Frumperella & the New Black Dress

This one is for the mommy’s. For you ladies holding it down. The jobs, the weight loss, the food prep, the yoga, the heavy lifting, the poopy diapers. The child-rearing from the home or from the road. For you holding down the marriages and the happy husbands while making dinner, making the beds, doing the laundry and doing your hair. The Mommy’s rocking their career while rocking their babies… This is for you.

I’m sitting on the exam table again. Oh this table. This table that I have this love-hate relationship with. This table that comes with pain and purpose. I feel the paper crinkle under my butt and I offer up a little thanks that there are pantalones happily on my bum for this visit. (For a girl who makes her life choices based on if she has to show up wearing pants or not, the gratitude makes me laugh a little.) My doctor walks in and offers the biggest hug. I love and adore this woman. She pulls up her chair and gives me the results to a recent test. All is great and I breath a sigh of relief. God is good! Then it happens. She looks me dead in the eye and asks how I am. It’s the kind of how are you that you can’t lie to. You can’t give it the same canned response you offer to most of the world on any given day… Though I give it a valiant effort. I say a confident “I’m ok!” with the best “no, really, I am ok” smile I can offer…

Then I feel it.

SHIT.

My eyeholes well up and before I could blink away the tears, I feel them streaming down my cheeks. She looks at me and smiles and offers me the tissue box. I tell her I have no idea why I am crying (still trying to keep the “I’ve got it under control” gig going). Then she says “Ok, what’s going on?” I can’t smile my way out of this… I take a deep breath and I blurt out the truth… “My husband said I needed to start wearing lipstick!” 

Rewind to the night before.

I had put our little guy to sleep and was cuddled on the couch with Hubbz, talking and catching up on our day. He did one of his pauses when he is thinking thoughtfully about something and he started to twist his beard. When Hubbs is beard twisting two things happen. One, it’s super hot. Two, he is waist deep in some serious thought. I watched him for a minute until he turned and faced me and said he needed to talk to me. He then, in the sweetest, gentlest, most loving way possible dropped a bomb on my cabeza “Babe, I think you should start wearing lipstick again.”

I stared at him.

Billy Madison piped up and started talking in my head, “I see your lips moving, but I can’t make out the words.”

Start. Wearing. Lipstick. Again.

The words began to mesh together to make a complete sentence.

I think you should start wearing lipstick again.

I sat there motionless staring at him and then I felt my expression soften and my eyes get super surprised. OH. MY. GOD. THIS IS IT! THIS IS THE MOMENT I GET TO MEET ASHTON KUTCHER BECAUSE I AM TOTALLY GETTING PUNKED RIGHT NOW!!! I looked over my shoulder at the front door, half waiting for Ashton Kutcher to open it all swagtastic and be like “Ahhhh!!! You just got punked!” I sat there until it became kinda uncomfortable and realized Ashton wasn’t busting through the door. The room was silent and I turned to look back at Hubbz who was sitting there looking back at me, now kind of wide-eyed, because no words had come out of my mouth for entirely too long.

I felt a lump forming in my throat but I managed to ask him what he meant- clearly trying to buy time to formulate the best excuse known to mankind as to why I had let myself become frumptastic. He tried to explain what he meant but I was already a mess of uncontrollable tears. Completely mortified at the conversation, I mumbled something about putting forth more effort to wear lipstick.

I laid in bed that night, wide awake and unable to sleep. My mortification slowly transformed into anger. I mulled over the things I really wanted to say to him but didn’t… Wear lipstick? I don’t even have time to shave my legs most days and you want me to wear lipstick? Is this a joke? When should I wear lipstick? When I am feeding our baby at 2am or when I collapse on the couch at 8pm? Should I wear lipstick while I am meal prepping so I can try and lose this baby weight or when I am trying to cram in workouts between child rearing and having a career? Should I wear it when I am making our protein shakes in the morning or when I am folding laundry at night? I went on and on in my head for longer than I care to admit. I may or may not have placed a little-too-large 1 a.m. Sephora order because, well, if he wants me to wear lipstick… Oh I will wear lipstick! And while I am at it, treat myself to some makeup! And I might as well buy a new perfume too! Ahem… Not one of my Wifey-of-the-Year moments, I know.

Fast forward back to the exam table. “How am I supposed to wear lipstick when I am Frumperella!? My clothes don’t fit but I can’t even begin to find the time to workout on the regular because work, baby, life, wash, rinse, repeat! And let’s just be super honest, it’s hard enough remembering to eat let alone eat healthy!” My doctor looked me dead in the eye and said “MMM MMM Oh girl! Go buy yourself a new black dress.” I looked at her dumbfounded. A dress? She said “Honey, why do you keep trying to fit into your old black dress? It’s not for you to wear right now. Don’t get rid of it. Save it and put it in the back of your closet. You will get back there and wear it again, but right now, embrace this role and go buy yourself a new black dress. For our men, when we wear lipstick, earrings, and look like the put together women they married they know we are thriving. They get worried when they see us not our usual self. Don’t stress yourself out trying to fit into the old black dress. For the time being, get a new one.” I took a deep breath. I let that wisdom sink in. The most perfect advice for my unsettled heart. I felt the stress start to melt away a little.

Hubbz wasn’t saying he wanted some glamified Diva raising his baby, he just wanted to make sure his cute, funky wifey was still there and thriving in her new roles. I got so wrapped up in learning how to navigate this new role of Wifey meets Career Mommy that I kinda gave up on taking care of me. I became obsessed with keeping it all together (or at least appearing to!) I became afraid of doing it wrong because then what would people say!? Newsflash… A) People are going to say things regardless of what you do and B) Most people are too worried about what others are going to say about them, that they aren’t even paying attention to you!

I got home from work that night and I didn’t change into sweatpants and an oversized hoodie per usual. Instead, I picked out my cutest yoga pants and a fitted tee. It was a little snugariffic but like the stress, the fat will melt away too- it just takes a little more time. I pulled out my MAC Train Case that holds all my makeup (that really did have a little too much dust on it for my liking). I picked out the prettiest subtle nude liner, lipstick and gloss combo and finished the look with a spritz of my favorite perfume. It wasn’t a special occasion, it was a random Monday night, and I had a very special Hubbz that I still want to impress.

As I stood in the kitchen that night sautéing veggies, I watched Hubbz feed our baby boy in his highchair. He looked at me and gave me a smile and told me I looked pretty darn cute. I took a deep breath knowing that it’s not always going to be perfect but with a little bit of effort and some lipstick it can be our version of perfect. I guess sometimes you just need to hang up the old idea of how it all should be in the back of the closet- or if the time is right, get rid of it completely- and start creating the new version of you to fit into that new (slightly curvier for the moment) black dress.

P.S. It’s better late than never, I suppose. I am a little behind on the blogging but I hope you enjoyed this #TBT from two months ago. Massimo was four months old and I was newly back in the swing of things getting back to work, phasing out the breast feeding and trying to figure out how to successfully be Wifey and Career Mommy. Let’s not pretend that I have it figured out yet, but we’re getting there and enjoying the journey! #praise