All is right in the world!
Madison’s life is better now that her birthmama is back in town. As we pulled into the airport to pick Pennie up, she sighed and said, “This feels better — having Pennie home.”
After we dropped Pennie off, Madison said that she noticed that Pennie’s pants were falling down. This isn’t quite true. See, most jeans nowadays are low-rise jeans and not every woman has a low-rise body unless she’s comfortable showing some of her tush.
“So I saw Pennie’s butt,” Madison informed me, exaggerating things.
“Well, how about that!” I responded. “Does she have a cute butt?”
“She does. It’s also kinda big. But not as big as yours.”
I don’t wear low-rise anything seeing as how I inherited my dad’s high waist (meaning my waist is somewhere around my armpits) but now I know I also shouldn’t because I have a big butt.
Children are precious!
(A note here: I am not at all one of those mom’s who gets her feelings hurt when my children tell me my butt is big, my tummy is squishy or that I’m fat. These things are true and my children say them warmly and usually while patting me kindly or cuddling up. I always say, “Yes, that’s true; my butt is big and I am beautiful.” The beautiful part is technically a fib but they don’t know this because they love me. I figure one of the kindest, most loving things I can do for my kids is to love my own self unconditionally or at the very least fake like I do. So I fake it and sometimes I believe it. Mostly, it works out.)
i think that’s a really good approach. whenever my mom said something self deprecating about herself (and, i realize now in hindsight, was probably just fishing for a compliment), i just took it as the gospel truth.
Hee. One of my all time favorite kid moments was when I was a camp counselor. The year I was 17 I was a junior counselor, which meant I hung out with one cabin of 11 yo girls during the day but only stayed overnight on the regular counselor’s day off. I went to bed after they were all asleep, and when the bell rang the next morning I got up and started getting dressed. One of the girls looked at me and said conversationally, “(regular counselor)’s boobs are bigger than yours.” What made it so funny was that she wasn’t trying to be critical - she was just old enough to be noticing these things and not quite old enough yet to start filtering them. It took a supreme effort of will not to laugh, even at 7AM. Until regular counselor got back, that is, when I pulled her aside and told her what had happened and we both giggled uncontrollably for quite a while.
Well . . . today my girl informed me that her Dad is a “hero” but I’m really good at making things for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Harumph! I’d almost rather hear that my butt is big.
Loving yourself is a huge gift to your daughter. My mom is not comfortable in her own skin. I’m 30 now, and it’s only in the last five years or so that I’m getting past the body shame that she unconsciously implanted.
If Madison can grow up without that, she’ll be one step up on the rest of us!
My son calls me squishy. I’m the “squishy mama.” He means it as a compliment. And, one day, when my daughter was three, she looked at me in a rarely worn red linen dress, and said I was “beautiful.” It was pretty good.
Yeah, I absolutely agree. If you can’t actually do it all the time, then fake it. If it sometimes helps you believe it too, so much the better!