Mommy/Daughter Style, Motherhood, Style Learning Curve

We Now Interrupt the Travel Posts to Talk About Style

I thought once I got back down to my regular size that my style would pick up right where I’d left off, with everything belted and at least a few layers to switch things up and a pair of colorful heels a few times a week (not too mention the hairstyle-rotation thing I used to do semi-consciously and the frequent forays into red-lipstick-wearing territory).

***All the moms in the world are laughing now as they read this.***

It turns out that when much of your day is comprised of (literally) running around after a toddler baby (seriously, what are you supposed to call an almost-16-month-old?) and dealing with random smears of food wiped on you by grubby little hands that somehow escaped the traditional wipedown after meals, and you realize anew each morning that your stomach, while supposedly the same pants size as before, just doesn’t look the same in the clothes as before..

Well, I guess it’s not hard to see why most women do tend to change their style (sometimes drastically) after having kids.

Interesting side note: I originally thought to title this “The Struggle to Get Dressed in the Mornings is Real, Folks” because I often only succeed in getting dressed in “real clothes” when I know I’m going to be leaving the house for whatever reason. But on Tuesdays (laundry days), when I know that I likely won’t be going anywhere other than maybe a walk around the block? 

It’s the grey capri sweats and a t-shirt (both of which I slept in the night before, and probably the night before that, too) all day long, baby.

Basically, when I had a full-time job that required that I looked semiprofessional every day, it was easy (and sometimes even kind of fun) to choose outfits and coordinate accessories and switch up my makeup routine whenever I felt like things needed a little shaking up. And I totally used to kind of judge “those moms” who lived in sweatpants and complained about how hard it was to get dressed every day…

Until I was one.

And now, I TOTALLY GET IT.

But lately, I’ve tried to force myself to get ready every day, even if I’m not really “going anywhere.” I’d never really stopped wearing makeup or doing my hair every day (because that’s a habit I just do without thinking too much about it), but now I actually get dressed 90% of the time, too. Sure, sometimes I don’t get dressed until around noon (like will likely be happening today), but I do eventually make it out of the sweats.

Before, in this older post, I classified my style as “polished, simple, and classy.”

Well, the “simple” part I definitely kept.

Nowadays, most of the shirts I wear (and am buying) are slightly relaxed t-shirts and most of the bottoms I buy sit higher on the waist. I’ve basically given up on wearing heels for the foreseeable future, and I prefer to wear the least amount of layers possible (although that might change once the weather stops acting like we’re all living on Mars or something). I’ll still occasionally switch up my makeup routine or slap on an accessory, but it’s usually only on Sundays (like when these pictures were taken), and it’s usually with the intention of distracting Raven so that she’ll sit semi-quietly through the meetings.

The rest of the time, the routine is as streamlined as possible so that Raven doesn’t have too much time to get into mischief while I’m trying to figure out how to make myself look presentable.

If you would have told all this to me three years ago, I think I would have been sad for myself, and maybe a little frustrated. I might have looked at pictures of myself now and thought that I could do with some sprucing up every now and then, or that I could work on defining my waist better (oh, 26-year-old self, I don’t have a waist anymore, thankyouverymuch).

But at the same time, I think I would admire the fact that I still care enough to try, but not so much that I obsess over it anymore. I hope I would relish that I found new confidence in myself from my role as a mother, and that that confidence would mean that I no longer worried about people judging my figure based on my outfit (because I now understand that most people–or most adults my own age and older, anyway–are too wrapped up in their own troubles to notice). I know that my old self would LOVE the fact that I decided to keep my hair long after having my daughter, and she would love even more the fact that I did so because it allows me to only wash my hair every 3 days, so I really only end up having to style my hair a few times a week (because, kids or not, I’ve always hated taking the time to wash and dry and style my hair, and I’ve always tried to get away with doing it the least number of times possible in the week).

Honestly, my current almost-30-year-old self is feeling pretty darn pleased with this new, minimalistic-but-not-entirely-boring wardrobe of mine.

How has your style evolved as you’ve gotten older?

Liked this post? Then you'll probably also like...