June 2, 2009

Swimsuit Shopping Never Really Gets Better

One would think, that working out pretty much non-stop for about eight months would make swimsuit shopping easier. However, nothing is easy when you have two little girls who come along for the adventure. Nothing is easy when you're a woman and your eyes are trained to see flaws before all else.

I've spent the last couple months pining after a swimsuit I spotted in the Eddie Bauer catalog. A halterkini with an apron back on it; it's exactly what I wanted. The price was stopping me though until I found it in another store on sale.

The choices in swimwear, if you're looking for a blousey one-piece that covers you from your knees to your neck seem to be endless in my area. I happen to live in a county where the average shopper is a heck of a lot older than I am. Also, people in my county like to eat a lot, and not things like organic fruit. Think bologna, pot pie, mashed potatoes, that kind of stuff. There are also ash trays in the dressing rooms (not used anymore-thank God, but still).

I loaded up on different sizes of only three different swimsuits because there was pretty much nothing to choose from, and went off to find a dressing room with the girls.

I don't know what it is about Lil C, but as soon as we get into a try-on room, she's Lil C amplified. She was busy making faces in the mirror, pushing her sister off the bench and discussing her own body parts quite loudly. I could already hear the old lady in the dressing room beside me clicking her tongue and sighing with disgust when Lil C called her sister a "poopyhead" which seems to be her new favorite. Fortunately, the child lives for pretzels and "flushies" (that would be slushies) at the mall so once I threatened her with living without her treat, she stopped discussing her butt so much.

Instead the girls decided to discuss mine.

Big I was clearly opposed to anything exposing any amount of stomach area skin and Lil C wanted to see as much of it as possible. I tuned the two of them out and made my own decision. I put the swimsuit on hold and moved on to the next store.

Here's some good marketing advice for Victoria Secret: if you want to sell swimsuits in the store in the area where I live, you should try stocking more than one tankini. I've had suits from VS in the past and loved them. When I saw they were carrying some of them in stores, I was ecstatic, but I wasn't after I hit the dressing room.

There were bikinis that were tried on as an ab experiment-to see if that P90X Ab Ripper workout is really all it's cracked up to be and if the months of medicine ball and incline board combinations really did their thing. The bikini's weren't bad if I could zone out the faded stretch marks from carrying Big I and Lil C on my stomach. There was one bikini, marked down to $25 and it was very tempting; but then I started thinking that I would probably be wearing it at the pool this summer beside some 17 year old who got breast implants for her birthday and decided the cost wasn't worth the eventual humiliation.

I moved onto the one tankini VS sells in my local store and the top was awesome. I was contemplating buying the suit when I turned around to get a glimpse at the back and saw the word "hitched" with a little pink heart on my butt. I hadn't noticed that when I grabbed the bottoms out on the floor of the store.

Big I got a look on her face that said, "Oh no you don't" and I ripped that thing off as fast as I could. We have rules in this house about wearing words on our butts. We just don't do it. We discuss our butts enough in this house; we don't need more words drawing attention to them. And yes, if you've ever been wearing pants or shorts that declare your butt is "juicy" or "pink," it's me laughing at you from behind. Sorry, but that stuff is ridiculous.

We moved on to the final store where I tried on a Kenneth Cole swimsuit that I liked the looks of last year but felt like I couldn't pull it off. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could totally pull it off this year. Lil C voted for getting that one, but Big I convinced me that purple was not my friend and to go back to the first store, so I did.

I'm now the owner of this halterkini with two bottoms: the one Lil C liked that shows more skin and some tribal skirted bottom thing that was Big I approved. Apparently she doesn't want even a hint of a "cheek" embarrassing her at the pool this summer in front of her friends. She didn't say this; I can just tell.

What I've found after working out so hard this year is that even after all the hard work, it's still possible to be critical of your body. Although I certainly can't complain about not having tighter abs, I can still complain about the faded stretch marks and some extra skin post pregnancy. Although there's no denying my leg muscles are better than they've ever been, there's this little band of skin right above where the bottoms stop that could definitely use some tightening.

I've got a week to be pool ready and two weeks to be beach ready; and frankly, at this point, after all the workouts and dojo time in recent months, it's time to say enough. If someone is going to concentrate on that area I think needs tightening, then they're concentrating on me way too much.

According to the girls, I look like a princess in my new swimsuit; and in case you haven't heard, post-pregnancy stretch marks are the sign of a true warrior. You heard it here first.