My Milkshake Doesn't Bring All the Boys to the Yard, and my landscapers quit years ago anyway.

I’m going on a bachelorette weekend on Friday and I think I might die.

I’m going with a group of girls that may as well be family, plus one actual family member (because identical twin is about as family as it gets).  There will be seven of us including the bride-to-be, and I’m the only one with two kids.

The bachelorette herself is in her twenties, and though the rest of us are in our thirties, two are single, one is married but has no children, and two are married but have only one kid.

I’ve always defended moms of “only one” child because one child is plenty of child, and I was once a mom of “just the one,” and I was tired, overwhelmed, exhausted, unshowered, and did I mention tired?  No one is as tired as a momma of one child.  Except a momma of two children.  And I’m good with the two, thank you.  Mommas of three, I see you, I commend you, I do not envy you, and I will never have sex again if it guarantees I won’t be adding another tiny energy-sucker into my life.  Remember, the only truly safe sex is abstinence.

So I’m fully expecting to be exhausted this weekend as I stay up until well after 8:30pm, but I am really looking forward to having a fantastic time with my girls as I pretend I’m still 25 and don’t need a knee brace for patella support while I dance the night away to Nelly and Usher.  Wait, they’re probably not cool anymore.  Is it even cool to say “cool”?  I just totally blew any chance I had of being cool.  Just now.  And definitely not because I drive a minivan.

Actually, I’m hoping music is different now, because I just can’t dance to “My Milkshake Brings All the Boys to the Yard” after breastfeeding two babies.  It just seems wrong on so many levels.  Also, my yard is no longer landscaped; its glory days have passed and now its home to some rusty old lawn chairs, a busted snow-blower, and a toddler slide that just lives on its side like its had a really rough week and it just doesn’t care anymore.

So I realized I have NOTHING to wear.  I obviously can’t go out in my regular uniform of leggings and a hoodie or jeans if I’m being fancy.  We’re going to a burlesque show.  We’re going out dancing.  I’m going with girls who have boobs that still support their own weight.  I have to go shopping.

I don’t want to spend a lot of money on clothes I’ll wear one weekend and never again.  Where can I buy trashy, “clubby,” cheap clothes?  Where do all the teenage girls go?

I have passed by this one store at the mall so many times while gasping at the things the mannequins had on, wondering who would wear this stuff and being really glad I didn’t have a teenage girl.  So obviously that’s where I decided to go.

After trying on 27 items of “clothing” and basically anything I could find in a large or extra-large because I’m still perpetually on the new fad diet called “Eat Really Well All Day Long and Then Have Two Glasses of Wine and an Entire Bag of Pirate Booty Because I Am Tired/Stressed/Happy/Sad/Anxious/Wide Awake/I Deserve It Dammit - Why Am I Still Fat?”  I did grab a few mediums and then the mirror just flat out laughed at me.

I actually ended up with a twenty dollar super cute white and black sequined snakeskin skirt and the best purchase ever: shapewear undies for only 22 bucks.  I don’t remember the teeny-bopper stores carrying shapewear when I was in high school, but this 37-year-old definitely not target audience shopper really appreciated the tummy smoothing spandex to wear under the snakeskin skirt.  I’ll have to keep this store in mind next time I need strawberry lip gloss, a crop-top, or a nice girdle.

Then I came back home and remembered that I have Amazon Prime, popped a bag of Pirate Booty, and found 15 different sequin tops for under 15 bucks.  I ordered two, and they’ll be here tomorrow by 8pm.

I’ve got some funky jewelry I can wear (because I can just bump my rings down a finger, just like you put those adorable Osh Kosh overalls on the next cutest kid once the first one has gotten too big to wear them and thank god, my pierced ear-holes are still the same size), and though I finally bit the stiletto bullet and donated most of my sky-high heels, some things are sacred.  I still have my Michael Kors black platform silver stiletto sandals.

Children change you, but you’re always still you.  Hold on to what makes you you, even if it lives in a tupperware bin in the basement indefinitely.  You never know when those favorite heels will get to come out an play one more time.​

And if I’m going to die this weekend, I’m doing it in killer shoes.