image via etsy

Friday afternoon I was pushing a cartful of kids through Target when my 4-year-old looked adorably up at me and said, “Mom, maybe we’re going to have a new baby, because your tummy’s getting very big.”

I laughed awkwardly, suddenly self-conscious, and assured him that there was, in fact, no baby in there.

Ever helpful, his older sister backed me up: “Yeah, there’s no baby. She just likes to eat.”

See, at the start of this summer, I weighed the most I have ever weighed non-pregnant. For the first time my BMI clocked in at 25.5, officially branding me “overweight.”

If you follow me on instagram you know I’ve been logging time at the gym this summer. That plus a better focus on my diet have slowly moved me back down into the veeeery top end of the “healthy” BMI range, but, as Meghan Trainor puts it, I ain’t no size 2.

And feeling “flawed” is hard enough in the winter, when you can cover up with layers. But it’s a completely different animal in the summer, isn’t it?

How do you feel when you think about putting on a swimsuit, mama?

Do you stand in front of the mirror and catalogue your “imperfections”?

I know I shouldn’t, but I do.

I admit, being called out by my children about my belly on the way to the Target checkout line made me squirm a little. But not as much as I expected it to. [Read more…]