Who's Body Is This? | Heir to Blair

Look, ma! No undereye circles! aka CoverGirl Lash Perfection

4 Oct posted by heirtoblair

Despite what some may think, I’m not a weirdo that holes away in a basement selling Avon & listening to Christmas music in August.

Okay, scratch that. I totally listen to Christmas music in August.

I have a job that I love as it challenges me & puts me in front of clients on the daily. Which is wonderful, because I love people. But having to look my best every day? oh, do I often fail. I was most worried before returning to work after my son – I had 40 extra pounds on my frame & no clothes that fit. I was losing hair like a husky & had this weird thing going on where my feet sweat a lot. (new motherhood = totally glamorous) But after three months of maternity leave, we still had a mortgage to be paid, so I bought a few new pairs of slacks, slipped my stinky feet back into my pumps, & tried desperately to still feel confident & pretty in my job.

I realized quickly that the weight would take awhile to melt off. But I could brighten my face up in just a few minutes with my old trusty friends, the blush stick & mascara wand. So I covered the dark circles under my eyes that appeared sometime during the 3am feeding & dusted a little bronzer across my cheeks to help me look among the living. I am not a huge make-up enthusiast, but surely, I entered my new stage of life as a working mother with a little more confidence each day until I was comfortable with my clients once more.

CoverGirl & BlogHer wanted to make sure I was staying on top of my game almost two years into the gig of being a working momma, so they sent me the new CoverGirl Lash Perfection mascara to try out in a brown-black shade.

Oh, my. It is very pretty on. I never really believed that mascara could “lengthen” lashes until this one & I didn’t even have to dig out a toothpick to take out clumps! (kidding! I’m too clumsy to put sharp objects near my eyes.) It held up beautifully, even though the tears of a therapy session. Also, this may have been the first mascara I have tried where I didn’t look like a raccoon by 5pm. Thank you, Lash Perfection, for not smudging under my eyes. Love you, mean it!

[Read more...]

HeirtoBlair500x150 v41 Look, ma! No undereye circles! aka CoverGirl Lash Perfection

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Filed Under: Give Aways!, Sponsored, Stuff I Love, Who's body is this?, Working Mom Series

Broken mess.

12 Sep posted by heirtoblair

The water falls warm & I wonder if I am broken.

I sit down on the tiles, leaning back against the cold sides, but I’m staring at the belly, so stretched & soft from child-bearing. The child-bearing that led me to this place so many times, both physcially & emotionally, for the past three years. I close my eyes against it’s constant reminder of miracles & pain & the sacrificial love of motherhood. I sit up cross-legged & spread my hands through the running water, tracing the rivers they make with my palms & I wonder if I will ever leave the floor.

The floor where I cried over my lost baby. Where I ripped out my heart over the baby I birthed. Blood & tears, both escaping me. Where I escape & pray to find answers to the part of my brain that does not seem to click the way it should, the part that wraps silently around my entire life until I back into a corner & let the water fall, warm & steady. I am a constant mess; ripped & broken & pieced back together so many times that I wonder if my flaws show to the outside world.

I wonder how I feel both renewed & trapped behind the white curtain, relaxing to the rhythmic fall of the water while I place my head in my hands, raggedly running fingers through my hair as I fight for hope, for relief, for feeling that it will all be okay.

A soft knock on the door, a patter of small feet wrapped in cotton as the boy flings back the curtain with a joy & exuberance I wish for in myself. Relief floods my heart, hope reaches up to my eyes. His impish smile stretches past his cheeks into my heart & I nod over his blonde head to my husband that yes, I am okay.

____________________

p.s. i wrote this two weeks ago. i’m doing better now.

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Filed Under: All about BA, Depression, Finding Balance, Oversharing Extraordinaire, Postpartum Depression, the uphill battle, Who's body is this?

Yeah, I’m not pregnant.

28 Jul posted by heirtoblair

dress1 Yeah, Im not pregnant. Not even a little bit.

Which is why a part of me died inside today when a lady walked up to me at a work luncheon, rubbed my tummy & said, “Oh, you’re…!!” Mortified & beat red, I said, “Oh, no!! No, of course not!”

I expected her to pull back & shrink away in defeat.

Until she said, “No? Really??”

THEN A HOLE IN THE FLOOR OPENED UP & SWALLOWED ME.

(oh, wait. that didn’t happen. i just wish it had.)

Except I DO look knocked up today. Frickin’ 1950′s style dresses with twirl skirts. I quit you.

77 Comments
Filed Under: All about BA, FAIL, Fatass, Stupid People, Who's body is this?

Motherhood is a celebration of one-handed victories.

29 Jun posted by heirtoblair

A few weekends ago, we took off for the ocean in celebration of Father’s Day. After a full morning of sand & sunshine, we packed our tired boy & his sand trucks into the car & headed west towards home. Before pulling out of Wilmington, we swung into a gas station & it was like a BEACON FROM HEAVEN – a Starbucks on the same corner.

My man knows to hand over the debit card when we’re in a two-mile radius of that green sign.

Plus, I had to pee & I figured I’d be less likely to get some undiscovered disease from a Starbucks bathroom.

“Hey, do you mind taking Harrison with you?” he asks as he selects the gas grade. I’m all, sigh-here-we-go-motherhood, but I unstrap the toddler & carry him across the 5,000-degree parking lot. The air-conditioning blast in the coffee shop deliciously slaps us right across the face as I hurry to the bathroom, silently praising myself for all the months of dedicated Kegal exercises. Thank God, a clean toilet. Thank God, seat protectors so I don’t have to cramp a quad hovering over disease.

Wait. Where am I going to put the kid? He’s not wearing shoes & while I would kill for her abs, there’s no way in hell I’m letting my toddler mimic ol’ Brit-Brit. I could throw in the towel but I seriously have to pee. So I shimmy out of my pants & undies one-handed with a toddler on the hip, doing a weird thing where I have to lift him with my left arm off my hip & pull quickly with my right arm & then my pants are around my ankles & I kind of penguin-waddle to the toilet. Where my bare ass stands while I pull out a seat protector & manage to not drop the kid while pry it apart. (I should have done the seat protector first.) Then I turn & sit with the toddler on my lap & OH MY GOD, THIS IS THE BEST PEE EVER. I may have sighed with pure delight. Harrison’s sitting on my bare lap looking at me like, “Lady, I always knew you weren’t right in the head.”

I keep my left arm clamped over him with my right arm pulling toilet paper & then there’s this moment where I’m pretty sure we’re going to topple over onto the tile floor but I manage to get my pants from my ankles back up to my hips, flush the toilet with my foot, & then wash my hands one at a time by transferring kid from left to right. Pull out a paper towel, open up the door, Kobe Bryant that shit all the way to the trashcan.

VICTORY IS MINE.

I head back to the car, iced coffees in one hand, toddler in the other & Nate’s like, “Babe, I’m so sorry. I completely forgot you were going to the bathroom.” & I’m all, “Thanks for that one-handed pee” while I hand him the coffee with the right & strap in the toddler with the left.

BECAUSE I AM SUPERMOM, HEAR ME ROAR.

You know how moms always say that they’d “give their right arm” for babies to stay little/innocent/clean/polite/joyful? The good news is that you can totally cash in that extremity. Because momma, you’ve got life covered with only one hand.

55 Comments
Filed Under: BA is effing crazy, I wish parenting came with a manual, Toddlers eat your brains, Who's body is this?

Thank God beauty is on the inside, because I’ve got oatmeal on my crotch.

23 Jun posted by heirtoblair

Twice this past week I’ve been asked if I recently had a baby.

Twice I’ve been told that I look “really effing tired.”

oy.

It all started when I decided to treat myself to a pedicure. It was one of those days where I was like, “OH MY GOD, I COULD EAT AN ENTIRE CINNABON” from stress, but I decided to grab a diet lemonade & get some pampering instead. I slipped off my heels & slid into the big leather chair as she began to work on my (very pitiful) feet. Somewhere between the bubbles & the feet rubbing & the chair massaging, I fell asleep. Straight-up conked out with mouth wide open, potential drooling & probably snoring.

read the rest…

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Filed Under: Adult Club, All about BA, Finding Balance, Life in General, Oversharing Extraordinaire, Things I didn't understand until I birthed a child, Things that aren't perfect despite my best efforts, Who's body is this?