maker. She was probably 95 lbs. fully clothed and had an odd combo of white hair (pulled up in a fancy faux bun) on top with badly dyed blond (ish) hair underneath. She couldn’t muster the strength to call out to her manager when she needed help, so she just waved a receipt in the air, as if to say, “Alright life; you win. I surrender.” Brian and I really thought she was going to collapse dead right then and there. Target customers cannot be reminded of something so banal as the circle of life as they purchase their organic blah, blah, blah in order to extend not only their own lives but that of the planet’s as well.

So, dear reader(s), I ask of you: Wal-Mart or Target (yes, pronounce it with that fake French accent) and why?