I want my body back.

I've been needing to get a new dress for several months now. As in, ever since the baby was born and I couldn't get away with wearing my maternity dresses anymore. I kept putting it off (there's always something better to do, after all,) but finally sucked it up, and decided to take advantage of the husband's presence at home to have a safe babysitter for the girls.

As I was heading out the door though, he called out, "Have fun, dear!" and I was so choked with annoyance that I just stared at him. I couldn't think what to say that I wouldn't regret later.

Fun. Oh yes. The thrill of spending a couple of hours actually deliberately looking at myself in full-length mirrors that are unrelenting in stripping away my refusal to acknowledge what I look like right now. The fun of trying on size after progressively larger size. The excitement of realizing full-force just what having two babies in two years has done to what used to be my waistline. The elation of hiking up my bra and wondering to myself, "Are these supposed to line up with my armpits or my elbows?"

Not to mention that I had two impossible dreams. Is it so much, in the South in the summer, to want to find a dress with some kind of sleeve? And to want it to button up the front so that I can nurse? Apparently, yes. At least, if you want something in pretty colors and fabrics. If you are an 80 year old woman who loves dark houndstooth, however, you've got it made.

I finally came home with a light blue flowered polyester thing. It could be worse. It ain't gonna be better though until this baby is weaned, or I haul out my sewing machine again.

The husband, of course, had the nerve when he saw it to say, "Well, that's pretty. What a beautiful color on you!"

I let him live. His children are fond of him.