Jake is a saver. By that, I mean he faithfully socks his money away like a squirrel hoarding nuts. Me? I’m a spender. The regular comment in our home is that if Jaime has $11, she’ll look around and say, “What costs $11?”
If I have a few dollars to my name, I like to buy lots of different things: wine, beer, manicures, haircuts, and gifts for other people. But my real weakness is clothes/shoes. Whoa nelly, do I like me some fashion.
The irony is that I don’t dress with any particular flair, nor do I dress with any consistency. Some days, I’m all about the jeans, Converse, and hooded sweatshirt. Sometimes I’m in the mood for a summer dress and flat sandals. Or skinny jeans, ballet flats, and a leather jacket. It’s really not too exciting, but it’s never exactly the same.
That is, not until Seabass wriggled into my life.
Moms talk a lot about succumbing to sweatpants, giving in to the beauty of soft, shapeless cotton and an elastic waistband. And I get it – oh, do I get it. There is nothing better than putting the baby down for bed at night, climbing into my jammies and sipping a glass of wine. Truly, I can think of few luxuries I enjoy more.
But at about three weeks post-partum, I vowed never to wear my sweats/yoga pants/PJs all day long unless I was sick enough to require a doctor’s visit. And I’ve managed to keep that promise to myself with the following little set of rules.
- Shower before Seabass’ first nap. This forces me not to wear anything with an elastic waistband. I put the little guy in his jumper in the bathroom and he happily (usually) bobs while I bathe nearby. We have a clear shower curtain so he can see that I’m there with him, so he doesn’t get too upset. (The creepiness of being naked in front of my young son isn’t lost on me. Never fear: Parental nudity is an upcoming Controversy Wednesday topic. Stay tuned.)
7 for All Mankind A-Pockets
- Buy a basic uniform and spend money for quality. My uniform is a $5 tee shirt, a pair of 7 for All Mankind A-pocket jeans I bought for $100 at Marshall’s and Ariat Western Heritage cowboy boots I bought online for $160. Have I ever spent that much on jeans or footwear? Never. But that leads me to my next point.
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Wear the same thing every day. Having a baby requires the elimination of trivial decisions such as what to wear. I wear my jeans and Ariats nearly every single day, and feel great in them every single day because they are quality. My friend Jenny has coined the term girl math which entails justifying expensive clothing based on a per-wear basis. For instance, if I buy a skirt for $100 and wear it every day for a year, that is only 27¢ per wear. And that’s quite a deal.
Ariat Western Heritage J Toe
- Go cheap on the rotating stuff. Notice my tee shirts are only $5? I have about a billion of them for when Seabass spits up or flings applesauce all over them.
Polka dot girliness
- Accessorize, accessorize. I recently bought a super cute polka dot cardigan from Target with Christmas money that looks terrific with my uniform. I also have a couple great headbands, scarves, jackets, and earrings I can tack on to the uniform at a moment’s notice to lend spice. Oooh, look at these earrings I’m lusting after currently. These will be perfect for Seabass to grab at and rip my earlobes through. Hmm.
These rules aren’t hard and fast, by any means. In fact, as I write this, I am unshowered and wearing an elastic waistband while Seabass takes his morning nap. BUSTED! But I certainly do try. I’m also thinking of adopting one day per week to wear something a little nicer than usual. I love Lisa Leonard’s blog and her posts entitled “What I Wore Wednesday.” Maybe we can all start wearing our Wednesday Best and sharing the results? What will you wear tomorrow, mama?
I am Jaime, wife to Jacob. We are the smitten, stupefied, sometimes scared silly parents of a precious boy nicknamed Seabass and a darling girl nicknamed Sweet Chuck.
Higher Highs, Lower Lows 
While it is commendable that you haven’t adopted the native dress of momlandia, it should also be noted that most of ‘them’ probably wouldn’t either if the weight magically disappeared as it did with you (loose skin doesn’t count.) When I (finally) fit back into my size 8 jeans I wore them EVERY. DAY, but I was not going to spend 100 bucks on jeans that were 4 sizes too big, just to get them over my newly-acquired hips. Elastic was cheap and forgiving while I patiently waited for my hips to re-morph. And 5 dollar t-shirts are de riguer even after the vomit-on-the-shoulder stage is over. 🙂
Fair. I should also mention that I wore my elastic waistband maternity jeans – which were actually extremely cute – for quite a while post-partum.
(Cute maternity clothes. Must’ve happened AFTER 1995.) 😉
Meredith- hello! It’s Ruth Star here from HomeChef! I was flipping thurgoh the channels recently and saw your mug on QVC! imagine my surprize! Surprizingly I am back working at HomeChef and have been for about 4 years. We were recently bought and in addition to all that we used to and still do we are selling Viking Appliances too! SF, CM and SJ are all closed, I am at the Walnut Creek Store/School as GM and have moved up to Oakland! You look awesome, it was cool to see what you were up to! I googled you!Ruth
Even before my kids were born I was always a tee and jeans gal. Its now that I wanna wear nice stuff.
But I have settled in sweat pants and a tee.
Comfort above all!
I lived in my bathrobe for the first few weeks of Hannah’s life. My boobs were out for pretty much everyone to see, but she was feeding ALL the time (or at least it seemed that way), and I couldn’t get the hang of feeding with discretion…. I was so excited when I could finally fit back into my only ever pair of $100 jeans that make my butt look fantastic and minimise my child bearing hips. I pretty much wore them every day, got lots of different cute cheap shirts (just like you), and felt pretty good about my non-frumpy self. Then I got pregnant again. I’m only 11 weeks, but my jeans no longer fit (Ha, they stopped fitting at about 5 weeks. It was like the lower half of my body remembered where it got to last time I was pregnant and went straight there), and all of my other pants are getting increasingly tight and funny looking. I tried to find some cute maternity pants, but it seems manufacturers don’t think that small people get pregnant, so I’m back to looking frumpy again. Humph.
Funny you write this today as my best fried chastised me over the weekend for how frumpy and mom-ish I had become. She motivated me to sex it up a bit. My son is 19 months so I don’t have much of an excuse for frump. I have decent work clothes but don’t feel a need to dress up to be around the house or go run errands. So I spent my snow day off shopping for cute non-mommy clothes. And found some.
I think sweats and PJs are fine, but if they aren’t you or you start to feel like them – it’s time to snaz it up.
I love this! I thought I was the only one who wore the same thing every day! When I was working last year, of course I would have to have a different outfit every day of the week, but now that I am at home, and my activities are different everyday, I can get away with wearing the same thing every day. This is because I see a different group of people each day, so they have no idea that I wear the same thing! (Matt is the only one who enjoys my weekly outfit.) The other night when he got home from work I had on a different weekly outfit and he asked if we were going somewhere. So funny. Anyways, I am still trying to fit into my old jeans. I don’t know if it will happen, but I am still hopeful and I just did sit-ups for the first time yesterday since little Caleb was born 5 months ago, so maybe soon the jeans will fit.
T and jeans is also my uniform. It’s amazing what a unique necklace and cute flats will do for it. I’ve had this rule since Baby Godzilla was born to shower daily and have jeans on when my husband gets home. Truthfully, it’s more of an illusion. If I leave the house I swap PJs for jeans and then revert when I’m back and then swap for jeans again around 5pm. Recently my cousin was staying with us and put on some sweats and my daughter innocently said, “Mommy’s?” Guess I better step it up a bit. P.S. Every time I see you, Jaime, you look adorable.
Ugh. I deteset typos. Please accept my belated change from “is” to “are.”
Ugh. I detest typos. Please accept my “are” in place of “is.”
I am adopting this method. Thank you! Just bought some cute (cheap!) t-shirts at Target!