Rookie Parenting: Droopy drawers

I have been a mother for over eight years now.  I have three children and have faced most situations with them, from the sad, to the happy, to the downright embarrassing.

You would think I would know better….

Today, like a fool I took the kids into a dress store and attempted to try on some clothes, with all three of them in the (very small) room.

Rookie mistake!

And I paid the price.  The only comfort being that every other woman in the changing room area must have felt better about themselves – just because they weren’t me.

I took in one playsuit, one dress, and one t-shirt….

Here is how it went.

I started to undress in a space smaller than an American fridge freezer, and was suddenly aware of the silence that was flowing from my kids.  They all sat in front of the mirror, eyes fixed on me, as I wrestled myself into a lace white dress.

Then my son, Owen, turned to his sister and said, “Have you got those marks on your stomach?” 

Molly replied “Nope, she told me about them last week, they are called stretch lines, you get them when you are really fat.”

Owen snorted, “she has got loads, she must have been huge.”

At this point, my pre-schooler stood up, arched her back, thrust out her belly and walked around the tiny space shouting “I’m a fat mumma, fat mumma.”  The size restricted of the booth bothered her clearly, so she flung back the curtain, exposing my red face and half-naked, stretch mark addled body and catwalked up and down the ailse, continuing the chant.

A woman in the opposite booth caught my eye, and most of my body, as she pulled her curtain tighter, she shot me an empathetic look.

“Get back in,” I hissed, and used several hand gestures to signify they should sit down and keep quiet.

I discarded the dress and moved on to the shirt.

“Um Mum,” said Molly, “do you think you can pull that off, y’know, at your age.”

It may be appropriate to explain I was in NEXT, not TopShop.  I’d like to think I can wear most things from NEXT, even at my age.

“She wants to be a teenager,” giggled my son, “and go back to school and wear sexy tops.”

At this point, BB, rolled up her shirt and started to strut.

“Sexy mumma, sexy old mumma,” she chanted.  

Again confined by the size of the booth she took a opporuntity to slip through the curtain again and was heard strutting down between the changing areas shouting ‘I have an old sexy mumma.’

Growing more mortified I sent the boy to fetch my girl.

I discarded the top.

Finally the jumpsuit, I was keen on this, I loved it on the hanger, I contemplated leaving it and coming back without the kids to try it on.  But I was short on time so I took the plunge and pulled it off the hanger.

It slipped through my fingers and dropped to the floor, so I bent down to retrieve it, then I heard the kids explode behind me.

“Mum, your boobs,” they guffawed, “they just go on forever,”

“Like right down to the floor”

I was in an old bra….

I managed to grab BB before she started strutting up the aisle chanting ‘droopy drawers’.  I still managed to hear muffled chuckles from the other curtained off areas.

I didn’t buy anything that day.

It serves me right for being such a fool as to ever put myself in that situation.

I have learnt my lesson.