Tummy Trouble

For the last two weeks I have tried and tried and tried to sit down and write a post, but one thing would lead to another and the next thing I knew I didn’t have a coherent thought in my head.

If you don’t believe me you should see some of my recent tweets. They have no punctuation and way too many misspellings. If it weren’t for the red squiggly lines showing up in this post you’d swear I flunked English in school.

I have spent the last few weeks doing a whole lot of nothing. I go around and around and around but nothing seems to be getting done. Shawn accomplished more in a few hours alone by himself last week than I did the entire week he was home. Well, to be honest, he was only really active on that one day, but still. He took care of something that we’ve been needing to deal with for over a year. A year people. I think we win the title for “World’s Best Procrastinator.” Don’t you?

God must have been laughing his head off when Shawn and I got together. You’ve heard the saying “opposites attract.” Shawn and I are soooo not opposites. We both hate doing the same things. This does not make for a neat and tidy house. I’m hoping that my girls will grow up to be the opposite way. Sadly though I don’t think they will. It is a vicious cycle that I am trying to break. So far unsuccessfully.

Those of you watch my Flickr feed you know that my attempt to not gain any more weight has also been unsuccessful. For those of you who don’t, see photo below. I am at 160-165 pounds and am only 5’1″. That number is so high it’s scary. I want to lose weight, I want to get in better shape, but I have no uumph to get going. You’d think that being able to see my toes and keep up with my girls would be enough motivation, but no, it’s not. Now, once I get going on something, as long as I don’t screw it up in the first week, I can keep doing it. It’s the getting going that’s hard for me.

When people see me they don’t think I’m fat, they just think I’m pregnant. This photo shows why. I carry almost all of my weight in my belly. I hate my belly, but I am also proud of my belly.

I am not proud of it’s shape or size. I am proud of it’s scars. Scars that I earned by being pregnant six times. Scars that with each pregnancy grew and grew. With Rapunzel they were about half way between my bikini line and my belly button. With Ashley, they creeped up to just over my belly button. With SuperChic, well, SuperChic made them meet in the middle. She was a big baby.

When I look at my belly now I remember what it was like to be pregnant with my girls, and I don’t mean because of the shape and size of it. I mean because of the scars on it. When I look at it I am both ashamed and awed. I’m ashamed of how I’ve let myself go, but I’m in awe of what my body did. Those scars are a reminder of when my girls were babies and just how small they really were.

I know I will never be able to wear a bikini again, even if I do lose the weight and I am fine with that. I don’t want a bikini body. I just want a body that makes me feel like me again. If I ever manage to lose all the weight or even most of it my stomach will not be flat. I will forever have a baggy belly. My stomach is like Sooki’s from the story The Saggy Baggy Elephant. It’s how it’s supposed to be.

Maybe someday when Shawn doesn’t have to work because my blog will support us I can have a tummy tuck to fix it. This is not an option I would consider if a) I hadn’t lost and kept off the weight and b) I wasn’t in shape. If I mange to have all three of those things happen and it’s still all flabby and saggy I think I have the right to a tummy tuck.