Second Trimester Fashion Limbo

OK, let's be completely honest, I haven't been satisfied with my body probably ever, though I realize now that no one is harder on themselves when it comes to their body than a young woman, so at some point – likely around the time that I wore a size 8 and all my skinny jeans didn't have to come equipped with some sort of Lycra – I should have been happy with my body. In hindsight, that at least gives me a measurable goal to get back to in the war on weight loss. A war in which I win some battles and lose some.

For example, while prepping for my week-long trip to Santorini, Greece, I have my usual ‘winning/losing’ routine: lose the customary 5-10 pre-vacation pounds. Then, as is also customary, gain it all back gorging on strong wines and rich food while gone. (Apparently the Mediterranean diet doesn’t work when wine becomes a main dish.)

Once I return, after being stateside for a few short weeks, one very determined swimmer calls one of my unsuspecting eggs home, just as I was tipping the scale at my highest weight yet. The shock and elation of finding out I was pregnant is quickly followed by the dread of what the scale and my body will look like in the coming weeks and months. I pray for morning sickness. It comes, but only in the form of mild to moderate nausea – like being hungover all the time. I can’t eat much and when I do all I want is salad, fruit and eggs. I lose a few pounds, but more importantly maintain what I have so that at 13 weeks I’m still fitting fashionably into most of my clothes. Then comes week 14. My clothes are no longer fashionable. My pants button, but with a stuffed sausage-like quality I’ve been able to avoid all my life. (Throughout the war, I’ve always managed to maintain a fairly slender core.) I take an early leap into the maternity section for a few holiday dresses, but only end up looking twice as far along as I actually am. To me, it’s just a testament to how big I’ve gotten and how quickly. Accentuating the over-sized tummy that I’m not yet proudly owning. I’ve hit second trimester fashion limbo. Not fitting well into my pre-pregnancy clothes, but not quite ready for maternity wear. 

I decide maybe I can keep things steady or even generate a minor weight reversal, so after the holidays I get back into the gym only to get a little ahead of myself and end up in the doctor’s office. Nothing serious, but I’ve been restricted (by Rick) from stepping foot onto another treadmill. I sneak in quick 20-minute core workouts when Rick’s not around, but, inevitably, on the morning of the start of my 18^th week, I find the button of my pants coming up about an inch and a half short. Whoops! Now, I’m where no woman should be: unable to fit her clothes, but without any maternity clothes on hand! I somehow make it through the day with leggings and a recently purchased over-sized sweater.

But the much appreciated outcome of reaching the pinnacle of the second trimester limbo is that it’s time to go shopping! That’s when I make the next majorly important discovery: maternity clothes are extremely trendy these days. I feel like I’m going to have to upgrade my post-pregnancy closet in order to maintain the benchmark I’ve set in maternity clothes. Plus, now I’m able to “own the bump”. Not that I have a choice. I’m 20 weeks in and it seems my belly is getting rounder by the day. And I couldn’t be happier.

The Myth of the Long Distance Relationship

The topic of long distance relationships (LDR) has been brought to my attention a couple of ways in the past few weeks and this last time I couldn't help but imagine Rick and me in that type of situation.  For a little background, the first mention of LDR was in a briefly interesting, but ultimately useless article featured on a search engine home page that I won't do the injustice of mentioning (Yahoo!*ahem).  Sponsored by one dating website or another the article told stories of unconventional yet seemingly successful relationship pairings.  One LDR was being practiced by a couple living across country from each other, but instead of saying they do their best to deal with it they actually claimed it was a choice they made that is best for their relationship.  Really? So you love someone so much that you marry them then decide it's best if you don't live in the same time zone?  The next example was of a psuedo-LDR in which the husband's obsessive cleaning habits made it impossible for him to live with his wife who was a bit messy, so he rented an apartment not far from her condo and dropped in every evening.  OK, as you can see the article went down hill from there.  That only solidified my belief that good LDR's are a myth made up by spouses who like to cheat in their hometown and they only end in disaster.

Then a much more plausible article came along courtesy of my new favorite magazine The Nest which I started receiving after our wedding thanks to my registration on TheKnot.com. In this article an actual psychologist (take note Yahoo! - ahem I mean nameless search engine) talked about a couple who found themselves faced with a tough decision not long after marrying.  The husband had his dream job in their town of residence, while the wife was offered a dream job opportunity in another state. It sounds innocent enough, but what does one do? If one person gives up what they perceive as their of-the-moment dream they could be permanently scorned. But is it selfish for both to pursue career aspirations while leaving their dream marriage waiting in the wings? In the end, they decided to do the latter, but on the advice of the psychologist spoke on the phone everyday - even if just to share those day-to-day tidbits that we typically ignore when shared in person, made frequent visits, weren't afraid of Skype-sex, and constantly reminded themselves that it was a temporary situation until they could figure something better. And there's the key: remembering that it's temporary.  Eventually, one's job may not seem like such a dream if it keeps you from the one you love...

Having seen firsthand the consequences an LDR can have on a marriage when my mom had the option of losing her job or moving with it from Chicago to St. Louis, I am adamently against LDR. But this 'hatred' wasn't just developed from the marriage standpoint alone. If you've ever read this blog you know that of my 10 aunts and uncles - and upteen cousins - on my mother's side not even a handful still live in the Chicago area. Same goes for my brother and sister. Neither live within a 4 hours drive of me.  Sometimes it's like not having family at all. From the moment I knew I loved Rick and Chicago I knew I would never take a job out of state, which is saying a lot considering I work for a global company that's in over100 countries worldwide.  The opportunities could be endless, but I walk around work with blinders on never really opening myself up to the possibility of a job not in Chicago. 

Personally, Rick and I can't even split up for the holidays.  Let alone for an extended period of time.  Rick once drove - after a Christmas Eve party with his family that went until wee hours and after dropping me off at the airport for a 6am flight - to my parent's house on Christmas day so he could be there by time I woke up that afternoon.  Thanksgiving before last Rick was called in to work at the last minute leaving me to drive my grandmother to St. Louis by myself and spend the holiday without him.  On the drive there I developed stress-induced shingles and a month later he proposed.  Clearly, we have no intention - or even the option - of being apart. And I guess that's fine. We'll live out our dreams side-by-side.

Happy Holidays from the Ramirez Family!

Rick and I got a nice little break this holiday season with my parents coming into town and his family having their usual Christmas Eve party. It was an easy split with my family's traditional Christmas Day party. No missed flights, no last minute calls from work, or no forlorn phone calls to one or the other's family hundreds of miles away. The usual suspects were absent. "Usual suspects" being overwhelmingly represented by my immediate family. Sister, brother, niece, nephew...we know the drill. The recentness of the wedding which brought a bunch of my family out of the woodwork makes the absentee pill a little easier to swallow.  Rick's family has outgrown any of each other's houses, so this year they utilized an old bar belonging to a family friend.  This is the same abandoned bar where Rick celebrated his Bachelor party.  When he told me the guys were concerned that the strippers wouldn't come inside the place I was sure that having the Christmas party there was out of the question.  I mean this bar hadn't been occupied - or even kept up - for years.  But after weeks of clean up and the decorating expertise of a family friend, it was surprisingly clean and festive. In all it was a really great time, although Christmas day was made quite difficult by the Christmas Eve party.

I've come to build an interesting relationship with Rick's oldest sister and her husband.  I'm actually becoming more and more aware of the relationships that I have with Rick's siblings as individuals.  With such a large crew it's hard to realize how you really interact with each person singularly.  Rick's oldest sister and her husband are the kind of people that we can stay up all night with just talking and drinking.  Not doing anything special; just sitting around the table, sipping good tequila, and talking about life.  Clearly all that talking got away from us because it was after 5am when we finally looked at the clock. With my parents coming to our house that morning to open gifts I knew we were in for a rough one. Rick was lucky enough to get a second wind once he got home and walked the dog at which time he insisted we open a few presents. We were two presents in when he started to fall asleep sitting up. By that time it was easily 6:30am.  My parents did us the justice of not showing up until around 11am, but we still were rather rough for the wear.  Opened presents then back to bed.  We weren't ourselves at my Grandmother's house, but it was probably better that we couldn't have any of my Dad's (knock-you-on-your-you-know-what) egg nog.  As usual  my family brought back many great memories and made even more.

Looking forward to the all the great things this New Year will bring.  On the menu so far: a real budget that should have us back in the market for a house before the next decade (yay!), a lot of Cancer killing, maybe a 'Cancer-cation', preparations for my Golden Birthday, babytalk (from everyone besides us), and much, much more to come!

Anything you can do...I can do

You know how when you're trying to prove a point and you end up getting yourself into something you can't handle, but you're so committed to getting the point across that none of that matters anymore? I have this thing about family. As you know ever since Rick and I got together I've been in awe of the tightness of his family. Considering that it's pretty much tradition in my family that once you move out of the house, you move out of the state and are rarely heard from again; I seriously envy the fact that all of Rick's family lives within about a 7 mile radius of each other and they gather at the drop of a hat. Same for all of his friends, only even closer, with several generations living on the same block or - even better - in the same 3-flat. I want to cry real tears (of joy) when my parents are able to make it in for Thanksgiving. How sad is that? It didn't use to be like that. We were all very close before my Grandfather passed away. Back then my parents still lived here and times were much richer - both figuratively and literally - so it was easy for people to fly in or to fly people in for holidays. With money tight our family ties have loosened. It shouldn't be that way. It should be the very opposite.

A Hispanic family of 6 could be living in a one-bedroom apartment and they would still gladly welcome a long-lost Aunt from Mexico with her three kids to move in for an indefinite amount of time. It would be nothing to them. To my family, we could be broke, damn near on the streets, and no one would come home. We would just keep struggling. I want that to change.

My niece is having trouble in school...well in general. I've tried to be there for her long-distance (she's about 400 miles away), but it's just not working. It's a loaded tale, but the simple fact is that she hasn't grown up in anywhere near the ideal environment for a child and now she's taken on the type of defensive, negative attitude that her environment demands. I want to show her a different life. I want to show her that this is not how things have to be. I want to bring her back to Chicago for the school year. She would have to live with me...and Rick in my 1 bed/1 bath condo. This isn't the Ritz...she'd be condemned to an air mattress for the time being. This would technically be punishment, so I'm not going to feel bad about that. But note, I said "the school year" this would require me taking custody of her to get her enrolled in classes. Obviously, this elicits strong pauses when I first run it by Rick, my mom, and friends. So I ask Rick, what would you do? Or better yet, would you do this? He has to admit that if he had to he would. It's in their blood. It's time my family valued real family values. Am I crazy? Is a 26-year-old taking guardianship of her 15-year-old niece completely insane?

The Cultural Fascination

I am both terribly intrigued and infatuated with the hispanic culture. The language, the music, the art, the entire state-of-mind. Most of my friends would taunt that I've only become so entirely enveloped with these feelings since my heart was enveloped by Rick. But that's not true. After I saw Mi Vida Loca back in 8th grade I took on a wardrobe of dego tees, baggy pants, and anything with an Adidas logo on it. I became known for my dark lipstick, though thank God I didn't shave off and redraw my eyebrows. Sad Girl was scrawled across every notebook I owned in high school. And it seems that the hispanic cultured was just as attracted to me. I managed to make good friends out of all of the Hispanic women that I worked with at the car dealership where I worked throughout some of high school and most of college. Maybe it was because they were the closest thing to another black female in the building, but I connected with them. Years later they're still my friends. In college this obsession was slated if only for a bit. By senior year I had reconnected with a few of my Mexicanas from the dealership and had started frequenting Mexican clubs. That's where I met Rick so I guess it was all for the best.

Here I am still, if not more, disgustingly consumed with a culture that is not my own. The more I learn, the more I discover, the more I am entrenched. It is not entirely unhealthy though because I don't fantasize about being a Latina. To them, I am the different one and I like that. I just wish I was the different one that spoke their language *smirk* or cooked their food or better understood their family dynamics. So I bought a Mexican cookbook the other day. Nothing too intimidating, as it boasts only 100 of the recipes core to the Mexican food culture. I've also convinced my friend to take Spanish classes with me because I don't care how many vocab words she can recite she doesn't remember any more than I do from high school Spanish class. It's a good start. That is, if a 10-year in the making fixation can be considered a "start".