Yesterday hubby and I took the day of. We left the girls with my Aunt and Uncle and my cousin went with us to the Kiss Country Chili Cookoff. The cookoff is really a country music concert, with surprisingly little chili, and is a pretty big deal in the area (at least for country music lovers). The concert featured 5 acts and lasted over 7 hours. This was our first time and the sun was blazing hot and there was little cloud cover (which resulted in an aching sunburn, even with sunscreen) but we had a really great time. The changeovers between acts were ridiculously long and the porta-pottys: not my favorite thing (usually I avoid them at all costs and just hold it but a baby rockin out on your bladder makes this a hard task!).
The parking gates opened at 1am and the concert venue at 8:30. By the time we got there at 9, people had been tailgating all morning (and probably been at the bars before that). Walking through the crowd of mostly college students, it struck me: I’m totally a mom! It wasn’t just the behaviors that were so drastically different, I looked different. It wasn’t even the little baby bump I’m sporting these days that made me stand out (some of those girls had beer bellies that rivaled my baby belly), but amongst the sea of short shorts and barely covered booties, I realized I was wearing “mom” shorts!
And I don’t mean maternity shorts, I haven’t subjected myself to that torture yet. I’ve never been a fan of maternity bottoms. The pants I bought (a pair of jeans and a pair of cords) when I pregnant with Honeybun didn’t fit until the last few weeks when it was June in Florida and they were basically unwearable. The same pants never fit with Sugarplum and I ended up splurging on a pair of jeans at 34 weeks just to survive the last little bit in Dublin. Most of my “maternity” bottoms are really just skirts and shorts that I bought a few sizes too big.
I also have a few pieces that I wore back in the day when I was heavier (before I stopped dancing and lost all my muscle and before my two girls literally sucked the life out of me—by breastfeeding that is). So that’s where my wardrobe currently sits, my old “fat” pants that are a few sizes bigger than I generally wear between babies. But the shorts I wear fully cove my booty, and more. I go for the “Bermuda” styles that reach around the knee and this is where my “mommyness” showed amongst the youngins. Once in the park where the concert was held, I saw a lot more women dressed like me, and they were also all moms, and much much older than me (I think).
Sometimes I forget how old I really am now. Sometimes hubby and I will tune into The Real World still, just for laughs. When I started watching it everyone was much older than me and now I have to consciously remind myself that they are all much younger than me. There’s nothing wrong with getting older, it’s just sometimes hard to remember that I am. I’m no longer a spritely, just out of college adult (which is how I usually think of myself) so instead of focusing on my aging (and subsequent aching body), I’m taking joy in watching my children grow and mature and I can’t even begin to imagine what it will feel like when they are wearing “mom” shorts too!
