Just Desserts

I would be perfectly happy if my diet were just desserts. I think I have a sugar problem.

That being the case, I made a new rule for myself: only one dessert per day. You'd think being 34 years old, I might already know this rule, but I don't. I had to make it "official." I did this by declaring it aloud to Patrick after a day in which I ate the following in addition to my regular three squares: a brownie, a piece of pie, two Tastykake butterscotch krimpets, some Sunkist fruit gems candies, and a handful of jellybeans. Is that wrong? Um, my wardrobe suggests YES! So it's down to just one dessert per day, and yesterday was my first day of implementing that new rule. I should be able to get through a day with no desserts, I guess, but...well...that would be absurd.

So let's talk about the wardrobe issues of a woman of childbearing age, shall we? Namely, what clothes should be in my drawers and closet right now? It's just a simple question that I don't know how to answer.

My sons are 18 months and 6 weeks old, which means I've been pregnant for 20 of the last 30 months. Pre-pregnancy with Jack, I was far from svelte, but I weighed about 30 pounds less than I do right now. So my clothes from before he was born do not fit right now. I gained about 40 pounds with his pregnancy, and after he was born, I bought a few new things that were in a bigger size. I got pregnant with PJ at a high weight - truth be told, I was almost back up to my delivery weight with Jack. (Sleep deprivation makes your metabolism run in reverse.) As a result, I tried to be careful about my weight gain with PJ's pregnancy, and ended up only gaining NINE pounds (yay me!). Don't worry, I still weighed more than my 6'6" husband, so I was hardly wasting away or putting the baby in danger. The baby and I could have lived off my thighs for another year. So the clothes I bought after Jack was born are actually a little too big for me right now.

This is my predicament.

I wore maternity jeans to take the boys to the park today and once they stretched a little from their just-out-of-the-dryer fit, I literally had to hold on to them to keep them from ending up around my ankles. (As an aside, if they made elastic waist jeans in normal, non-maternity sizes, I'd seriously have a closetful of them. They're just that comfortable, and no Dunlaps disease - you know, where your stomach dunlaps over the top of your pants? So if anyone decides to start this particular line of clothing, I'll be your number one customer!)

In my drawers right now, I still have my maternity clothes, and I'm supplementing with some non-maternity capri-length sweatpants that are on the top of my dresser. If I do the rubberband trick, I can get away with a pair of non-maternity jeans with a slight case of Dunlaps, but I'm not really comfortable doing this. My closet is full of maternity clothes and pre-Jack clothes, none of which really fit right. Oh, add that while I'm breastfeeding, there simply are NO button down shirts that will fit correctly over the "ladies" without bulging at the middle.

The wardrobe organization rule of thumb is that if you haven't worn something in the last year, you should get rid of it. But this just doesn't hold true for people who have been pregnant in that year! There is just no organizational system that will work, and I'm living out of my drawers, Rubbermaid bins, plastic bags, and piles of clothes that are just taking over my room!

Somebody help me!

Oh, I guess the dessert rule might help too, huh?

Seriously, though - how do I make this work?