dressing gown joy

so where to begin?! it is nearly a month since my last blog due to easter holidays and work and normal life logistics meaning i only get near a computer to do a sainsburys on-line or try to plan my friend’s hen weekend. all other time is being consumed by the chicks in the nest, feeding on my regurgitated life and draining me of all energy, making one of the highlights of my day the moment when i justify putting on my turquoise dressing gown. scoff not. this dressing gown is an important part of my life. i spotted it in john lewis when i was heavily pregnant with #2; it is big and fluffy and when i first gleefully put it on and looked in the mirror i genuinely almost passed out in horror. granted, i was huge with 9lbs of baby and a lot of “support” (cake) weight; however it wasn’t my size that had floored me; it was the witnessing in a stalled, framed moment of mirror hell, my passing from newly married youngie to middle aged coronation street extra. i looked rough; i looked like i should be “avving a FAG”. frankly this was baby #2 and i was 34 so nothing huge had changed, but I think I’d managed to preserve a faux self-image that had the life wrung out of it in that moment. i nearly marched the offending item back to john lewis but realised it wasn’t really the dressing gown’s fault; i had changed. i had moved into a different stage and really needed to know how to address it mentally rather than swapping the dressing gown for some sort of gossamer lacy affair. this being said, i’ve never been a gossamer lacy lady anyway; but i guess I liked to imagine I looked sort of “beach house at the hamptons” laid back; think meg ryan in men’s shirts or a vest top with baggy pj bottoms; think gwynnie in almost anything she wears when her hair is up in a bun, think, well, i can’t think of anyone famous that looks good in a big fluffy dressing gown (not actual fluff; you know, those big sort of fleecy but somehow also furry ones). whilst I wasn’t under any illusion that I looked like meg ryan or gwynnie, i did feel I was fleetingly nodding in that sort of direction. rather than style-less middle-aged fatty. i felt for my husband; how had this happened without his mentioning of it? what a kind kind man.

so the dressing gown stayed, the baby birthed and the joyous joy of 10pm to 2am endless crying started and lasted for 14 weeks really. and i genuinely think the only thing that got me through it was the dressing gown. #2 was born in january in edinburgh and getting out of bed was instantly pain on three fronts; sleep deprivation, anxiety of how long it would be before i was back in bed, and cold. and the moment that dressing gown engulfed me in its hugeness everything got a lot better! it seems to have instant thermal warmth and i would wrap it around me, around #2, walk around with her in it, lie it on top of us on the sofa, engulf her in it and bring her back to bed, beat my husband over the head with it tightly rolled up, that sort of thing. and even now, on the rare occasion the girls do wake the first thing I do is wrap myself in it so that i don’t pass on any irritation to them; well none about being chilly anyway. and i have some lasting mental images of adam wearing it, slightly short on the arm and leg and him, sleep deprived and desperate lying on the soft in front of trans-world sport.

it also works well on one of the now rare hungover mornings; wrapped in that and lying on the sofa I can doze quite successfully through milkshake or cbeebies. And as I’ve said, the point in the evening when the dressing gown goes on is still a moment of joy and really signifies the jobs are done, dinner is made and I’m ready for some tv and wine and easy chat with adam.
i know some people feel you shouldn’t dress down in front of your partner, that making the effort is a big part of marriage and I’m certainly not saying they’re wrong. but adam and I have always been keen to “dress down” and when we stay at peoples houses I find it quite hard to remain in jeans all evening and sometimes pretend they got wet at bathtime and I had to put on pjs.

so this is probably a very boring blog; it being all about my dressing gown. I feel like I’m new at this writing lark all over again so i’ll sign off for now and attempt to write something vaguely relevant soon…