Dressing Room Fiasco

I took the boys with me to Once Upon a Child today to shop for some maternity clothes. They played with the train table while I made my choices and then I started the dreaded dressing room retreat. Little E who is STILL in the midst of potty training (and I have reason to believe will be until he starts college) immediately ran into the dressing room yelling – “I pee, I pee”. After a short side trip to the real bathroom (where upon entering I discovered that indeed he HAD peed), we headed back to the dressing room where I threatened and swore the boys to seated positions on the bench so they couldn’t open the door on me mid-changing. All modesty aside I started the inevitable, undressing my growing body and trying on too-big tops that I will soon be filling out, too short pants, too tight already pants and some ridiculous-looking parachute of some sort that sported the tag “gap maternity”. Dressing rooms are hardly a place to boost your self-esteem, but today was different… I had brought my cheering squad! The boys’ nowhere-near-quiet voices could be heard shouting remarks of, “Blue, Mommy, I like the blue one”, “You look handsome, buy that one”, “You look pretty, Mommy”, and “Wear that one home”. They were so sweet and complimentary, it actually made me blush. However no dressing room experience can be too good to be true, and soon the remarks changed to “I see your back Mommy”, “You’re wearing just your underwear”, “You have pink on your bra” and Little E’s singsong “I see Mommy’s boobies”! In an attempt to quiet the song I asked to see their belly buttons, but Mr. T pulled up his shirt and asked, “How come I don’t have boobies?” Thus a brief description of gender differences ensued, and then, “How come Daddy has boobies?” I explained that only Mommies have boobies, but that Daddy has a chest and muscles. “But it’s big here too!” he demanded pulling at his little nipples. “Well it’s just muscle…” I was getting ready to leave and wanted to finish this discussion before we exited to the customers who were no doubt overhearing our very loud yet private conversation. “What are Daddy’s boobies called?” Mr. T asked. “Pectorals. They’re called pectorals. Now shhhhhhhh!” I explained in finality as I shooed them out of the tiny, increasingly warm dressing room. The boys ran out of their prison skipping away and singing a chant of “Boobies and pectorals, boobies and pectorals!” And WHY do I need another human being to try to raise?

On a side note we returned home, and like after most outings, the boys went off to play on their own -happy to be home and getting along quite nicely. I found them sprawled out on their bellies buried in a corner playing together and couldn’t resist taking these pictures.

I DO love my boys!