As a new mum to a 10 month old, I don’t get out much. In fact, myself and the hubby still haven’t had an evening out with just the two of us yet… pretty dismal right? Well I did manage to get out for an evening the other week for the V by Very Blog Awards. It was pretty much one of my first proper nights out since giving birth. I had been to a hen party back in February, but I was just coming out of a haze of post-natal depression and I didn’t really enjoy the night one bit. So, I was looking forward some well-deserved time away from the baby, even though I felt like some kind of mole who was coming out of hibernation for the first time.
The day of the awards came and as I live out in the ‘schticks’ of Bray and the event was in Dublin city, I knew it would take me at least an hour to get in there for 6.00pm. My husband doesn’t get home until 7.00pm so we had a big problem. Thankfully, he’d arranged to take a half day so we could do our baby tag-team switch over.
Phew I thought, that’s grand, sure he’ll be home by 2.00pm and I’ll be ready in plenty of time! I can even grab a nice bit of lunch, walk to the dart and be in well before 6.00pm.
Oh. How. Wrong. I was.
As I found out, getting ready once you’re a mum is a completely different animal to getting ready pre-baby and here’s just some of the reasons why.
1. The skin. Okay in my case, the pre and post pregnancy hormone changes have been pretty unkind to my skin. My acne is back with a vengeance and therefore getting my warpaint on, now takes about three hours. I kid you not. I literally need a bucket of prep time and a huge trowel to try and cover the acres of acne. Thankfully, that’s not the case for every new mum but even still, covering my newly acquired dark circles and wrinkles I’ve seemed to develop in the first year of motherhood, takes a damn sight longer than it used to!
2. The mummy tummy. I realise not every new mum is going to have a mummy-tummy and if you’ve managed to regain your pre-baby figure, then I salute you… for me, I’ve got this weird saggy skin situation on my tummy, that is not going away. Okay I’m not exactly pumping iron in the gym or doing sit ups every day either, but it I’m still trying to get exercise every day. That said, it’s a complete pain in the arse. Imagine, the saggy skin you’d see on the underarms of a 98 year old you’re there. So I’m now 'au fait' with every support pant that has ever been invented from Spanx to full-on girdles. No matter which one I go for, I end up feeling like a trussed turkey and while it might help to minimise the tum, it makes me sweat like a farm animal and I end up looking like I’m having a hot flush.
3. None of my pre-baby dresses fit me. Not one. I even found myself rummaging in the attic with my hair in a towel and makeup half done because literally every dress I tried on would not fit right. Sigh… in the end I had to go with a tried and tested black dress that was about as exciting as my social life is right now.
4. The Hair! I’ve blogged before about the tyranny of those poxy, post-pregnancy wispy hairs that just stick up on your head like horns. No amount of blow drying, ‘ghd-ing’ or hairspray will tame the fuckers either, so it was a very bad hair day.
5. Falling asleep before 11. I have to admit, I was seriously flagging by the time 11 o’clock came along. What the hell had happened to me?! I can remember in my college days going to the Freshers ball, getting in at 4.00am and getting up three hours later for lectures without a bother on me, now I couldn’t even make it to bloody midnight!
6. The feet. I was never really a massive high heel wearer. At 5’11 I’d been teased for years about being the ‘Jolly Green Giant,’ or asked ‘how was the air up there,’ and a myriad of other hilarious cracks about my height, so I didn’t wear heels all that much. That said, I do have a major penchant for pretty shoes and would wear heels on occasion. This was just the occasion to whip out my Jimmy Choo wedding shoes that hadn’t seen the light of day in yonks. But you guessed it, pregnancy has made my feet permanently bigger… yeah great. At a size 8 before pregnancy I shudder to think what size I need to shop for now!
7. Finally, leaving the house without the baby either throwing up on me, pooping on me, pulling my earrings clean out of my ears, or reefing the hair out of my head was a challenge in itself. I stupidly went over to hug him goodbye and in those few seconds he had manged to grab a huge chunk of hair and get Petit Filous on my dress. Next time I think I’ll wear a hazmat suit and be done with it!