Anyway, the point is that we are going to a wedding. This requires formal clothing. My husband is set, he has suits to choose from and lots of really nice ties. My kiddos are set. As long as they show up wearing mostly clean clothes people will proclaim their cuteness. Plus they have some adorable coordinating outfits. I, on the other hand, am having a hard time with my wardrobe.
I had grand plans of getting back to the gym after the bambinos were born. I had grand plans of eating carefully and sensibly every day. I had grand plans of losing all the baby weight in the first year. None of these things happened. Babies take a lot of naps and nursing gives you breasts so large that no sports bra can contain them. Eating sensibly is easier said than done when you are exhausted and slightly depressed. Some mornings you just need to reheat some chocolate chip pancakes to get through the day. I'm still 20 pounds over my prepregnancy weight. Even allowing for the extra muscle mass I've packed on lugging two babies around, I still want to lose 10-15 pounds.
As a result of all this, some of my old clothes fit and some do not. Even the ones that fit don't fit the way they used to fit. I've been assessing my choices for the wedding and I'm mostly unhappy. My favorite dress is not an option and all of them require serious help from shapewear. I was berating myself for being fat and unmotivated when I came to the realization that I have a daughter. She is perfect and she always will be. I never want her to feel about her stomach the way I felt about mine as I was trying on those dresses. I don't want her trying fad diets and judging her reflection for every perceived imperfection. I also don't want my son having negative body image issues about himself, thinking that skinny is the only beautiful for women. So here are my resolutions for my children...
1. I will never refer to dieting or say that I'm not eating something because I need to lose weight. Food choices will be explained based on nutritional reasoning or "Mommy's doesn't feel like having cake."
2. I will never say that I'm exercising to lose weight. I will be exercising to stay healthy, get stronger, have fun, etc.
3. I will never bad mouth any part of my body. My bulky thighs, those give me the strength I need to haul myself and 45+ pounds of child up off the floor, out to the car, etc. My squishy stomach, that held 12 pounds and 6 ounces of baby, plus their little life support systems. My stretch marks, well, I can't think of anything nice to say about them yet, so I won't say anything at all. I'll work on it, though.
4. I will never ask if I look fat in clothes. An outfit might not be flattering on me, but I won't say it makes me look fat.
5. I will accept all compliments unconditionally. Women tend to be terrible at taking compliments and I think it just perpetuates so many body image issues. When someone tells me I look nice (especially my husband or children) I will say "Thank you."
6. I will endeavor to compliment my children based on their non-physical attributes more than they are complimented on their physical appearance. This will be hard because my kids are cute and random strangers stop me in the store to tell me this. I'm going to try to offset all those appearance-based compliments with other praise.
There's six to start. I'm sure I will come up with more, but I think I'm off to a good start. I don't want my baby girl (or my baby boy) to spend their youth criticizing their own bodies and trying to cover up perceived flaws. Hopefully this will set them on the right path.
Here's some random baby love.
