Letting Yourself Go

I admit it. Before I was a mom, I totally (and silently) judged all of those women out there that stopped caring about their appearance the minute they popped their kid out. I just couldn’t comprehend how someone could not care at all about how they looked when they left the house. Didn’t they know that the rest of us could see them? What happened to the mirrors in their house?


Ha. Pre-baby me needed to be slapped across the face and kicked in a kidney. What a judgmental twit.


The day I became a mom I instantly understood.


Here’s a visual for you. This is the most recent photo of me without a baby and without being pregnant. (It also happens to feature my best friend, Alyson.)

This photo was taken on Labor Day weekend 2010. And yes, like I said, that is the most recent photo of myself without a baby/fetus attached to me somewhere.


Do you know why?


Because ninety-nine percent of the time, I look like hell and avoid cameras. Hadley looks great. Me? Not so much.


What pre-baby me didn’t know was that when you have a baby, you spend so much time feeding, diapering, wiping, pureeing, laundering, soothing, rocking, and teaching that the second you have a free block of time, it is gloriously spent doing absolutely nothing productive. Showering, putting on make-up and getting dressed everyday? That’s a solid hour and a half each day that I could spend relaxing on the couch with Dance Moms, Pinterest and a glass of Trader Joe’s wine.


I put forth as little effort as possible into myself to get through that day. It just seems selfish to spend hours every week getting all dolled up when I could be teaching HJ her ABCs or how to freakin’ say Ma-ma already.


I left the house yesterday for the first time since the 8th grade with not one stitch of make-up anywhere on my face. And I didn’t care. Granted, I knew I wouldn’t see a single person that would know me, but still, that was a huge deal in my mind. I never would have done such a thing before Hadley arrived.


So to all of you whom I judged silently in my head in the past, I apologize. And now I’ve joined your ranks.


To all of you non-moms out there judging me now, plop out a baby and then we’ll talk.