Shopping with the Barbies

First and foremost, for those of you following along at home I have updated the babies website and am now pretty caught up with "growing pains" stories. Now, on to the real reason for this post. For over a week I have been alluding to the fact that I have some shopping stories for you. Some of these details have been on the baby's site, but I've added to them so you may have to pick through or just read the whole thing. I'm going to break this into three posts because some of the stories are kind of long.

We will start with my first DISASTROUS trip. It happened last Saturday, no not that one... the one before. That day will forever be remembered as the day that I realized that just because I am pregnant, my body image issues have not flown as far out the window as I would have hoped.

That morning, while looking at wedding invitations, my father in law (FIL from now on to save typing) mentioned to me that he would like me to stand up in his wedding. This was new to me, because I thought that I would be the kid wrangler during the wedding, which I was perfectly content with. However, he had decided that he wanted me to stand up with their 5 other bridesmaids (another story for another day) because he had added a groomsmen and wanted things to be symmetrical.

Seeing as how my SIL, her husband, and Jake were all standing up in the wedding I felt bad telling him no so I just agreed. I figured if nothing else it would be an excuse for me to buy a cute maternity dress. After he asked me he also mentioned that the girls were planning on going and looking at dresses that afternoon and would also like to know if I was free.

Let me preface this by saying, I HATE to shop. H-A-T-E HATE!! I am a go in, get what I need and get the hell out kind of shopper. So when he asked me all I could think of was find and excuse, find an excuse. Unfortunately I didn't have one. I was meeting my friend Katie for lunch at noon but after that I really wasn't doing anything besides sitting at home watching movies. Can I use that as an excuse??

Begrudgingly I told him I was free and proceeded to ask Karen (the fiance) how long this little shopping trip was going to last. Her answer, oh just a couple of hours. We don't want to be gone too long. So, I figured two or three hours, I can do two or three hours right? So, after lunch I went back to Keith's house to meet with Karen and three of her four girls and begin the dress shopping.

Luckily I like these people. They are all really nice and really sweet so I didn't figure that a few hours with them was any big deal. Plus, they seemed to have a plan. There was a store that they wanted to go to called D.E.B. that had all different sizes of dresses. Unfortunately when we all got in the car that plan seemed to fly out the window. D.E.B. is in a mall close to us but their idea was to go to the mall farthest away and then hit the one in the middle and finally the one closest to us.

You can see where this is going can't you. Stop it... Stop laughing at me. Do you want me to continue? Then pull yourself together, get up off the floor and stop that cackling!!

By this point I was already high jacked so I figured I should at least add another hour to my time. We entered the first mall through Van Maur and immediately they were sidetracked by the clearance shoe room. Did I mention to you that I don't shop?? Okay, just checking. I own 5 pairs of shoes. TOTAL. One black, one brown, one black pair of sandals, one brown pair of sandals and a pair of tennis shoes. Until we went on vacation, I owned 3 pairs of shoes, two of which I've owned for probably 3 years. (No, that is not a joke.)

Once I finally got them free of the shoe room we made it into the actual mall. Unfortunately between Van Maur and our actual destination there were no fewer than two shoe stores at least one of which we had to enter because after all we were going to need shoes for this dress that no one owned yet and we didn't even know what looked like.

By the time we made it to Younkers to look at ACTUAL dresses we had been in the mall for over an hour. So we get there and make it to the sale racks. They decide that they dresses in women's are too "matronly" and so over to the junior section we go. Their selection was not great and all the dresses that these girls liked would NOT have looked good on my SIL or me.

Finally we decided to head to another mall and look for dresses at Dillards. Of course before we left I had to buy an ice cream cone because I am only so strong and they, of course, had to look at one more shoe store, or was it two. (These girls really have a problem.)

Once we arrived at Dillards they all headed straight for the sale racks in the juniors department. Knowing that NOTHING there was going to fit me and that they had yet to listen to me when I told them that no, your SIL nor I will NOT feel comfortable in a dress that barely covers our ass and is tight throughout the waist, I just sat on the floor and let them look.

Now when we started, I was told that we were just going to pick a color and "style" of dress and then everyone was on their own. I figured this way I could wait until next month and then get a cute little maternity dress. However, some time during the day that plan went terribly awry. They found all of these little cocktail dresses that were similar in style but different colors and decided that they just had to try them on. We could all get different colors and wouldn't that be fun?

Let me just say, once again for the record, that it is a good thing that I like these people. The oldest is a size 0, the next a size 3 and the third might have been pushing... gasp... a size 6!! My SIL and I... we are NOT size 0's. Every dress they tried on was tight in the waist showing off their flat stomachs and adorably cute figures. So consequently, every time they came out of those dressing rooms in those cute little barbie dresses I just wanted to cry. First of all, I remember a time when I would have fit into them and looked good, and second of all, I knew that time is NOT going to be in two months.

Finally one of the girls tried on a baby doll type dress that was black and very cute. Now that would not look bad on me when I got bigger nor would it look bad on Molly. HOWEVER, it was not on sale, and one of the girls was not all that keen on black so we pressed on. Over an hour later we emerged from Dillards, still bridesmaid dressless.

Finally we headed toward the third mall. This is the mall that contains the store that we had originally set out to look at and this is the mall where they finally picked this dress. Now this is a cute dress, and it will look good on my sister-in-law, who is not a size 0 and also on these girls who are toothpicks. In fact I'm pretty sure it will look good on anyone who is not, oh shall we say PREGNANT!!

See the problem with this dress is that it is fitted down to about an inch above the belly button. I am already starting to show, and it is not all staying below my belly button. After watching these girls try on smalls and mediums I was a little intimidated and not feeling really all that great about my growing waist line. I put on a Large and it fit, but that's all. It fit just right. In two months.... who knows. So, I ended up buying a 1X and praying that it will still fit me. I need to look at the receipt and see what the return policy is on those dresses and then try it on right before the time I can return it to make sure it still fits.

Luckily Karen used to alter wedding dresses, so she can take in the boob area which I'm sad to say I DO NOT fill out and probably will have no hope of ever filling out... in this life time. Finally we left D.E.B. dresses in hand. When we pulled out of the parking lot it was 7:10. We started this great shopping adventure at 2:00. You do the math!!

As we pulled out on to the main street Karen says, "There is this shoe store on the way home that we could stop at....." All I have to say is it's a good thing those girls said no. Things might have gotten ugly!!