New Dress Code

(this was written when Brielle was 9 months old)

There's a new dress code once you become a mother. You can't wear the same things that you used to, even outfits that are normally decent. Once you have a baby, almost everything becomes scandalous. For example, normal necklines in the hands of an infant become plummeting, shirts that used to be long enough to cover your midriff, don't quite make it when there's a squirming baby in your arms, stretchy sweat pants tend to hit the floor a little too often as baby learns to walk. But the worst of all are skirts. Skirts that normally go to your knee, or even mid-calf, are suddenly showing a shocking amount of upper thigh when your baby pivots on your lap climbing up over your shoulder.

However all of those things you can still wear, it's just tricky. The one thing that you cannot, absolutely MUST NOT wear, is a wrap-a-round skirt! I learned this quite painfully on Sunday.

Now I have a few wrap-around skirts, and I've had a couple embarrassing moments in them before. Brielle will be sitting on my lap, climbing around on me, and after a moment or so I'll feel a draft, look down at my lap and see an alarming portion of thigh, that and the sight of a whole pew full of Saints carefully averting their eyes has caused quite a bit of chagrin on my part in the past. But this last Sunday was special. I had on a fake wrap-around, where the fabric is sewed on to an elastic waistband, hence there is no actual "wrapping" of the skirt. In the middle of Sacrament meeting I had to take Brielle out into the hall, in the hopes of soothing her to sleep in the darkened mother's lounge. We were seated in the center near the front so I had quite a ways to go, and Brielle didn't make it easy, climbing, twisting and whining the whole time as I juggled her, a blanket, bottle and burp cloths down the aisle and out the doors. Once in the lobby I said hi to a few more people that I knew and then continued down the hall. Only then did I look down and notice that I could see my whole left knee and lower thigh. However that wasn't all, I could see the knee and the thigh, but I could NOT see any sign of the bottom of my skirt on that side. With trepidation I set Brielle on the ground so that I could see what was going on with my skirt, and when I looked down at my lower half I saw that my whole left side, from waist to ankle was bare! Brielle had broken the stitching on the skirt and the whole front panel had fallen down and slid to the back like a long silky tail, leaving my left flank, (that's a polite term for "buttock") thigh, and leg, (in all the glory of control top pantyhose!), visible to the entire congregation seated on the left side of the chapel.

The worst part was that then I had to march right back into the chapel, holding my torn skirt together in front of me, and ask for Russell's car keys so that I could go home and change. I had hoped people might not have noticed, as moved by the spirit as I'm sure they must have been, but no luck. Once I came back, very few people would meet my eyes, and those that would talk to me kept giving me funny looks.

So that's it, from now on I'm destined for jean jumpers and other sensible, serviceable outfits. Farewell to fashion, and Hello to the Mormon Mommy Dress Code.