Blessings of Being a Fat Kid

I've decided that growing up fat really had its advantages. I sure didn't think so at the time, but consider the post-chub blessings:

With the exception of my pregnancy with Truman, my weight has gone only one (general) direction since I was 15: down.

Even when I was nine months pregnant, I still weighed about 25 pounds less than my heaviest in high school. True story. By middle school standards, I was svelt!

I didn't get acne until after I lost the weight (and you're thinking, "Huh?"). I'm pretty sure Heavenly Father decided it would be just too much for one girl to be overweight and have braces, glasses, unruly curly hair (with bangs!) AND acne all at the same time. I still can't quite shake the acne though...

No post-baby hysteria about the way my body looked, at least not really; stretch marks? Had those already. Saggy skin? Check. Flabby abs? My best friends. It was like I'd already had a baby before I had one. A big, slowly-delivered, 60-pound baby.

My parents didn't have to worry about my breaking curfew or question my morality until I was almost out of the house, because I wasn't getting asked out on dates until then! I'm not being tongue-in-cheek at all here; it really was a blessing for all of us...in the long run.

On the serious side, I think having a problem that was so visible and easily-mocked all my life made me a more compassionate person. Plus I tried harder to develop my social skills and my brain to compensate for what I felt like I lacked physically.

Most importantly, those years taught me an appreciation for my body no matter its size. I really had to learn to accept and acknowledge qualities that made me beautiful on the inside until eventually I felt beautiful on the outside. I had to be willing to accept where I was - and the frightening thought that I might always be that way - before I could move on and change it.

Bold Flavors

Yes, that is a bar of soap with a huge bite taken out of it. Extricated from the bathtub just a moment too late tonight, I'm afraid. I can't seem to keep Truman out of personal hygiene products - he's happily eaten hair gel, deodorant (I had to call Poison Control for that one), lotion, and mousse. On the food side, he's particularly fond of lime wedges and A1 sauce. Bold flavors, anyone?

He also has a taste for technology:

Uses markers to disguise himself as a dictator:

Loves to 'load' the dishwasher:

And can't help but rearrange the kitchen cupboards (he got all of this out by himself):

What a guy.

Resistant

Matt says I resist some things just to be resistant. Most recently, not rinsing the dishes before we put them in the dishwasher. He suggested we just stick them in there and then run the rinse portion of the cycle before running the regular cycle. He said it would save water. I went along with the idea for about ten seconds, but I just couldn't do it. It just doesn't seem like it will work to me. I wouldn't even try it once.

Does this betray a lack of humility?

I resist whipping my kid's sleeping habits into shape. I complain about how tired I am all the time, but I go in every night with a bottle when he fusses. Somewhere in my brain I know my life would be lots easier after a week or so of tough love, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to do it. I highly recommend tough love to others, however.

I resist blogging, almost to a fault. I don't think that I have anything interesting to say, and for some reason I don't want to post endlessly about my child and his antics, of which there are many. Maybe it's because he already permeates every aspect of my waking and sleeping hours, and a girl's got to have something all her own. But I also hate the idea that all I ever do is talk about myself on here. You'd be surprised how many posts I have started and abandoned.

On the flip side, I resist making my blog private or combining forces with Matt on his blog, even though I really think I should. We both post infrequently enough that there's really no need for two separate blogs. Plus I'm starting to think that our friends and family doubt the existence of our child, as we rarely blog about him.

I resist preparing my Primary lesson, even though it takes all of half an hour - or an hour at the most. Seems silly.

I resist printing photographs. I am completely overwhelmed by the number of digital pictures I have on my computer, not to mention the hundreds of hard copies I already have spilling out of boxes and photo albums. I have no idea what I'd do with more if I printed them, and I am incapacitated by the thought of sifting through the photos from the last three years of my life to print only the best ones. I don't really even take pictures anymore. It's too much. I don't have an inordinate amount of photos of myself growing up, and my mom didn't make me a scrapbook, and I turned out fine...ish.

I resist admitting that Matt is right, when this time I think he really is right about my resistance. I'm pretty sure I'm just being stubborn and set-in-my-ways about a lot of things. Except the dishwasher. That whole not-rinsing thing is never going to work.

Self-discovery

I found out something about myself tonight: I'm the kind of person who would rather watch Jeopardy than American Idol. And I'm okay with that.

I love...

...my pediatrician.

Truman went in for his 18-month well baby appointment today, and for some reason I was a mess - have been for two days. Bawled my eyes out last night feeling like I'm not a good mother. I'm overly bothered by the fact that Truman still has a bottle, like it reflects poorly on me and is going to cause some kind of permanent damage. (How? I have no idea, but these are the worries.) Also, he rarely sleeps through the night, which not only makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong but also means I see his behavior through a sleep-deprived fog that tends to induce crying.

Enter pediatrician: I start to lay out my laundry list of apparent blunders - my kid still has a bottle, he wakes up in the night, he HATES having his teeth brushed so I hate to (and sometimes just plain don't) do it...and the doctor smiles at me. "It's not critical to take the bottle away all at once or right away," he says. "Lots of kids wake up once in the night for a quick feeding until they're even two years old," he says. "Let him brush his own teeth, and run a washcloth around his mouth while he's in the tub. He doesn't need any more than that, and there's no need to make both of you crazy and hate teeth-brushing."

Turns out my doctor has four kids. I could kiss him.

And the kicker: "He's a neurologically normal child with a good growth rate; he's healthy and happy and you're doing fine. You're both right on track." This is all I ever really want to hear, right? That, or maybe "Your kid is really advanced. You must be the best mother in the world." But I'm still realistic, and I just like to know I'm not way off the mark.

Sometimes I want to write myself a letter from forty years from now. I'd tell myself that my many children turned out wonderfully, well-adjusted and with the need for only minimal therapy. I'd remind myself not to worry so much, that worrying about what might be coming means you're not enjoying what is. I'd tell myself that everything in my life - from my husband's career to the spacing of my children to being able to buy a house - has worked out even better than I could have hoped for. I'd say that I can look back and see God's guiding hand in every day of my life. And I'd know that Truman is finally sleeping through the night!

Missing

Sometimes I sit alone
Waiting for me to call on the telephone
Just so I can hear my soothing voice.

And then I gaze in the mirror
Whisper sweet nothings in my ear
And kiss my picture on the shelf.

I'm not in love with you...no.
I'm in love with myself.

I've got this song stuck in my head right now. I think it was written by one of my older sister's college friends and got passed down through the younger siblings until it became, among us anyway, a family classic. I can hear it perfectly in my head just the way my brother would sing it.

This silly tune has me missing my family like crazy. Missing them just like I do every time I hear about Broncos football, quote the movie Goonies, or eat Greek food. I see pictures of their grown-up-looking kids (or in some cases, their actual grown-up kids - I've got nieces in college!) and hope they still remember their silly aunt Brittany. I should go visit them more. I should write letters. I should text them. I usually don't - but Family, I love you guys. And I miss you like hard rolls and warm Coke.

Bah Humbug

I read yesterday that most pediatricians recommend that children under two watch no TV.

Aw man....really??