Laden with Thoughts

Important announcement! It’s 3pm, and I’ve had it with the girdle. There’s some discomfort, and also some chafing.

Damn you, Phish Food… damn you.

Totally exhausting day. I get the day off on Wednesday, so you’d think I would have had a lovely day playing with the children and bumming around the house. Unfortunately I’ve let all the housework pile up and pile up until the thought of doing laundry or sweeping completely overwhelms me. So, as you can probably imagine, nothing got done today. Liam spent much of the day pushing Maeve off of his toys and onto her head (she’s been crawling for a few weeks and Liam is so resentful that she is suddenly all up in his play area) and Maeve spent much of the day crying and wailing because Liam pushed her off of his toys and onto her head.

It’s been twelve hours of this. Maeve just went to sleep, the precious girl. Liam’s still up watching Curious George and getting into mischief (feeding Seamus cheerios, climbing up bookshelves, demanding dinosaur chicken nuggets instead of the pasta and chicken he was given for dinner).

Wednesdays are made more difficult by the fact that Josh is gone to the office in Boston all day long, and goes straight from work to church for worship team practice. He won’t get home until eleven or so tonight. Being all on my own with two rambunctious (albeit adorable) babies and knowing there’s no relief coming makes the day seem that much more overwhelming.

Sad to say, I look forward to going back to work on Thursdays if only because I know I’ll get a shower, wear decent looking clothes, and talk to grownups during the day - a refreshing change from, “Did you poop? Are you poopie? Did you smear your poop on the wall? No! Don’t smear your poop on Maeve!”

Siiiiiiiiigh.

Twenty more minutes before Liam goes to bed. And all I can think about is the pint of Ben and Jerry’s (Light) Phish Food ice cream in the freezer.

Hey, at least I don’t have to wear a girdle on Wednesdays! Needless to say, I definitely have to wear them on Thursdays after all the ice cream I eat on Wednesday nights…

Success! Today I earned a wink from a male who was touring our office building.

AND I WASN’T EVEN WEARING A GIRDLE.

Nope, just good ol’ control top panty hose.

Panty hose: 1
Girdle: 0

This just in:

Girdles don’t protect you when you slip and fall on icy cement steps.

Ice: 1
Girdle: 0

Let me explain. No, there is no time. Let me sum up. I have given birth to two babies in less than two years. Consequently, my body kind of hates me now… and I pretty much hate my body. Although I’m getting used to it. Before pregnancy I was a size zero (it’s silly that that is a size) and now I’m between a size four and six. That is absolutely fine with me, I am perfectly happy to be that size. However, my big problems with my “new” body include: ragged stretch marks all over my torso and butt, saggy empty belly skin, icky love handles, and national geographic-esque breasts.

(Boys, I understand if you need to stop reading at this point. I probably should have warned you earlier.)

Now, it was fairly easy to deal with these body image issues whenI got to stay home in my sweats all day with the kids, but now that I’ve gone back to work and have to wear actual clothes and be seen by actual people, I have a much harder time facing myself in the mirror each morning. My work trousers show all my little bumps and lumps… my tummy rolls over the top of my pants (muffin-top!) and other bad things happen that I don’t care to speak of on this public blog. Suffice it to say, it makes me sad.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY SOCIAL EXPERIMENT:

The power of girdles.

That’s right… I said girdles.

I worked this week on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. On Monday, I wore a cute sweater and a very nice pair of pinstriped trousers with sexy black pointy-toed patent leather stilletos. On Tuesday, I wore brown trousers with a red silk sweater and tweed flats with jewel embellishment.

BUT. On Thursday, I wore gray pin-striped trousers, a tasteful v-neck rose-colored sweater (read: just a hint of cleavage), and my stilletos again. Underneath these clothes, instead of my normal underwear, I wore a GIRDLE which smoothed out my tummy. (It also caused me to not be able to breathe or eat all day long. But you know… technicalities.)

Please allow me to share with you the results of my experiment.

Monday’s attire: NO GIRDLE.
Monday’s male attraction level: Pretty normal, no big hellos or smiles, just a few pleasant greetings and head-nods.

Tuesday’s attire: NO GIRDLE.
Tuesday’s male attraction level: Hardly anything. A few nods.

Thursday’s attire: GIRDLE!
Thursday’s male attraction level: Male barista at Starbucks looks me up and down. Gets nervous and messes up my coffee. When finished with coffee, says, “Here is your DELICIOUS beverage” while giggling nervously. Male customer holds the door for me as I leave. ALSO. Male boss enters my office to tell me some jokes. Tells me I’m doing a wonderful job at work. Goes into my (female) boss’s office to tell her what a good job I’m doing. ALSO. Some high mucky-mucks from our main office come to tour my office building. I walk down the hallway past them, they literally trip over themselves to introduce themselves to me. Please note: I have met these men several times before, and was never given a second glance.

You know, at first I was laughing and thought the change in attitude was funny. But as the day went on (and believe me, I didn’t list all the examples I could have), I was feeling pretty weirded out. Did I really look that different before without a girdle on?

Ah well. I guess I’m not above a little girdling (yes, I’ve decided that’s a perfectly acceptable term) to do well in life. At least I know I get to go home, remove the girdle (read: release the beast), and put my sweats back on at the end of the day. My poor, poor husband.