Underwire Anyone?

There is nothing like a three day weekend, is there? Except perhaps, a four day weekend. And being Canadian, I am quite familiar with the latter. I miss those babies.

You'd start the work week with the satisfying knowledge that in four days, the weekend would be upon you. It would rain of course, because Canadians have somehow offended God, but still, FOUR DAYS. And then, we'd go back to work, with the blinding sun on our faces, knowing that in just ninety six hours, we'd be back on the couch watching the lightning with beer in hand. Statutory holidays are manna from heaven.

Right. OUR weekend. Mundane. Run of the mill. P-E-D-E-S-T-R-I-A-N. We didn't do much of anything. And it was awesome.

We woke up Friday morning, both of us slightly uneasy because we felt the need to do something. Anything.

Identify.

Organize.

Accomplish.

Naw. Sod that. Sleep.

All four kids were home and it wasn't long before the noise level in the house increased to deafening. Long weekend or not, the tribe needed to be fed. Strange phenomena lately: I've morphed into a domestic goddess and weirder still is the fact that these days, I'm happiest in the kitchen whipping up a little something for the family. Somewhere, my grammie is smiling.

In other news, I had a fitting this weekend for my wedding dress. Two words:

Oh. Shit.

It was too big and not in a nip here, a tuck there kind of way. It was TWO sizes too large. My friend who is altering it didn't say much. She just grabbed fistfuls of material, pinned and sucked a lot of air through her teeth. Listen, I am thrilled about the weight loss (28 lbs) but completely panicked. I'm not even sure that I like the style anymore. It just doesn't strike me the same way that it did when I bought it. Did I mention that the bridal shop has a fabulous "no return, no exchange" policy? Oh yes. So, we either figure out a way to alter it or I'm out shopping for another one, which is right up there with having a hockey stick shoved up my nose on a scale of painful things to do.

Since I am not right in the head of late, I attempted to acquire a new bathing suit this weekend. Now one would think that after the last swimming tog fiasco a few weeks back, I'd find some other way to punish myself like flogging or listening Dubya's State of the Union. But alas, no. Not only did I rummage through rack after rack, trying to locate a suit with underwire (BECAUSE SOME OF US BREASTFED OUR CHILDREN AND CANNOT AFFORD SILICONE, DAMNIT!) but I further compounded the headache by bringing Olivia with me.

And she thought it was just bloody hysterical to hide in the center of those round racks, which would have been fine if she had napped or quietly observed the shopping habits of others. But this is my daughter that we are talking about and she hasn't met a piece of bad behaviour that she hasn't worn like a comfortable old shirt. So instead of being normal, she crawled inside the rack and stayed quiet until someone came near. Then she would stick a disembodied hand or foot out which succeeded in scaring the tar out of some of my fellow shoppers. One of these days, I'm going to have to follow through with my threats and beat her like a filthy rug. She did have one shining moment in the dressing room, though.

I had probably tried on fifteen bikinis with no luck. As I was maneuvering into a cute brown number Olivia, who had been uncharacteristically mute, piped up and said, "That doesn't look good, Mama." And right then, I realized that it didn't matter what style I tried on, they were all going to look like crap. I am simply not bikini material yet.

"You're right, Liv." And with that, the self-imposed torture ended.

Later that night, I was sharing a bit of the bikini blunder with Dallas. He shook his head and firmly stated that he liked me just like this, no more, no less. Of course, he'd had a few cocktails and one could make the argument that he had put the beer goggles on but I think he was sincere. Truth is, I'm kind of liking this new body, too. And I haven't had a drink in WEEKS.