Appeared Jan. 6, 2008





Some think of joy as the sound of a baby’s laughter or the look of wonder on a child’s face on Christmas morning.

On my planet, joy is removing the belt from your pants after a hard day’s work and realizing I accidentally put on the belt of my 14-year-old daughter that morning— and it fit!

Not only that, but I wore it all day and had no trouble breathing or walking down stairs. I didn’t even have to unbuckle it after wolfing down a lunch of Lean Cuisine, Diet Coke and six peanut-butter, chocolate-chip cookies.

I trembled at the realization that I existed, even for one day, in the belt of a size 1.

Since I began losing weight a year ago, I have joked with my daughter Shannon that we soon would be wearing each other’s clothes. It’s every mother’s dream — not only to be the same size as her daughter, but to have her clothes deemed stylish enough to meet a teen’s standards.

But with me still a size 10, it seemed an unattainable dream, an unreachable star, a preposterous, unachievable utopia. More unrealizable, I thought, than my dream of living on an island populated only by Orlando Bloom and trees that drip chocolate.

Now it’s closer than I thought possible. Sharing a belt was only the beginning.

Soon the joyous day dawned when Shannon hollered: “Mom! I don’t have anything to wear under this shirt and it’s too low cut.”

I realized the size-medium black tank I wear under low-cut tops would fit her without falling off. Heart racing, I grabbed the shirt and handed it to her. Trying to sound casual, I said, “Here. Try this.”

I waited, breath held, until she emerged from her room wearing the tank beneath her top.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said.

Tears sprung to my eyes. Without realizing it, my baby had just made her mother’s millennium. She had borrowed my clothes.

Never mind the top is so tight on me it rides up above the muffin-top created by my gut when the waist of my pants is too snug. Never mind she was wearing it under another top so the fit didn’t have to be the best.

She was still dressed in my clothes for the very first time.

It was a moment. No one can take it from me.

Still, it may be a while before Shannon and I achieve maximum clothes-swappage.

A few months back, when I reached a size reasonable enough, I followed Shannon into the junior’s department to look at some hip-looking blouses.

“Mo-o-o-om,” Shannon said, rolling her eyes. “You can’t shop here.” (She also advised me later that absolutely no one uses the word “hip” anymore, but that’s a subject for another day).

“Why not?” I asked. “It’s not like I’m planning to wear micro-minis or belly shirts. I just thought some of these tops were cute. I promise to stay age-appropriate.”

“But someone I know might see you here,” she said, in a tone suggesting I had somehow morphed into Forrest Gump. “Besides, what if I like the same top? We can’t have the same top.” There was now a hint of desperation in her voice.

“I promise to give you first choice,” I said. “If you like it, I promise I won’t buy it.”

She was partially mollified.

I added: “And I won’t shop in the junior department until you’ve gone to another store.”

Seeming to accept this shift in our relationship — her new lot in life — she moved among the clothing racks while I moseyed across the aisle to look at the jewelry.

I sighed.

Just across the aisle lay my hopes for the future. But I’m patient. I can wait.

If I lay off those post-lunch cookies, I might one day get to wrestle Shannon for the last pair of size-nothing, hip-hugging jeans on the sale rack.

A mom can only dream.