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I am all about summer. I love hot weather, pools, lakes, beaches, backyards, cold drinks, sun umbrellas, beach towels, raspberry iced tea (or lemon), sunglasses, sundresses, shorts, flip-flops, sunscreen, and especially swimsuits.
I distinctly do NOT, however, love shopping for said suit.
When I was younger (pre-children) swimsuit shopping was grand. One-piece, two-piece, tankini, bikini, string bikini, I wore them all. I had modest ones for family times and skimpy ones for boyfriend times. I wore little halter tops and short shorts over them and generally reveled in my possession of a physique as to warrant such exposure.
Those days disappeared like an icee on hot concrete the day my first child was born. I had a pretty cute maternity suit that I wore when I was 4-6 months along and learned that swimming was good exercise during preganancy. Sadly, it discolored somewhere between my first and second pregnancies, and I never wore a swimsuit while pregnant again. No matter, because I was never again pregnant during summer after my first baby; my other two were born in May. Which presented an even more frightening conundrum: did I dare bare my post-partum body in something skimpier than baggy capris and a t-shirt?
In the end, I went ahead and persevered in the quest of an, ahem, suitable suit that fit both my body and budget. Considering that my budget was wal-mart and my body was beached whale, the options were severely limited. There are, in fact, quite acceptable suits for those with non-high-school-cheerleader proportions, but they tend to cost upwards of $80. Those ladies with wal-mart budgets must choose bewteen ghastly ruffle-skirted options and plain-jane black or brown tanks. Excuse me whilst I vomit.
I did finally find a semi-athletic-style plain sky-blue suit in my price range (but not at wal-mart)that looked less-revolting than anything else; it served me well for several years when I "swam" mostly in the plastic kiddie pool in the backyard. Last year, however, having lost some weight, I decided it was time to downsize. I ended up going with a modest black speedo with blue racing stripes. It mashed my non-ample chest flat and I ended up buying some black nylon shorts to wear over it to keep my unsightly backside from view, but other than that, it worked fine. It was slightly more than wal-mart price but not by too much.
This spring, however, with my husband dangling the possibility of a honeymoon (no, we never got one to begin with) in front of me when he gets home, AND having acheived a size 6 (!) I decided it was time for some serious swimsuit consideration. I went to every single website and online store I could find, read every magazine issue which promised hundreds of fabulous suits to fit every size and budget, toured every swimsuit section of every clothing and athletic store within driving range, and ordered and sent back multiple suits from multiple online vendors.
*Side note: While I saw many an attractive two-piece, I regretfully have a rather large hernia from pregnancy that can only be remedied with non-insurance-covered surgery, so the only suits under consideration were one-pieces. Yes, yes, I know, the tankini is stylish and offers tummy coverage, but only if you don't happen to possess a fabulously long torso in addition to said hernia. So one pieces are really the only way for me to go until surgery.
It was total, abject futility. So I gave up for awhile. Then, today, after having endured the rat-race-like week from hell, I decided to have a "me day" (well, as much as one can have a "me day" during school hours with her 23-month-old tagging along) and went to the mall on a whim. I began at a large department store with literally thousands of swimsuits and spent over an hour there picking, choosing, and trying on various possibilities. Several were fairly good, but the price tags on all of them hovered near the triple-digits. No siree. If I'm going to spend a hundred dollars on a swimsuit, it better be the most fabulously empowering piece of elasticized fabric ever stiched together, and come with it's own tummy-tuck to boot.
Sigh. Time out for a cookie for Linus and a cheesecake brownie for me.
What? If everyone would just have a brownie when they wanted one, this world would be a better place. Stop depriving yourselves, ladies. Have the brownie and move on.
And move on I did, to Old Navy. I do frequent it for clothing for myself and my boys,
