We are not a very modest household. It is something that actually surprises me because I am a modest person in general. I don't like anyone looking at me. I don't like anyone changing in front of me. Locker rooms? Appalling. Breast feeding? Not my thing, I did it in the bathroom under a sheet. I remember when I was a nanny in college and I would do overnights for a long weekend.. I would shower, get dressed and then sit in the bathtub to shave my legs. I would say please behave for 5 minutes and lock the door and they would beat on it and scream the entire time. Then came my own kids, and they just barge in and privacy in the shower is a thing of the past. I'm lucky to go to the bathroom alone. Ever.
Which brings me to last Saturday. I'm getting dressed to go swimming and the girls are in there with me. They are giggling. Really giggling. I ask them what is so funny. Bella doesn't want to tell me. I finally tell her I know she is laughing at me, so they better just tell me. She sighs. She doesn't want to hurt my feelings she says. She loves me, I I am beautiful. But she and Amelia think I have a big butt. A jiggly butt. The jiggly is making them giggly. Literally that's what she tells me.
I can't help but laugh at this when they tell me. I know that it is probably not the best reaction to have, they just told me I have a big butt after all. Now, before you come at me guns blazing, I know my butt is not that big. It could be smaller of course. It once was in fact much, much smaller. Shocking probably to those of you that know me now. Shocking even more that to hear someone tell me, even a 7 year old, I have a big butt doesnt bother me now. Previously it would make me actually feel bad about the size of said behind. Now? Ehhh, who cares. This butt, so to speak, has grown and given birth to four children. Lucky that I love them more than I love weighing 110 pounds with rock hard abs.. and hours in the gym every day.
Not everyone is born thin and beautiful. Some people are and stay that way forever. Some people gain and lose 75 pounds four times and really, really find out who they are when people see them differently. Some people struggle every day to be happy with how they appear to the outside world. And why? Who do they really need to make happy besides themselves? It matters who you are on the inside, what your heart looks like and how you treat people. It doesn't matter how long your hair is, if your skin is clear and if you wear a size two your entire life. So what I had a double chin from 2004 - 2009? Do you not want to be my friend? I'm probably better off without you anyway. My butt jiggles a little bit now but I have four beautiful healthy children. I'm perfectly fine with it.
I sat the girls down and very seriously had to tell them that it is never okay to tell me that something is wrong with their appearance. That it is never okay to tell someone they have a big butt, they are fat or they are ugly. That you don't like their curly hair. People are different, God made us all beautiful and different and wonderful. Judging someone from the outside may make you miss something really great on the inside. And the inside, may be really, really great.
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