The DeCook Family Adventures: Mom Jeans

Emmett was born 6.5 weeks ago. He currently weighs 11.5 lbs. I love being his mother. What I don't love is that after more than 6 weeks, I still weigh considerably more than I want to. Rolls on Emmett are adorable, on me they are not! Ok, so I don't have rolls but every part of me seems to be WIDER than it was 11 months ago- my rib cage, my stomach, my hips, my thighs, my behind, my feet...Despite all of the widening I made the decision to pack up my maternity clothes- I am simply done with that part of this process and do not want to wear them anymore. I have remained firm in this decision and have resisted the temptation of those forgiving elastic waist bands, despite a horrible afternoon of trying on all my pre-baby pants and having not ONE pair fit me.

My lack of pants, obviously created an issue for me. We are approaching the end of dress or skirt season, and I live in Portland where even in the summer one cannot wear skirts every day. I also have no intention of remaining this size and do not want to go out and buy myself a new wardrobe. After much internal (and external) debate I decided that buying one or two "larger" size pair of pants wouldn't kill me or my ego. So one afternoon after Todd got home from work, our little family walked to a local store. I literally pulled 15 pairs of pants off the rack to try on, all different sizes starting one size up from what I used to be up to sizes that I never in my wildest dreams thought I could get to. The sales girl who helped me into the dressing room looked at me like I was nuts but dammit I was walking out of there with a pair of pants! I started with the smallest size, and slowly started plowing through the dressing room full of jeans...with each size that I discarded my optimism and self esteem plummeted. Finally, I found one pair that fit- the largest size the store had. I simply started crying right there in the dressing room. Then I heard Emmett fussing while he and Todd were waiting for me, so I got myself together and left the dressing room with my first pair of "mom jeans".

It would seem that for me "mom jeans" aren't going to be the high-waisted jeans parodied in Saturday Night Live sketches, but the same kind of jeans I always wore, just significantly bigger in size than I am used to. I am now looking at the "mom jeans" as a source of motivation- I must escape them! And quickly! I had my 6 week post-partum doctor's appointment and Dr. Ono cleared me for normal exercise again with these words of caution: running is going to be excruciating because I am nursing and because of my age, the little pooch in my lower abdomen may not go away until I am done nursing, if at all, regardless of how many crunches I do. Not awesome news, but it's still the green light to try to get my body back into a shape that I somewhat recognize! I know these concerns all seem a bit vain, but I think that the process of letting go of this vanity and accepting the reality of my situation is part of being a new mother. Prior to having Emmett, I was able to focus a lot of my time and energy on my diet, nutrition and working out. Now that I have a baby, I can still pay attention to these aspects of my life but they will obviously take a back seat to focusing on making sure that I raise a happy, healthy, well adjusted little boy.

Over the last week Emmett has begun smiling and talking to us. Talk about gratification! There is nothing like walking over his crib when he wakes up and being greeted by a gummy grin of recognition! He has also discovered his legs, which means that a lot of his smiles and grins are accompanied by uncontrollable leg kicking which is ADORABLE, unless you are holding him and those uncontrollable kicks land in your stomach. Grandma Betsy and Grandpa Bob also made the trip up from California to meet the little guy- they got a few smiles and some good cuddling in with him before they headed back home. Grandpa Bob also taught Todd how to make gnocchi using the "family" recipe, ensuring that his daughter and grandson can have it whenever they want! Yay!

Also, we received the entire newborn photo session from our photographer, Kristen Honeycutt. If you want images you can purchase them through her website, or we will be getting the electronic images in the next month so you can print them at the less expensive vendor of your choice. Use this link, the password is "emmett":

DeCook Newborn Album