Maternity Clothes

This is that awkward stage where I'm not really big enough to wear maternity clothes without them being baggy and silly looking, but I'm too big to wear real pants. It's not that my pants don't fit anymore, it's that having anything pushing on my tummy is extremely uncomfortable. Before, "suck it in" might have been a strategy that worked. Now, elastic waistbands rule the day. I'm even wearing dresses, which I almost never do, because they don't restrict my tummy. Who'd have thought that a person who's only the size of a fig would need so much room?

My maternity clothing plan has been to look at Goodwill and on Craigslist. I went to Goodwill last week and found one pair of nice looking black pants. I wore them out already, actually. They have a very stretchy waistband, but not that big elastic pouch thing that is on a lot of maternity pants. Maternity pants, unlike regular pants, come in S, M, L, XL, rather than numbered sizes. I wasn't sure where I fell on the continuum. After I tried on a few pairs of pants at Goodwill to determine my size, I started to look Craigslist.

Last night, I picked up an awesome deal. A garbage bag full of clothes for $40. Turns out the people have 5 kids and are moving. I'm guessing that they're way done having kids and that the mom didn't want to have to deal with the clothes now that they're moving. Total score for me.

There's several pairs of jeans, some shorts (which I probably won't wear since I'll be mostly pregnant in the winter), a pair of leggings and a skirt. There's also a whole laundry basket full of tops: some tshirts, some nicer shirts. I'm pretty well set as far as clothes go. I'm going out shopping with my mother today. The only thing I think I really need are black pants that I can wear to work... although I'll probably get to the point where I'm wearing jeans and comfy tops.

The only downside is that they seem to be *full* of detergent residue. I'm running the first load through the wash and at the end of the first cycle, I could see suds coming out during the final spin. I ran them through again with no additional detergent (I'm still using my homemade laundry detergent, which doesn't usually produce much in the way of suds) and they're still sudsing on the second go-round. It's going to be a pain to wash all of these things two or three times, but I don't want to chance allergic reactions to the laundry detergent. They'll probably be softer once I get them actually rinsed out, too.