My thighs rub together. Even when I was thin and did 10 hours of pilates a week and could wear crop tops with confidence my thighs still touched when I walked. My thighs will always touch because my skeleton is held together with muscles and tendons in such a way that my thighs do not have a gap between them. I’m absolutely fine with that.

All-caps THIGHS run in our family, but Linc’s make a way cuter photo than mine do

But no matter how at peace I am with my thighs, the truth is when they rub together it hurts. If you don’t have that problem, it’s hard to explain just how painful and unpleasant inner thigh rub can be. SO unpleasant. Inner thigh rub is why you see women wearing jeans even when it’s 100 degrees outside. It’s why women wear ugly, unflattering shorts instead of cute skirts. It’s why I have to know BEFORE getting dressed if we’re going to be doing a lot of walking. Unplanned 5-mile stroll in inappropriate shoes? Meh. Unplanned 5-mile stroll in a dress with nothing underneath? AGONY.

You would think that because this is a fairly common problem it would be super easy to find a solution. There should be something foolproof, easy to buy,  and cheap that is sold right next to dresses and skirts at the store. I assume that isn’t the case because thigh rub is a “fat” person problem and just like plus sized clothes are harder to find, anyone whose thighs touch should similarly have to be inconvenienced to deal with it. Or maybe I just shop at the wrong stores. But I am here to SOLVE everyone’s inner thigh rub problems with a multitude of options.

In a loose order of least to most effective, I present Thigh Rub Solutions:

1. BodyGlide – This is the original stuff, the kind actual runners use for chafing. It’s…ok. But in my experience it rubs off long before I am done walking. It does work great on bras or sundress straps or other smaller body parts.

2. Monistat Soothing Care Chafing Relief Powder Gel – This is essentially BodyGlide for non-runners. It works medium well, but I still feel like I have to toss it in my purse and bring it with me in case it rubs off. It actually makes me feel thinner – I’m so carefree! My thighs don’t hurt at all! Look at me float! – so that’s a plus.

3. Assets (Fake Spanx) – These are the Target brand of official Spanx and they work about half as well as real Spanx when it comes to sucking everything in. They work well at stopping thigh rub, but since they do MORE than that they are not my favorite. They’re pretty hot and don’t have the access that Spanx do. (If you have never seen real Spanx, I will decode that for you: access = hole for peeing.) That means you have to peel them on then peel them off then peel them on again, which is unpleasant when you’re hot. ALSO, I had a pair that got a hole right in the thigh-rubbing area which meant one tiny section of my chubby thigh poked through and rubbed extra hard and it was 1000% worse than just regular thigh rub. Also, they’re the second most expensive option, right behind…

4. Spanx – If you want to look thinner, smoother and fancy, Spanx are the right choice. Spanx will suck you in and smooth you out and if you buy the long version they will stop thigh rub so well your thighs might actually stop touching all together.  If it’s 90 degrees out and you just want to wear a skirt to stay cool they are NOT the best choice. You cannot relax in Spanx. I can barely sit down in Spanx. Spanx are not breathable (despite the pee hole) and there is a pretty good chance wearing Spanx for several days in a row will give you a UTI. Save your Spanx for wedding receptions and high school reunions and don’t suffer all summer.

5. Jockey Skimmies Slipshorts – I actually have two different versions of these, the regular and the wicking. The wicking version doesn’t have seams right on the inner thigh, so they couldn’t split/cause irritation there, but I didn’t notice the seams on the regular pair either. They are the BEST solution I’ve found for thigh-rub. I wore a skirt to NYC for the New York Baby Show. We walked ALL day. It was warm. I wore Linc almost the entire time. But these were super comfortable, prevented any rubbing and didn’t give me a UTI. I only had to adjust a couple of times – mostly after going from sitting for a long time to standing – and they didn’t stretch out. They don’t suck anything in but they do smooth and make jersey fabric fall much more flatteringly (WordPress says that’s a word). I bought mine at JC Penny’s in person during a sale, so they were about $15 each, which seems like the right price point for something I’m going to wear ALL summer.

Alternative solution: Wear cute pants instead – I know this is not a real suggestion to solve the thigh rub problem in a skirt, but I really really want to tell you about these pants. The other day Evan’s young female bus driver told me I was “always dressed so nice”. Since I often get Evan off the bus in my slippers, I was a little baffled until I realized I had been wearing my new Old Navy pants almost every day. I am still not convinced they are not ridiculous looking and all my friends are lying to me, but they are wicked comfortable and nice and cool and dry quickly even if you walk into a lake to fetch your baby. I have them in black print and blue print and I’m going to buy them in plain black as well.

I assume everyone who wears skirts has their own solution to this problem; they just don’t really TALK about it. So feel free to share your miracle solutions in the comments so I can try them. In the meantime, I will be wearing my Skimmies, my possibly ridiculous pants and hanging out in the lake, where thigh rub doesn’t exist. Welcome Summer!

Non-disclosure disclosure: None of these are affiliate links, feel free to click through and buy or not buy whatever you want freely. I’m really just too lazy to bother.

Holiday weekend = I don’t even know what day it is anymore. E had Friday off but is at work today, but was home for Saturday and Sunday so we were out of the house the WHOLE time. This is the first time I have even touched my laptop. I sense that might happen a lot this summer, since our default activity is “swimming at the lake” and that means way less screen time. Not a bad thing.

Sunday:

Sleep in the morning

Sleep in the afternoon

Party all night!

Monday:

If there is water around, this child will end up in it.

Downtown New London

This is her swim pose, according to her

Tuesday:

Shouting at the neighbors

I’m hoping the baby is cute enough to make up for my crow’s feet. SHEESH.

LOUNGING

Wednesday:

So pale he’s translucent

There were like 50 of these photos on my phone. I’m guessing Caroline took them.

Freeze pop time

Thursday:

Those socks are ridiculously small

IS THIS SCHOOL YEAR OVER YET?

Boys hanging out, Caroline practicing

Friday:

Princess Caroline wears high heels AND kicks your butt

Getting his summer reading started?

That’s Caroline up in my custom wrap. We ALL love it.

Saturday:

Shoe thief makes a break for the exit

New photo opp at the aquarium

They are both fans of dads wearing babies

I can’t believe I have to pack THREE more weeks of lunches for Evan. I am so, so ready to have the kids home for the summer. I realize in a month and a half I’ll be screaming “OMG WHEN DO THEY GO BACK TO SCHOOOOL??” but right now the beautiful weather + wanting to sleep in + our new lake beach club membership = ready for summer. I just need the water to get a TINY bit warmer so Linc and I can swim/float around. Right now he’s mostly eating sand, which he enjoys on the way in but does not enjoy on the way out.

I’m already 2 days late for Linc’s 10 monthday update post, but I swear I’ll do it this week. I also have two posts with actual words almost done, so this might be a record week for me – I haven’t blogged that much in years. CAN YOU HANDLE IT, INTERNETS? Of course you can. It’s not that interesting.

Friends, meet Tiffany. She’s cool. She’s a photographer. She’s also a Navy wife who just arrived in beautiful Connecticut. Well, actually, she arrived just in time for the Endless Winter Of Snow And Despair, but somehow managed to stick it out until things improved and is now enjoying the absolutely PERFECT weather we New Englanders like to pretend we get 90% of the time. We’re very good at lying to ourselves.

Read the rest of this entry »

The themes of this week are: Front Porch and Sleeping Baby. Those are sometimes related but not always. I’ve leveled up in babywearing this week too, with MULTIPLE back wrap naps.

Sunday:

Cream Cheese Face

The same cheese face, but with less cheese

I don’t know why he looks surprised, we were at Target

Monday:

Unimpressed at the grocery store

Helping me watch for the bus

My new favorite ridiculous pants

Tuesday:

I got your nose! No wait I don’t WHAT IS THIS THING IN THE WAY??

Still unimpressed, but awake

The dog he is very impressed with

Wednesday:

Christmas jams 4 EVER

This was an entirely unneccesary elevator ride

He did that to himself

Thursday:

Waiting room zombies

Linc was sleeping so we hung out in the car while Caroline had soccer. I felt like a bum but SLEEPING BABY.

Her cheeseburger’s so bright, she’s gotta wear shades

Friday:

Chatting with mom friends on the porch is boring for babies

He was showing her the school because she’ll go there next year too

The coolness of the sleeping baby is ruined by the arm in the sunglass reflection

Saturday:

Linc is not the step-and-repeat expert Caroline is yet.

This is not a very good picture but I love it so, so much. They’re closing the FAO Schwarz in New York and I’m so excited the kids got to visit.

New York wore him OUT

I have a severe case of the End Of Year Moms and almost no motivation to do anything besides take the kids fun places and drink iced coffees. I’m fighting hard to make it to June before I start letting the kids skip to go to the beach just because it’s too hot to sit on the couch with a baby on me. We have a lot of summer fun planned and I’m afraid we won’t have time for all the un-planned fun as well. This past weekend in NYC was a good start but we have a LOT more to do.

I did not have an excellent Mother’s Day. I’m not saying that to make my family feel bad or shame anyone. I’m saying that because there’s a pretty good chance YOU didn’t have an excellent Mother’s Day either and I want you to know you’re not alone. Those perfect, smiling, happy families on Instagram and Twitter probably didn’t have flawless Mother’s Days either. They might have had a very nice day. A spectacular day. But it was not perfect – perfect is the lie. Kids – even kids big enough to understand the concept of Mother’s Day – don’t stop being kids just because it’s the second Sunday in May. Not once has saying “But it’s Mother’s Day!!” to a tantruming child solved the problem. They do not suddenly stop being tired or hungry or frustrated and pull a bouquet of flowers out from behind their back and say “Oh dear mother, I had simply forgotten! Shall I fetch you a coffee or a glass of wine?” If that is your life, Mother’s Day or not, I hate you.

The problem as I see it is that Mother’s Day is supposed to be Special and things that are supposed to be Special just lead to disappointment. That is why women become bridezillas about their One Special  Wedding Day and freak out that every single second doesn’t go according to plan. The pressure of that ONE DAY is just too much. Mother’s Day is the ONE DAY a year we are supposed to be indulged and pampered and appreciated above ALL the other days. Sleeping in and breakfast in bed and champagne brunch and a family picnic and a manicure and a relaxing nap and romantic Sunset Dinner Cruises and a thoughtful gift and a homemade card and flowers and a bottle of wine. If you family really loves you, they will do all of that. Except no, they won’t. And even if you don’t really need them to…even if you try really really hard to keep your expectations super low…even if you say “I will be happy if all I get is a card the kids made at school”…it’s hard to stare into the face of social expectations and be OK with not having a perfect day.

I actually would have had a pretty good Sunday if it had just been a Sunday. I got to lie in bed for an extra hour. My husband picked up lunch for all of us. I got to buy and plant flowers with the kids. And we finished the day by having s’mores for dinner on the newly cleaned patio. But I also did laundry and dishes and changed diapers and made decisions (ugh, DECISIONS) and dealt with tantrums and took the kids with me to run errands and bought paper towels. I really didn’t want to have to buy paper towels on Mother’s Day.

Let me tell you what I really want for Mother’s Day. I want to be a dad on a regular Sunday. I’m making generalizations here for the sake of simplicity, but in my social circle moms are almost always the default parent; the one the kids go to first for everything no matter who is closer/more available at that moment. On Mother’s Day, I want to be the dad. The fun parent. I want to say “Everyone jump in the car, we’re getting ice cream!” and not worry about if it’s too close to dinner or if we need to stop at the grocery store later to pick up stuff for school lunch the next day. The fun parent pees alone. The fun parent has time to read a book or a magazine or the back of a cereal box without being interrupted. The fun parent doesn’t always have one ear open for children’s whines or screams or cries or problems or squabbles 24 hours a day. The fun parent says “We’re out of mustard” into the fridge and, magically, mustard appears 24 hours later.

And then MAYBE on Mother’s Day all of us default parents will get a card and a bouquet and a nap not because it’s our One Special Day but because the fun parent wants to do something to acknowledge being a mom is kind of a tough job.

But since I am not a monster, I did in fact enjoy many parts of my Mother’s Day. The big kids – Caroline especially – remembered it was Mother’s Day and reminded me constantly I was supposed to be having The Best Mother’s Day Ever. There were s’mores. And now whenever we sit on the front steps for the bus we can admire the flowers we planted, together.

She said the plants needed love to grow.