A More than Minor Injury was sustained by JuggerBaby.
We shared many moments of toddler distress, and equal parental distress for the pain ze was experiencing. Zir whimpers of pain were pathetic, especially for a kid who shakes off bleeding wounds if there’s something better to pay attention to, and heartrending when it escalated into cries of distress.
After a worried hour of coddling, icing, comforting and feeding but no resolution, we ended up at the ER. They were, despite zir panicked screams and tears, caring and efficient, trying their best to put zir at ease and bribing with many many stickers. Despite their best efforts, we ended up back in the hospital doing follow-ups when that treatment didn’t resolve the issue, and then several more hours picking up medical supplies.
Prognosis? About three weeks of healing.
If that’s all it is, and I’m hoping and praying that’s all it is, then it could have been a lot worse. JuggerBaby left a trail of snot and tears streaked across a few of my shirts so ze might have a different opinion, but I’ve tended to far worse wounds in my day. For now, ze isn’t an unhappy camper, ze is more comfortable and is coping bravely.
There were a lot of moments when I didn’t feel anything in particular. It wasn’t panic numbness or guilt-spacing out, it was knowing that this was painful and inconvenient and difficult, and just plain awful as parents seeing their child in pain. But foremost in my mind was thanks for our good fortune in life right now, because even as we tackled one hurdle after another, it was entirely manageable. Tiring, even exhausting, hauling many pounds of distressed child, trying not to jostle zir, but as long as ze comes out of it fine in the end, that’s all we have to really care about.
We are so fortunate that we have good health care and insurance.
The ER visit copay was $100, our followup copay was $20. Our FSA covers that with ease. The five x-rays were torturous, and the casting was worse, but we didn’t have to ask how much every single test or exam cost. I know exactly how much it costs to take X-rays for dogs and I swallow hard whenever we have to take Seamus back for another $200-400 visit – human medicine is multiple times more expensive. Part of this is because we chose an HMO, part of this is because the level of plan we have in the HMO is really good. Our premiums are relatively high, but the tradeoff was not having to think and worry about the cost of every item.
Intertwined with that lack of worry was the level of care we got. When I wanted an extra x-ray to be absolutely sure there wasn’t a third problem lurking, we had already been surprised twice, the technician got right on the phone to request it, and made sure that we got authorized for exactly what we asked for.
In my decades-long history with medical care, I’ve been seen by grossly incompetent doctors, strings and scads of them, who dismissed my pain as imaginary or in my head. I was prepared to go to war for my child, but I didn’t have to. They accepted that zir pain was legitimate and treated it as such.
We are so fortunate to have money.
We’re not rich, hence my iron-clad rule that we always save first and never spend more than we make. That means that we have reserves in case of emergencies.
That means that cost didn’t determine if we would get the medical supplies and clothing ze needed to be warm and comfortable.
We can afford ten dollars for a cast cover for daycare, since they won’t be able to take the same caution we do to keep zir cast dry. When it became clear that zir arm wouldn’t fit into any sleeves, I had a hoarded gift card to cover the cost of a warm coat – 50% off, a bargain hunter never quits!
We are so fortunate to have the mental space to plan ahead.
I always keep an eye out for clothing 6-12 month sizes larger than ze is currently wearing, gathering them piece by piece so that when ze has a growth spurt, we’re not scrambling to keep zir dressed. Ze needs looser, roomier clothes for a month? No problem, I dug out the little stash of larger clothes. We’ll have enough clothes to last a week.
We are so fortunate that our jobs aren’t run by tyrannical nincompoops.
When we had to drop everything and go back to the hospital, without a question we both got ready to go. We spent the time we needed taking care of our child with a second thought. The nurse asked us if we needed doctor’s notes during one of the visits and we both just looked at her blankly for a couple minutes before realizing why she asked.
What an utterly upper middle class reaction.
It’s been a decade since that was my life but I remember shift work. I remember not being able to make a doctor’s appointment without finding a replacement to cover for me. (My managers never used to find coverage for us so, sick or bleeding, you had to cover your shift. They sucked.)
I remember that I couldn’t afford to lose the wages by being out sick, so I worked through illness, and pain, and without a doubt exacerbated my fibro. I had to suck it up, I didn’t see a doctor.
(And that’s when I was lucky enough to have health insurance. In the year before I was working a full time job, in the early days of my fibro, we couldn’t afford health insurance. I didn’t know what the “oh, self-insured” comments meant for years but opted out of the repeat humiliation of trying to be seen at the local clinic. When I did get an appointment, without fail, a mid-50s male doctor would look at my x-rays and tell me that my pain was in my head. There’s a reason I look at male doctors sideways to this day.)
I hate that this happened but …
Comparing this ordeal with when I had to deal with Mom’s illnesses, the near-hyperventilating math trying to figure out where the money was going to come from, while navigating the near impossible, many hours-long waits in the Medicaid-accepting medical offices – it’s just no comparison at all.
Money and good care makes life a thousand times easier. I cannot be more grateful that while I couldn’t provide the care that Mom deserved, we can now for JuggerBaby.
There are so many, but right now I’m thinking of Aleppo. I’m thinking of the X Clinics and especially the one in Texas serving rural populations who have the least access to reproductive healthcare.
:: Who would you support when your cup runneth over? What are you grateful for today? Have you ever broken a bone?
When we talk of heroes, I imagine people doing big, important things, of the lifesaving variety.
I grew up on dramatic heroics, capes and cowls, and icons like Amelia Earhart,Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman. People who stand up to the whole world, sometimes against unspeakable odds, and changed the world long after they were told to sit down and be quiet.
This video brought unabashed tears to my eyes and got me thinking. It’s not often that we get to see the results of our good deeds for others, if at all, but it’s the rare person who hasn’t benefited from the help of others who never expected thanks in return.
These are a few people who made a bigger difference in my life than they knew.
Bus driver #1
Randy was driving the last route of the night and, as usual, I had lost track of time. Running out into the deserted street, in the dark, in a bad neighborhood, I leapt onto the bus’s steps, making him jump. I made it!
But I hadn’t. He’d just returned from the last drop-off. When he understood why my face fell, he swung into rescue mode and stomped the gas pedal all the way to the nearest train stop. I thanked him profusely as I ran for the train. I never got to thank him in person after that – he stopped driving that route soon after.
Bus Driver #2
The second driver, Johnny, was driving my regular route during a particularly bad time in my life. Everything was falling apart. Mom’s illness had suddenly progressed, leaving a Bizarro Mom in our house, and my bosses had gone ’round the bend. Things were bad bad bad but I still needed that job. Every morning, I tried to breathe deeply to make it through another day, and held back a surge of stress-induced nausea. Johnny would drop us off, booming: Have a good day and don’t let anybody steal your joy!
It always made me smile. It was often my only smile of those working days, and I was grateful.
Mentor, Codename Sabrina
I’d worked several years years of retail by the time I started on my first industry-job but I was still a young pup in the white collar professional world.
My introduction to office life was tumultuous. It was rife with poor management and terrible people, and directly led to my discovery of Alison at Ask A Manager (Googling “is [terrible boss thing] normal?”).
There was one person I met in the course of that work who made it survivable. She was an institution at her job, working with us from her coordinating office, and she taught me so much I needed to know to succeed at my job and more. Without her almost daily feedback and steering, and diplomacy when our managers were being even more unreasonable than usual, I’m not sure if I would have overcome the many and barbed hurdles thrown up by my direct colleagues and managers.
With it, I went on to be a high performer both in that office and well into the rest of my career.
We kept in touch over the years, and I’ve always been grateful for her friendship, wisdom, and warmth.
:: To whom do you owe thanks? Why? What little things made a difference in your life? Tell me your stories?
MTurk experiment, total earned: $44.05. Up $31.40 from May’s ending total of $12.65. As money making experiments go, this continues to be teensy tiny beans. I use it in the few minutes a day I designate for my (non-existent otherwise) water cooler breaks so no harm done. Gives my brain a breather from the problems I’m working on and makes, literally, a few bucks.
Last month’s big news: We spent money and 6 long months to finally refinance the mortgage. Ahoy, the prepayment scheme! I’m really excited about that. That, and cutting our mortgage in half so that the second half of our mortgage payment all goes to principal. DELICIOUS. We’re under $250K now, and I’m eagerly targeting when we’ll be under $200K.
Last month’s other big news: We finally bought a new to us car. After maintenance and accessories (which sounds so fancy but really isn’t), we are out a couple thousand dollars. For that price, we can FINALLY get around without plotting logistics on a chart.
I keep forgetting that our crockpot broke a couple months ago after rendering unto us, in its last faithful service, producing fantastic ribs for our dinner guests. I know it’s “only” $30-40 to replace it but given our pile of other necessary expenses that add up very quickly, and *points up* that list of spending these past two months, I’m extra not ready to spend a penny more. The crockpot recipes must continue to pile up for now. Even that mac and cheese one. *sniff*
I continue to be not surprised, but surprisingly irritated, by the fact that Dad is behind on his utility payments. He insisted that he could take them on three years ago (four? I can’t remember now) but I didn’t totally trust him so I kept online access to the accounts. Sure enough, when I logged in to the water and electricity bills, they were glaringly overdue. Think he said anything to me? Gave me any warning that he was struggling with them? History repeats itself. So we’re sinking an unbudgeted $100-300 in utility bills every few months because he simply can’t do me the courtesy of talking through the income shortage with me.
Highlights of my #1GoodMoneyThing this month: I bought stocks instead of stuff which are dropping like rocks thanks to Brexit but I’m buying long; deposited reimbursement checks for various reimbursable things; returned two baby carriers to Amazon because PiC found a decent one for $50 on Craigslist!
We’ve been holding a lot of cash because I have a problem. An addiction, almost, to keeping cash on hand. Left over insecurity from that long layoff? Maybe. But it was time to get off my bum and move cash into our investments. I don’t want our eggs too heavily in any one basket. Overall, most of our savings go into pre and post-tax investment accounts, and real estate, there to grow and multiply, we hope.
Depending on how it goes, you might wish it had, but it won’t.
Spoiler Alert: We survived flying with an active, task oriented, curious, very mobile toddler!
We took two trips this year that required flying, changing time zones for one. The flights ranged from pretty good to Are we there, yet??
We flew Alaska Air for the first time in a decade, and discovered they were both pretty infant-friendly, and had a nifty 20-minute baggage guarantee that meant we waited zero time at baggage claim. I LOVED that. There were no other children on our Alaska Air flights but the flight attendants were actively engaged with us as parents, and offered us coloring books and crayons. They also encouraged us to belt JuggerLB in when appropriate, reassuring us that safety was more important than avoiding crying. All of that was really helpful in calming my slight case of nerves since it was our first flight and I didn’t know how ze would react to all of it. This flight was only about three hours so it was a useful data point in seeing how an airline might handle parents flying with children, and how JuggerLB handled travel.
We then crossed time zones with United, which had no baggage delivery guarantee, but was pretty quick. On the flip side, they misplaced our stroller for a while, and that gave us a bit of a scare. They weren’t actively unfriendly towards kids, but they definitely didn’t have anything for them either. While we were prepared to entertain JuggerLB, every little bit helps.
Booking midday and midweek flights
At this stage of life, I’m finally all about the Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday flights.
We flew with JuggerLB as a lap infant but since the midday and midweek flight was only partly full, the flight attendants shuffled seat assignments to make sure we had a seat for hir anyway. As long as we didn’t get the absolute back row, we didn’t care where they put us. On Alaska, at least, it seemed to be such a routine thing they didn’t even mention it to us. The drawback of booking a midday flight is that it cuts into both morning and afternoon naps, and for a shorter flight, JuggerLB isn’t about to sleep and miss a minute of travel fun.
Getting to our destination with plenty of daylight, whether in a new city or getting back home, was a new and delightful change. We typically get in late at night when we travel and I much prefer the midday arrival. We had time to settle in and have a leisurely dinner without cutting into a full night’s rest.
Things I found especially useful
For quiet play, I left all the chiming or electronic toys at home. Instead, we packed board books, plastic rings, colorful window clings. Your mileage may vary from airline to airline but on one flight, we were offered a small box of crayons and coloring book which we happily accepted, and everyone was given snacks and drinks in plastic cups which came in very handy for more toddler distraction.
We packed multipurpose washcloths for cleaning up spills, to hold taut and form a pretend tray for LB to stack toys on, and save my clothes from sticky accidents. Drool bibs were a must because a teething toddler is drippy drooly, empty water bottles doubled as toys, and hir velcro tabbed shoes were entertainment for a solid ten minutes at a time.
We had our own snack bag: crackers, pretzels and cheese, raisins and pre-cut fruit all staved off the hunger between milk sessions. Ze was being weaned off bottles for our first set of flights but travel was not the time to be fussing about cups with those uncoordinated hands. SFO TSA was remarkably efficient, by the by, they simply sent us through with hir, and scanned all hir liquids, the stroller, and the car seat, and even helped me carry the car seat over to our pile of stuff after the security check. Pleasant and helpful – never knew they could be so good!
Plastic baggies were huge time-savers. I stored clean clothes, extra empty bottles, diapers and wipes, and medicine in them. When things spilled, as they do, the wet stuff went into the plastic bag and we moved right along.
First flight recap
LB was bouncy-excited about a plane full of hostages to hir. They were all in one place and couldn’t escape!
We were lucky, the flight attendants were already rearranging the passengers for weight distribution so they graciously made sure that we had an extra seat for LB. Wonderful surprise! We did lots of in-seat play, focusing on keeping hir attention on us and our games, taking advantage of that third seat to move more freely and keep toys on the seats. Ze zeroed in on rearranging the seat back reading material for at least 20-40 minutes, so we were scrupulously careful about not letting hir actually touch the seat back. The people in front of us weren’t crankypants and giving us the evil eye to begin with, like some child-haters do, and we weren’t about to give anyone cause for it.
When the wiggly was uncontainable, the two of them did lots of walking up and down the aisle, waving and smiling. Ze made a friend of most people with hir smiles, and more probably with hir generally quiet play. I think ze hollered in excitement about three times and cried once. But ze completely missed takeoff and landing, impervious to the pressure changes, and may that forever be the case.
Second flight recap
We did all in-seat play, due to unexpected turbulence, but we had a few unlooked for perks. The plane wasn’t full, again, so the attendants rearranged seating to give hir a seat which the person in our row was offering to do (random nice people!) when he thought we’d been separated, AND the middle seat in front of us was empty. That meant we could let hir play with the seat back materials and also use the tray. We don’t let hir use or touch the trays if people are in the seat. Ze likes to bang things on the tray, or bang it up and down, and that’s just rude.
We thought we needed the iPad but we never even got to most of hir regular toys because ze was having so much fun pulling out the safety cards and rearranging them. I’d brought some cool window clings that ze didn’t quite know what to do with so we spent half an hour with me placing them on the window and hir removing them. Those things probably won’t be able to cling to anything ever again.
Third flight recap
I felt like a terrible parent when we realized that ze was having teething pain after we took off. Ze has never noticed take off or landing, I should mention, so far ze has had good luck with the change in pressure. May that always be the case! Since ze hadn’t been drooling or teething for a few days, I’d packed up all hir medications and checked the bag. ERROR. I won’t be making that mistake again! An hour into the flight, ze was huddled, miserable and feverish, and in need of Motrin.
We lucked out in sitting near a lovely family with an infant of their own, and who hadn’t foolishly checked in their medications so they gave us their travel bottle. I offered to pay or replace it but they waved me off. It’s amazing how nice some people can be.
We had some trouble getting hir to take all the meds but the side effect of hir discomfort was that ze took two catnaps on the long flight. That’s totally abnormal and was clearly because ze wasn’t feeling well but it got us through the flight somewhat less exhausted than if we’d had to entertain hir for the full 5 hours.
Fourth flight recap
No such mercy on this flight, though. Not that I’m wishing JuggerBaby was sick, even if ze is easier when sick. I just hoped that ze would have found it old hat enough at this point to relax and nap. Instead, ze played hard and grouched harder. There was some crying on this flight, and that sucked. We took it in turns to play, feed, and distract hir, wishing heartily for time to pass faster.
Obviously we made it back safely and each in our respective pieces but you couldn’t have sighed a bigger sigh of relief than we did once ze was fed, clean, and put to bed. HOME SWEET HOME.
:: Do you find flying stressful? What makes it easier?
We’ve got a lovely neighbor who is genuinely happy to take JuggerBaby for 10-20 minutes if we need, probably longer if we asked, in the evenings. We’ve exchanged kids a few times now, her family is great with JuggerBaby and ze is totally into hanging out with them. Ze isn’t in the least bit shy of running up and demanding a snack. (The well trained kid in me groans at this imposition. But we are happy to feed their little guy when he asks for a snack so fair’s fair?) Their little guy is much older but he loves the company of anyone at any age, so he’s hung out with us a few times too, sans parents, and he’s hugely entertaining when he’s not running around in circles.
It’d be the perfect arrangement but alas, they’re only here for a little while. It’s hard to find people we consider a good fit: trustworthy, patient and firm, very reasonable, willing to tell a child “no”, and just easy to get along with. We’ll stay in touch, I’m sure, but they won’t be just on the same block anymore and sometimes, we just need a hand from someone who can be there without a long commute or scheduling two weeks in advance.
I mentioned earlier that we found babysitters – yaaayy! But they are only available the occasional Saturday and run at least $25/hour – OUCH.
We’d originally imagined babysitting to be the solution of buying ourselves some free time, some guilt free time, where we happily paid someone to help out with JuggerBaby for an hour or two to do something for ourselves or just get some work done. It’s tough when we’re both timing almost everything on the weekend for hir naps. It’s even tougher staring down the barrel of hir phasing out the second nap. (Say it ain’t so!)
We work at making sure PiC gets his gym time, that’s as important to his mental health as my quiet no-people time is to mine. Thus far, I’ve gotten by with thinking of daycare days as double duty days: It’s when I get my quiet me-time, and I get all my work done.
Once in a while I think wistfully of a time when I wasn’t on the dog or the baby’s schedule. Mostly, I think I’m as rested as I can be given health issues, and as fulfilled on a personal level as I need to be, right now, but eventually I’d like a little bit more. Nothing scheduled, I hate the commitment of taking weekly classes. Just the odd hour once or twice a month where I am solely committed to just doing whatever I want.
I don’t want to say that it’s entirely down to JuggerBaby that we don’t get our time, in that blamey kind of way, because I don’t resent it. The reality is we chose to have a human puppy. That’s fine, it brings a whole load of work and compensates with fun and laughter and snot and drool. It’s relatively even. But ze just happens to be the reason this period carries extra scheduling challenges.
I know this is a problem everyone has to some extent with their families, friends, work, and all their other obligations.
:: Do you get enough time to yourself? How do you carve out time for yourself? Do you prioritize alone time and social time?
I leaned back against the side of hir crib as ze stealthily, unsteadily, inched away from me, leading with hands gripping bar by bar, heading for the opposite wall. No idea what ze was after. I couldn’t see from my position and I wasn’t trying. It was easier to peep through the bars and catch hir eye, then dramatically fail to hide behind this crib bar or that slat. Ze took the bait, reversing course, shaking with increasing ebullience after each of my faked gasps of horror.
A baby predator, more enthusiastic than skilled, catching the scent of weakness and running it to ground with cackles like fireworks, bright bursts of delight, a lopsided grin showcasing nearly five Tic Tac teeth. Dropping to all fours on final approach, ze menaced me like a tiny tiny bull, bobbing forward, backward, threatening to leap and smother me in drool and laughter.
Ze dissolved into uncontrollable chortles and I want it to last forever.
Who’s the boss?!
Ze clambers up, heedless of danger to life or limb, to plop into our laps or atop our legs with a book in hand, imperiously opening it to a page, and pushing it up to our faces with an insistent “‘ey!”
Read it to me!
When we’re both in the same room, ze insists that we share reading duties. I read one page, ze takes the book away and places it in PiC’s hand. He reads a page and a half, ze switches again.
I think ze learned this from Seamus. He used to insist on specific turn-taking when we played, too.
Temple of Doom
After an 11 hour daycare stint, I braced for impact. LB loves the place but an 11 hour day of playing and socializing with, in all likelihood, no more than a one hour nap had the potential to end in tears (hirs) and bruises (ours). This wise mama had dinner ready by the time they walked in the door, and what a grin it was on that child’s face when we said hello. It was hardly believable but not pushing our luck, we quickly started to feed the beast. Not quick enough. Within several bites, and ten minutes, the excitement of the day came crashing down, and ze flopped over sideways in hir chair, trying to navigate a spoonful of mashed potatoes into hir mouth, piteously crying. Considering hir aim when upright, that effort was doomed.
Ze sat up abruptly and alternately stretched out hir arms to me and yelling at PiC “Ma-ma! Pa-pa!” while he went for the bedtime bottle.
Once freed from the confines of the high chair, ze was all grins again, cackling for peek-a-boo and stood to dance in the bath when the joy was too much. Best moments of the night, I thought.
Dressed and damp, we three laid on the bed together, Seamus stretched alongside the bed to complete our set, and ze drank hir bottle. We normally put hir to bed solo, freeing the other parent to spend a few minutes cleaning up but it’d been a long day.
Hir drinking flagged, tiny fists curled around the bottle drooping lower and lower until I lent a supporting hand. The “enough!” push back never came. Ze drained the bottle but gripped it tighter. Tentatively, PiC produced a second bottle and we tried to extract the first but ze grabbed it back with both hands, insistently. We tried again. This time, the second bottle slid in place the split second after the first was released and success!
Then I realize we’re celebrating the tricking of a one year old so that does a little number on the self esteem. But only for a minute.
:: Do you triumph over children? Are you a mess when you’re tired or hungry?
A closet catastrophe in search of style with comfort
I read Katherine’s post on dressing as a new mom with a tinge of guilt. Never a fashion plate, I took some meanhearted comments about baby weight heard when I was still pregnant too much to heart, and went far in the opposite direction of refusing to give a hoot about worrying over dressing well when I had a baby to keep alive, a career to also keep alive, and so on. “Getting dressed” didn’t mean very much more than changing from one set of comfy pajamas to the next, on harder days, and into cargo pants and tees on the easier ones.
There’s a happy medium between not caring about how you look and being obsessed with your appearance to the exclusion of all substantive things. My life fits in the middle, caring when it matters to me, and leaving it the rest of the time, but I’d left that by the wayside.
The casual nature of my job didn’t help. The SF-standard CEO in tee-shirts and flipflops isn’t just a stereotype! To make matters worse, I’m digging through a wardrobe that still has clothes dating back to 1999. Because I might go somewhere warm again, someday! And it still fits! And… no, that doesn’t mean I should still wear them. For someone who came from having very little, discarding things that still “work” is a hard notion to wrap my head around.
Now that I’m out walking more, dressing down and even sloppily is my camouflage, protection against the street harassment. I can’t walk across the street with LB alone without being harassed, and this isn’t one of the worst neighborhoods in town.
I’ll keep dressing in “ugly” camo for those jaunts because life is too busy to waste time wishing fiery deaths upon that worthless scum that catcalls, stalks and harasses women on the street. For the rest of the time, though…
An essential part of being a professional, secondary to high performance, is presenting myself professionally.
It’s time to shape up. It’s never been easy to put together a wardrobe that looks professional but can be worn day to day. Like Cloud, I’ve never had lofty ambitions in the fashion arena. I don’t need to be fashionable, I need to be not frumpy. Finding where that coincides with my need for comfort and low maintenance level, is the challenge.
I’m starting the process by ruthlessly digging out the sartorial deadweight.
Those old sweaters that I bought back when I was cold all the time and was just desperate for warmth, any warmth. Like a bear facing winter, I was adding layers with cardigans that did the job but nothing for my appearance. Same for the long sleeve shirts that are now too tight in the arms. PSA: Lifting a 25 lb weight between 1-6 hours a day will do something to your biceps. I’m guessing that Hulking out of my sleeves isn’t the current look. But whatever the look is, I like my blood circulating, thank you very much.
Pants are problematic. I’m staring down a pile of pants, they’re all a little bit off. Those jeans are 19 years old and look like it. These jeans are a breath too tight. The newest pair of jeans are too long and loose. The older jeans are tight but the right length. It feels like the best thing to do would be to toss all the oldest and start over but I can’t bring myself to do that. I don’t have a good replacement yet and I’ve learned the hard way not to go purging willy-nilly. As Donna and her commenters pointed out, ever so timely with this post, it’s not a good idea to go overboard. Then again, I have a bit of history with breaking my pants with new jobs. It’d be better to lose an old pair than new when I move on!
There are about a dozen geeky tees that I refuse to let go of. These have a place in my life but we need to do better. This has sparked the thought that I need to design a business casual line of geek-inspired clothing to replace the geeky tees that aren’t interview or boardroom ready. Would I be my only customer? I could live with that.
Next… I need help!
If I were tall and willowy and Gina Torres: everything she wore in the first few seasons of Suits, get in my closet! Kerry Washington’s styling in Scandal is also impeccable. If I were way cooler than I am, I’d be cool with the wardrobe for Maggie Q from Nikita. But not their shoes. I can’t do any of their heels.
Then again, none of their clothes are kid-friendly. I wore a nice blouse and slacks to a parent volunteer thing and came home with three kinds of fluids on me from kids who used my shoulder as a landing pad for their drippy faces. There’s always one kid who thinks I’m their person.
Naturally, I’m none of the above. I’m short, slim to the point of being skinny. My knees (and every other joint from the hips on down) are a no-heels-zone. They need support and cushion, it’s not optional. The ideal uniform is easy to put together, baby friendly, me-the-klutz friendly, and travel friendly.
If we still lived in the southern half of the state, this Polka Dot Silk Wrap Dress and this silk chain link print shift would be in my shopping cart just waiting for a great sale. But if 60 degrees doesn’t feel like freezing anymore, it’s still not warm, I don’t care what you say. I know you’re laughing at me, Canadians – I’m at peace with that.
In truly temperate weather, I’m in a cotton shirt, jeans or stretchy slacks, a draping light cardigan or sweater. I love my Bobeau fleece and Caslon drape neck zip cardigans. They don’t sell the zip cardigans anymore so I’m glad I gave into the temptation to buy it in both colors. In cold weather, I have one great winter coat but my ability to go from light to heavy layering is limited.
Shoes are typically flats or flipflops or sneakers. I’d love more classic styles but loafers and other similar shoes often look like clown shoes on me. Alternate suggestions?
In real life, I adore Jean’s and Kelly’s styles. Also Wendy’s. They’re even close to my body type. But as you can see, they’re far more polished, and oftentimes fancier, than I.
On second thought…
It turns out the act of writing this out is clarifying. When I started writing, it was mostly a mess. But I’m starting to see that my ideal style looks put-together and feels great to lounge and work in. That’s not impossible! Right?
My idea of matching colors is appalling, let’s get that out in the open right now. I think the general rule of thumb here is to remove all pieces that aren’t in a complementary color palette and restrict any new clothes to a simple color palette. Does anyone know how you do that?
I gravitate toward dark greens, blues, black. They’re easy, combined with white, though white is not awesome for me with an over-active child to chase and feed. Is tan and beige a good alternative? I really like the look of a crisp white blouse but probably that life isn’t for me.
Every so often, a bright color grabs my attention and I can’t resist. That’s one root of my current crisis. For example, I went wild and bought dark red slacks a while back. I like them but they seem to go with exactly one blouse. Like pantry cooking, people will helpfully suggest several combinations, but I currently own none of those other pieces!
That means I need a list of acceptable colors that would go with the basics that I already own. Ideally, I should be able to mix and match all tops and bottoms.
Now that I have a semblance of a game plan, I’m eager to start making this work.
Sidebar: Though we don’t dress each other, PiC and I share a similarly relaxed approach to style but it’s so much easier for him to look effortlessly business casual. Why is men’s clothing so much simpler?
:: What’s your style, how long did it take to refine? How did you figure out the color and the matching pieces thing? Who do you rely on for advice about this stuff?
:: The comment was “She still has ‘baby weight’. It’s been two years! I’d kill myself if I still had baby weight two years later.” I’m used to hearing horrible comments about women and their weight but that got my goat.
A More than Minor Injury was sustained by JuggerBaby.
ON MONEY
Depending on how it goes, you might wish it had, but it won’t.
Theme: Adult time, me time
Rictussempra!
A closet catastrophe in search of style with comfort