heyMamas

I may have to re-think the skinny jean

So I just ate about six chocolate covered strawberries in reaction to the fasting that went on in my household this past weekend while I was trying to fit my almost thirty-nine year old, has birthed two children and have the hips to prove it, ass into a pair of skinny jeans that I JUST NOW realized were meant for GIRLS!

Not Women, because I just pulled up their website and it says GIRLS!  Girls and Boys.  Not Men and Women.

It started the other day when I googled 'most popular skinny jean', and came up with these all over the results page...

 

They were Bullhead Solana Extreme Skinny Jeans by Pac Sun.  I had never even heard of Pac Sun but checked for locations and saw that they had one in my local mall.  Lucky me.

So...Saturday morning I dragged Drew and the girls to the mall so I could fulfill my quest for the perfect skinny jean to add to my collection of every other type of jean imaginable. 

I  l-o-n-g  to wear skinny jeans with my Frye boots, or my high-heeled boots or my rugged flat boots, or my sexy sling backs, or my ballet flats.....as you can see the list of acceptable shoes paired with a hot pair of skinny jeans is never ending. 

I mean seriously, of all the jeans I own, I have never owned a pair of skinny ones. 

So while Drew was being tortured by the girls in Claire's who were furiously looking for leg warmers {don't ask}, I was in Pac Sun with a fourteen year old salesgirl telling me that if I could at least zip the jeans up all the way, then shazam!, it was the right size. 

I wanted to go the next size up, but she insisted that they stretch so much you should buy one size smaller than you normally would.  She kept flipping her hair back and forth EXACTLY the way a fourteen year old does and assured me that we would find the right fit.

So I bought this dark denim color pictured above, along with a black pair for $55.   I was able to wear them for one whole hour on Saturday until my legs lost all feeling and went numb but averaged about five hours on Sunday. 

I guess that means they are stretching and aside from my ass falling out every time I bent over to pick something up, they were actually quite nice.  Whether I end up wearing them or not, only time will tell but they are pretty cool jeans for two pairs at $55. 

I may have to investigate an alternate style though, one that goes up a few more inches in the back to accommodate a butt bigger than a pre-period teenage girl.  Oh, and I can't forget about the containment of the muffin top.

 

Five minutes of downtime equals this...

We had a super busy weekend and on Sunday, the girls had about five minutes where they were between activities and they decided they were BORED...

"We're bored Mom.  BORED.  Did you hear us?  We said we were bored." 

And since I already told you that they think I am the circus leader, I was like, "figure it out yourself" and this is what they did...

 

 

 

Lily laid down with her butt in the air and Belle had to do...

 

 

 

a cartwheel over her and try to kiss her butt as she was cartwheeling...

 

 

 

And she had to try to do this without poking her eye out, which believe me even with Lily's soft butt, Belle could manage to do something like that, poke her eye out, BECAUSE she is Belle and she just does stuff like that. 

 

 
 

But she did it and Lily decided to give her an extra special gift and tooted in her face.  {Not really, but that would have been funny.}

Then it was Lily's turn to try ...

 

 

 

and Belle excelled at sticking her rump up in the air.

 

 

 

So Lily started to cartwheel and then we had a re-do for some reason.  I suppose it was because Lily's face went smack into Belle's butt because it was sticking up so freaking high in the air.

 

 

 

So we did it again and this time...

 

 

  

It went over without a hitch, AND...they proceeded to do this about a hundred more times until I kicked them out of the house and made them go ride bikes.

 

Clearly, I am raising some very twisted children.   
 

Beat of her own drum

Over the last two years I have described to you the unique nature of my first born child {see here and here}.  

 

She is Belle, and... 

 

She is different.

She is off-beat.

She is spirited.

She is quirky.

She can be hard to control.

She can be forceful, outspoken

and yet at the same time the sweetest and most loving little being I have ever met.

 

And I couldn't love her more if I tried.

 

Belle has decided to send this in as her homework assignment, with one letter going up and one going down on the line repeatedly over and over again...

Who am I to judge, I just seem to be along for the ride.

Two bubbles

I took some photos of the girls last weekend while they were riding bikes in the glorious New York sunshine.  I particularly love this one of Lily because you can see her riding her bike through the bubble. 

Drew and I sat and watched them ride bikes while we drank some wine and talked about all the things that are on our 'house to-do wish list'.  And after looking at this photo, HELLO? I think we should start with the driveway before some of those cracks open up and swallow Belle and Lily mid-pedal. 

Re-pave driveway.  Move to the top of the house to-do wish list.  Check.

Before we moved into our current house, we settled comfortably into a rental where we lived for a few years.  Over the course of those years, we watched as the housing market went higher and higher and yeah believe it or not, still higher. 

We never intended to rent for so long, but with the market so inflated Drew insisted we were not going to top tick, so, we waited. 

Drew knew as I am sure many other savvy real estate-minded individuals out there knew, that no market goes up forever, and a bubble is in fact a bubble and it is only a matter of time before it bursts {ah, bubble bursting...nice tie in to my picture that is otherwise completely unrelated to this story which wasn't even my intended story anyway, but then again that's usually how I arrive at every post}.

So, after selling our apartment, we rented the house to test the waters on home ownership and we decided we loved it.  The one thing we were the most sad to leave behind was the building Super.  A good Super is priceless in a New York apartment and now Drew had to face the fact that HE was the new Super in our world.  Not easy to deal with. 

The point I am trying to make is, I never really looked at my house as something to decorate or work on.  I mean I loved the space we were in and thought it was decently furnished, but I never invested money or time into it because it wasn't MINE and I didn't really care.

I just thought that I was missing that gene because I don't get caught up in wow, wouldn't that look great over there or wouldn't that space look better with a .....that's just not me.  AT ALL.  I mean I basically just showed up at my own wedding. 

Well guess what, once we moved and sank so much money into our house and continue to do so every month in what is known as a mortgage payment, ALL of a sudden, I care.

I comment on the placement of things and think strategically in terms of what project should come next.

I know....weird. 

It's strange and weird and nice all at the same time.

How do you ever recover?

{This is my category called Mama's Bits where I discuss a piece or person that is highly relevant at the moment in pop culture in an effort to catalog for my girls, who and what was popular during their childhood.}

 

My heart is totally broken for Sandra Bullock.  And I am not even sure where she goes from here or how she begins to pull herself together. 

In one week, her life has taken her from the highest point any actor ever hopes to achieve to a point so low it is almost unimaginable. 

Life can be cruel like that.

 

 

Photograph: James White/Capture

 

For years during interviews, I can remember her saying that she didn't want to get married.  Or when someone would ask her why she isn't married, she would say "why do I have to be married to be happy?  I am already happy."

Then she dated Ryan Gosling {the Hollywood love of my life...don't worry Drew is on board} for a year or two and went all cougar on him and I thought she was so cool.  She marched to the beat of her own drum and didn't cave to the conventions of marriage and children. She seemed {and I say seemed because we aren't friends so I don't really know} to be a strong independent, successful female and her equation of happiness didn't necessarily have to include a man.   

I love being married and without Drew I would be lost.  Totally and completely lost.  He is my best friend and has been for the last fourteen years.  But, I love when people are strong enough to know that they do not need a man to make them happy.  They would like one but they don't NEED one. 

Or when a married couple knows that they don't want children.  They want to live their lives for themselves and each other and have no interest in being parents.  I think that takes a tremendous amount of courage because people can be judgmental and think they are selfish for not having children.  I actually thank those people for being honest with themselves enough to know that bringing children into this world is not really in their hearts.  I consider that a favor to us all.   

Sure, there is a part of me that couldn't even begin to understand not wanting to share my life with children because I love absolutely everything about them, but I do commend people for their decision to not bear children if they are not going to give it their all.  And sadly, some people have children because that's what they think they should do.

I thought because Sandra in the past didn't necessarily need a husband, that her love with Jesse was that much more authentic because it was based on a want and not a need.  I was so happy for her that she seemed {again, seemed because I don't really know her} to have finally found it.

What she said at the Oscar's during her acceptance speech for best actress really spoke to me {and don't quote me here because I am just repeating how her comments landed on me}

I thank my Mother for raising me in a way that allows me to have that

and then she pointed at Jesse.  I thought that was so understated but yet so magnanimous all at the same time.

 

Fast forward two weeks and look where they are?  You just never know what is going on in people's lives.  And what makes me so pissed is that he STOLE this moment from her forever and now every time she thinks back to this great moment in her life, THE moment of her life, she will think of this scandal and for that alone I am heartbroken for her. 

I am not going to man bash or anything here but I just don't get men.  I simply just don't get it but what I do get is in that moment of truth when Sandra found out about this affair and I am not even going to say alleged because, hello? I don't think we are assholes here, but in the course of that moment he changed her life forever and selfish doesn't even begin to cover it.

I honestly hope that one day she can open herself up to love again because everyone deserves to have love and be loved.