My Sweatpants Do Not Define Me

I'm having a crisis of mommy proportions, involving some of my absolute best friends.

These best friends of mine live in my clothes drawers, are super comfy and soft and make me a very, very happy mommy.

These best friends are also not people.

Sad? Quite possibly. But I have not encountered something of animal, vegetable or mineral makeup that covers me in comfort and makes me feel so delightfully cozy and serene. Nothing compares to their support, and their willingness to be there whenever I need them. They don't judge me, they don't mock me, and I am always at ease with them.

These best friends are...

MY SWEATPANTS.

These five or six pairs of cottony goodness are the only item of clothing that I want to wear lately. I pull them on and I am finally able to breathe and live life without the distraction of the annoyance of a stiff waistband cutting into the tender skin of my abdomen. Even my old best friends, the jeans, can't compare with how I feel when I am in my "sweats." Now my jeans are just an irritating reminder of my expanding waistline (even when they are wonderfully supplemented with the miracle fabric we know as lycra) and I find myself not being able to spend an entire day wearing them. They are stiff and unyielding, forcing me to wiggle and adjust constantly, especially in the vain effort to avoid showing half of my buttcrack when I bend over. And although I heart lycra almost as much as I heart my sweatpants, the problem with the lycra blend jeans is that by the end of the day, they are so stretched out that the waist ends up around your thighs and it really thwarts my practice of wearing my jeans about 13 times between washes to avoid the ultra too tightness of them when they are fresh out of the wash.

I don't like having to lie down, suck in my gut and use pliers to pull up my fly people. It's not a pretty sight and it's not comfortable. Trust me.

"What's the problem then?" you might say. It sounds like a deliciously perfect relationship, and I don't even have to give blow jobs on occasion to keep them happy. And yes, you are right. The relationship is pristine and unwavering. But I am beginning to feel a little bit of animosity towards these friends of mine, because I feel like they are luring me into the dark side. More and more I wear these sweats out in public and forgo the task of picking out fashionable clothing. I don't want to be "that mom" that never bothers to get dressed anymore. But I find myself in a downward spiral of elastic-waisted obsession and it might just bring me down folks.

I have already abandoned showering every day. I have given up on putting on makeup most mornings. And to avoid wearing a thong anymore, I have just quit wearing underwear altogether. I cannot go down this road. It would officially be the end. No longer "young, fashionable" mommy, now "haggard no one ever looks at me or talks to me unless they need something diapered, cooked or cleaned and I don't even care" mommy.

I need an intervention people. I need someone to tell me that it is NOT OK to forget all about all those lovely other fabrics, styles and cuts of pants that would make me look startlingly like I DID NOT just crawl out of bed. The next thing I know I am going to be wearing sweatpants not just to the bank and grocery store, but to the movies and out to dinner. Ah, the sweet bliss it would be to have those ever yielding sweats on to allow my gut to hang out after a large dinner and four or five glasses of wine...

NO, NO, NO!

PLEASE, somebody stop the madness. If you love me, even if you like me even marginally, you will give me the support I need in this very difficult time and make sure that sweatpants are not the last type of clothing I will ever don over my legs.

And if you are a mommy like me who is having the same problem, let's band together, because there is strength in numbers. We can beat this affliction.

We'll do it together.