You know that game you play when you're a kid? The one that goes "IfIWasReallyRichLikeREALLYRichIWouldBuy....." presuming that money is infinite and of the scale that could easily purchase everything from a magic pony castle populated by talking monkeys to a live-in French patissier/sex wizard, depending on the player's age. Some sad cases continue to play this game until way past the age where it might do them any good whatsoever.
I am 29, and I am still playing it.
Moreover, I am proud to advise that I have now come up with the definitive list of what I would buy if I were magnificently, massively, amazingly, pant-wettingly rich. And here it is.
1. A Rembrandt. A really massive one. I've spent years of game-playing time hesitating between a Rembrandt or a Vermeer. So I've decided that I would have a huge Rembrandt on one wall of the enormous castle I would build to contain it, and a Vermeer facing it on the opposite one. That way, I have all eternity to sit and contemplate which one's prettier.
2. A Peter Scott painting. After careful deliberation I can now advise that this would be the remote and unlikely one entitled one entitled When The Tide Turned The Brent Geese Came In Against A Background of Showers
3. An Indonesian island one which gibbons and orang-utans could live undisturbed by humans.
4. A lake with reeds and ducks by it. I could pick it up by the corners and move it to just outside the massive castle I would build to contain my Rembrandt (see no. 1)
5. A holiday to go whale-watching in the Arctic. The elder small person and I would love to do this. Even Mon Geek has expressed halting enthusiasm. And the unborn will go where I take him, at least for now.
6. A bookshop. No one would be allowed to buy anything from it, though. It would be for housing my huge collection of first editions, and other stuff. And I would sit in it working my way through a case of Pol Roger.
7. A library with a wing back chair and a walnut desk where I could look at the lake (see no. 4) whenever I wasn't feeling sociable enough to be in the bookshop.
8. A harpsichord with a goat grazing nearby. No explanation is required for this.
9. A diamond-encrusted mechanised root vegetable dissecter, to stop chopping swede being such a frigging workout.
10. A skywriter to slag off all the people who irk me daily. "WANKER ON THE BUS - STOP SHOVING PAST PEOPLE" "VICTORIA CENTRE SHOPPERS - MILLING RANDOMLY WILL EARN YOU A KICK UP THE BUM" and so on.
There, that's my top ten. Of course, there are loads more, like the employment of a tutor to teach Mon Geek to be a top patissier and Escoffier-ranked chef, a permanent rotisserie in the kitchen, and an elephant to ride through the forests picking peachy fruits from the back of, but it's a start. Now, when my lottery numbers come up, I'll know where to start. It's a strategy I tells you.
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Thursday, 10 November 2011
old wives' tales
I tell you what. Pregnancy doesn't half let you in for a load of old crap. No, I'm not changing nappies yet. Instead, I'm talking about the motley collection of old wives' tales, superstitions and rubbish that people suggest could possibly have some impact on the gender of your baby.
The gender of an unborn is of great interest to the wider world. Of course, some people have preferences for what they end up with. We're not too fussed. After all, whatever it is, it'll end up playing with Lego. I would mildly like to have a crack at parenting a girl, having had a boy. Mon Geek would mildly like to have a son. Neither of us are fussed. We just want a healthy baby. Come the scan (three weeks and counting down), and provided our child has no objection to doing a full frontal close-up while still in the womb, we'll look forward to finding out for sure. Meanwhile, however, there are lots of suggested ways to find out.
So far, 7 people think I'm having a boy, 2 think I'm having a girl, and my mum and eldest brother have some sort of sweepstake on and won't tell me what they think. Neither Mon Geek nor I have any feeling that it might be a particular sex. I've had two dreams about the baby, in one of which it was a boy and in the other of which it was a girl. So we're no help. I tried four baby gender predictors on different websites as research for this post (the things I do for you, honestly). Two said it was a boy and two a girl.
So I delved deeper. The people who come up with these things are deranged. That's actually the only firm conclusion I could draw. It suggested I look at all kinds of things including the colour of my wee and how fast my leg hair grows as opposed to before I was pregnant. So, actually "they" (whoever "they" are) are deranged AND intrusive, getting a kick out of asking total strangers about urine and leg hair. Freaks.
And some of these superstitions are nuts. Special points go to the people that think if you crave chocolate, you're sure to be carrying a girl, and if you want crisps and cheese it's a boy. I haven't had many cravings yet - except for cheese, ice cream and milk, which coincidentally are all the things I crave when premenstrual. Possibly something to do with the same hormones being active? Well, possibly. I also like the people who look at how high you're carrying your bump. Umm, I am five foot tall and overweight (this is not a bad thing, I'm placing no value judgment on myself, I'm stating a fact). My bump is *always* going to look high.
Swinging a needle over my bump told me I was going to have a boy. The fact that my hair looks like a bird's nest told me I was carrying a girl. In fact, if you're carrying a girl, you're supposed to look worse and more knackered than you did before pregnancy. Which I do...maybe because I'm undertaking a three-hour daily commute door to door, studying for a qualification which involves two gruelling twelve-hour days in Birmingham each month, travelling regularly on business trips and, well, life. And suddenly I'm coping with pregnancy as well? Of course I'm not going to look dewy and fresh-faced. I look like a bear rudely awoken during hibernation and intent on killing the waker-upper. Which frankly is a fair reflection of my mental state.
And whether I'm married to Mon Geek will affect what we're likely to have? Umm, bollocks. I don't think for a moment that my having a pretty dress and some new finger bling is going to bring forth a rush of XY (or XX) sperm, which last time I checked was how baby gender gets decided. And if it did, well, to be honest, I'd worry. I'd worry badly.
About my dry cleaning bill.
The gender of an unborn is of great interest to the wider world. Of course, some people have preferences for what they end up with. We're not too fussed. After all, whatever it is, it'll end up playing with Lego. I would mildly like to have a crack at parenting a girl, having had a boy. Mon Geek would mildly like to have a son. Neither of us are fussed. We just want a healthy baby. Come the scan (three weeks and counting down), and provided our child has no objection to doing a full frontal close-up while still in the womb, we'll look forward to finding out for sure. Meanwhile, however, there are lots of suggested ways to find out.
So far, 7 people think I'm having a boy, 2 think I'm having a girl, and my mum and eldest brother have some sort of sweepstake on and won't tell me what they think. Neither Mon Geek nor I have any feeling that it might be a particular sex. I've had two dreams about the baby, in one of which it was a boy and in the other of which it was a girl. So we're no help. I tried four baby gender predictors on different websites as research for this post (the things I do for you, honestly). Two said it was a boy and two a girl.
So I delved deeper. The people who come up with these things are deranged. That's actually the only firm conclusion I could draw. It suggested I look at all kinds of things including the colour of my wee and how fast my leg hair grows as opposed to before I was pregnant. So, actually "they" (whoever "they" are) are deranged AND intrusive, getting a kick out of asking total strangers about urine and leg hair. Freaks.
And some of these superstitions are nuts. Special points go to the people that think if you crave chocolate, you're sure to be carrying a girl, and if you want crisps and cheese it's a boy. I haven't had many cravings yet - except for cheese, ice cream and milk, which coincidentally are all the things I crave when premenstrual. Possibly something to do with the same hormones being active? Well, possibly. I also like the people who look at how high you're carrying your bump. Umm, I am five foot tall and overweight (this is not a bad thing, I'm placing no value judgment on myself, I'm stating a fact). My bump is *always* going to look high.
Swinging a needle over my bump told me I was going to have a boy. The fact that my hair looks like a bird's nest told me I was carrying a girl. In fact, if you're carrying a girl, you're supposed to look worse and more knackered than you did before pregnancy. Which I do...maybe because I'm undertaking a three-hour daily commute door to door, studying for a qualification which involves two gruelling twelve-hour days in Birmingham each month, travelling regularly on business trips and, well, life. And suddenly I'm coping with pregnancy as well? Of course I'm not going to look dewy and fresh-faced. I look like a bear rudely awoken during hibernation and intent on killing the waker-upper. Which frankly is a fair reflection of my mental state.
And whether I'm married to Mon Geek will affect what we're likely to have? Umm, bollocks. I don't think for a moment that my having a pretty dress and some new finger bling is going to bring forth a rush of XY (or XX) sperm, which last time I checked was how baby gender gets decided. And if it did, well, to be honest, I'd worry. I'd worry badly.
About my dry cleaning bill.
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
it's listening in
I am concerned. Apparently the baby I am currently gestating is now developed enough to hear sounds. The boy and I were looking forward to this point; the point where we could talk to our offspring and know that somewhere, deep within the bodily darkness, a tiny human no bigger than a pear would hear what we had to say...
That, of course, was before we realised just how much crap we talk.
You listen to yourself a bit more when you realise that someone is doing a spot of in utero eavesdropping. And when you listen to yourself, talking to your boyfriend, you hear conversations about:
- farting
- petty annoyances of the working day
- cake
- working men's club singers
- why Mon Geek will never, ever be allowed to have hair again (past mullet)
- what you'd cook if you were on Come Dine With Me
- threats to sell my pants on eBay for revealing Mon Geek as an ex-mullet
And more. Can our child be allowed to hear this stuff, liberally sprinkled with expletives ("WANK BUCKET!") and childish threats ("I'll blow my nose on your X-Men shirt")? I fear for its later conversational skills.
And what about all the other stuff? Crunching Monster Munch, heckling teative TV quiz Eggheads, snoring, attempting to imitate the morning call of a lar gibbon? Quotes from films that an embryo is way too young to watch ("I feel like a pig shat in my head")? Threats to one another concerning axes, rectal insertion and Z-list celebrities? Cries of "GO ON MY SON" while watching Man Vs. Food? Slagging off of bad '80s knitwear?
I am concerned. Maybe I live too adult a lifestyle to birth a child. Maybe my baby is already smirking at old REO Speedwagon videos, and laughing at its father's white-faced, jelly-kneed reaction when I threaten to give his phone number to Kim Kardashian. Maybe I'll have to learn to be quiet and well-behaved to an extent that would satisfy even the rigorous standards of Lady Whiteadder...
Nah. Fuck that for a game of soldiers. I'll shut up when it comes out. Till then, this is my time to be as riotously adult as I know how. Twister, anyone?
That, of course, was before we realised just how much crap we talk.
You listen to yourself a bit more when you realise that someone is doing a spot of in utero eavesdropping. And when you listen to yourself, talking to your boyfriend, you hear conversations about:
- farting
- petty annoyances of the working day
- cake
- working men's club singers
- why Mon Geek will never, ever be allowed to have hair again (past mullet)
- what you'd cook if you were on Come Dine With Me
- threats to sell my pants on eBay for revealing Mon Geek as an ex-mullet
And more. Can our child be allowed to hear this stuff, liberally sprinkled with expletives ("WANK BUCKET!") and childish threats ("I'll blow my nose on your X-Men shirt")? I fear for its later conversational skills.
And what about all the other stuff? Crunching Monster Munch, heckling teative TV quiz Eggheads, snoring, attempting to imitate the morning call of a lar gibbon? Quotes from films that an embryo is way too young to watch ("I feel like a pig shat in my head")? Threats to one another concerning axes, rectal insertion and Z-list celebrities? Cries of "GO ON MY SON" while watching Man Vs. Food? Slagging off of bad '80s knitwear?
I am concerned. Maybe I live too adult a lifestyle to birth a child. Maybe my baby is already smirking at old REO Speedwagon videos, and laughing at its father's white-faced, jelly-kneed reaction when I threaten to give his phone number to Kim Kardashian. Maybe I'll have to learn to be quiet and well-behaved to an extent that would satisfy even the rigorous standards of Lady Whiteadder...
Nah. Fuck that for a game of soldiers. I'll shut up when it comes out. Till then, this is my time to be as riotously adult as I know how. Twister, anyone?
Monday, 7 November 2011
Wars of the Roses
Most parents argue about their children even before they're born. Names are a popular cause of pre-birth rows. My own parents were so completely unable to agree on a name for their first child (not me, by the way) that they ended up exhaustedly agreeing on the only name that they could think of that neither of them hated. I was proud to have dodged this particular bullet. Mon Geek and I agreed on names with the minimum of discussion. I felt that I was entitled to feel a little smug.
No more. For this week, we realised that our child will be half-Lancashire, half-Yorkshire. It will be a Tudor rose. It will be a cross between perky buxom Lancashire lass (think Gracie Fields) and dour old Yorkshire bumface (think Fred Trueman). And this hideous realisation that we have produced a Lancashire/Yorkshire hybrid child, who will be growing up in Nottingham, has led to many, many rows.
Will our child say "barmcake" or "breadcake"? Will it aim for holidays in Blackpool or in Filey? Will it crack a superb deadpan joke, or will - No, there aren't any Yorkshire comedians. Even Boyfriend can't think of any, thus proving my natural Lancashire assumption that the Yorkshire temperament is naturally grumpy and miserable. (Boyfriend, aided by Wikipedia, has just come up with Charlie Williams, which, but he's the only one either of us can think of.)
We finally managed to compromise on bilingualism. We will teach our baby some of the great and deathless words in both our dialects. From his, words like, "maungey" and "fettle" and "How do"; from mine, ""ginnel", "skrike", "sken" and "mither". Compromise is key. My baby may end up eating haslet, but at least this way, it'll be in a barm. With black pudding.
And dripping.
No more. For this week, we realised that our child will be half-Lancashire, half-Yorkshire. It will be a Tudor rose. It will be a cross between perky buxom Lancashire lass (think Gracie Fields) and dour old Yorkshire bumface (think Fred Trueman). And this hideous realisation that we have produced a Lancashire/Yorkshire hybrid child, who will be growing up in Nottingham, has led to many, many rows.
Will our child say "barmcake" or "breadcake"? Will it aim for holidays in Blackpool or in Filey? Will it crack a superb deadpan joke, or will - No, there aren't any Yorkshire comedians. Even Boyfriend can't think of any, thus proving my natural Lancashire assumption that the Yorkshire temperament is naturally grumpy and miserable. (Boyfriend, aided by Wikipedia, has just come up with Charlie Williams, which, but he's the only one either of us can think of.)
We finally managed to compromise on bilingualism. We will teach our baby some of the great and deathless words in both our dialects. From his, words like, "maungey" and "fettle" and "How do"; from mine, ""ginnel", "skrike", "sken" and "mither". Compromise is key. My baby may end up eating haslet, but at least this way, it'll be in a barm. With black pudding.
And dripping.
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
bad to balloon?
I hesitate to do another pregnancy-related post, but I'm all womb-brained at the moment so here one is anyway. Suck it up, people.
EAT MUNG BEANS! GO TO THE GYM! DO YOUR PELVIC FLOOR EXERCISES! DO YOU WANT TO BE FAT AND INCONTINENT IN NINE MONTHS' TIME?! I SAID, DO YOU?!!
That's what pregnancy feels like. It feels like doing a fifty-mile run up Mam Tor in a blizzard while being mercilessly yelled at by a sadistic marine of a midwife. All while you're in a state of permanent and total exhaustion and hungry enough to fry up your own arse for a midnight snack.
Seriously. This is a bit of a culture shock. I thought of pregnancy as a time to relax, be easy on myself, bask in the serene glow of my expanding girth and eat more or less what I wanted (within reason). Far from it. Suddenly, my health is everyone else's business. Magazines, midwives and mothers all tell me how I should try not to put on weight, should keep away from takeaways, should exercise. To which I reply, "I commute a total of eighty miles each day on public transport, working a 50-hour week every week. I am growing another head inside me and nothing fits anyway. I deserve bangers and mash once in a while."
"Nonsense," shouts the magazine/mother/midwife in a cod-SS screech. "You vill comply, you lardy bitch."
"Leave me alone," I weep, pregnancy hormones oozing from my eyes, as I craft myself a face mask and matching hat out of pizza.
I was overweight before I was pregnant. I can't diet now and nor would I want to. I'm eating OK for the most part (apart from the pizza hat) and I've been doing the Release Your Inner Trapped Wind Pregnancy Yoga Workout. I'm not smoking, drinking or investing in a giant crack pipe. Why am I suddenly satanic just because I fancy chow mein once in a while? Hmm? I'm sensing that something's blown way out of proportion here. It could be my thighs, but then again, it could also be their thinking.
I know my body isn't my own now, but the only other person it belongs to can't speak yet. And if they could, they'd probably say, "Thanks for the pineapple, Mum. And I don't think the melted cheese has stunted my growth, really."
EAT MUNG BEANS! GO TO THE GYM! DO YOUR PELVIC FLOOR EXERCISES! DO YOU WANT TO BE FAT AND INCONTINENT IN NINE MONTHS' TIME?! I SAID, DO YOU?!!
That's what pregnancy feels like. It feels like doing a fifty-mile run up Mam Tor in a blizzard while being mercilessly yelled at by a sadistic marine of a midwife. All while you're in a state of permanent and total exhaustion and hungry enough to fry up your own arse for a midnight snack.
Seriously. This is a bit of a culture shock. I thought of pregnancy as a time to relax, be easy on myself, bask in the serene glow of my expanding girth and eat more or less what I wanted (within reason). Far from it. Suddenly, my health is everyone else's business. Magazines, midwives and mothers all tell me how I should try not to put on weight, should keep away from takeaways, should exercise. To which I reply, "I commute a total of eighty miles each day on public transport, working a 50-hour week every week. I am growing another head inside me and nothing fits anyway. I deserve bangers and mash once in a while."
"Nonsense," shouts the magazine/mother/midwife in a cod-SS screech. "You vill comply, you lardy bitch."
"Leave me alone," I weep, pregnancy hormones oozing from my eyes, as I craft myself a face mask and matching hat out of pizza.
I was overweight before I was pregnant. I can't diet now and nor would I want to. I'm eating OK for the most part (apart from the pizza hat) and I've been doing the Release Your Inner Trapped Wind Pregnancy Yoga Workout. I'm not smoking, drinking or investing in a giant crack pipe. Why am I suddenly satanic just because I fancy chow mein once in a while? Hmm? I'm sensing that something's blown way out of proportion here. It could be my thighs, but then again, it could also be their thinking.
I know my body isn't my own now, but the only other person it belongs to can't speak yet. And if they could, they'd probably say, "Thanks for the pineapple, Mum. And I don't think the melted cheese has stunted my growth, really."
Monday, 31 October 2011
madverts
Since becoming pregnant, I have taken up a new career as a sloth. I move slowly, expand rapidly and spend approximately twenty-two hours a day asleep. (Well, I would, if I had my way.) My widening arse is permanently attached to the sofa, and I have to be practically peeled out of my pyjamas when the need to go outside becomes urgent (i.e., when I am late for work).
The consequence of being glued to the sofa is an exponential increase in TV watching. With a wedge of Edam in one hand and half a pizza in the other, I alternately goggle and doze through Come Dine With Me, The Origins of Us, Supernanny US, Snog Marry Avoid and endless repeats of Jeeves and Wooster. And naturally, many of these choice televisual morsels come with Adverts, many of which are repeated over and over and over again until I am maddened to foam-mouthed rage.
So, in the spirit of sharing my pain with you, dear reader, here are five adverts that are driving me buggering mad at the moment:
5. Perle du Lait, and other yoghurty rubbish
It is yoghurt. Just yoghurt. Slightly soured milk with a flavouring mixed in. It is not a sex aid. It will not make you substantially more beautiful. It is not a secret to share with your friends. If you did, they would think you were a bit demented. Getting Martine McCutcheon to sell it doesn't make it any better than basically, Munch Bunch for grown-ups. Don't try and sell me yoghurt as a treat. Have a Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough and shut the fuck up.
4. Uniform Dating
Now, I'm not against internet dating. Some people find it a valuable way to meet a partner, getting the chance to try out interaction before having to meet people in person. Which is valuable, and believe me, I have no intention of knocking it. But dating someone purely because they're a police officer, or a nurse? You are basically wearing a big internet label that says "SHALLOW AS A PUDDLE IN A DROUGHT." Why anyone in a uniform would sign up to be loved for the clothes they wear is beyond me, although I'm betting that traffic wardens probably don't get much loving on there.
3. Mazuma Mobile
Be persuaded to sell your barely-bought smartphone by cockneys shouting euphemisms for money until you want to put your foot through the plasma screen. Only worth it if your phone is a very new model indeed, otherwise you'll be lucky to get the price of a Wham bar.
2. Anything with car insurance
I don't drive. (Well, I'm just learning now, but I have to fit my lessons in around the nervous breakdown I give my instructor every time.) I have never driven. And yet, every time I turn the television on, I'm inundated by yelling moustachios, talking meerkats cynically marketed to the lolcat generation and people singing to the tune of YMCA. I have never used a price comparison website. I have no issues with third party indemnity. Why would I? I've never driven. And yet, due to exposure, I could probably get car insurance in a hurry quicker than I could whip up a treacle sponge. It's frigging ridiculous.
1. Kindle
Remarkable less for the product than for the hugely ire-inspiring advert, the Kindle ad features a smug gadget-twat slagging off a woman for carrying an oversized handbag. She retaliates by listing all the millions of books, magazines etc she can fit in it and eventually agrees that it would be oh so much better to get a Kindle. I have no issue with Kindles. I do have an issue with know-it-all wankers telling me I'm a Luddite for carrying a modest paperback in my smallish bag. If he comes near me, I give you fair warning that I will snap his stupid Kindle into and use it to sever every vein in his testicles.
You have been warned.
The consequence of being glued to the sofa is an exponential increase in TV watching. With a wedge of Edam in one hand and half a pizza in the other, I alternately goggle and doze through Come Dine With Me, The Origins of Us, Supernanny US, Snog Marry Avoid and endless repeats of Jeeves and Wooster. And naturally, many of these choice televisual morsels come with Adverts, many of which are repeated over and over and over again until I am maddened to foam-mouthed rage.
So, in the spirit of sharing my pain with you, dear reader, here are five adverts that are driving me buggering mad at the moment:
5. Perle du Lait, and other yoghurty rubbish
It is yoghurt. Just yoghurt. Slightly soured milk with a flavouring mixed in. It is not a sex aid. It will not make you substantially more beautiful. It is not a secret to share with your friends. If you did, they would think you were a bit demented. Getting Martine McCutcheon to sell it doesn't make it any better than basically, Munch Bunch for grown-ups. Don't try and sell me yoghurt as a treat. Have a Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough and shut the fuck up.
4. Uniform Dating
Now, I'm not against internet dating. Some people find it a valuable way to meet a partner, getting the chance to try out interaction before having to meet people in person. Which is valuable, and believe me, I have no intention of knocking it. But dating someone purely because they're a police officer, or a nurse? You are basically wearing a big internet label that says "SHALLOW AS A PUDDLE IN A DROUGHT." Why anyone in a uniform would sign up to be loved for the clothes they wear is beyond me, although I'm betting that traffic wardens probably don't get much loving on there.
3. Mazuma Mobile
Be persuaded to sell your barely-bought smartphone by cockneys shouting euphemisms for money until you want to put your foot through the plasma screen. Only worth it if your phone is a very new model indeed, otherwise you'll be lucky to get the price of a Wham bar.
2. Anything with car insurance
I don't drive. (Well, I'm just learning now, but I have to fit my lessons in around the nervous breakdown I give my instructor every time.) I have never driven. And yet, every time I turn the television on, I'm inundated by yelling moustachios, talking meerkats cynically marketed to the lolcat generation and people singing to the tune of YMCA. I have never used a price comparison website. I have no issues with third party indemnity. Why would I? I've never driven. And yet, due to exposure, I could probably get car insurance in a hurry quicker than I could whip up a treacle sponge. It's frigging ridiculous.
1. Kindle
Remarkable less for the product than for the hugely ire-inspiring advert, the Kindle ad features a smug gadget-twat slagging off a woman for carrying an oversized handbag. She retaliates by listing all the millions of books, magazines etc she can fit in it and eventually agrees that it would be oh so much better to get a Kindle. I have no issue with Kindles. I do have an issue with know-it-all wankers telling me I'm a Luddite for carrying a modest paperback in my smallish bag. If he comes near me, I give you fair warning that I will snap his stupid Kindle into and use it to sever every vein in his testicles.
You have been warned.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
bump in the night
Change can be scary. There's no two ways about that. For male teenagers, change can be so frightening that they forbear even to change their mucky knock-off Calvin Klein pants for days (or weeks) on end. For me, an alleged grown-up, change is less scary than that, but still, y'know, pretty unnerving. I don't like moving house. Come to that, I don't like moving desks. So it's kind of odd that I find myself undergoing the biggest change a person can go through...
...I'm growing another head in me.
Now, the boy and I have been hoping this would happen for a while, and so it's not a total surprise that I am, in fact, pregnant. Even so, it is part amazing, part, wildly exciting and part rather scary.
I'm not scared by raising a child. Rather, I'm scared by what's happening to my wardrobe. I'm now fifteen weeks pregnant and already have a sizeable baby bump. I went into maternity clothes very early, and this is my primary irritation. Maternity clothes, unless you're able to pay Isabella Oliver prices (ie, sewn from cloth-of-gold by nuns), are almost universally ugly. Leggings feature prominently, as do horizontally striped tops - surely the last combination of garments to put on anyone who is expanding rapidly. The clothes veer between "plain and utilitarian" or "hysterically fashion-conscious". The selection for alt or goth mums consists of ugly slogan t-shirts with coy, bump-related slogans. I'm 29. My days of suiting slogan t-shirts went out years ago. In blue jeans (the only alternative to leggings) and whatever black tops I can get my hands on, my much-loved alt identity is subsumed.
Why, though? Why aren't clothes made to flatter and hug the beauty of the pregnant shape? To play up the enhanced boob and play down the bloated cankle? Instead, we are offered clothes that tent, not skim; played down versions of the latest fashions which frequently uglify the body enceinte; and slogan t-shirts and pyjamas which feel kind of undignified when you're nearly thirty, and in any case, forget that the primary aim of clothes is for the wearer to look deathlessly chic, rather than to advertise that she will be giving birth within the sixmonth.
If I had the chance to design my own maternity range, it would be full of v-neck tops, long fishtail skirts and not a single pair of fuck-ugly leggings in sight. Anyone who wants to employ me to do this, I'm available now. Go on, you'd be doing a favour for pregnant women everywhere.
...I'm growing another head in me.
Now, the boy and I have been hoping this would happen for a while, and so it's not a total surprise that I am, in fact, pregnant. Even so, it is part amazing, part, wildly exciting and part rather scary.
I'm not scared by raising a child. Rather, I'm scared by what's happening to my wardrobe. I'm now fifteen weeks pregnant and already have a sizeable baby bump. I went into maternity clothes very early, and this is my primary irritation. Maternity clothes, unless you're able to pay Isabella Oliver prices (ie, sewn from cloth-of-gold by nuns), are almost universally ugly. Leggings feature prominently, as do horizontally striped tops - surely the last combination of garments to put on anyone who is expanding rapidly. The clothes veer between "plain and utilitarian" or "hysterically fashion-conscious". The selection for alt or goth mums consists of ugly slogan t-shirts with coy, bump-related slogans. I'm 29. My days of suiting slogan t-shirts went out years ago. In blue jeans (the only alternative to leggings) and whatever black tops I can get my hands on, my much-loved alt identity is subsumed.
Why, though? Why aren't clothes made to flatter and hug the beauty of the pregnant shape? To play up the enhanced boob and play down the bloated cankle? Instead, we are offered clothes that tent, not skim; played down versions of the latest fashions which frequently uglify the body enceinte; and slogan t-shirts and pyjamas which feel kind of undignified when you're nearly thirty, and in any case, forget that the primary aim of clothes is for the wearer to look deathlessly chic, rather than to advertise that she will be giving birth within the sixmonth.
If I had the chance to design my own maternity range, it would be full of v-neck tops, long fishtail skirts and not a single pair of fuck-ugly leggings in sight. Anyone who wants to employ me to do this, I'm available now. Go on, you'd be doing a favour for pregnant women everywhere.
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