shopping with a bb.

Lately, I have been feeling like my closet is a frump factory. I'm facing the facts that my post-partum body is just a little different, and my clothes don't fit the way I wish they would, and my shirts must always be Henry accessible, and my pants are often covered in rice cracker and baby mush by the end of the day. Couple that with post partum hair regrowth and I have been feeling like I want to cower under my desk all day long, lest anyone should see me and die of shock. I'm a mess.

Ok, but really, it was time to shop and I no longer wanted to use the excuse, "but there is no time because Henry goes to bed at 7:30". Bed times be durned, I kept him out TWICE this week to shop. I leave work, drive home and say goodbye to the nanny, then we trek back downtown to Penn Quarter AKA my new shopping haven. Anthropologie, JCrew, Zara, F21, H&M, BR, UO, it's a rich and poor mans paradise. Of course, I learned to start at F21 and H&M, then end up at Jcrew and Anthropologie because I will tell you if you do it the reverse way you will have massive regret over having blown your whole budget on a pair of snow leopard pants and a yetti shirt, so you have no room for those whispy threads from F21.

But I'm getting off track. We end up downtown around 6:15pm, and I pop him in the ergo and we shop. I keep a baggie of gerber puffs in my pocket, and let him play with the hangers as I pick up different clothes. When I try on a blazer at Zara, I pop him out and put him on the floor at my feet, throw on the blazer, see it is ugly, then pick him back up before he has a chance to run away. It's an art. Or maybe a science. We pick out a bunch of things at JCrew, lock ourselves in the dressing room, and Henry has a ball crawling around and slapping the mirror a million times saying ba ba ba ba. At Forever21, it is a madhouse so no trying on clothes for us, I just throw a bunch of stuff on the register and buy it, forgetting the stupid return policy that only gives you back store credit. Finally at H&M, I head to the little baby section and pick out a few things for Henry, only to have to return later because he is just getting big enough to wear their 6-9 month old stuff, not for-goodness-sakes the 9-12 month olds. Time to double up on kale and broccoli to get that boy growing.

We return home with mounds of clothes, most of it to be returned, but well on the way to making me feel less like a frumpy mom and more like a together-kind-of-lady. And Henry gets to party and flirt with all the shopping girls, which makes him loopy and giggly. Win-win.