Giving Thanks

Years of scrubbing floors, dusting dressers and wiping poopy butts may appear thankless, but theoretically the child should appreciate it when they become a parent themselves. Until then, I'm giving thanks for the things I don't remember in my prayers as often as I should, but life wouldn't run as smoothly without them.

1. I'm thankful for the snooze button. I'm a snooze button junkie who married a snooze button junkie. Neither of us become infuriated when the other lets it run for half an hour because both of us have perpetually OD'd on "just 9 more minutes," until we race around like maniacs barely making our scheduled events by the skin of our teeth.

2. I'm thankful for chocolate. After avoiding it for months, I finally discovered some made peanut and tree nut free, and my first taste jettisoned me into the 5th stratosphere of the Andromeda Galaxy. I had removed myself from it long enough to realize the stronghold it had above me once I reunited with my long lost lover. I felt the same warm fuzzies I craved when I began falling in love, heart fluttering in anticipation along with the same relaxation and comfort I hadn't recognized since my last morphine drip.

3. I'm thankful for under eye concealer. I recently met up with some old college friends, same age as me, newly married, but child free. Standing side by side in public bathrooms, I noticed I looked about the same age as they did, except when I smiled. All the crows feet and under eye circles emerged and I transformed into "Gollum" from Lord of the Rings, frightening most small children (and some pets) within a 20 foot radius.

Since becoming a mommy, the under eye concealer and I have bonded like white on rice. How do I know this? When I run into people who see me working out sans makeup, and then the same people after I'm showered and have my "face" on, I hear the dreaded, "WOW. You look like a totally different person!" Truly, sometimes a compliment can insult more than it can express admiration.

4. I'm thankful for specialty bra shops. I haven't been able to shop for bras "off the rack" since high school days, and even then I wonder if my chest didn't honestly look like the disheveled workings of a Picasso. At the specialty bra shop, the women there get it. They always have the right cup size I need and can show me, lickety split, how to shimmy the girls into place so they sit upright and at attention, as man intended.

My bi-annual visit there last weekend proved fruitful and entertaining as usual. While adjusting me to see if the band and cup fit, the sales woman grabbed either side of the left cup material and began to judder. "You wanna give it a good shake -just like cake batter in a pan. They should fall right into place after that." Ah-ha!

No longer do they lay lopsided in their holster, and I am all the more grateful for it! That doesn't stop the twins from searching for refuge in my armpits the second I lie down in bed, however, another small reminder that these bras make big miracles happen every second of every day. As I push back at mother nature, I firmly believe this truth remains self-evident: the kind of custom fit I get at the specialty bra shop makes the neck and back aches from bra straps almost palatable.

On a more serious note...

5. I'm thankful for my Pumpkin. Two years ago, I suffered badly from a major car accident. The biggest scar remains on my right knee covering the repair from a quadricep laceration. Another scar lies across my knee cap as well.

Pumpkin sat on the potty trying to do her business one day, several months after the accident, and caught a glimpse of my recovering scars, still bright reddish-pink at that time. She asked what the markings were, so I explained, in very few and simple words, what had happened. I sat down beside her and pulled my capri sweat pants up higher so she could see them better. The scars showed the unmistakable and significant trauma that I hadn't yet grown accustomed to.

I still dreamed of myself as I was, before the accident, and had to remind myself how life changed significantly every time I woke up and saw my new version of me. The scars reminded me of pain, separation from my baby while I recovered for long weeks in the hospitals, fear that I might not live and more fear that I might not walk normally.

My sweet Pumpkin slowly traced the scars with her little baby hands, tilting her head a bit, trying to take it all in. "Mommy? They're beauuuuuutiful." she said gently.

Tears welled up in my eyes. Thank you, God, for sending me this angel I never knew I needed.

This kind of thanks transcends the typical "Thank you," of common courtesy. It also goes beyond simply expressing gratitude. In that moment, I could finally give thanks that translates into understanding the magnitude or intention behind something -a gratefulness that leads to an increase in value, a true appreciation for what I went through to know how much I was loved.

Waist Lines and Bottom Lines

First came love, then came marriage, then came the baby weight and granny panties.

Then came baby and away went cute clothes, regular showers and glancing at my reflection in the mirror. I knew I had thrown in the towel, I just didn't need to see how far down the bottomless well it had fallen.

Losing weight post baby was a catch-22, I just didn't know it yet. Now my giant mommy tummy sags downward like our national flag on a steamy, stagnant summer day. Any minuscule iota of movement only worsens the view exponentially, inducing a flap-flopping motion as though a gale force wind has made its uprising. Unfortunately, my jowls of a dog mid-section doesn't blow away with the tropical storm force, but rather remains hanging southward, clinging to the rightful owner by shreds of skin (stretch marks) so thin I can nearly see the meat of my flesh underneath.

The stretch marks themselves used to appear bright red, screaming, "Look! You just gained a ton of weight in your tummy, thighs, underarms and butt! Ha, ha!" Nowadays most of them have faded to my normal, pasty, un-sun kissed skin tone. Alright, so my tummy has never seen the light of day. Had I known the reconfiguration of my body's physique after carrying a child, I would have taken extraordinary advantage of it, flaunting my once youthful Belly Button of Olde.

Currently, the stretch marks make me feel like a refurbished antique. I could be young, I could be old; most days I desperately attempt to be hygienic with a shower and if I'm extra lucky, a shave. So what am I?! Everything hangs in the delicate balance of good lighting and coverage. I only look my rightful age so long as a T-shirt and shorts remain intact, but one inch upwards of any sleeve or cuff, and I could be mistaken for the little old lady who lives across the courtyard. Wrinkly and loose, the plots of stretched out skin age me a good 40-45 years which is, quite pathetically, also the age range of my paternal grandmother.

Just this week I caught Pumpkin sneaking a peek at the havoc run a muck on my midsection. I gathered my hair up into one of the two hairstyle options I have every day: ponytail or ponytail. When I started twisting the stretched out rubber band around it, my shirt lifted above the top of my jeans and, not surprisingly, my tummy pooched out. Pumpkin kept talking, but her eyes fixated on what she saw for a few seconds every time she started a new sentence. I asked her, knowing full well, what she spied. In her meager attempt to acknowledge, yet avoid her culpability in the "situation" going on beneath my shirt, she replied, "Nothing."

I persisted and asked if she saw my tummy. Then the floodgates flew open: "What is THAT?" She stared at my wrinkly belly. I explained what the stretch marks were and why I had them. Pumpkin grabbed my top and pushed it up past the underwire in my bra to survey the landscape only to seem utterly astonished at how they kept going and going and going...they were (and still are) everywhere!

She put her index finger in the air and looked at me like she does when she's about to do something she shouldn't. "Go ahead if you want," I conceded. Eagerly, her finger ran from top to bottom on all the stretch marks on my tummy. I asked Pumpkin what she thought about them. Her blunt response didn't startle me as much as the delivery. Confidently, as though confirming her hypothesis, Pumpkin declared: "They're like dead snakes." Sadly, I couldn't agree more.

Based on these findings, I'm officially banned from most nudist colonies 100 degrees North and South of the equator. Sweater vests have also permanently clawed their unattractive, fashionless selves into my year-round wardrobe staple list along with sweat pants and my aerodynamic, multi-faceted bras engineered by NASA's own command central. They employ the only qualified engineers in this continent with the capability to, against all odds, functionally levitate my droopy boobs above my waistline since their condemnation by gravity and motherhood.

Much to my own chagrin, I weighed the most I've ever personally recorded just before I found out I had a bun in the oven. In spite of this, I continued to gain the expected 30 pounds of pregnancy weight and checked in at my 38 week appointment topping out at 211 lb.s. My Ob/Gyn said my weight gain was, "perfect."

I'll never forget that. I sat dumbfounded on the crunchy exam table paper seriously considering pregnancy full time, Duggar-style.

When did weighing over two hundred pounds translate into perfection? Of course I fully realize the weight gain remained relative to the pregnancy, but I'd rather suffer through the labor of childbirth before asking what my doc honestly thought about my weight overall...and labor I did. For forty-seven hours.

My fail-safe for losing the postpartum baby pounds quickly fell through the cracks as well. Pumpkin had difficulty latching on and nursing because she had a tongue tie. We tried for a while, but it never went much of anywhere without frustration on both sides.

All of the weight I had earmarked to slide right off from breastfeeding not only stuck around in its tragically disproportionate location, but also migrated south permanently. And when I say "south," I don't mean Canadian geese style south where they head back north come Spring (after I became my un-pregnant self again.) I mean "south" as in the South Pole Antarctic. Even my boobs morphed into a version of an Antarctic local, the Chinstrap penguin: about 18-24 in. long (just like the twins) and similarly, also both 9 pounds each, possibly more.

Sometimes I wonder if all the worry and thought I give to my appearance doesn't masquerade as a diversion from what really matters in life. I have to prioritize myself so I can live as the best possible version of me because if I am not taken care of, there isn't much of me to give to Pumpkin. However, the amount of time I spend thinking about exercising and eating less nowadays almost seems equal to the hours I wasted stressing about how I looked before losing weight.

Stepping out of my running shoes after 5.5 miles became much easier than stepping off the mental treadmill of body image obsession and how it directly affects my mood. And if I'm really honest, it probably also affects my attitude and patience with Pumpkin. Regardless of the amount of weight I carried, I always preoccupied myself with concern over how I measured up with other moms, either celebrity or friends. For instance, it took me four years to reach a pre-pregnancy weight, and it only took ____ four months!

And when I didn't fixate on others, I spent even more time measuring up against myself. Do I look the same in my skinny jeans today, weighing 143 pounds as I did when I weighed 143 pounds before I got pregnant? Does that really matter? Did it matter when I weighed 243 pounds? I wish I had all the answers!

Maybe I should be less concerned about my waist line, and instead draw a waste line around the time I spend fretting over appearance because the bottom line is: I can't control what others will think when they look my way. Appearance will not matter in 100 years, but the time invested raising a little girl whose confidence comes from the knowledge in her head and her heart, will. She may gain or lose a few pounds, but she cannot earn or lose my love.