Hello, Dolly!

Sorry for being MIA-- I've had a pretty good excuse.

Hello! Happy New Year, Happy Valentine’s Day, Happy Easter, etc. I realize it’s been a while and if you’re reading this, I appreciate you sticking around. In my defense, I have a decent-ish excuse as to why I’ve been MIA for the past couple of months: I’m Pregnant! Don’t do the math on it because you’ll find that this excuse really only covers the past couple of months, but I personally feel like we really need to move past that, don’t you?

I’m Being Forced to Dress Comfortably

If you, like me, prefer to wear form-fitting clothes, I’ll go ahead and warn you that those things stop fitting you VERY early on in pregnancy, even if you haven’t gained any weight. Not that I was planning on wearing my extensive corset top collection while pregnant, but by 9 weeks most of my tight skirts and pants no longer fit me. This means I’ve had to shift my focus a bit in terms of my style– I’m now shopping for loose-fitting clothes, which has been a bit of an adjustment! One thing I’ve been shopping for quite a bit are loose, wide-leg pants, which I can envision pairing with a nice, fitted top and some sandals or flats for the summer:

Clockwise, starting from top left: Y2K Brown Linen Wide Leg Pants, XL, $39; UNIQLO Easy Curved Pants, $29.90; Silvia Tcherassi Linen Wide Leg Pants, XL, $54; Sonia Rykiel Striped Pants, Size 8, $50

Another thing I’ve been thinking about now is that I truly don’t own too many comfortable, sensible shoes aside from the ones I use to exercise. I do have my pair of Nike Air Rifts which I love, but my weird little sneakers don’t always go with every outfit. I’ve been trying to venture out into the world of flats and flat(ish), casual sandals:

Clockwise, starting from top left: The Row Red Mary Jane Flats, 9.5, $148; Melissa Platform Thong Sandals (which btw look a lot like the much pricier Dries Van Noten platform thong sandals), 8, $60; Camper Mary Jane Flats, NIB, 39, $100; Michael Kors Strappy Flat Leather Sandals, 9, $72

Beige Baby Madness

Pivoting briefly to my impending motherhood, has anyone else noticed that baby stuff is largely beige adjacent nowadays? Like, I’m not exactly sure what is driving it, but it seems to me that almost everything baby-related comes in these pale, neutral, muted tones and blonde wood. Hell, even the strollers are all beige and sage green for some reason. Do babies yearn for Scandinavian design? Regardless— I’m not letting that happen. I’ve had this Pinterest mood board for the nursery going for weeks:

Some of these items, but not all: Miffy X-Large Floor light, $269; Expression Mobile, $24; Pottery Barn Convertible Crib, $1299; Babar Et Les Ballons Print, $83; Le Big Mushroom Lamp, $130; Keekaroo Peanut Changing Pad, $149

I’ve actually managed to snag a solid amount of items from my mood board— including the Kermit phone and a beautiful painting from Jane Dashley:

I also came across this adorable Big Bird lamp, but I fear I may have vintage kitsch blindness:

Do we think it’s gonna be too much with the kermit phone??

One other thing that’s been keeping me up at night is the thought of having to carry around a diaper bag. If you try to look up ‘chic diaper bag’ on Tiktok or anywhere really, you get shown these horrible $200 fake leather bags with rose gold hardware… really bleak stuff. So I was thinking about it and I was like- in theory, wouldn’t just any large bag with a bunch of pockets work? I think a lot of moms who opt to go for the ‘unconventional’ route end up using like, the Longchamp bag (eh), LL Bean Boat and Tote (cute, but not enough pockets IMO), or, if they’re rich, the Louis Vuitton Nevefull (played out). I’ve been slowly convincing myself that if I play it smart, I can buy something that will work as both a diaper bag and be a timeless, cool bag to add to my collection and carry any time in the future. I haven’t found anything I LOVE just yet, but I do have a number of options I’ve been eyeing:

Clockwise, starting from top left: Prada Nylon Tote Bag , $225; Dior Gaucho Bag, $650; Vivienne Westwood Tartan Leather Tote, $183; Prada East West Nylon Bag, $268

Can any moms weigh in on whether these are delusional choices? My only real stipulations for the bag are that it’s big, easy to clean, comfortable to carry on my shoulder, and has a few different compartments/pockets. I’ll admit that I desperately want a Gaucho bag and am trying pretty hard to manifest it working as a diaper bag.

OK, that’s all I have for now - please send any and all pregnancy and baby-related tips my way!

xoxo,

C