LET'S TALK ABOUT PANTS, BABY

Day 1 is B&W challenge

4 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Day 1 is B&W challenge"

Remember back in April when I went to my healthy women's exam and realized that I weighed 180 pounds? Remember how I went into panic mode about losing that weight? Well, I've lost ten pounds since then. Yay! I am now somewhere between what I weighed before Chris died and after Chris died. This should be good news. I should be totally happy about this and I am. I've stopped obsessing and I just work a bit harder at the gym and I'm more conscious of the protein source in my meals. And ten pounds! Wow! That's great work! Really. Well done, me.

Then I went to my closet looking for jeans. 

I own two pairs of wide-ish legged jeans that are that nice dark denim. They look great paired with heals or cute sneakers. I'm pretty sure I wore them at some point in my life or why else would they be in my closet. The tag on one pair of jeans says that they're a size 31. The tag on the other has them at a size 30. The same morning I pulled these jeans out of my closet, I had purchased a pair of skinny jeans on sale at Target. They are a size 30. I decided to try on the other jeans to see how they felt. I thought to myself as I started with the size 31 pair that this was going to be good. These jeans are going to be a little bit big now. I tugged them up to my hip and then looked down at the button fly gaping open over my belly. I grabbed the button with my right hand and the button hole side with my left and started wrestling the two closer together. There was no attempting to even pretend that those pants were going to button. This did not bode well for the size 30s, except I pulled those on and buttoned and zipped them up with out having to hold my breath. 

I have other pants hanging in my closet that are not jeans (also sized 30 or 10 or whatever the hell those numbers mean). I call them summer pants because they are either cotton or linen. They have a bit of flare to the leg and go well with slip on kind of shoes. These pants all come from the same store as where I bought the jeans. It is my favorite place in the world to shop because all of the clothes are so pretty. The place is expensive. Stupid expensive. So I only go in about twice a year when they have their 40% off all sale items special going on. I try every thing on that I am considering for purchase and I basically make a pros and cons list for each item. If I'm going to spend the money, it's going to be on something I am going to wear, not just wish I could wear. So I had to have tried those size 31 jeans on and at the time they fit or at least they fit well enough because I would not have purchased them. 

Cut to last weekend when I decided that I needed another pair of skinny jeans for Fall/Winter. I tried on size tens at Old Navy and they fit, but they weren't long enough. They had every other size in a long but the size tens. Then I went to Kolhs where I tried on everything size ten and finally went to a size twelve. The twelves didn't feel any different in fit then the tens, but they had them in long. So I bought the twelves and tried to ignore that even though I've lost ten pounds and wear a size ten, I had to buy a size up. I keep telling myself that it is not really a size up because the people who are in charge of sizing clothes are assholes. I am convinced they have conventions every year where they discuss the best ways to fuck with women's self esteem. Didn't make it into the workshop on how to make a girl feel self conscious about her butt? No worries. We've recorded the workshop and you can access it online. Don't forget to check out the tutorial on fitting room lighting and how to set the mood for the most unflattering fitting room setting. 

Remember at the end of the Color Purple when Celie opened that pants shop where one size fit all? I want those pants. I don't care that the legs are wide. I'm sure I could wrap them around my ankle and tuck them into a boot if need be. I could make it work. I'm ready to embrace that bohemian side of myself where I wear billowy pants with elastic waistbands. 

SEVEN

Guess who's tall enough to ride on the back of her dad's scooter?

10 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Guess who's tall enough to ride on the back of her dad's scooter?"

The Cabbage turned seven on Friday. I made her stand against the wall to mark her height and then we ate pizza and watched the Cosmos. Her birthday party was on Saturday at a gymnastics place. I was pretty put out with the 'No Adults Past This Line' rug separating the waiting room with the gymnastics equipment. I wanted to jump on some trampolines. There was cake and presents and then we left the Cabbage with her mom so she could spend time with grandparents who had driven in from Iowa to see her. The Cabbage and her Mom met us the next day at the body piercing place. Our gift to her this year was ear piercings.

Michael and I rode our scooters to meet them. We had a few minutes of waiting for the shop to open and the four of us were just standing around talking. The Cabbage walked up to my scooter and hopped on. Erin, her mom, started to tell the Cabbage to get down, but I stopped her said it's okay. Then I looked at the Cabbage and told her not wiggle around too much. We were all kind of looking at her sitting there on my scooter and noticing how her feet almost touched the floor board. Suddenly Michael beckoned the Cabbage over to his scooter and made her climb on. He pulled out the passenger foot rests and asked her if her feet touched. They did! We all did a happy dance (except maybe Erin, because it makes her nervous, she is the mom). The Cabbage is tall enough to ride on the back of Michael's scooter. 

The Cabbage is tall. I think the most fascinating part is that I swear, just three weeks ago, the Cabbage was asking to be measured on the wall. She stood up tall and Michael put his fingers on the wall to mark it. When he looked, he said "Nope...not marking it. It's barely changed since the last time we measured you." The Cabbage pouted. When I marked her height on Friday, Michael and I stood there looking at all her growth and how so much of it seemed to happen in just three weeks. She's grown almost a foot in one year. We are having a problem buying pants that fit her length wise without falling off width wise. She has complained about gymnastics and how she doesn't want to do it anymore. She says the stretching hurts. Part of that is because her leotard isn't long enough for her torso and it ends up in an uncomfortable wedgie up her butt. I went to buy her a new one, but buying a size up wasn't fixing the problem. 

I ended up getting her a two piece set with shorts and a tank. The Cabbage wasn't happy about it, but we had a long talk about how the one piece wasn't going to work well for her body. When she whined about really wanting the one piece, Michael chimed in with "I'm sorry honey, but you're just too tall for the one piece." I immediately corrected him by saying "It's not that you're too tall, Cabbage. You're perfectly tall. These leotards just aren't the ones for you." Michael nodded his head in agreement. "Yes! Cindy's right. You're perfectly tall." I'm being very careful about not attaching negative words to anything about her body and I am increasingly annoyed at an industry that insists that we, even children, are one size number. I am annoyed with an industry that says this particular number and cut of cloth is the average size for all women. This industry is out of touch and ignorant of what average really is. It's hard enough being a woman and trying to figure out pant sizes. Now they have to make it suck for the kids too. 

Or at least for the adults who are purchasing the clothes for the kids.

As a result of all of this, I've taken to only purchasing cool t-shirts that I come across. She has plenty of t-shirts, though she prefers wearing dresses. That has also made things easier because leggings tend to me more forgiving in sizes. She wears a lot of unintentional capris. I leave the shoe shopping up to her parents because I don't understand children shoe sizes. At all. I mean, seriously. Matching a child with a proper shoe size is a MENSA test. Any way.. the Cabbage is growing up and doing big girl stuff like getting her ears pierced and talking about getting rid of her Barbis.

Change happens real fast.