Rachel Callahan

Three Totally Rocks.

August 11, 2010 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Kids: The Experience., Parent of the Year, The Blissfulness of Life

There are a lot of great things about Ali being the old age of three.

No more cleaning poo out of diapers is most definitely towards the top of the list…

Full and total communication – also nice (although sometimes it might get a bit TOO full and TOO continuous-ad-infinitum for my taste, but no need to be picky.)

Also fun is listening to her sing all of her stuffed friends to sleep every night via the baby monitor…her varied repertoire including Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle, James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James, Jesus Loves You, and Rihanna’s Umbrella…

But the latest and greatest discovery that I’ve made about this awesome age is her new big-girl Gymnastics class.

You see, once you hit the mature age of three, you’re no longer in a Mommy and Me class.

Which means that I no longer leave gymnastics every week completely frazzled, exhausted, and frustrated by trying to desperately beg and bribe her to participate properly in her class.

My job now is to….sit. On the observation deck, a whole floor away from the action. And watch. And take photos if I like. And stay out of the way.

(Insert Huge Sigh of Relaxation here.)

So when it’s time to stretch, the teachers have to convince her to sit and stretch.

And when it’s time to do jumping jacks down the trampoline, I don’t have to try and convince her to not do bunny hops, or backwards jumps, runs, or whatever-it-is-that-SHE-wants-to-do-right-then…

When it’s time for rolling, THEY get to help her…

And even when she has to take a break and go pee – nope, not my job to peel her sweaty-won’t-come-off-without-a-tub-of-greased-lard leotard off. It’s the teacher’s job.

And balance beam – no more holding Mommy’s hand just because it’s there, refusing to let go even when she could easily do it on her own.

And….wait a minute…why is she being so much more cooperative with them than she ever was for me?!?

And why is she SMILING SO BIG about this new arrangement???
Apparently, I’m not the only one who prefers Me Without Mommy classes.

Heavy.

August 10, 2010 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, It's Tough Being a Girl, Just My Luck

People constantly complain about flying: the ridiculous costs and add-on fees, delays and cancellations.

I don’t understand these people.

Flying is a blissful experience of adventure, independence, and expediency that I absolutely adore….

Until now.

I finally have a bone to pick.

You see, I ever-so-carefully packed my monstrous giant of a suitcase for BlogHer. Since I couldn’t very well pick it up without my pelvic floor giving way and instantaneously birthing a baby, I had Chris hoist it up onto the scale before we left…

49 pounds.

Perfect. One pound under the weight limit – as long as our bathroom scale isn’t overly nice, I’m good.

I packed an empty bag for swag, and set off on my journey.

They didn’t even weigh my bag at the Birmingham airport – score!!!!

Once I got to BlogHer, things didn’t go exactly as planned.

My empty swag bag (which was going to be my carry-on, seeing as how I didn’t want to pay a SECOND bag fee and hadn’t used a carry-on traveling there) had an irreversibly broken zipper.

Luckily, BlogHer provides a shipping station to ship your swag home.

So I utilized said shipping station.

….BUT…I had already told Ali all of the wonders I was bringing home for her – Play-Doh.. Mister Potato Head.. Light-Up Rings.. and what she REALLY wanted, Play-Doh perfume.

Yes, people, Play-Doh perfume!!!

For a kid that’s always wanting use Mommy’s “smell-good”, it’s perfect – she can put on her own smell-good, and no one will judge me – they’ll just think she’s been hitting the Play-Doh a bit harder than usual.

But I digress.

So I shipped most of it, and packed a few things in my bag for Ali and Chris.

It couldn’t have been more than a pound or two…surely. And they probably won’t weigh my bag again, right?

Apparently, I don’t estimate well.

I get to La Guardia.

My bag weighs in at a completely-unbelievable-they-obviously-have-cheater-scales-to-make-us-pay 64 pounds.

14 pounds overweight – there’s no WAY I have 14 pounds of added swag in my suitcase!!!

Okay. Surely this won’t cost more than $20. Right? I can handle that.

WHAT???? You CANNOT be serious.

$90 ?!?!?!?!

This has GOT to be the most ridiculous unfairest most exploitive charge in the world.

Then, they add even more insult by putting an ugly, bright orange, horribly accusatory “Heavy” tag on my bag – something every girl wants associated with their person.

Here’s the way I see it, Delta:

A) A second bag costs $35. Why can’t I just pay for two bags and let them be melded into one?

B) I have no carry-on, which could easily weigh the plane down by more than 14 pounds. Why can’t I have credit for that???

C) There are no weight limits on people, so why is it that my bag is penalized, but the guy that just ate a 14 pound Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast still gets to take up his seat and half of the guy’s next to him without having to pay $90??

I vote for my ticket buying me a certain flat weight limit. You weigh me, my bag, my carry-on, and anything else that is going onto the plane due to me (weigh the coke I’m going to get in-flight – I don’t care!), and if all of that combined is over the weight limit, THEN you can charge me.

Granted, one might think that women might be opposed to getting on a scale in front of the world, but they’re already seeing us naked in the x-ray machine (or groping us like I chose), so it’s not like getting weighed would be most personal thing going on here.

Delta, you nearly made me cry, and you certainly wilted the rose of my love affair with flying. I want a refund, or at least I want my cost to be split with Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast Man.

Guide to an Enjoyable Conference Experience: for the Introvert.

August 10, 2010 Rachel Callahan Actually Possibly Informational, Blogher, I'm a Blog Geek

Pardon me while I make a few sweeping generalizations…

Bloggers are a funny breed. Though we probably come off as the world’s biggest extroverts because it appears that we do a lot of talking, pontificating, and social (media) interaction, many of us are really just shy introverts who have found that hiding behind a computer screen allows us to get relational fulfillment without a lot of the social anxiety that we may normally feel.

For instance, on the internet, we don’t have to deal with that nagging feeling that something may or may not be sticking out of our nose while in the middle of a conversation, but we can’t very well check without being labeled a mid-conversation-nose-picker.

(Go ahead. Label me a mid-blog-post-writing-nose-picker.)

Nevertheless, I think many of us discover this fact about ourselves BECAUSE of blogging, when all of a sudden we are faced with the fact that we somehow lose some piece of our confident online persona when we take it off and meet new people face-to-face.

I learned this last year at BlogHer 2009.

Although I didn’t necessarily blog fully about it here (for fear of being lumped into the “BlogHer attendee that writes catty/whiny/annoyingly complainy posts once arriving home ” bucket), I didn’t make it a secret that I had been disappointed by my first BlogHer experience, and that I wasn’t planning on going back.

Not to say that I didn’t have fun last year – I DID have moments of fun, but had more moments of absolute terror, homesickness, and frustration.

But, this year rolled around, and for some reasons I mentioned before and a few I didn’t, I decided to attend again.

And, much to my surprise and joy, my experience was completely opposite of last year. I had a perfectly amazing time, and instead of the distressing moments of last year, I had many, many moments of sheer delight.

However, I don’t think BlogHer changed – I just changed my approach to it. And those simple changes made the trip for me. So, I decided to share them here, for those built like me – introverts who might want to attend a social media conference one day.

Here’s what I’ve learned by comparing my two conference experiences:

“It’s not you, it’s me” – Don’t room with people you don’t know in real life, or room alone. I really had great roommates last year, but the fact is, I’m an introvert. If I’m going to be at a conference with thousands of women and expected to interact continuously, I desperately need a place to retreat to where I can be completely comfortable and “socially switched off” for a while. Knowing that I had a peaceful, empty room to go back to anytime I needed a recharge of serenity was glorious.
Don’t feel guilty for taking said rest time, even if you miss out on portions of the conference – you will enjoy the rest more if you make sure to take time to refuel and breathe.
Look at “Your Money’s Worth” as having an enjoyable trip – not necessarily attending every session, party, and getting every piece of swag available. Your Money’s Worth may mean having an exhilarating afternoon walk in the city while skipping a session that didn’t interest you anyway. Do what you feel like when you feel like it – after all, you’re paying for it – you might as well fully appreciate it. For the record, I went to 50% of the sessions this year – I heard what I wanted to, explored New York City, and blissfully enjoyed my trip.
(And, for the record, I did learn a few things at the sessions I went to. I hope to get some of these written up on Alabama Bloggers and/or B-Sides soon.)
Don’t work for a sponsor or volunteer at the conference – I was sponsored last year, and although I absolutely ADORE the girls I worked with, it added a great deal of pressure and stress on me to do the best job I could, be at the conference constantly, market a website, and not necessarily take the “me” time I needed to survive such an extroverted event.
Don’t feel like you have to introduce yourself to EVERYONE you bump into. Don’t miss out on all relational or networking opportunities, but also don’t overwhelm yourself every second.
Pertaining in particular to BlogHer, knowing what to expect this year helped a lot. Last year I assumed (without thinking about it much, obviously) that BlogHer was a bunch of Conservative Mommy Bloggers just like myself. It isn’t. It’s a really great group of complete diversity. But because of that, some of the swag, sessions, and language that is used freely in all the sessions took me by surprise. Last year, I felt the language was unprofessional, but that’s probably because I’m Southern and Overly Sweet like that. But this year, I wasn’t surprised, so it didn’t phase me.
Don’t go into a conference with an inferiority complex. Last year, I went thinking that every other blogger attending was a Pioneer Woman, a MckMama, or a Dooce. They’re not. Most of them are small to medium bloggers, as scared (and introverted) as I was.
Don’t listen to the gossip about the cattiness going on. The gossip is just as catty, and chances are, unless you hear others talking about it, you won’t actually encounter such cattiness yourself. Obliviousness is blissful.
GET PLENTY OF SLEEP!!

Those nine things completely revolutionized my experience – I loved and appreciated every minute of my trip this year! Hopefully my mistakes (and corrections of said mistakes) can help some of you in planning for a future conference.

BlogHer BulletPoints.

August 8, 2010 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, Blogher, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Utter Silliness

BlogHer has an effect on 95.6% of it’s attendees that it turns their mind into complete mush by the time the weekend is over.

I was not one of the lucky 4.4%.

And so, while I allow my mind time to de-mush and re-solidify and my feet time to re-grow (what, you didn’t know I blogged with my feet?), all I can seem to produce are Bullet Points. I might have some more philosophical thoughts later in the week, but today, what you see is what you get.

Mrs Potato Head got verrrrry handsy with my British Friends Jay and Sian. It made us question if there was really a Mrs under that potato. So we questioned (s)him. (S)him looked guilty as charged and hung his spud in shame.

Thank goodness, Dora was not handsy. No one wants Dora doing THAT sort of exploring.
Wai-wai-wai-waitta minute, Dora!! Whattarya doing to Boots?!?!?!

Oddly enough, the Rabid Rabbit was the most well-behaved furry BlogHer guest. Rabies, I suppose, doesn’t always result in mischief.

Last year’s celebrities: Tim Gunn and Paula Deen. This year’s celebrity: The Sun from Jimmy Dean.

I missed Tim Gunn.
But I did get to meet another fashion celebrity offsite. David Lauren, Ralph Lauren’s son, looks eerily like Jerry Seinfeld. Except much more well-dressed…and more good-looking. But Jerry can’t be blamed for that – Ralph can.

The Ralph Lauren Madison Avenue Headquarters are much cooler in real life than on Friends.

Day One: I’m an idiot. I’m pregnant and didn’t pack myself any snacks. Now I’ll have to find a store and stock up.
Day Two: I’m an idiot. I stocked up on snacks, completely forgetting that I’d get enough food in all the swag to feed the entire Duggar family for a week.

(And I’m sure that they’d find some way to make tater tot casserole out of the bags of Sweet Potato Chips and Craisins that are filling up my room.)
New York will make you wish you were the type of Mom that would spend $100+ on a sweater for your kid and glad that you AREN’T that type of Mom all at once.

Coloring is therapeutic whether you’re at home or at BlogHer. It’s especially therapeutic when you know you’re making a postcard to send home to a tiny someone that you might miss a little more than a tiny bit.

iPhone FaceTime (which is just as tear-inducing in real life as on the commercials) is the greatest invention for the away-from-home parent since the aforementioned postcard.

Because really, it’s easier to play “Hey Mommy! Can you do THIS?!?” on FaceTime than on a postcard.

Even if you say you’d never attempt the Subway alone, the Subway is an evil temptress. She will lure you in, but once you’re underground, if you perchance take the wrong train (feeling the lurching in the wrong direction is a sick feeling), all of the wonderful iPhone apps in the world can’t help you right your wrongs – because there’s no signal underground.
Nor are there maps underground.
Nor is there a “you look like you need help, idiot tourist” kiosk.
So it’s best to escape while you still can, torture your feet even more, and walk back from whatever mysterious place you ended up.
If you get to walk more (thank you Mister Subway), you get to appreciate the fact that the city is a beautiful place,
but at the same time, it makes Birmingham look like even more of a beautiful place.
(No, I wasn’t really righting my wrongs from the Subway until after dark.)
I can’t wait to see this hand again:

BlogHer turns your mind into Mush. Have I already mentioned that?

We Interrupt BlogHer for this Very Important Thank You…

August 7, 2010 Rachel Callahan I'm a Blog Geek, Shamelessly Plugging Away, The Blissfulness of Life

The blissfulness of Living in the South often goes underappreciated, both by those who live there and by those who have never had the pleasure.

When I have told other people that I’m from Alabama this weekend, I can see the assumptions in their eyes: 130 degrees 365 days of the year, no indoor plumbing, religionizing football, and full of rednecks.

(I have to give them the football one, but no concessions on the others.)

Ironically, the times that I have most appreciated my beautiful region is when I get to see it through a first-timer’s eyes. A few years ago, a friend of mine from Iowa came to visit. She was absolutely stunned at the lush environment of Birmingham – she wondered in amazement that there were beautiful green TREES everywhere – so many trees that it looked like you were in the forest right in the middle of the city! And the hills – you couldn’t see the city all at once, like a wonderful secret being revealed one delicious morsel at a time.

But one Southern staple that has always done an amazing job of showcasing the delights

of our Region is the magazine Southern Living. I remember even as a child reading my Mom’s Southern Livings and being inspired to travel the SOUTH as an adult, not necessarily the rest of the world. And Chris and I have definitely followed through on that dream, discovering the amazing wonders of St. Simon’s Island, Folly Beach, St. Augustine, the Smoky Mountains, Savannah, and Kiawah Island.

(I know one thing: the oddly pallor trees in Central Park can’t hold a candle to anywhere in our South.)

And, while so many of our Southern prides have fallen away or changed (Such as our Birmingham Shopping Icon, the beautiful and classy Parisian being turned into a name that sounds like a guy being proud of his bodily functions – I don’t care if the owner’s last name IS Belk, no reason could make it worthwhile to replace the inspiration of it’s former name), Southern Living has stayed true to it’s roots, and true to our south.

So, I cannot tell you how honored I am that they chose me as their Southern Living Mama Blogger of the Week. To be considered a writer by the epitome of Southern writing inspires and excites me, just like their magazine always has. I hope that somehow in my writing, I can do what they did for me: inspire others to visit and explore the beautiful secret that is my South.

Thank you, Southern Living!

BlogHer Stream of Consciousness : Day One

August 6, 2010 Rachel Callahan Blogher, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Just My Luck, Pregnancy: The Psychoses.

4:15 AM.

If today had been a football Saturday and Chris had woken me up at that time to head to Tuscaloosa, I’d still be grumbling tonight.

As it was, I magically rolled out of bed and got ready for my flight without complaining for a second.

I explained to Chris that I must have woken up perfectly in my sleep cycle, as opposed to (all) football Saturdays.

I think he called that something like “Bull Crap”, if I remember correctly.

For some reason, it hit me on the way to the airport that I would be expected to go through an x-ray machine…and I started wondering what to do.

I got to check-in, and there were no signs screaming “STOP! PREGNANT LADIES! DON’T LET US SCAN YOU! WE WILL MAIM YOUR BABY!!” – surely there’s a lawsuit opportunity out there somewhere.

I asked the TSA agent as sweetly and non-terroristically as possible what I could do since I was pregnant and wasn’t supposed to be x-rayed.

She just as sweetly told me that instead, I was welcome to choose to be groped with an intensive thoroughness by another woman in front of the whole line of gawking onlookers.

I agreed. And jotted down a mental note in my Book of Guilt to hold over Noah’s head.

So they put me in the glass locking terrorist booth (I really think I should have been allowed to announce that my quarantine was voluntary) and left me to marinate in my embarrassment for a few minutes, after which my new best friend came to feel me up.

While everyone stared.

And wondered if that was a baby bump or a bomb.

Once I ~~escaped~~ got on the plane, the guy next to me asked me where I was going, and when I said the magical “BlogHer” word, I was thrilled when the girl across the aisle AND the girl directly behind me piped up that they were coming too.

Which is amazing since I’ve been using Twitter to try to locate other Alabama Bloggers going for a month, and have only found all of ONE.

So apparently the whole state IS here – they just won’t answer my tweets.

The 4:15 wake-up time and 6:42 take-off time totally paid off when I landed in New York at 10:00 am Eastern time. And, since the actual conference doesn’t start until tomorrow, I even managed to meet up with Ann Marie, my friend who was leaving the city today.

We walked half a mile to the Hell’s Kitchen district to eat lunch at a Greek Restaurant that I found on Urban Spoon (me walking with a VERY poor shoeing choice that my feet are still a throbbing blistery mess from), only to see the place closed down, chairs on tables and lights out.

My immediate thought was – this is a moment that Chris would never let happen. He would have TOTALLY called ahead before turning his feet into a throbbing blistery mess. My second thought: this is eerily similar to a certain embarrassing story from last year’s BlogHer…

But then I saw that they had another entrance, and got hopeful. Sure enough – they just had part of their restaurant open for lunch.

After our delicious Greekness, Ann Marie mercifully took me back on the Subways for the sake of my feet, and taught me a very important lesson: I should NEVER try to manage the Subways on my own. I would seriously end up in Queens with Eddie Murphy and the SoulGlo guy.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out what I was going to do with my now-blistered-and-completely-unusable feet, and how I was going to manage to wear my open toed, sparkly heels for the Ralph Lauren event.

I somehow managed to coddle them enough with the help of some blister band-aids to accept the punishment of my shoes, and had an awesome time at Ralph Lauren, which I will blog about later (mainly because, football or not, 4:15 AM was a LONG time ago). But I was thrilled that one of our party hostesses, Michelle, was my Baby Bump twin:

…and with our dress color combination, it’s a REALLY good thing it wasn’t a football Saturday.

Inside View.

August 4, 2010 Rachel Callahan Blogher, Boy Child = Bizarre., Pregnancy: The Psychoses.

Yesterday I had my REAL mid-way through my pregnancy sonogram.

(And yes, it’s true, I’ve had like five sonograms now. I don’t know how I’ve managed to rack up that many, although my tilted unicorn was definitely helpful in the process.)

Noah checked out great – a couple of days ahead of schedule, and, much to Chris’ relief, still most definitely a boy.

I think Chris’ exact request to the sonogram tech was, “You still see a twig and berries, right?”

(Because we’re all about correct anatomical terminology around here.)

Her response, “Congratulations – It didn’t fall off.”

She got the coveted Adorable Side-view Shot…

The traditional Spooky Skeletor Shot,

The rare but fascinating Spooky-Skeletor-Evilly-Laughing Shot…
And, not do be outdone by his sister (albeit a little less coordinated) , Noah gave us a thumbs up:
Chris left after the fun part and left me to face the torturous part alone: the Weigh-In.

It’s an odd thing about the female species…even if we’re pregnant, even though we’re supposed to gain weight, and even if we’ve gained less than we “could have” by now, the feeling of seeing the scale tip upwards is NEVER, EVER a pleasant feeling.

ESPECIALLY when someone else is doing the weighing.

And I knew I had most definitely hit a growth spurt in the past week, because two people had asked me if I was pregnant that day – a first.

Which, if someone is willing to ask, that means I’m big enough that they really knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was, indeed, pregnant. That, or they were under the influence of Crazy-Inducing-Pregnancy-Pheromones.

So, knowing that I had gained weight but wasn’t ready to see TOO painful of numbers on The Official Doctor’s Scale, I had spent the morning analytically scouring my closet, produce scale in hand, to find the absolute lightest gauze shirt that I own.

(Okay, I didn’t really have a produce scale. But I wish I’d thought of it before now.)

The only problem was, I wore the lightest thing I could find last time, too.

(Good thing I bought something lighter in the meantime.)

At this rate, by the time I’m eight months pregnant, I’m going to show up for my weigh-in, at the end of November no less, looking like Bikini Girl on American Idol.

Except for the fact that I would look NOTHING like Bikini Girl on American Idol, and that’s when I’m NOT eight months pregnant.

But let’s not dwell on that.

In other news, ~~Skeletor~~ Noah and I are flying out in the morning (earlier than either of us EVER get up) for New York for our first Mommy/Son bonding trip.

Because I hear that he absolutely LOVES to go to blogging events and all.

…let’s just hope he doesn’t bust my zipper.

Free Summer Fun!! (Better Late Than Never.)

August 3, 2010 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Actually Possibly Informational, I would NEVER take too many pictures. . ., Kids: The Experience.

It’s become a running joke with my friend Ashley and I that every time we’re getting together, we always ask each other what New! and Exciting! Thing! we can do with Ali and AJ.

Yet, we almost always end up back at the mall, or back at our favorite lunch places, or back at the Children’s section of the Library.

What can I say? We lack in creativity.

But Monday morning, when she called and asked me “What New and Exciting thing can we do today?”, I actually felt the ambition to take on her challenge.

I started searching the internet and my favorite Birmingham Mom Idea blogs, Magic City Mom and Birmingham Mommy, and then vaguely remembered hearing about a great summer deal back in my so-nauseous-I-wouldn’t-care-if-someone-was-giving-away-free-million-dollar-houses stage of pregnancy, so I searched for it, and found it: kidsbowlfree.com.

It’s a national summer program that allows kids to get two free games of bowling, every day Monday through Friday, all summer long at participating bowling alleys – you just pay for shoes.

And there’s not even a catch!!

(Granted, when I signed up for it, they wanted to sell me on a family pass for $24.95 for the summer, which would have been an AWESOME deal had I actually remembered and taken advantage of this a couple of months ago. But I didn’t buy that, so our outing cost us all of $3 each.)

Last time we took Ali and AJ bowling, we couldn’t find them six pound balls, so we had to help them quite a bit. But at Vestavia Bowl, there was an abundance of them, which, coupled with their 8 months advancement in age made it easy for both of the girls to actually bowl by themselves:

They had an absolute blast. There was much jumping up and down, screaming, cheering, high-fiving, and celebrating their bowls, whether pins were actually conquered or not.

But, of course, their balls took about fifty years to make it down the lane, so there was a lot of resting while waiting for ball arrival as well.

That’s when the extremely proactive and nice staff asked if we wanted a ramp, so we decided to give it a try.

That sped up the process quite a bit, allowing for more celebration time.

Ali and AJ both loved bowling, even when they started to become cognizant of their failures as well as their successes:

But despite those missed pins, I’m really glad that Ashley and I opted not to play, because between their ramp, their bumpers, and their mad skillz, I’m afraid that they would have easily beaten us. And admitting that would have been too hard on our fragile Mommy egos.

The program runs through September 6th – I REALLY hope to get to take Ali a few more times before it’s over (if you’re local, let me know if you want to join us!!). If you’re not local, Check the website to see if there’s a participating alley in your area – I know this information is woefully late to take full advantage of it, but better late than never, right?

This post wasn’t sponsored by anyone. After all, it’s a free program – I don’t think they’d be too interested in paying me to promote it with all those invisible dollars people are giving them.

The Ultimate Mom Jeans Battle: Momternity Jeans.

August 2, 2010 Rachel Callahan Denim Drama, Don't Listen to my Fashion Advice, I embarrass myself just for your amusement., Pregnancy: The Psychoses.

I sorted through all of my maternity clothes a while ago. It brought back fond memories, I-can’t-believe-I-was-that-huge memories, and I-don’t-know-if-I-can-stomach-to-wear-that-one-more-time memories.

And then I got to my jeans.

Holy Maternity Cow.

The Mom Jeans Factor of the jeans I wore for my entire pregnancy with Ali was OFF THE CHARTS.

I wore those?!?

Those pockets?!?

I had MATERNITY LONG BUTT???

The horror.

The embarrassment.

The shame.

My number one goal in life immediately became the finding and obtaining of Non-Mom-Maternity-Jeans…

(After burning said Momternity Jeans, of course.)

…which, finding Non-Mom-Maternity-Jeans is a bit of an oxymoron, seeing as how Jeans can’t get much more “Mommish” than jeans made to house Mom AND baby. But I was determined.

I set out immediately in search. But the road was long, and fraught with failures.

For one, I didn’t have a bump yet. And if there was one thing I learned when I was pregnant with Ali, it was The Maternity Truth: you won’t wear anything that you buy pre-bump, because it will certainly look horrid on your bumped body.

But my drive to find Non-Mom jeans was strong, probably as a vain attempt to somehow right the denim wrongs I committed in the past, so I kept at it.

My second obstacle was that apparently, all types of Maternity waistbands have been discontinued except for the apparent Holy Grail of Waistbands, the Secret Fit Belly, or what should be titled, The Waistband That Could Double as a Bra AND Scarf:
And, although apparently everyone can appreciate such but me, I have two major problems with the Secret Fit:

1. I don’t want my waistband covering my Boobs. Comfort it is NOT.

2. There is no actual waistband, so there’s nothing to hold up these “Secret Fit” jeans (maybe that’s the secret), coupled with the fact that a pregnant belly works like the force of a bowling ball pushing the pants down even further, which creates a “Pants On The Ground” moment every time I walk down stairs, bend over, or just take a medium-to-large-stride.

And personally, I don’t like it when I hear people humming “Pants on the Ground” every time me and my belly walk by.

I WANTED a waistband like these:

But couldn’t find any.

Or, shall I say, couldn’t find any that didn’t have a Mom Jeans Factor of under 50%.

So, I settled.

I finally found two pairs of decisively non-Mom-Jeans, unfortunately with their ~~Stinkin’~~ Secret Fit, but the salesladies assured me that when I had, in fact, a bowling ball, said bowling ball would work to my FAVOR and help the pants stay up, not push them down.

We’ll see.

Until then, I’ll be wearing my normal jeans, with the help of rubber-bands-around-the-button.

Which means when I actually DO get to the point of needing my maternity jeans, they’ll probably look horrid. Because of The Maternity Truth and all.

But one thing I was proud of myself for: in all my desperate searches, I avoided the temptation to buy designer maternity jeans.

You see, despite my recurring bad luck with them, I have become a bit of a Designer Jeans Addict – but only because I can often find them for 80% off on clearance at Belk. But the comfort AND flatterability level of designer jeans (such as Seven for All Mankind and Citizens of Humanity) is just SO high that I actually considered getting maternity ones, despite the fact that they cannot EVER be found at 80% off.

UNTIL.

I was browsing through them wistfully when I stumbled onto this nightmare of a pair, provided by Citizens of Humanity for the Oh-The-Humanity price of $210.00:

If the MODEL looks that lumpy in them, I can only shiver at the thought of which angle I would rip right out of the seams of those jeans.

Seriously – as IF us pregnant ladies need ANY help looking like we’re fitting a fifty pound sack of potatoes in a ten pound sack.

And it was at that moment I realized: I could absolutely not support such atrocities against Pregnantkind, even if it meant Momternity Jeans for the rest of my life.

(Thank goodness it doesn’t, because I don’t think I really mean that.)

The End of the Sucking Saga.

August 1, 2010 Rachel Callahan I embarrass myself just for your amusement., Kids: The Experience., Parent of the Year

So. Remember my deepest, darkest, Mommy secret?

And my failed past attempts to take away Ali’s Ring of Mordor?

***Cringing in shame***

Yes, indeed, I have not been brave enough to finally pull the plug, as it were, on my 3 1/2 year old’s halfway-through-the-nap-paci-getting habits.

But fortunately, if I’m not brave enough to deal with it, Ali is.

It all started a week ago.

Ali has a very long-standing tradition of rooting around in my makeup drawers and admiring them all while I get ready. Last Friday, she dug further into a drawer than she’d ever gone before, and randomly found an old paci – one from when she was a baby.

“Mommy! Look at this old paci! It’s dirty and yucky and old!! Can I throw it away?”

“Sure, if you want to.”

(Pause, thinking about throwing in a life lesson…)

“You know, you’re a big girl now…at some point you’re going to have to throw away YOUR paci too.”

(Silence.)

(Then an odd excitement arose in her spirit…)

“Okay!!!!! I’ll go get it!!”

She runs away, and I jerk in shock.

Is she really going to throw it away?

And if so, will it end her gift of 3+ hour napping?

Should I let her?

(Of course you should, you idiot! She’s three and a half!!!)

Okay..okay..I can handle this. Breathe…

She runs back in the room.

“I threw them away!! Where can I find MORE pacis to throw away???”

“Now you know since you threw it away, if you wake up in your nap, you won’t be able to get one.”

“Oh…”

“So if you wake up and cry, you have to go back to sleep without a paci. Will you do that?”

“I will! I will!”

She’s totally calm about this.

Me? Panicking.

I mean, OBVIOUSLY I want my kid to give up her paci. But I don’t want to have to compromise naptime to get it, or I’ll never work, or blog, or do the dishes, or the laundry…ever, ever, again.

And WAY too many people commented on my paci admission post about their own horror stories of naps dramatically shortening or even (should I type it aloud) ending altogether after the paci went away.

Yes, there was no doubt that the paci in the trashcan hauntingly forbode a tragic ending with me being on Hoarders: Buried Alive because of the ten foot pile of dirty dishes and clothes and unwritten blog posts littering my house.

But I knew deep down that it was time for me to be a big girl. I CAN live without a paci. I am 28 years old, after all.

That day at naptime, I approached with fear and trembling. She woke up twice instead of her traditional one mid-nap-cry, and although it took me a few minutes to get her calmed down without the use of a sucking device, she did, indeed, go back to sleep.

Obviously, I am a horrible wuss of a mother who waited too long to do this.

Good thing Ali is braver than I am.

Sure enough, for the rest of the week, she did great – napping as good as ever, and only mentioning her former friend The Paci a couple of times, but in a past-tense-fond-memory sort of way – “back when I was a baby”.

So, it’s time for me to come to accept it, too: She’s really not a baby anymore.

Good thing I’m having another one, or I might actually get a bit verklempt…

Now pardon me while I go find a box of Kleenex.