NO UNDERWIRE BRAS

I hate underwire bras. They are so uncomfortable and they make up about 95% of the bras on the market. I think they are a cop out. I’m sure it takes more thought and engineering to make a well structured bra without wires. Think about it. Underwire bras just have wire and fabric draped over them. Someone once told me that it’s mostly gay men who design bras these days. I don’t know if it’s true or not but personally I would rather have a heterosexual man design a bra than a gay man. At least they would have some experience with breasts.

I’m on this subject because with the return of my period after 1 ½ years came exactly 7 pimples, a reduced bra size and a reduced muffin top. Some good and some bad in there. I’ll start with the reduced bra size. I’m still breastfeeding but around the 8th month, I go through a substantial decrease in size. It’s disconcerting to suddenly have your muffin top exceed your cup size so I frantically looked through my massive collection of bras from A’s to DD’s to find one that actually fit and gave me a boost. An underwire one fit and seemed to balance me out so I wore that this week for a couple days. Until I got a clogged duct. Damn underwire. So I am back to looking droopy in a poorly constructed non-underwire bra.

I want to take this moment to mention white bras. I don’t understand them. What do you wear a white bra with? If you said white, that is the wrong answer. You can see white bras under white shirts. You’re supposed to wear a nude colored bra under a white shirt. If you have a white bra, just throw it away. I don’t really know why they even make them. But when you’re looking for a nude or black bra, they never have your size. But they will have your size in a useless white bra.

I went into Victoria’s Secret because they have this new IPEX no underwire bra. They had 20+ sales associates in the store and THREE DRESSING ROOMS. Huh? There was a huge line and I stood in line for about 15 seconds before giving the bra back to one of the many sales associates. I don’t have the patience for that when it’s a big negotiation to go shopping on the weekend. I’m all for communal dressing rooms and wish more stores had them. People are way more concerned about their own bodies than yours.

So 7 pimples. Part of my extreme makeover plan is to go on Accutane. The health nuts out there will freak out at that because Accutane is a really nasty drug. Mostly because of what it can do to an unborn fetus but I am done having kids so that is not a concern. There are other concerns in taking it and I’m trying some naturopathic remedies to get my skin under control but I am not confident. I find it ridiculous to have to the skin problems I have at my age. But the good news is the muffin top is decreasing in size. I have been using the ROM machine religiously but mostly I think it’s just the timing of things and getting my period.

The ROM machine is going well. It’s very hard to come up with an excuse as to why I shouldn’t do it every single day since it’s only four minutes. It’s an impressive machine because it detects your strength level and will increase resistance during your workout. This means that personal trainers and out of shape 70 year olds can use the machine. I admit that after about 2 minutes on the back portion I want to quit but I also think it would be lame to quit after 2 minutes so I always finish.

The thing that is most pressing on my mind right now is Jack’s preschool/day care. I think people make too big of a deal about preschool but Jack is really in day care, not preschool, so he is there about 9 hours a day/5 days a week. This is a big difference from 3 hours a day/2 days a week. Brian and I decided that we will switch Jack to the YMCA preschool/day care. The thought of this makes me want to throw up. But when I toured this new preschool opening in April, I realized that it was closer to the lifestyle that Brian and I lead. For example, at his current day care, they serve 2 snacks and a lunch every day. They serve pop tarts and pepperoni pizza pockets and other crap like that. I don’t like Jack having processed food so we send him with a bunch of food every day. The Y teaches healthy eating habits. The Y will also have the kids in the school go to swimming lessons, dance lessons and tumbling during the day because they have those teachers available to them. Brian and I like the physical aspect that they will provide. But I hate the thought of taking Jack from a day care that we have been very happy with overall and from his little buddy Jackson. I asked Brian what it would take to stop me from obsessing about this and he said it would have to be that Jack has been in his new school for a while and that he is happy. So I will grouse around for a few more weeks until this happens.

Brian’s aunt, uncle and cousin came to visit from Alaska. Because our house is a bit chaotic, they stayed in a hotel but we got to see them a couple times. They are very nice people and we hope to visit them again in Alaska in 2007 (we went in 2004 and spent the week on the Kenai river).

I traveled to Santa Clara for two days this week. I hate traveling for work because I hate being away from my boys. I also hate the logistics of pumping which you know about if you’ve read any of my blogs. I won’t bore you with the problems I ran into this time around. People say, why don’t you quit? But I can’t because there are so many respiratory and stomach illnesses going around, I have to do what I can to protect my child. When it hits 100 degree, then I can consider stopping.

Book club was Friday night and we decided that we would try meeting in a restaurant. I’m not sure if that was a good idea because over the weeks, more and more people started dropping out and of course most drop out at the last minute so of the 12 of us, only 6 ended up going to the restaurant. It didn’t stop us from having a good time though. Only Tracy and I read the book. No surprise there.

On Saturday we went to the zoo. It was very crowded and quite hot. But we still had a good time. After the kids went to bed, I drove up to Scottsdale to a Pampered Chef party, mostly to socialize. I spent more time driving up there and back than I did socializing but it was totally worth it. The party was put on by my long time guy friend Mike and his wife Karen. I would say that Mike is one of my best friends even though we don’t see each other that often any more. I used to go to happy hour with him about once a month for what we call a “Bitch Session”. Some people might think it’s strange that I go out alone with him, especially since we are both married but if you are good friends with a guy before you are married, and you marry someone else, then it’s OK to keep that friendship because if that friend were right for you, you would have married him instead. Now meeting someone after you’re married and going out alone with that person is a big no-no because the same logic doesn’t apply. Missie didn’t know Mike before she married. However, through the transitive property of being friends with me, it’s OK.