M.I.L.F.

No, not that kind. Not anymore. Not for awhile, at least. I'm feeling more like "Mom In a Lackadaisical Funk" these days. I think I have officially entered the awkward phase, the adolescence, if you will, of my pregnancy. With each day that passes, my clothes get smaller and smaller. If you saw me around the house, you'd think I was single-handedly campaigning to bring back the belly shirt. This, of course, was a dangerous trend to begin with, as most women seemed to think the sizeable gap left between the bottom of their short-short shirt and the top of their low-rise pants was just a convenient space to air their fat roll. What's worse, with pregnancy you don't just give up the six-pack for the cooler, but you also have these new boobs to contend with.

And they pop up overnight, too. One day, you're cruising along just fine, "La la la, I'm pregnant, hoorah, etc.," and the next day you wake up and it's like, "What the hell?" Maybe this doesn't happen to everyone. A lot of the newly pregnant women I fit at Victoria's Secret get all excited at this stage, "Gee, I didn't have anything to begin with!" they squeal delightedly, finally a B-cup. I, on the other hand, did have something to begin with, so now I just have more and no good place to keep it. At not quite 12 weeks I'm already busting, so to speak, out of my 34DDs. This doesn't bode well for trimesters two and three. Unless I plan on entering wet t-shirt contests. Baby needs a college fund, right?

So anyway, the shirts get shorter, the pants get tighter (the hour grows longer, the jokes grow poorer, and the wind taunts like laughter through the trees, etc.). And it's too soon to pull out the maternity pants just yet. With my last pregnancy I didn't enjoy this same level of nausea, so I ate the shit out of the first trimester (thank you, Runza) and gained 15 pounds in the process. This time around, I've only gained 3 or 4, so my ass fails to fill out even the smallest prego trousers. [Aside: I was relieved to read somewhere when I was pregnant with Lucas that it's the body's natural tendency to pack on the booty during pregnancy as a way of counterbalancing one's growing belly. I don't know if this little nugget is actually true, but it made me feel better when I read things like, "Many women don't notice any weight gain during the first trimester." I'm sorry, what?! Let me waddle right over there and kick your ass.] At any rate, maternity pants still sag in the butt, and regular pants give me the done-lops. I know this will change in another month or two, but for the moment I am officially just past the point of being able to suck it in. This doesn't mean I'm above trying, though. Must...exhale...soon...(and--whoooszh--if you look fast enough you may see me fly around the room backward.)

But back to the original MILF factor. I'm pretty sure it's gone, baby. Buh-bye. On indefinite hiatus with no forwarding address. And its replacement, that every-elusive "Pregnant Glow" has yet to make an appearance. In the meantime I'll have to make due with what I've got: big boobs, limp hair, unpredictable skin, the bloat, the bad clothes. It's like I'm one neon scrunchie away from 1986. Bueller?