Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

wardrobe malfunctions

Shopping in Juniors

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Although we are far from “junior,” my sister and I made a run through the gauntlet of the Juniors department at Kohl’s recently. We were looking for shirts and sweaters and started in the Misses department but found that Vera Wang discriminates against women who have butts and whose breasts do not resemble those of an emaciated teenage boy. We found Vera Wangs, granny sweaters and everything in between but nothing was just right so we headed to the weird department.

In general, my size precludes me from shopping there at all but every once in a while I find an XL with my name on it. Pants are completely out of the question. Not only am I unable to fit my rear into any of the pants in juniors, NO ONE is able to fit their rear into any of the pants in juniors, not their whole rear anyway.

All of the clothes in Juniors seem to be made for a person with a 4 foot long torso, a 3 inch tall butt, and legs with the circumference of spaghetti sticks. The person must also be averse to consuming anything but unsweetened lemon juice. The current designs are mostly made up of faux vintage 80s rock star attire and pink and black items with skulls and crossbones on them. I am not a pirate, an 80s rock star, a misshapen freak of nature, or a 65 lb anorexic runway model interested in displaying plumber bum. So the pickins were slim.

We did however each find a normalish sweater we liked if we were willing to tolerate the brand names “Say What?!” and “It’s Our Time.” It struck me that each of these brands could also work in a senior citizens’ department, as in, “Say what, Sonny?! I can’t hear a word that’s coming out of your mouth.” Or perhaps a slogan for Depends, as in, “It’s our time. Why let embarrassing leaks stop us from doing the activities that are important to us?”

Not Even Recycled

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I have sad news friends. After less than 7 years of marriage I have parted ways with my wedding bands.
Wedding Rings 2001-2008
I came home from my trip and found that my purse was absolutely crammed with dirt, crumbs and mysterious chunks of mystery. I removed all the non-trash items and shook the bag vigorously over the trash can to remove the rest of the grime.

Then this Friday I realized my fingers had un-swole after returning to the Pacific North West. For some reason the always swell up like melons when we go visit family in Utah. So I went to get my wedding bands out of the zipper compartment of my purse and found it unzipped and empty.

Suddenly I remembered that over a week ago I had dumped all the “trash” out into the garbage can. I’m 99% sure the rings went with it. So off they go to a landfill somewhere. Two more pieces of metal that will never be recycled.

I’m sick about the loss but Dan says, “Everyone makes mistakes.” Marrying him was not one of them.

One Way Ticket to Muumuu-Ville

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I had no idea things were deteriorating this quickly. She’s always shown a preference for soft fabrics but I thought it would take her more than 4 years of life to spiral downward into a world clothed exclusively by stretch pants. Her future now seems certain. She’ll be shuffling around in a floral house dress by age 12.

Yesterday when I was getting her dressed for school, she complained that her jeans were uncomfortable. “When I wear them I feel like my legs are bleeding,” she whined dramatically, tugging at the legs of her pants. “I want to wear soft pants only.”

“But these are warmer and the fabric is stronger. They look really nice.”

“But they hurt so-ho-ho ba-ha-had! If I need warm pants, I can wear the ones that are made out of fleece.”

Her useable wardrobe is now limited to sweats, stretch pants, leggings, pajamas and princess gowns and I’m a little worried. Don’t get me wrong. I love me a comfy pair of “yoga pants.” The new title “yoga pants” sounds so much more chic and active than “stretch pants” or “spandex”. I’m well pleased with it. However, I don’t wear them out in public, except to the gym and it’s taken me years as a stay at home mom to love them as much as I do right now. I’m guessing I’ll need to give birth to at least 2 more kids before I degenerate to the point where I wear them at all times and in all places.

Laylee on the other hand has already given in. She has no desire to rage against the dying of the light. She cares only for comfort.

I think my only option is to get her hooked on yoga or some other brand of near-eastern fitness craze. Then we can always tell people that she’s on her way to work out.

Now when the stretch pants get too scratchy and she’s ready to move on to muumuus, I’m not sure what I’ll tell people. Maybe, “Her grandkids are coming over and she’s got a whole bushel of beets to pickle.”

This Poor Girl

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space-chairWe spent an hour at the dollar store looking for the best possible toy in the world ever… that we could procure for the sum of one dollar. Laylee chose this slightly demented-looking princess Polly Pocket knock-off with removable hair. Actually she chose a Bratz knock-off but was swiftly redirected.

We had not yet made it home before the plastic princess tragically lost both her lower limbs in a pitiful wardrobe malfunction. Rubber clothes are hazardous that way. Laylee seemed unfazed. She loved her dolly just the same and seemed determined to find a way to restore the girl’s mobility.

So here she sits, lovingly stuffed in her personal space-age transport vehicle, a beloved remnant of Daring Young Dad’s own childhood. Her lopsided eyes peek out from the cockpit and her arms have been tenderly pointed straight up so her hands are available to catch floating marshmallows or goldfish crackers.

Laylee says it’s to help her get around “because she has no legs.” Truth be told, she does have legs. We just can’t find them right now.

Don’t Put the Grocery Money in Your Bra

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At times, I have been known to spend money in a fashion similar to that of an imbibing mariner. This combined with my hatred of budgets and our need to put a new roof on the house has me and Dan taking drastic measures to save money. Each week we withdraw a small amount of cash from the bank to spend on groceries and other non-bill expenses. We spend the money carefully and when it runs out, we’re done. Period.

We’ve been doing it for a few weeks now and it’s amazing how much more aware I am of my usual spending habits when I run out of cash partway through the week and have to stay home to avoid buying the books, pomegranate drinks and “sale items” that seem to leap into my hands whenever I step out my front door.

The second week of our cash diet, Dan came home with a small stack of money. Since I do most of the family shopping, I get most of the cash and it came time for Dan to hand it over. He placed the twenties where any good husband would put several bills he was giving to his main lady friend. I giggled and forgot about it.

At Trader Joes that afternoon, I got up to the register to pay for my groceries and noticed that all my cash was missing from my wallet! Ack. I had just enough left from the first week to pay for my things and then I began to search frantically for the missing money. Up and down every aisle I dragged the kids, combing the ground with my eyes for a flash of non-edible green. NOTHING.

Sadly, I headed out to the car, loaded the kids and groceries and buckled my own seatbelt. Ouch. What was that? My shirt was so itchy. I pulled it away from my chest and looked down. Bingo!

It was a huge relief. I was relieved to have found the week’s money and relieved that Laylee was too young to ask me why I had lost it in such a strange place. I can only imagine the scene at the store if I’d discovered my lost allowance while at the register and dived in to retrieve it. From now on, I think I’ll use a wallet like a normal person.

So What’s the Deal with Pajamas?

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In the morning they wake up and I feed them food.

They use the food to feed and decorate their pajamas.

I peel the pajamas from their bodies and dress them in “clothes”.

Throughout the day they continue to feed and decorate their “clothes” with slime, food, slug sweat and nasal excretions. Depending on what our next activity is, I either change their clothes again or ignore their filth.

Then at bedtime I change them back into pajamas regardless of the state of their clothes.

Tonight Magoo was wearing a freshly clean outfit at bedtime but I stripped it off for the sheer love of doing laundry and due to the fact that people, like fish, are not supposed to sleep in “CLOTHES.”

The thing is, his pajamas are indistinguishable from many of his outfits. I think that the determining factor for sleepwear should be the same as play-wear. It should all be made out of recently replaced Austrian window treatments and should have a matching head-kerchief. When it’s wet, slimey or smells like milk or other bodily fluids, it should be changed, and not before.

Maybe I’ll just make like a sci-fi movie and enshroud him in breathable hoseable rubber zipper-front jumpsuits with our family logo emblazoned over the right breast, our family logo which is of course a stylized likeness of my floating head… wearing pajamas.

Attention Target Shoppers

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Thank you so much for all the heartwarming smiles you gave me as I walked through the store on Saturday. I was wearing makeup, cute shoes and an “outfit” and walking with an unmistakable mom-on-the-loose-for-the-weekend swagger. Your grins only confirmed my perception of my own hot-ishness.

I plan to drop-kick you all later.

Because the cute elderly checker at Barnes and Noble was kind, helpful but also honest. When I walked up to the counter and plunked down my copy of A Girl Named Zippy, she smiled, told me how much she liked the book and informed me that my zipper was gaping open.

Yes friends. If you think it would have been embarrassing to tell me to XYZ at Target, just imagine how I felt an hour later when the sweet lady laughed and said, “I just had to tell you. With the title of the book and your zipper open like that, it just really caught my attention.”

Seeing as I’m not currently pregnant and therefore don’t frequent public restrooms for the fun of it, I know that I had been flying low throughout all of my errands. Suddenly your smiles seem more sinister and my hotness a little less secure. At least that lady will think fondly of me every time she passes a copy of Zippy in the stacks.

She’s probably blogging it right now.

Not Much to See Here

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Well, I try to cover it up most of the time.

We are really working on our religious punctuality right now. We have been really working on it for… going on 4 years. We improve a little and then we improve not so much at all. Then we slide back to “pathetic” on the scale of on-time-itude.

This morning I’m getting dressed for church, pretty much at the last possible second before we have to leave, and Dan looks at me incredulously and asks, “Are you dressing for church or are you getting ready for BlogHer?”

Well of course I was getting ready for BlogHer but I was getting ready for church at the same time, you know? The multitasking. The poor man thought I was trying on all of my carefully layed out conference clothing items for the fun of it right before we had to leave. This is not unfathomable but today I was not guilty of such a crime against punctuality and reason.

Today I wore the black dress I bought for BlogHer to church to test it out for any possible “wardrobe malfunctions.” I am a recently weaned nurser and… well… these things need to be tested when little black dresses enter the picture.

I know what you’re thinking — you test dresses for wardrobe malfunctions by wearing them to church? Yeah. It sounds strange to me too, now that I see it on the computer screen. Never fear. Everything stayed where it was supposed to stay, even with the mega-weaner doing his best to free the entrapped victuals from their black shackles.