The Seasons of a Mother’s Wardrobe

I’ve been going through the master bedroom closet, purging. Four (going on 5) kids and four bedrooms means someone has to share their closet with another, and Yena shares ours. Which isn’t a bad thing at all; it keeps us from going overboard with clothes and keeping only those pieces that we really need and actually use. One of the benefits of having a large family — as the years go on, you realize that becoming a minimalist is key. (But please don’t look at my kitchen shelves; they still need lots of work; as you probably know by now, I have an unhealthy attachment to cooking and baking accoutrements.)

I take each piece of clothing that’s hung and judge whether I’m still going to be able to wear it during the pregnancy. If not, they go on the pile to be folded and put away until I can fit into them again. Wow, it’s been years since I last did this. The last 6 years all I’ve been doing is alternating hot season and cold season clothes. Now I’m not only going through seasonal clothes. I’m also back in the process of trimestral selection: what fit in the first trimester and could possibly be worn again when I sorta get back into shape, maybe when baby’s walking; what fits now that I’m in the second trimester that’s still “normal clothing”; and then a mental list of tents and other larger types of clothing that I’ll need to borrow (from hubby ) or buy, as I transition into the last trimester.

(I’ll tell you what bugs and puzzles me. Hubby and I went to THREE different stores just a couple of weeks ago, looking for maternity underwear. Guess what? They had tops, but not bottoms! Hubby’s comment: Do they expect pregnant women to go without underwear these days? Very strange indeed. Even the salesladies couldn’t explain the oversight.)

Looking at the limited number of options before me once I was done folding the clothes that needed putting away, I had to smile… well, to be honest, smile, with tears. I remember the days of being so thin that people thought I was sick. Every party and family reunion we went to, someone would comment on how thin I was. I’m just one of those people who couldn’t seem to gain weight no matter how much I ate, and believe me, even in those days, I ate A LOT. My daughter’s the same way now, but I wish she would eat veggies and fruits just a bit more. She does, but not as much as she should.

And then we got married, and then had kids. And as the years went by, though I was still considered pretty thin by most of our peers, I steadily gained weight with each pregnancy. It bothers me, just the littlest bit, but not enough to really go on a diet or take up a consistent, rigorous exercise program. I *know* I should, for fitness’ sake if not anything else. One of these days, I promise myself to get to it

For now, I’m looking at the clothes in my part of the closet, and remembering pieces I had worn with previous pregnancies with not a tiny bit of sadness — I’ve given most of my maternity clothes away. My babies aren’t really babies anymore (which makes us quadruply excited for the new one coming). I’m not the type of person who thinks of clothes much (I hate shopping for one thing), but standing there, it hit me just how much life has changed. I might have grown in size with every child — the numbers are certainly there and there’s no denying them. But more importantly, each child that blessed me with that wondrous weight gain that comes with supporting life in the womb also blessed me with so much more… opportunites for growth, growth in holiness, in love. I may not fit into a size 4 anymore, but if my heart has grown in proportion to my clothing size, that means I’m a size 8 or 10 these days, and that’s just fine with me. Come to think of it, size 12 doesn’t even sound that bad anymore.