The one that could use a few segues

You know why pregnant women are cranky? It’s not the hormones, it’s not the sleep deprivation, it’s not the heartburn or the aching joints or the fact that your brain has taken a holiday in the south of France leaving you to defend for yourself without one.

It’s the pants.

You’d be cranky, too, if you had to adjust your pants every. single. time you moved. Stand up – hitch up pants. Before sitting down – hitch up pants. Walk any distance greater than four steps – hitch up pants. Every half hour, your underwear have been hitched up and down by your migrating pants so many times that you have a wedgie AND they’re somewhere near your knees. AT THE SAME TIME. And it’s not just the pants, because your shirt tails have to be adjusted, too, because pregnancy shirts are so long these days. It’s more like “stand up – lift shirt tail – hitch up pants – adjust underwear – smooth out shirt tail – take two steps – repeat.”

No wonder women wear those silly-looking bib overalls for most of their pregnancies. I mean, sure they’re cute and all when you’re a perkily pregnant 24. But when you’re a lumberingly pregnant 38, you wear the damn things just to have some blessed relief from wrangling gravity for your pants all the damn day long.

***

Did you see the CanadaWrites contest on CBC? They’re calling it “the writing game for quick-witted Canadians.” Send in your original short piece in one of the following categories: songs, humour, ad, movie pitch or … wait for it … BLOG POST!

I was so excited about this until I realized just how very short 200 words is. I took a look at four or five of my favourite posts, and they were each in excess of 800 words, some of them more than 1000 words. Yikes! It takes me 200 words just to set the scene some days. Oh well. I may still enter – and tell me if you do, so I can vote for you!

***

My friend ÃœberGeek sent me a note yesterday playfully accusing me of propping up my search rank by lacing my breastfeeding post with google bait for porn searchers. I laughed him off, and then cringed ruefully this morning when I got more than five hits from this referrer: girls.go41.de/?s=girl%20breast%20photo. I didn’t want to click through and I’m not going to give them the benefit of the link. But sigh. And ick. And sigh.

***

We’ve heard a lot about bad corporate behaviour on the Interwebs lately, between pictures being stolen from Flickr and Secret Agent Josephine’s artwork being stolen, not to mention the endless proliferation of content scrapers and splogs.

This is not one of those stories.

I noticed a couple of hits from links at MommyClub.ca, so I clicked through to see what they were linking to. I was rather annoyed to find my entire post from yesterday, and when I looked around I saw that they were syndicating my feed. I was just about to write a “cease and desist” letter when I got an e-mail from one of the managing partners. She said she had approached me some time ago asking my permission to syndicate the content (which she did) and did not remember if they had my consent or not (they didn’t.) They’d had some sort of infrastructure change and somehow my feed was activated, and when she noticed it she wanted to check with me to make sure it was okay with me if they posted my feed.

I politely declined, but I have to say I was highly impressed with MommyClub.ca’s behaviour. They proactively checked with me, not once but twice, to ask my permission to publish my content. When I said no thanks, the posts in question were gone almost immediately.

The Interwebs are full of bad behaviour, but there are some good people who still behave ethically out there. I thought this one deserved some props.

Author: DaniGirl

Canadian. storyteller, photographer, mom to 3. Professional dilettante.

16 thoughts on “The one that could use a few segues”

  1. 2 solutions:

    1 – Go commando
    2 – Wear a dress

    Disclaimer: Combining both solutions might be a little chilly around the area baby will be coming out of.

  2. RE: Pants

    I’m guessing that since we’re near exactly the same age, suspenders would ring a little to “Mork from Ork” for you too?

    I used to wear a tank top under my shirt, and safety pin the waistband to it. This worked until I was at the point where I went to the potty fortyhundred times a day to squirt out three drops – but it worked. How about those elastic clips that hold flat sheets at the corners like fitted sheets?

    Also, there are these belly band things that work pretty well too – here’s one company: http://www.ingridandisabel.com/ . Good for afterward too.

    And as Kgirl says – send the part about this in, because it’s funny because it’s true. That’s the Dani I like.

    Re: Other stuff

    Maybe after another coffee…thinking about pants took a lot out of me.

  3. I can’t remember anything about the pants issue. I know people say that nature makes you forget everything in order to get you to make more babies, but is it really necessary to make me forget about the pants?

  4. I had to have different pregger pants for different stages of my pregnancy. I remember I alwasy swore I wouldn’t wear the panels, but when I got so huge that every pair of pants would fall off whenever I sat up, the panels were the only things keeping the darn things up!

  5. When I was pregnant with the Kid I lived in Florida and I wore mostly dresses–so much easier. But I guess in Ottawa you’d then have to deal with tights which would probably be just as annoying.

  6. I went from regular waist non-pregnant pants to the low-riders that were so popular for mat pants (and others) when I was pregnant 4 years ago and was constantly hitching. Finally a recent university grad who worked for me told me that falling-off-your-butt was how the pants were supposed to fit. I just couldn’t be that hip. My favourite pair of pants were some jeans that my sister had worn when she was pregnant 5 years earlier. They weren’t quite Steve Erkel high but they fit over the top of my belly and stayed up. But I hadn’t thought of hiking pants in many a year. Thanks for reminding me.

  7. THE PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hate getting dressed every morning. I hate it! Why can’t I wear my lulu lemons to work? Those are the only pants that work well when pregnant. But they’re not going to work pants, they’re work out (ha!) stay-at-home-do-errands-shop-play-with-your-child pants. Anyway…. thank GOD I’m not alone in the pants thing. I thought my body was deformed or something! The constant hiking is driving me insane.. that, and my KILLER heartburn. I cant’t stand the taste of TUMS anymore. But there is no choice. It’s dreadful! AHHH to be able to stand up and not hike the damn pants anymore!

    And why is my behind growing at the same rate as my tummy? OMG! I’m so scared to look in the mirror lately!

  8. Hated the pants. I wore suspenders, under my shirt. A bit of a pain when you need to pee, though. I’ve heard those waist band thingies are nice, for after as well. They were just getting popular when I was almost done being pg and I didn’t get one. I had a couple of skirts I loved, too, until it got too cold ’cause I hate tights almost as much as I hated mat pants.

    I have a pair of black mat sweats you can have if you like…

  9. Thanks, Dani. Again – we feel terrible that the feed got pulled in at all! Glad we checked with you, as we would never, ever intentionally publish a thing without permission. We love to promote bloggers and respect their clever content. Love reading yours. Thanks for giving me smiles and inspiration.

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