Baby Shower Convert

My sister-in-law Beth, my awesome nephew F, and me

F and me, chillin' with a giant pile of presents

My in-laws: Cary's aunts, sister-in-law, and mom (to the right of me). Love these people!

Academia: I have long been uncomfortable at baby showers. For a long time, that was because I was trying to get pregnant and baby showers were sad for me, but even before that, I had a hard time finding things to talk about at showers. I was always the only childless person at them, and what did I know about bottles, diapers, and nursing covers? I went to a shower once when people oohed and aahed over what I swear was a disembodied arm designed to simulate the weight of a mom's arm to comfort the baby in mom's absence, while I sat there with my mouth hanging open. I am so not making this up, but the internet has completely failed me and I can't find a picture. What should I search for - "disembodied arm for baby?" It was the weirdest moment in a long history of weird baby shower moments.

But. BUT. I have discovered that when you are the mom-to-be, baby showers are wonderful. There's yummy food, you finally have something to contribute to conversations about swaddling blankets (aside: my fabulous sister Suzanne got me these and they are so soft, I might steal them for myself and let Baby C deal with it. I have actually had dreams about the softness of these blankets), and you get so. many. presents. Plus, you're surrounded by people who love you and your baby. What could be better?

I've had two showers now: one at Cary's work, and one on Saturday, hosted by my priest's wife and attended by lots of church ladies, plus several of my in-laws (Cary's mom, sister-in-law, and two of his aunts), my sister, and the most fascinating baby on the planet, my nephew F. Both were great, but the presence of family at Saturday's shower made it extra special. It was such a lovely afternoon, and I left feeling so grateful that my baby has so many people supporting her and praying for her before she's even born. The baby shower lovers have won me over - I can't wait for the next one (even the next one that's not mine)!

Sartorial: You can't see my whole outfit in these pictures (many thanks to my mother-in-law for taking and sharing them), but this is what I wore to the shower. This dress was cool and comfy in the June heat, and I think the flower in my hair added just the right amount of whimsy. I felt pretty and maternal all afternoon.

Bonus Sartorial: My nephew F is wearing a tiny polo onesie and tiny khaki pants. Isn't he the preppiest little thing you've ever seen? I could just eat him up.

Paris Pics

I fully intended to take outfit photos yesterday, y'all. But I got home from work later than I thought I would and had to rush out to babysit my adorable nephew, Baby F, and when I got home, I had milk drool on my shirt and my hair was doing some interesting things. Not very fashionable. So instead, I give you pictures of Paris!

I went into this trip intending to be extremely stylish - it was Paris, after all. But then I realized I left my trench coat at home and also that Paris involves a lot of walking and stair climbing. After that, my main plan was to stay warm and not have tired feet. I never put on sneakers or a sweatshirt (except for one very chilly evening at the Eiffel Tower when I was so cold and tired I cried and Cary gave me his fleece), so I avoided looking like a completely tacky American tourist. But next time, I'm going back not pregnant so I can sartorially represent the US a little better.

Notre Dame, which was a gorgeous 10-minute walk from our hotel in the Latin Quarter.

Defeated by the Louvre. Seriously, this museum was hot, crowded, and badly signposted. By the time I got to the Mona Lisa, I was just cranky and ready to sit down. 

Baby C goes to Versailles!

Boundaries

I tried to look at my feet like normal when I took this picture, and then realized that I have to lean waaaaay over to see them. Better get a pedicure while I can still appreciate it! 

Looking at the camera instead of pretending to look at my feet seemed like a better idea. 

Academia: I love my job. I love helping students. They bring me so much joy. But I've found over the past two years that one of the most important things I can do to stay good at my job is to set boundaries with the students; that is, not being 100% available 100% of the time. Little things like locking my office door while I eat lunch have a huge impact on how I'm feeling about the students, my job, and myself at the end of each day.

I mention this because today was one of those days when I was very glad to have boundaries. I had offered to meet a new student this morning to help him find housing, imagining it would take a couple of hours at most, but he and his family ended up needing so much more of my time. At 1:00, I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since breakfast, and didn't see any signs of my charges slowing down, so I fibbed. I told them I had an appointment at 2:00, wrapped things up, dropped them off, and got myself some lunch. Which I ate with my feet up.

I used to have a hard time making myself follow through on these kinds of boundaries. After all, if I didn't have anything else on my calendar, shouldn't I help students who needed me? So I helped, but I often ended up feeling resentful and overextended. Ironically, pregnancy, a time in my life when another person is drawing from my own resources 24/7, has helped me stick to the limits I set with everyone else and not feel guilty for doing so. My baby needs me to eat lunch at a reasonable hour, so I do. I only have three months of "just us" time left with my husband, so I leave work on time and don't answer after-hours emails until the next day. Unless it's an emergency (which obviously I don't ignore), the students will live, and I stay physically and mentally healthy.

Sartorial: During this pregnancy, I've come to set some style boundaries too; mainly, I don't put anything on my body that is even remotely hot or constricting. For example, I haven't worn a pair of heels in six months. I'm not really afraid of falling over in them and have no issues with other pregnant ladies wearing them; they just sound so massively uncomfortable to me that I can't bring myself to stick one toe in. My wardrobe right now is pretty much exclusively loose dresses, cotton tops, and sandals, and I feel great. This is one boundary that may not be permanent, but is making me very happy for the time being!

To Everything There Is a Season

Academia: This week is spring break for my university, but unfortunately not for me. We have our half-semester check-in this week, so I'm not getting a spring break right now. (I am taking a vacation at the end of the month though... stay tuned for all the exciting details!) So I wore this yesterday to give a seminar, answer student questions about insurance, etc. Not thrilling, but all in all, an okay day.

Sartorial: Yes, these are the same pants I wore on Monday. I also wore this cardigan yesterday, although I didn't manage to snap a picture. I'm finding that wearing maternity clothes is kind of like a 30 for 30 remix, except it's more like 9 or 10 for 150. Here's what I currently have in my pregnancy wardrobe:

5 dresses
2 pairs of work-appropriate pants
1 pair of boyfriend jeans
2 skirts
2 shirts

I plan to add to this list, of course, but for the next five months, I also plan to repeat items of clothing with no "but I have a style blog" guilt. To everything there is a season, and right now is a season of sticking with clothes that I like and are comfortable. And after the baby comes, I plan to have a season of "huzzah for normal clothes again!" shopping and skinny jeans wearing. Because I'm sure that's what the writer of Ecclesiastes 3 meant.

Pregnant Looking-ness

Academia: This has been an exciting week in the world of being pregnant. You know, for me, not for all pregnant women. I feel like I'm finally starting to look pregnant to people other than myself and Cary (and I'm not sure how pregnant I've actually been looking to Cary up until now, since I spent a lot of time standing in front of the mirror and demanding of him, "I look pregnant, right? Right? RIGHT?" What else could he say but yes?). It's nice to finally be looking on the outside like I'm feeling on the inside.

Speaking of how I'm feeling on the inside, this week I started feeling the baby kicking! It was pretty amazing. I mean, I've known there was a tiny person in there, but it all seemed a bit theoretical before. Feeling that tiny person's arms and legs moving, controlled by a completely different brain than mine, makes everything much more real.

Sartorial: With all of this growing and flailing of teeny limbs, I'm feeling very pregnant, so one thing I'm completely sick of hearing is, "You don't look pregnant at all!" I've really been looking forward to looking pregnant, and being told I don't is always a letdown.

So to combat that letdown, I picked out clothes yesterday that do everything possible to emphasize my pregnant looking-ness. I got new maternity pants from Target, so no weird squishing of my belly - just stretchy goodness. I picked out a form-fitting t-shirt with horizontal stripes. I walked around with one hand on my lower back. And no one said I didn't look pregnant. So there.

Mental Fist Shaking

Academia: I think my university is the only public institution in the US that doesn't celebrate Presidents' Day. 364 days a year, I love, love, love working there, but on Presidents' Day, my alarm goes off, I look at my blissfully sleeping public schoolteacher husband, and I mentally shake my fist at the powers that be. And that's how yesterday went for me.

Sartorial: I'm also starting to mentally shake my fist at my wardrobe. I don't have enough maternity clothes to make a full wardrobe, but none of my pre-pregnancy pants or skirts fit comfortably anymore, so every day I just look at my closet and sigh. This in-between stage of pregnancy is killing my style mojo.

I felt better over the weekend when my friend Lilly, whose due date is one week before mine, said she was feeling exactly the same way about her clothes. She always looks really stylish to me, so that gave me hope that maybe I'm not looking as blah as I feel when I get dressed every day. I think a good solid hour of shopping for more clothes that actually fit would give my style mojo the boost it needs. I hoping that can happen this week; stay tuned for results.

I know I sound super whiny today, y'all. I promise I'm not fishing for compliments, and I hope to be back to my non-whiny self in my next post. Thanks for bearing with me.

One-Track Mind

Academia: I'm afraid this will be a brief post, y'all. My morning sickness, which seemed to have gone a few weeks ago, is suddenly back with a vengeance, and all I really want to do is go to bed. I think the pregnancy gods heard me bragging that I hadn't thrown up once and are now smiting me. Gross.

I'm sorry to have been so all pregnancy, all the time lately, readers. I know when I was trying to get pregnant, it killed me to have to read about other people having babies, so if you're in the same boat and need to stop reading for a while, I completely understand. It's just that being pregnant is way more all-consuming than I thought it would be - when I don't feel bad, I'm thinking about what the baby will be like, or what we'll name him/her, or what clothes I have that still fit. I'm hoping my regular brain will come back a bit once I get used to being pregnant, but until then, thanks for bearing with me and my single-mindedness, y'all.

Sartorial: This skirt used to be too big. Now it fits perfectly and I don't need a belt. Yay!

Land of the Living and Growing

Check out the To Kill a Mockingbird necklace Cary got me for Christmas!  I love a man who indulges my nerdiness.

Academia: I am beginning to re-enter the land of the living, y'all. I've progressed from the "pounding sinus headache" stage of the cold to the "hacking up a lung" stage, but it's progress. I got a reasonable night's sleep Wednesday night and am starting to feel a bit more human. I also found out that I'm allowed to take Robitussin, huzzah! Plus, the hacking cough scares off students who don't really need anything but just want to complain, so I've been surviving working sick pretty well. I'm not feeling great yet, but I'm not feeling like a zombie anymore either. Maybe by next week I'll feel like a person again!

Sartorial: I wore this Wednesday, which was not a great day health-wise or weather-wise. I hadn't turned the corner with this cold yet, and it was chilly and rainy all day. A nice loose blouse over my increasingly weird-to-dress belly and some dark tights were just what I needed to stay warm, dry, and comfortable.

I don't think I would have tried a loose shirt over a pencil skirt before getting pregnant, because I felt great about having a small waist and I liked emphasizing it by tucking in my blouses. I like my growing body too, but having a constantly changing shape has challenged me to dress it differently than how I normally would. I liked how this blouse draped over my belly without hiding it. It's certainly a change from showing off a tiny waist, but I have a feeling I'm going to love this kind of showing off even more.

Sudafed Brain

TOMS

Academia: Y'all, I honestly can't remember what I did in these clothes. I have a cold, and my brain just refuses to reach that far back. On a related note, what in the world do they put in Sudafed to make it non-drowsy? I suspect cocaine. That's the only decongestant I can take right now, and it made me lay awake twitching half the night last night. So my options are apparently cough all night and don't sleep, or don't cough but feel like I had five espresso shots and also don't sleep. If I weren't so tired, I'd cry.

Sartorial: I remember this outfit being comfortable, I think. Except that my pants are just barely hanging on. I think I rubber banded them together, which is a pretty neat trick when you're pregnant but too small for maternity clothes. Just loop a rubber band through the button hole, and then around the button, and voila! Pants that mostly fit.

The button hole is hidden in this particular pair of pants, but trust me, the rubber band is there.

Professional but Fun

Academia: Check-in week continues, and thankfully it's a bit calmer than either check-in during the fall semester. Yay! I wore this yesterday to help a friend with an academic culture seminar, and to drive new students to visit apartment complexes. Rather than being in my windowless office, I was about on an unseasonable 70 degree day. Can't complain about that!

Sartorial: I used to belt this dress, but this belly seriously has come out of nowhere, so I decided the tights were restrictive enough without adding a belt. I really liked the gray dress with the chestnut tights and the animal print shoes; to me it looked professional, but still fun. "Professional but fun" is pretty much my motto for dressing for work, so I was happy in this all day (other than being a bit squeezed by my tights).

Transitional Clothes

Academia: Check-in week for the spring is in full swing, and check-in fatigue + pregnancy fatigue is probably going to = short posts this week. I wore this outfit on Friday to prep for this week. I remember it being a busy day, but for the life of me I can't remember what I did. So, moving on.

Sartorial: My mom bought me a bunch of transitional clothes for Christmas this year (like this lovely pink blouse), for which I'm feeling more and more grateful every day. I'm not big enough for maternity clothes yet, but none of my pants and blouses fit quite the same anymore either. I feel like this belly just came out of nowhere - on Friday, I could barely squeeze myself into these jeans (thank goodness for the loose shirt), and yesterday, I couldn't get a pair of baggy boyfriend pants buttoned up.

I'm glad because if I'm growing, that means the baby's growing, but I'm not sure how getting dressed is going to go for the next month or so. Right now, I have a bunch of rubber bands and belts and long loose shirts on hand to make my pre-pregnancy clothes go as far as possible, but I'd say I have about four more weeks before I need to go shopping. Which y'all can imagine I'm really broken up about. You know how much I hate shopping.

Limited Time Only

Academia: Thanks for all your congratulations and well-wishes on Wednesday, y'all! Cary and I both read your comments, and it meant a lot to us. Thanks!

I've been back at work this week, but yesterday was the first day I had to interact with anyone other than the other administrators and office staff. We had a new student and his parents arrive early (check-in for the spring is next week), and they wanted some help getting settled, so I went with them to apartment complexes for part of the day. They were a very nice family, and it was a great way to ease back into the semester.

Sartorial: Since I was seeing a student, and not just my coworkers, I thought it would be a good idea not to wear the jeans I've been wearing all week. I also spared y'all from seeing them. You're welcome. I'd say this pencil skirt only has about three or four more weeks before I can't wear it any more (it's already a little tight), so I'm trying to get as much wear out of it as I can now.

I'm looking forward to finding fun maternity clothes, but I'll definitely miss this skirt. It's comfortable and versatile, and it makes every outfit look more polished. Does anyone make maternity pencil skirts? Is there a way for a pregnant woman to wear a pencil skirt and not look absolutely squeezed into it? Yes, I hope?