I’m not sure who, what, or where this came from but I had to share the love.  I went to a friend’s house for the first time this weekend and was just tickled with a picture frame she had sitting on the back of her toilet in the guest bathroom. I know, I know.  Of everything I could become absorbed in, like peeking in cabinets and behind the shower curtain, I found the bathroom art the most intriguing of things and of course I HAD to share it with you.  But in my defense some of the worlds best pieces of advice have come in the form of bathroom art.  Take for instance one smart bit of advice found in public men’s rooms across the country:

“Don’t eat the white mint”.  

Makes sense.  I’m mean even the thought… ewwwww.  Or my personal favorite:

“If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie”.  

As a woman of course I love that one.  And just for shock value, because you know I have to,  I’ll add this little gem I found one day on a random car trip where I just couldn’t “wait” and we we’re in west Texas with not a single tree in site:

“Everybody pisses on the floor, be a hero and s**t on the ceiling”.

I was a little afraid to look but my neck curving upwards was involuntary and I was forced to look but, thankfully, the whole room was grimy enough I couldn’t tell if someone took on that challenge. 

So, as you will be able to tell when I read this piece of great advice, I was captivated and inspired:

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and proclaiming WOW, WHAT A RIDE!”

Lovin’ it people!!!  

Happy Monday ya’ll!

The wonderful panelists are: Maggie Mason from Mighty Girl; Mindy Roberts from The Mommy Blog; and guest panelist Kierna Mayo from Cafe Mom.

Thank Goddess that someone finally wanted to come out in the open and talk about being happy with their post-baby body.  Including talking about the hush, hush subject of the changes in the landscape “down there”.  Before I became pregnant, the last and final thing that held me back from taking the plunge into motherhood was the question of what it would do to my body.  I was very happy with my body and all of its individual parts before pregnancy.  Don’t get me wrong, by no means did I have the perfect no lump, no bump body but I was healthy and fit and happily curvaceous.  But, as with a lot of curvaceous women, pregnancy can be doubly hard on us since any extra weight just seems to cling like superglue on plastic.  I knew that if I got pregnant I would be in for a fight to get back to where I started from.  But then one day I decided to take the plunge.  My happy existence with just my husband and my parts wasn’t enough and I felt that sacrificing my body to the life of a child would be acceptable.  And now we have our little 9 month old beautiful EJ.  And before I go any further I want to say I wouldn’t trade any lump, bump, or sag in the world for her. 

When your still a “girl” as Mindy Roberts put it, you hear tails of gaining weight when pregnant and then the struggles to lose it.  And you hear the scary stories of that last 15 pounds that never come off.  You read literature that says 30 or so pounds is appropriate for a woman to gain but they never tell you that some woman gain weight just by thinking the about the word pregnant.   They never tell you about the 70 POUNDS you might gain like I did. Yes world, I gained 70 POUNDS  in my efforts to have our healthy daughter.  I want to say that again just to drive the point home.  70 POUNDS!!!  Let me add that it was 70 POUNDS of healthy food weight.  I wasn’t  the one in the fast food drive through everyday.  And I didn’t crave anything bad either.  For me it was red grapes.  It was amazing how many grapes I ate.  I kept thinking my kid was going to come out purple and taste like a fine wine.  I also played tennis all the way up till I was 35 weeks pregnant so it wasn’t like I was holding down the couch either.  I was up and active, getting exercise the whole way through. So, as you can see, all my weight was simply love child weight.  

EJ wasn’t a  large child when she was born, however the doctors thought she was going to be an elephant for as large as I was.  In my 6th month we went and took a tour of the hospital and one of the labor and delivery nurses stopped me as we were strolling around and asked me if I was looking for labor and delivery.  When I told her I was just there for the tour and I was only 6 months along she looked at me with all her years of maternity nursing wisdom and asked me if I was having twins.  When I said no, she then asked me if I was sure I was only 6 months because I was HUGE!!!!  I’ll never forget that.  I mean, that woman has seen so many births and women at the end of their pregnancies to “know” and I was the one that surprised her.  Hello!!  

As you can imagine it’s been a little of a rocky road for my post-baby recovery from 70 EXTRA POUNDS.   Let me say that just one more time… 70 POUNDS!!!  But I’m happy with my progress.  I still have the dreaded 15 pounds that I can’t seem to shake but the rest came off easily enough.  Still eating healthy and playing as much tennis as a new baby will allow.  I even had one older lady tell me that I was losing weight too fast.  I haven’t been doing anything special to try to lose it but when she told me that, I couldn’t help but laugh.  I just loved the irony since, in today’s world where woman are faced with the idea that they have to have their bodies back to pre-baby scale the day after their kids are born, I get the one woman who tells me I’m losing weight too fast.  You would laugh too. I wish I can say that it was due to my discipline or hard work but in reality I think my body is just returning to what will be it’s new “normal”.  What that will end up being I don’t know.  I’m not hindering it in anyway by loading up on junk food but I’m certainly not helping it by living off lettuce alone.  

The other subject that is rarely talked about and even I will keep it to a minimum (I don’t want to make my parents blush too much when they read this) is what happens “down there” after pregnancy.  Yes, the geography all changes folks.  I could repeat the famous “well, you try to squeeze a watermelon…” but I won’t go there.  We have all heard the different takes on that one.  But I will say this to those… um “visitors” to the nether regions. You will never, ever, ever get it, unless you’ve visited the watermelon idea yourself, but please just believe us when we say with only half hearted voices, “Um ya honey, that feels…um…ok.” It’s not because we don’t love you.  It’s just because we don’t recognize or own va-ja-ja’s anymore.  Ok?  Do you need more information on that?  

Aaahemm, moving on.  Can I say I’m happy with my post-baby body.  You betcha!  Am I still in shock as to what’s happened to it?  Yes, I won’t deny it.  I think the thing that surprises me most is how things aren’t where they used to be.  I’m fitting easily back in to my pre-pre pregnancy jeans but I’m still carrying 15 extra pounds??? Huh?  All I can say is it’s because it’s all traveled to different areas of my body.  Those areas that used to not contain much lumpage are now lumpy.  It’s almost been interesting in some ways to see what changes have happened.   I’ll be honest and say it’s easier to go out in public with my extra lumps if I have my child with me.  I have an excuse then.  But do I feel ashamed.  Hell no! Will I do it again!  Definitely! Will it be any time soon?  No, we aren’t planning on planting anymore watermelon seeds anytime soon.

A few days ago I packed up the family and we headed to our local grocery store to load up on all the essentials of life. Bread, milk, Rocky Road… You get the idea.  But along with the delicious, life giving, ADULT brain food (i.e.,. Rocky Road) I also needed to stock up on some baby food.  Mom’s of the world, you know what its like.  Every grocery trip you find yourself staring at the wall of different brands and flavors of baby food as if it’s the wall of shame.  Cringing at the thought of feeding your child this packaged, strained, but easy goodness.  Criticizing yourself for not being a better mommy by making all the baby food that you swore you were going to make before your children were actually born.  Trying to remember what you imagined it would be like blending and mixing all your children’s favorite flavors together meanwhile saving TONS of money.  Oh what a Super Mom you were going to be.  Then you find that, while making the baby food isn’t that hard in theory, finding the time to do it is IMPOSSIBLE!  

Oh sure, its possible if you live in a larger size home where your child’s napping space is located a mile away from the kitchen where they can’t hear the knives cutting, blender blending, and water boiling oh so loudly.  But um, I don’t.  And yes I swear my child can hear the water boiling.  Oh, and lets not forget the screaming baby, whos head is about to pop off,  is done with their nap while your still trying to fill all those little ice cube trays with squished pears before they turn all sorts of unsavory colors.  (Hmmm, maybe Little Johnny will eat the brown fruit?)  So finding the time to make this Super Mom baby food is almost as impossible as going to the bathroom with the door shut.  At this point Super Mom is facing a tough choice and she has to settle for the wonder that is pre-made baby food.  This is why all the Super Moms eventually find themselves in front of this wall of baby food trying to figure out what our  little tots will like best.  We don’t want to waste money buying and opening a jar on a picky baby who takes one bite and acts like you put acid on their tongues, but you’re trying so hard to not have your kid live on only peaches.  And this is when Super Mom caves.  We give up trying to rationalize out our guilty feelings by telling ourselves that you’re not going to buy the jar of sweet potatoes since you can make that one easily at home.  So our children get 9 servings of pre-made baby food and 1 serving of true Super Mom love.  

If your child is anything like mine this will be the time when she decides she doesn’t like sweet potatoes anymore.  Ho Hum!  I’ll hand in my title of Super Mom now. 

Anyhoo, I think I got off track somewhere.  Sorry, it’s from the mind numbing prospect of another baby food run.  What I’m really hot under the collar about, and where I really meant to go with this post, is that twice this week I opened a container of food and it just didn’t seem “right”.  I have no desire to find out why a container of mixed fruit baby food starts getting chunky after only a little time past its expiration date.  ( Really, truly, I don’t want to know the answer to that question since I’m still trying to get over the shame of giving up on being Super Mom. So if you know the answer keep it to yourself please. ) But there it was, suspicious looking enough to make me look at the date.   I JUST bought it not two days before and it was two WEEKS past its expiration date!  Um, hello local grocery store!!!  I can understand missing the occasional item but one would think that baby food aisle would be the first place you would start!!!!  Or did I miss something in the “Things That Are Important In Life” manual? 

 This isn’t the first time this has happened too.  Of course I was furious.  I took the stuff back and gave the manager a rather nice ass chewing.  I’m still a good Super Mom like that.  But what really got me seeing red was another incident that happened in the store right after that.  I went over to the baby food aisle to grab replacements for the expired nastiness and found that there was still tons of the same expired baby food on the shelves.  I took one off the shelf and took it to the employee that stands around by the check out lines and acts like he helps people get into their lines faster (they always act as if they have a little more authority than the stockers so I thought it was a good bone headed idea at the time….) and told him that there was a ton of expired baby food on the shelves.  He told me he would have someone take care of it right a way acting like he seemed really concerned.  Fine.  But when I told him my story about how this wasn’t the first time this has happened, and it seems to be a trend in this store, he tells me that as a consumer we should always check to make sure our food isn’t expired before we buy it.  He does have a point, but the way he said it was like he was telling me it was MY JOB.  NOT HIS!    I’ve got enough on my plate trying to be Super Mom and now I have to play stocker at my local grocery store!  WTF people!  I had to bail out of the store quickly at that point before I found the manager again, and using my mommy ESP, made her eyes burn as I railed at her for the further aggravation this over blown stock boy gave me.  1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10  breath….  If anyone works at a grocery store and is reading this right now please go check your baby food aisle!  The Super Mom’s of the world need your help!

I’ll end my story with this.  After giving up and buying pre-made baby food, and teaching my daughter that great food always comes with a side of preservatives, I now get to check all the dates on all the items I toss in my shopping cart each week.  As if I didn’t have enough to do.  I guess I at least get to adopt back the title of Super Mom again, but I’d rather just be mom.

Tonight my group of tennis ladies had an end of season/early Christmas white elephant party since one of our out of town teammates is in town for a couple days.  It’s always so nice to get together with all the ladies.  The wine and margaritas were flowing freely and so was the chatter. When you took a look around the room you saw multiple conversations going on about who knows how many subjects.  But the amazing thing was there wasn’t one person left in the corner by themselves.  Everyone had someone to talk to and everyone has the same room full of friends so no one was lost in the conversation.  I had to bring my daughter tonight because dear hubby was playing in our club tennis tournament.  She spent the evening being passed around from one lady to another and was just the cutest social butterfly ever.  There isn’t a mama out there that is more proud than I am tonight.

As I made my way around the room chatting about everything under the sun I started talking to one of the ladies about having kids.  She’s about my age, married and is starting to consider going down the preggo route.  While I talked to her I saw a lot of my former self in her eyes.  Her doubts and fears were my own not too long ago.  Until I met my dear hubby I had pretty well decided that kids might not be in the cards for me.  I was one of these women who was completely intimidated by these little creatures.  I know, I know, all the women out there that were born to be moms and already had it programed in their DNA to be nurturers are all wondering how in the hell I could be afraid of such a cute little baby.  It’s easy.  They bite, they puke, they poop and pee and do any number of other disgusting things a person in their right mind wouldn’t purposely want to be involved with.  EWEWWWW!!  They cry.  REALLY LOUD!  They don’t let you  have personal conversations if they are in the room. They make your body look like you swallowed a watermelon while your pregnant and then like a deflated, flappy, good year blimp after they arrive.  Forget long showers, forget makeup, and simply forget remembering to brush your teeth everyday.  Sleep doesn’t exist.  Your deodorant will be your best friend but forget the perfume.  All it does is make your baby sneeze and get snotty and it doesn’t cover up the smell of baby puke anyways.  Forget clothes without stains and eating a meal without it getting cold.  I could keep going but since this is a mommy blog and since most of my readers are moms I don’t have to. You know where I’m at right now.  I know all these things aren’t that bad but knowing that all these things come in one very small, very breakable package is SCARY!

These were all the things I had heard about before I ever decided to have a child and my thoughts were NO THANKS!   I’d rather eat toe jam.  Then I met my husband.  The man of my dreams.  He’s so adorable it’s hard not to think of what he looked like when he was baby.  And then I started noticing how great he was with all his nieces.  They LOVE  their uncle.  He makes them laugh and always has something cool for the to play with outside.  You know, because he still a big kid in many ways.  The idea of a little ankle biter started growing on me.  He made it seem like all the icky things I’ve already mentioned might not be so bad.  But first we had to get past the thing that scared me most.  The idea that my child wouldn’t like me.  I have always been the type of person who would make what I thought was a funny face at a child in a checkout line they would start screaming.  I intimidated kids as much as they intimidated me.  What would I do if my own child decided I was scary?  Again, might seem ridicules to all the experienced, always meant to be a mom, moms but to me it was an honest fear.  But my hubby prevailed and convinced me that it wouldn’t be that bad.  That our own child would love me no matter what and all the other funky stuff I could deal with too.  He’s a very convincing man.  It’s probably a good thing he’s made a career out of tennis instead of being a con artist.

Long story short, we got pregnant.  Had our beautiful little girl.   And do you know what?  She’s not afraid of me!!  And I’m not afraid of her!!  She’s the light of my life and I can’t understand why it took me so long to do this.  I do believe children have a sixth sense about people.  Somewhere during my pregnancy the kids in the checkout lines started not being afraid of me and some even started to smile back.  I think they sensed that I was a mommy (to be) and knew I was now part of that secret society.  It was kinda weird to all of a sudden not be that intimidated person any more.  Now I live in a sea of baby puke, pee, and poop and I wouldn’t trade one minute of it.  Not for all the diamonds in the world or all the ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s.

So to my friend who I was talking to tonight.  Go for it, if your ready to face the challenge. Don’t expect yourself to ever be completely “ready”  because until the screaming beast actually arrives you won’t know the feelings I’m talking about.  That’s comes on his/her birthday.  But what ever you decide to do I support you and you can practice with my little sweet ankle biter any time you want.

Smiles