Skinny jeans

I think every woman probably has a pair of jeans in her cupboard that she would love to fit into again. The pair that looked fabulous and fitted like a glove in uni, before the kids and the husband and the work busyness crept those extra few kilos on behind when you weren't looking.

I have seen bloggers who exhort their minions to throw away those jeans, to free themselves from the emotional baggage tied up in that well tailored, tight, blue denim. I read those posts and liked them at the time, but was not sufficiently convinced (or too lazy) to actually go through my cupboard, dig them out, and tip my hopes and dreams into the charity bin.

Because that's what those jeans were - an aspirational marker. A yardstick to measure my girth. Something to strive for. Even while I was convinced that those buttons would never meet the holes ever again, the distance that I could drag the jeans up my thighs was a more important measure to me than the number on the scales.

Then one day, today, I dragged those jeans out and put them on. And after months of schlepping the baby up and down a hill, eating non-man sized meals, and dedicated breastfeeding, I have done it. I can put those jeans on and pull them right up. I can do up the buttons, all three of them. Sure, I can't sit down in them yet, and my jubbly post baby muffin above the jeans precludes me from ever wearing them in public, but they FIT!

And I am so so glad I kept them.