The Weight I’m Still Carrying Is From A Baby Named Krispy Kreme

I see them everywhere I go. Walking around the grocery store. In restaurants. In department store dressing rooms. At the neighborhood pool. They’re women who aren’t quite comfortable with the size of their bodies. They tug at their clothing, uncomfortably, which they wear big and loose in the hopes that it will hide what’s underneath. Or they hunch over, trying to become smaller and less-visible because if people can’t see you, they can’t judge you. I want to hug them and tell them that it’s okay. That they are beautiful. That no one else can even SEE the flaws that they are so desperately trying to cover.

Anyone in publishing can tell you that some of the best selling issues of ladymags (barf) are the ones that shout from the glossy cover about celebrity moms losing baby weight. Heidi Klum walking the Victoria’s Secret runway just five weeks later? No prob! Bring on the lace thong! And Tori had never been on a diet a day in her life but had to join NutriSystem after having her son because, and I quote, “I was huge!” Julia didn’t do anything special to lose her baby weight but she DOES “run a lot of errands on foot” and indulge her craving for “whole grain pancakes, no butter or syrup”. Are you kidding me with that shit, Julia? Do you have any friends at all? Who can stand you?

How is this an acceptable standard to set for normal moms? You know, those of us who have ten pound babies (oh, yes. yes, I did.) then go home to a dirty house (understandable, I HAVE been busy giving birth for two whole days!) to care for our own newborns, cook our own meals, and nap slash recuperate from the most traumatic thing our bodies have ever been through for fifteen minutes at a time while the kid rests but only those fifteen minuteses (note: totally a word.) that we don’t have to wash tiny, shitty onesies or tiny bottles or regular, adult size toilets?

I guess my point is that having a child expands you. It expands your mind, it expands your heart, it expands your ass. And, while they don’t all qualify as Hollywood and photo-friendly, two outta three ain’t bad.

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