Bathing Suit Season

It’s summer here.

We are finally having a rash of hot days all in a row.

Hot enough that the wading pool isn’t really cutting it anymore; how can it when TS knows that the “big pool” is open now? Hot enough that we’ve started swim lessons. Hot enough to require that I wear a bathing suit on a regular basis. (sound of record scratching)

I HATE that part.

I have absolutely no self confidence in my body. Pre or post babies. A lot of my lack of confidence (I’m realizing) has come from my mother’s pre-occupation with picking at me constantly. Besides constantly commenting on my hair, she typically critics my outfit (daily) and the way (how well she feels) I’m wearing it. My mom is a perfectionist, at least when it comes to other people. No, she is not all that thin. In fact she’s pretty overweight, but she has told me that she only picks on me because “she knows I could look so much better if I would just dress right/lose weight/workout.” Nice, huh?
Let’s just say her input has not been all that positive over the years, even when I actually was thin. I’m not sure how I didn’t become a bulimic or something.

Now before you get all, “I’ve seen your pictures on this blog and you look fine, stop complaining. Whiner!” Know that I am extremely selective about what I will post on here. Most of what you see will only be from the waist up, or at the very least, I’m sitting down and/or have a child in front of me. I’m savvy like that.

All things considered (I stress eat, and I've been stressed a lot this last year) I’m not really overweight, I’m flabby. Really flabby. So it’s not a big deal in the winter, I can more or less hide it. In the summer, in a bathing suit, not so much.

Ironically, I am most comfortable with my body when it’s pregnant. The bigger I am (except maybe at the very end when you’re super uncomfortable in the physical sense) the more comfortable I am. I’ll even wear a bikini when I’m pregnant. How’s that for ironic? I know it’s because I am not flabby when pregnant. I feel so confident in how I look. I am one of those women who has improvement in my skin and hair during that time. There I am in my full glory; shiny, thick hair, clear, glowing skin and my belly out for all to see. I feel like an earth mama or something. I feel like this is what my body was meant to do and how I am supposed to look.

I feel beautiful.

I found during my last pregnancy I was most comfortable in my tighter fitting clothing then in things that were big and flowy. My mom would and did encourage me to wear big and flowy; to effectively “hide” my bigness. Instead of looking pregnant I just looked fat. I mostly followed her advice during my first pregnancy and while I enjoyed my being pregnant, I was much happier in my choices the second time around. It drove her nuts that I was wearing all these tight fitting clothes, but I think what really bugged her was that I felt confident enough to wear these things when I was so big. (I wasn’t all that big, if you remember I only gained 10 lbs with my last pregnancy.) And she never would have worn something like that. I was doing something outside of her comfort zone, so she was uncomfortable. Living vicariously much?

So here I find myself at the start of summer, taking my kids to swim lessons (I have to get in with BS) and having to wear my bathing suit. All the while wishing I was pregnant so the way I look would be the way I’m supposed to instead of wishing for everything to be firmer.

I wear one of these suits to hide the flab, but also because I stoped shaving in certain areas a long time ago—too much trouble. So even if I got firm(er) I’d probably still wear the same suit, but I’d like to think I’d feel better about myself. Most of all, I don’t want my girls to know how self conscious I am about my body. I think a lot of my issue has to do with the fact that my mom felt that way about herself and has/is projecting it onto me. I so don’t want to do that to my kids. I love the way TS strips down to nothing and does the “booty dance”. She is so completely immodest, unabashed and comfortable with herself. I hope she always feels that way about her own body. I also hope she doesn’t ever strip down and do the booty dance in public, cause we’re only a pole away from a p0rn career if she does.

Hopefully, someday when my kids read this they’ll be shocked to learn how I feel about my looks. If they are, then I did my job well.