While my first week post-partum was spent taking it easy (to the best of my ability given my “get it done” personality). By the second week I was ready and almost needing to get out of the house. The opportunity presented itself very soon with an invitation to dinner with my husband’s parents and siblings. Leaving the house for the first time to socialize can be a bit intimidating after one has just had a baby but at eight days post partum, I was feeling really good. I have a very small transitional wardrobe from after my son’s birth. One of the pieces I acquired was a very inexpensive semi-dressy top that basically flows from the bust line and is embellished with silver metallic thread at the neck line. It hid my small, or rather, nicely shrunk post-partum pudge quite well. The top, combined with my maternity skinny jeans and a pair of ballet flats completed my first “going out” outfit. The week progressed into Christmas Eve Day which included Christmas Eve Mass whereby I donned a black pre-pregnancy skirt with my belly band (the skirt only zipped halfway). Upon discovering that the Christmas outfit that I had purchased for our daughter months before she was born did not fit, I made an emergency trip to the consignment shop. As luck would have it, I found a perfect Christmas dress complete with hat and shoes. Arriving “late” for Mass (we should have gotten there more than fifteen minutes early apparently), we found the church packed. Amazingly, and most likely thanks to our two very cute children, we were ushered to a front pew. After Christmas Eve Mass we had our Christmas celebration with my husband’s side of the family. We arrived home just in time to get our son to sleep (after some home-made hot chocolate and peppermint bark). While my husband was reading our son stories, I was nursing our daughter and between nursing sessions, getting things ready for Christmas morning: arranging the presents (which involved running up and down the stairs … something I was not supposed to be doing… oops!) under the tree and filling stockings …
(To be continued…)