Body Image

Hello Beloved Readers!

You may have noticed that body image has been on my mind over the past year or so. Not just because I have a daughter, but largely so. As Ms. Jackie the Boobmonster is now nursing really just for comfort (bedtime, owies, colds), and as my sweet tooth is unchanged, I'm now back up to the 140 lbs I weighed before Robert's birth. Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly to you moms and other wise folk, it's a rather different 140 lbs. My shoulders are totally ripped. I mean I found a crease in my deltoid to bicep transition that I didn't know existed. ROAR! But, there is some more soft stuff around my middle than there was five pounds ago. And I find the critical voices are back in my head. Not the mean, "OMG you're so fat" voices that were there before Robert. But more, "Yeah, that's a little squishy, time for more exercise and less wine."

Now, more exercise and less wine is quite advisable, for reasons of general health. (And before anyone gets really worried, we're talking 1 to 1.5 glasses, most but not all nights of the week. The intervention may be postponed a bit further.) But the belly? The belly is fine. The belly is soft but not disproportionate. The belly is appealing to the husband and still fits in all the newly-tailored pants except the ones the over-eager temp nanny put in the dryer (she was sweet but yeah that didn't work out). (And we didn't even ask her to do the laundry - she meant well.) And frankly if the pants did not fit, the real problem would be that I hate shopping, not that I'm "too big." I can do Aikido with Robert. I can heft my kiddos. I can kick box and do yoga. The belly GREW TWO PEOPLE. It is a magic belly. It is a wonderful belly, hailed in song and story (mostly by me and hubby Matt). So where are these critical voices coming from?

Away they must go. I am making a particular habit of letting the nice, kind, nurturing voice answer the critical voice. "Oh, sweetie, you look great, you're very healthy, and your tummy doesn't need to be totally flat, that's silly." Sometimes that doesn't work. Sometimes I have to go to, "What if Jackie sees you acting that way? Do you want her to freak out about five pounds or brag about her accomplishments in Parkour class?" This is a good motivator. What if we all talked like that to ourselves? What if I looked in the mirror when changing clothes and said, "Looking good, hot mama! And hey nice bruise there - good job putting Sensei on his fanny in class last week."This is my idea. It's hard to make those critical voices go away. It's much easier to distract the busy brain with a totally different conversation. What if when girls asked how they looked in an outfit we said, "You look like a badass soccer player?" "You look smart?" "You look beautiful all the time because of that amazing smile?"

Try it on yourself. Next time you hear that voice, don't argue with it. Just change the subject. "Oh, these pants don't fit like they used to." "Hey, good job in yoga class last week!"

You're all beautiful and I love you.

Suzi