A Big Butt and the Need for a King-Sized Bed

Ever since I can remember, I have had issues with body image. I have a vivid memory of being twelve years old or so and crying to my mom that I didn’t want to wear my bathing suit in public because my butt was too big. The angst of the whole situation, because I was starting to get hips and my friends were all still little toothpicks, is still so fresh in my mind. Nothing anyone said could make me feel better.

At my pre-pregnancy weight of 122 lbs and 18% body fat, I still didn’t realize that I was a skinny girl until after Sydney was born and I tried on my old clothes…”OMG I fit into THAT?! Whoa I was skinny.”

Recently, having seen my body successfully go through so much in being able to grow, give birth to, and feed a child, I have seen a positive shift in the way I think about my myself physically. Yes, I am still wanting to lose the rest of my baby weight and I am bothered by the fact that I can’t fit into most of my old clothes, but I do have a new appreciation for my body. When I look at Sydney I can’t possibility deny the fact that this body I’ve so often been frustrated with did a pretty great job.

Where does this delusional way of thinking come from? Why has being so thin always been so desirable to me anyway? When I really think about it, I know that it shouldn’t matter as long as I am healthy. I’ve always been able to look at other people who aren’t super thin and think of them as beautiful, so why the warped thinking when it comes to myself? I want so desperately to help Sydney develop a healthy body image. Whatever I can do to help her understand and really live her life in the knowledge that she is beautiful just the way she is, and that she is “fearfully and wonderfully made” by her Creator who loves her beyond comprehension, please God help me to do it!

This topic brings up a related area of concern. I’m addicted to TV!!! I’ve never really had this problem, so I am ashamed to say it, but it’s oh so true. We just got cable when Syd was born. I couldn’t handle the thought of so much time nursing without anything good to watch. Biggest culprits: The Food Network, Friends reruns, Seinfeld, The Office, 19 Kids and Counting, 16 and Pregnant, Ellen, The Today’s Show, and, most importantly, Big Love. Media has to have fed me so much of the garbage that made me so skinny-obsessed as a child. So I am naturally worried about the same for Syd. If that means no more cable for us (*sniff*), then so be it.

*********************************************************************

How does a ten pound child somehow take up so much room in our queen-sized bed?! Our Little Love Bug does pretty well with sleeping in her bassinet, but my laziness often gets the best of me and I don’t always put her back after she wakes up to nurse…so I end up cramped in between my baby and my husband, stiff as a board. I seriously have aches and pains in the morning. (Why don’t I just get up and put her back in her bed??) Anyway, Stephen and I have this ongoing argument because every time I take her to bed to nurse, I nudge him and tell him to scoot over. For the past two months, he’s insisted that he’s on the edge of the bed and can’t possibly move over any more. I’ve never believed him! That crazy husband of mine is just trying to squish me, right?! But the other night, I actually sat up and LOOKED before asking him to move over and, um, HE WAS ABOUT TO FALL OFF OF THE BED. Oops. Poor guy. So I say all of this as an apology to my loving husband, who really hasn’t been trying to suffocate me and his child J

Feeling better to have shared,

Em