Battle Scars

A friend posted this on Facebook this morning, and it got me thinking. If you don’t feel like reading it, it basically says that as mothers, we are our daughters’ biggest role model when it comes to weight and body image. That scares the shit out of me.

My body image is in the toilet since having a baby. In my opinion, my body image is in the toilet because my body looks horrible, so I don’t actually think I am unjustified in thinking that. But apparently, I am wrong. Look, I don’t want to make this a post about my actual body, even though I am going to talk about it. I’m not fishing for compliments, I’m not looking for editorial because I am thinnner/ heavier than you. I have issues with my post- child body, and I know a zillion women who do too. This is my struggle.

I never had weight issues. I never had body issues before having a child. I wasn’t the biggest fan of how I looked in shorts, but I think that’s just because I’m not the biggest fan of shorts. I was 108lbs before I got pregnant. I ate whatever the hell I wanted, I smoked a pack a day and went out for drinks with friends a few times a week. My stomach was flat, my ass was high. I am only kind of kidding when I say that my husband married me for my butt. It was a spectacle to behold. Now its in my socks. My (bigger) boobs make me nuts and my stomach flops over my waistband. My thighs rub together so violently that I have lost many a pair of jeans to inner thigh holes.

I joke about it, but it affects every part of my life, every day. My husband will find me in my underwear staring at myself in the mirror grabbing and pinching and squeezing parts of me that were not there before. I don’t want him to look at me, nevermind touch me. It makes me feel awful that I shy away from my own husband. He watched me give birth. He watched a baby get pushed out of my body, but I don’t think he can handle 12 extra pounds? We have had many, many conversations that begin and end with me in tears, disgusted with how my body looks, how I think he thinks my body looks. I remember throwing on a bathing suit for the beach and not thinking twice about it. Now I hem and haw for hours about which is the least hideous looking. I have sat on the sand in jeans while the rest of my group runs on the beach in their bathing suits. I am so self- conscious and afraid of judgement that I sabotage my own good time for the sake of vanity. I understand that no one is looking. I understand that I am not 25, and child or no child, I am getting older and my body has, and will continue to, change. I know that this body made and carried and delivered the most amazing child. I know that each pregnancy leaves battle scars on your body. I know that my body is strong and capable. But I don’t care. I want to be skinny again.

I’m sure you are saying “Well then, do something about it”. Which is comical. I was on Weight Watchers for a year. I lost 13lbs. I ran 3 miles every day, even in the winter. I have run four 5K races (my 5th is this Saturday). I have done Insanity. I have done kickboxing. I have done it. And I’ve done everything long enough to know that they weren’t working for me. And I have since hired a personal trainer to hopefully help me figure out what it is that does work. So, I weight train. And I do heavy cardio. And I train for my 5k. I’ve been told to ignore the scale and focus on my clothes and how I feel. And I still feel like a fat shit.

Could it be that I have Body Dysmorphia? Could it be that I am still a hot piece of ass and everyone sees it but me? Nope! I know my body fat percentage is high(er), and that I need to work at it to get back to where I was. I sit here, 12 hours from leaving for our beach vacation, almost in tears over what bathing suit I should bring that will cause the least amount of friction (literally and metaphorically). I just see these women who have 2 or 3 kids looking like they never were pregnant. And it frustrates me. I work so hard to look the way I want, and two years later, I’m still not there. Will I ever be? Will I even be satisfied if I ever do hit my old weight again? I don’t know. I just know that if I am the biggest influence on how my daughter will see herself, she is in big trouble. I would be so sad to think that she ever would judge herself the way I do. I don’t want her to gauge her self- worth based on how thin her thighs are. But apparently, I think that’s acceptable for me? Where did I go wrong? How do I fix this? How do I project the idea that who she is as a person on the inside is more important than the number on the scale? She is the most perfect thing I could ever imagine, and so I need to start being more positive about my body and my self- worth so that I don’t pass this on to her. It would break my heart to know that she doesn’t see how amazing she is. No matter what size she is.

 

Another.

 I am the mother of a two- year- old. Yes, I know, we’ve already discussed that. I am the mother of a two- year- old and only a two- year- old. Not a mother of a two- year- old and a six- month- old. Not a two- year- old and a five- year- old, not a two- year- old with one on the way. Just a two- year- old. And the questions are rolling in again. I know, I’m no spring chicken. I will be 36 this year, and yes, I know, that’s not old, but it is kind of old to talk more kids. Yes, it is. Don’t tell me it’s not. I will already be 50 when my current child graduates high school and don’t even get me started on how old I will be if and when she ever decides to get married.

Anyway, people lurrrve asking about more kids. I couldn’t believe how many people asked us right after she was born when the next one was coming. Are you kidding me? I mean, like days after returning from the hospital. And Baby was not an easy baby. She was littttttle. And she was colicky, and she had acid reflux (she projectile vomited on me several times a day until well into her seventh month), she had Pediatric Hip Dysplasia. If you don’t know what that is, look it up. It’s something they test for at the hospital, and they caught it the day we left. She was in a harness from the time she was 4 days old until she was 16 weeks old. It was heartbreaking, but she’s completely fine now. Thanks. Jeeze, off topic again. So, I am dealing the fact that I have a 5lb baby that doesn’t sleep, doesn’t keep food down, rips my boobs off each time she nursed and screamed incessantly. And some A- holes are asking about another? Child, please.

Fast forward two plus years and it’s happening again. “Are you ready for another?” “She’s being potty trained! Does that mean another one is on the horizon?” “Not drinking tonight? Pregnant?” Nope. And here’s why. For now.

Like I’ve said before, I wasn’t even sure I wanted one kid, nevermind more than that. And when our little chicken was born, it took us a while to groove. She wasn’t so fond of me, I wasn’t so sure about her, until, honestly, she was like a year old. Maybe it was my resistance to kids, maybe it was the post- partum shit, I don’t know, but it was hard, and we had a rough go of it, her and I. Now, we are the best of buddies and I surely cannot imagine life without her, blah blah. So, here’s the thing: I don’t want another baby. I want my own baby back. I want to go back two and a half years ago and relive the whole thing. I want to go back to the day before she was born, knowing that the tiny person I just made was going to be the coolest little chickadee I would ever know. I want to relive her baby days knowing that we would get through it, that I will not (inadvertently) kill her or myself. I look at those baby pictures from the first few months and it absolutely breaks my soul into pieces that I don’t remember them so much. I want to go back in time and go through all of it again knowing that we would be alright in the end. But the fog was pretty thick. Still is, kind of. So, when I see my little lady charging butt (buck?)- naked down the hallway with a towel around her head, I squeeze some Dru Hill lyrics out so I can fit this memory in.

I’m not saying there won’t be more kids. We talk about it, because like I said, I ain’t no spring chicken, and if we gon’ do it, we need to git to gittin’. But for now, I’m taking in as much as I can so that I don’t have to piece memories together with photographs. I want to remember everything. Because Lord help me, if I can’t remember one, I sure as hell won’t be able to remember two. Not at my age…

Noggin Food

Something just recently occurred to me.

I am a mother.

I am someone’s mother.

That is INSANE.

My mother is a mother. My grandmothers were mothers, my frumpy friends who had kids right out of college (and frighteningly, now have middle school- aged children) are mothers. But me? Maybe not so much. I’m just this young hot chick with a kid! Ha. That’s hysterical. I wasn’t even sure I wanted kids, and I sure as hell knew I didn’t want them early on. I enjoyed the freedom of my 20s; traveling when and where I wanted (when I could afford it), moving when I got sick of my apartment, dating the wrong people and staying out until the bars told us to leave.
I got married at 31, and being in New York, that was considered young. Some of my friends didn’t get married until their 40s, some not at all. Anyway, getting married did nothing to change my life, other than I had this person living in my apartment. And I wore a ring. I still traveled (with him and alone), I still maintained my social life with my friends, went to work everyday, and I pretty much carried on as usual. I was hardly going to become a housewife. I never understood how getting married justifies not having a job.
Fast forward to summer of 2010, when two lines showed up on a stick. And although I wasn’t surprised, per se, it was certainly a shock. Adios cocktails with girlfriends. Adios apartment in the city. Adios freedom. And even as my belly grew, I still hadn’t grasped that the thing moving around in my stomach was an actual person. It was still almost a novelty to me. And 43 weeks later in April 2011, when she was born, I still didn’t get it. During the time I was on maternity leave, the company I worked for went belly up. And suddenly, not only was I a mother, but I was a stay- at- home mother.  And shit got real. I was now a NJ- living, CRV – driving, three- size- bigger- pants wearing, stay- at- home parent.

WHAT THE HELL?

Anyway, I have this little person that came out of my body. And I was a little confused. Did this make me a mother? I can tell you, in all honesty, that for a good while, I didn’t really even love her. Doesn’t that sound incredibly shitty? I know! I know! It felt pretty shitty too. Thankfully, I have talked to other mothers about that, and I find out that I am not alone. Now I can’t even find words to describe the ferocity with which I love this girl, but then it was a little different. I realize now that I was in pretty serious denial of a pretty serious case of post- partum depression. Anyway, as I am sure you know, it’s a really crazy thing, having a baby. You find out you’re pregnant, it grows in your person (weird and alien in itself), and then you push it out (or cut out, whatever the case may be), and then your body (and brain) is all fucked up, and then they send you home with it. And you’re supposed to know what to do. When we adopted our dog, the shelter came to our house to make sure that it was safe, and that we weren’t hoarders or junkies before they let us take THE DOG home, but no one came and made sure we weren’t maniacs before they sent us home with A BABY PERSON. And oh, by the way, you are supposed to feed it with your boobs (which in my case was extraordinarily painful), never put it down, and love it for the rest of your life. No pressure. But that is a story within a story. Another day, another day.

So here I find myself 2 years, 3 months and 2 weeks into this mother thing, and I am just starting to accept that the things I do are actually impacting this kid. Maybe it’s because she can talk a whole lot more now and I can understand what she needs. Maybe it’s just because she has the ability to absorb more now into her spongy little brain. Maybe it’s all of the above. It’s incredibly cute sometimes to hear her say things on her “phone” that I would say, but it’s also really frightening that I, a person who probably has no right procreating, am the one feeding her little noggin most of the time. Well, me and that effer Doc McStuffins. I’m no teacher, no rocket scientist, no genius. I’m certainly no saint, and I need to upgrade the brain- to- mouth filter because mine ain’t no good no more. I mean, we are trying to accept that we are old and we have become our parents. That all of the shit we said we were NEVER going to do we are actually doing. Or all that our parents said we couldn’t do? Oh, my kid’s totally going to do that!  Except that Goobers stuff. The peanut butter and the jelly in one jar? My mom was completely right on that one. That shit is gross.

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Why is This Shower So F^*%^$%&* Loud?

I shower in fear. Not from Norman Bates or his “mother”. I do not fear slipping and falling. I do not fear soap in my eyes. I do, however, fear the sounds of water. The deafening boom it apparently makes when the droplets hit the tub. The way the splashes must sound like gun shots. The Niagara falls sound that seems to resonate as I soap my arms and legs that inevitably wakes up my napping toddler.

I have not had a shower alone, in peace, since the summer of 2010. Before I found out I was pregnant, before I had to soap up my giant belly to move it out of the way so I could shave my legs. Before I had a tiny infant on the floor in a bouncer outside of the shower while I washed myself in record time, all the while panicking that she could somehow crawl out and drown herself. Before I left her in her crib with a talking stuffed animal and un- rippable books while I shower with the door open, listening for the inevitable sounds of her scaling the sides of the crib, bouncing out, and falling to her death.

She now comes into the shower with me. I angle the shower head down and she takes up the rest of the tub. We shut off the drain and she gets a bath while I shower. It’s a pretty good system up until now, really. She gets her bath crayons and I get to shave. We kill 45 minutes that would otherwise require an activity. And I am out of ideas for activities. God help me when winter comes.

Anyway, yeah. So yesterday, after Battle Go To Sleep was over and she finally crapped out, I went downstairs to do my workout. I was quiet. I waited the requisite 15 minutes post- workout to gauge the situation, and decided it was OK to shower (Its 2pm at this point, so I smell really lovely). And I get in the shower. And I grab the soap. And I’m washing my stomach and

MAMMMMMMMMMA!

MAMMMMMMMMMA! I’M AWAKE! WHERE ARRRRRRRRE YOUUUUU?

Shit. Really? It’s only about an hour into the nap, so I know it’s not time yet.

MAMA? TAKE A TUB?  HO-HEE TAKE A TUB? (she can’t say her name)

Oh God. It’s over. The nap is over, but I am in this shower, and I am not getting out. So I have to let her scream. And it’s only getting worse as I let it go on, but damnit, I need to wash my hair. She couldn’t have woken up while I did burpees? Because I hate those things. Or while I did the dishes? Or while I picked up toys? Nope! She had to wake up in the one moment that I had to myself without doing something that sucks. So I let her go on and on, all the while planning something to entertain her once I get out. Gabba Gabba is on! So when I get out, I just go into her room, put her in our bed, turn on the Gabba and finish drying off. It worked out surprisingly well, and although she didn’t go back to bed, she seemed to be satisfied for the moment. And for that  moment I am grateful. Because apparently, just like being in AA, this parenting thing is one day at a time. And today I will probably smell.